Becoming an Extra in a Trash Game

Chapter 9

“Filthy……”

No matter how many times I wash, that residual feeling of bugs crawling on my body doesn’t go away.

A younger sibling born from eating our mother. A father who protects that sibling just because he’s male.

Gadia’s gaze slowly drifted downward.

Instead of her toes, she saw her milky white chest.

This physical feature, which was only cumbersome when drawing a bowstring or moving around, always attracted the gaze of men at the academy.

‘Filthy.’

Unlike now that she’s become a ranker, from the beginning of her enrollment, there were damp gazes and sticky words following her from behind.

For Gadia, who had become averse to that kind of thing, what happened today was etched in her brain more intensely than being struck by lightning.

Adelian came out red-faced and panting, and the silhouettes of two people were in the pile of bedding when she entered the room.

And the black hair that particularly caught her eye.

Crunch!

‘This doesn’t make sense.’

Even though he acted so recklessly, in the end, he was still the younger brother who feared her.

He was only a tyrant in front of the powerless, a fool who couldn’t even properly look at their father and herself.

But now he answers her clearly and even takes the initiative in speaking.

‘Strange. It’s not right.’

Clearly, in father’s letter, it was written that Adelian’s trait was determined to be nothing special, but how could he who was perfectly judged to be incompetent become so confident?

‘Could it be….’

Did he deceive them?

‘What if he got a special trait?’

If that’s the case, and he’s so confident in front of her because of that one thing?

Gadia’s eyes narrowed.

“I need to find out.”

Whether what she knew was true.

Gadia hurried her steps to meet the priest who had appraised Adelian’s trait before returning to the academy.

* * *

“Listen well. The important thing is your body’s recovery.”

I took a spoonful of pudding, waved the spoon, and then pointed at Kane.

“You need to eat more than 5 meals a day from now on.”

“That’s a new form of torture.”

“No, no, how dare you talk back to your benevolent employer’s words? Answer properly. Anyway, you still need to grow a lot more. To be precise, you need to grow your body.”

In the original work and the game, he was dragged into an assassin group and received assassination training, which kept his body agile, but my thoughts were different.

Being skinny and weak like a reed stalk is not cool. Men are about muscles, Kane.

You’ll thank me later, you know.

Originally, even if he couldn’t eat well and only started eating properly later on, Kane hit 188cm in his official profile, so his growth potential is sufficient.

“For the time being, I’m planning to focus only on eating and resting to build your basic physical strength, and then I’ll put you in the knighthood. Of course, I don’t mean a formal appointment.”

The sweet pudding goes down smoothly.

“I’ll provide you with the best elixirs and potions. But I can’t teach you. I’m not physically strong. And it’s difficult to hire an outside teacher to teach you. You know why, right?”

“There are no high-class teachers who would teach someone who isn’t a noble’s child. Unless it’s a mercenary from the marketplace or an eccentric.”

“Right, this damn Kruger family is so prestigious that people who are not, so to speak, up to par, can’t enter. Even if I’m the acting head of the family, I can’t let them stay in the mansion for several days, not just a day or two. Unless they’re going to be under my command like you.”

Looking at Kane, who was currently registered as a servant, I felt a bit sorry, but I swallowed it without showing it.

I can say with my own mouth that I’m just an acting head of the family, or that I have no real power in the family, or that I’m a good-for-nothing and incompetent, but I must never show weakness.

Even if I talk about being weak or whatever, I have to act as if I have something to rely on.

That guy is a beast, and he might bite and tear apart the weak like a predator.

I need to lead him and keep the initiative, I can’t be swayed by him.

So I had to shamelessly drive Kane into rough terrain and corner him.

“So the only way for you to learn things like training methods or swordsmanship is through parachuting. And of course, they won’t like you. They already dislike me, and now a rookie comes in on my orders.”

“I understand. But if I can’t endure even that much and give in, it’s better to die now.”

As expected of someone who ‘used to’ have the Indomitable trait…

They say that once a sword is bent, no matter how much you try to straighten it, the bent mark remains, making it unusable.

But even though Kane had yielded to me once, he was still Kane.

Even if he were to experience all the hardships he would have originally gone through, he probably wouldn’t bend again.

“Don’t die. If you die, it’s a loss for me.”

I spoke lightly and smiled while resting my chin on my hand.

“Still, they’re knights of a prestigious family, so they won’t kill you. They’ll just make you wish you were dead.”

“Just another day in my life.”

This kid…

Knowing that his words were true, I turned my gaze away and stood up.

“For now, I’ve registered you as my exclusive servant. So your room is next to mine. Luna on the right, you on the left.”

If I say I’m thirsty at night, one of you better come running right away, okay?

* * *

Kane will do well no matter what I ask him to do.

The problem is me.

What’s the use of knowing where the scattered ancient-grade artifact items are and how to obtain them?

Looking at me now, it’s obvious I won’t be able to get that far.

Considering the original Adelian’s stamina and such, the journey of following Kane itself would be a shortcut to an early death.

After sending Kane to his room, I lay face down on the bed, holding paper and a quill pen, and pondered.

“What can I get with money right away?”

The Fairy Shoes are still with their owner in the fairy realm, so we can’t even take a look at them yet… And the Wind Scale Cloak is too far away.

After drawing an X over two words, I tapped them and sank back into thought.

‘Whether it works out or not, I have to start with me, Kane, and Luna.’

The places to go around with Kane will be mazes and places of human sacrifice, there will be many such places, but I can’t hire ordinary people, and mercenaries are troublesome.

In the end, because my abilities are limited, I have no choice but to wear artifacts to supplement them…

It’s like a low-level wallet warrior wearing high-grade weapons bought with real money. Plus, PK is possible. Moreover, all party members are either ignorant of the ways of the world or have communication disorders.

If I were them, I’d run away with the items or sell them somewhere. Or aim for a big PK.

At least with low-grade mercenaries, we might have a chance to resist if we get backstabbed.

High-grade mercenaries with tight lips and high credibility are that much stronger, so it’s not impossible for Kane and Luna, who haven’t finished growing, to be wiped out the moment they fall victim to that person’s greed.

Even if we hire them in the name of the family, the places we go to should be a bit dangerous. If they say we just died from traps or monsters, how would anyone know? My corpse is expected to have a lot to loot anyway.

We can’t waste the Divine’s Contract either, as it’s originally hard to obtain.

“I guess I’ll have to go to the auction house first…”

And I need to practice horseback riding too. The original Adelian would probably be able to ride decently as part of his education, but I have no experience.

Should I have Luna teach me a bit about horse maintenance? For now, Luna is the only available unit, so there’s no choice.

This time, instead of the light warrior tree., I’ll have to raise her as a jack of all trades.

I wrote on the paper with the quill pen, ‘Mode of transportation: Horse? All-purpose jack of all trades.’ and drew Luna next to it, then drew circles and lines to draw myself.

It’s time for an objective self-assessment.

I’m a player, but no different from a non-player. In game terms, I’m a useless number that just acts as a guide and commentator while not being picked up as an actual combat unit.

‘Nevertheless, I have to be needed.’

How nice it would be if I could just give money and eat popcorn from a safe place.

‘No, that’s not it.’

I am the bus driver, and Kane will be the bus.

And I will run over everything that threatens me with the bus.

I drew a large bus next to the paper with one stick figure with rabbit ears and one without.

Gadia is the thorn bumper, and Rachel is the modified engine. Luna is the mechanic, and other heroines are capable of stealth, high beams, and so on…

‘Isn’t this an all-purpose bus?’

It seems majestic enough to survive even if dropped into a zombie apocalypse…

“By the way, this is amazing.”

After roughly organizing my thoughts, I stretched my arms and legs freely and traced the mural painted on the ceiling with my eyes, muttering softly.

Charul―

In the silence all around, the sound of turning the ring echoes clearly.

Rotating the ring several times using just my fingertips, I simultaneously read the information of the subspace that forcibly entered and left my mind.

“Six.”

Six of the 12 symbols engraved on Kruger’s ring are filled with gold.

Moreover, the rest were each filled with different items, with only one symbol empty.

The size of the subspace allocated to each symbol of the ring is not small, even to my eyes which find it difficult to estimate the size and to think of all those gold coins.

How many years of gold coins have been sucked from the continent?

But with all this money and various rare items freely available, why is only one space of subspace empty?

‘What could be so precious that they left only that out?’

“Young Master. It’s Alkaido.”

While trying to gauge what it might be, Alkaido’s voice flows in from behind the door at the far end.

‘Every time I meet Alkaido, something troublesome happens.’

Reflexively frowning slightly at this, I sighed, cleared my throat, and then opened my mouth.

“Come in.”

Getting up on the bed and nervously running my fingers through my hair, I glared at Alkaido’s gray head bowing in greeting.

“What is it?”

“It’s presumptuous of me to say, but Harlon was handling family business affairs. Was this by your order, Young Master?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Or did you think Harlon stole the documents and was stamping them on his own?”

As I speak with a slight laugh, I feel like I can see veins popping on Alkaido’s forehead.

“Young Master. The documents that have come up to the mansion from all over the continent are not toys. The fact that they come to the mansion among the numerous affairs and issues occurring under the Kruger family means they are the most urgent or equally important documents.”

“Keep it short, Alkaido.”

“Please read and approve the documents yourself, Young Master. And I humbly advise you to withdraw the matter you issued as a continental notice last time.”

Right, Alkaido. I was thinking of causing a bit of trouble, but this works out well.

“Why should I do that?”

“Operating the merchant group with credits instead of gold coins not only gives a sense of belonging to the subordinate merchant groups but also the continental commercial rights and…”

“Ah, I get the gist of it. In the end, it’s a weapon of our family, isn’t it? Right? Sometimes giving out more or less than the same amount of gold coins to create loyalty rankings, or using non-existent credits as rewards to extract ideas or to control, right?”

I cut off Alkaido’s words midway and continued speaking with a sneering smile.

“The value of gold coins fluctuates depending on whether they’re imperial gold coins or gold coins from a small kingdom, but credits are not as fluid in value as gold coins, so they’re safer or something. You’re trying to tell me something like this, right, Alkaido? But you know what? It’s too stagnant.”

“…What do you mean by that?”

I slowly opened Alkaido’s trait window and checked his traits.

[Alkaido Heyman―Iron-Blooded Butler]

Representative Traits: [Loyalty(A)] [Composure(C)]

Hidden Traits: [Negotiation(C)] [Obsessive-Compulsive(A)]

‘Was he a bit surprised by my words? His composure dropped a level.’

The important thing isn’t composure, and I checked the loyalty at the front of Alkaido’s traits once more and smiled.

“The previous family head’s idea of making credits the key currency was excellent. That’s why things have flowed as we wanted until now. But you know, Alkaido. What if a war breaks out? And a really big one at that?”

“That’s impossible. The continent is closer to its most stable period than ever before.”

“It might seem that way on the surface. But what if a war really breaks out? If sea and land routes can’t be relied upon, merchants can’t move across countries, and the imperial and royal families restrict and requisition the distribution of goods?”

“That’s…”

Alkaido is not dull. He seemed to have grasped the point of my words and looked at me with a slightly shocked expression.

“The Kruger merchant group is not a single entity, Alkaido. It just looks like one because numerous points are gathered together. And if those points become disconnected from each other…”

Even if you pour water on numerous grains of sand to make them look like one lump, in the end, when the water used as adhesive evaporates, it crumbles and scatters bit by bit even in a passing breeze.

“Well, the main body like the mansion will be safe, but the small merchant groups that are like fingertips will crumble one after another. Credits can only be exchanged for gold coins at the mansion, but if they can’t even reach the mansion and are tied up without any gold coins in hand…”

“…That’s a scenario assuming a war that encompasses the entire continent breaks out.”

“There are no absolutes, Alkaido. Anyway, I’m not just insisting blindly, I’m saying let’s loosen it up a bit. I’m not saying let’s change it for 10 years, or 20 years. How about just 1 year, 1 year as a trial?”

If Alkaido’s loyalty was directed towards Caiman, this would never be accepted. But Alkaido’s loyalty trait had a different owner.

“…Very well, Young Master. How can I, as a servant, only oppose your insistence? If it’s just for 1 year, I will accept it.”

It was me, the very embodiment of the Kruger family, and since I was so adamant, he probably thought there might be information he didn’t know and took a step back.

The fact that I said just 1 year was probably a major reason too.

“Good. Then you may leave.”

I smiled triumphantly, reveling in the joy of victory.