Chapter 24 - Future investment
"So, are you finally gonna tell me now?"
"What should I be telling you?" asked Tanya confused, not bothering to turn her head to Riko who was practically vibrating in excitement on her bed.
"More about the Abyss of course! Have you been lower than the second layer? Have you ever fought a swarm of Gravehoppers? Or a Silverfly? What kinds of artefacts have you found? Have you ever been injured? Do you eat the flesh of-"
"Stop. It is late and you need sleep."
"Come ooooooooon..." whined Riko.
"Oh well. Two questions! No more!"
"Yayyy! What was deepest point you explored?"
"Um... maybe to the half-way point of the third?" she lied.
"Awesome! What did you find? Did you see a Crimson Splitjaw? How was the-"
"Two questions remember?"
"Aww... Well, then... uhm... Oh! I know! When did you start delving? You are already a Red Whistle and you are as old as me, so I wondered..."
The unspoken question hung painfully obvious in the air and Tanya was at a loss for words. If she told the truth then the overly enthusiastic Riko would probably do something stupid, because she overestimated her own capabilities and if she lied then it would sound unbelievable. Regardless of how naive the young girl was Tanya had no desire to indirectly cause her grief or injury or death, because she ventured into dangerous territory unprepared, but
What should she do? Internally she cursed herself for not coming up with a convincing backstory beforehand. Now there was no time to come up with a adequate deception. Painting an incomplete picture with half-truths would have to suffice.
Tanya vaguely gestured in the air:
"Oh, unlike you I am an orphan who never met her parents. I don´t really know my birthday and I never really counted the days that went by. When you are staying in the Abyss for longer periods of time then the change of seasons or even years on the surface becomes kind of irrelevant."
It seemed her distraction had been successful, because Riko eagerly asked:
"Really? How cool! Uh... I don´t mean the no knowing your birthday part... but... y´know..."
"Everything is alright. I am not offended."
"Yay! Then let us-"
"Sleep. You wanted to say 'sleep' right?" Tanya smiled with a dangerous edge in her voice.
"Y-yes! O-of course..."
"Good night Riko."
"Good night Rose."
∞•۞˂Riko´s point of view˃۞•∞
As expected the punishment Leader gave to her the next morning had been severe, but she had expected nothing less. He was a stern man who was no fun most of the time. At least that made him different from the Director who was never anything but strict. How somebody could constantly make such a mean and intimidating face was beyond her.
Rose had vanished before dawn (but not without neatly folding her sheets) which saddened Riko immensely. She didn´t want to lose her new friend so shortly after they had met, not to mention that she hadn´t even asked a tenth of what she wanted to know from her.
Grumpily she had made her way down to the kitchen to receive breakfast, walking slowly because the soles of her feet still hurt from the lashing. Her eyes were fixated on the floor so that she wouldn´t trip and fall due to the pain, so she did not detect the crowd forming around her until it was too late.
"Mornin´ Riko! Where´s your friend you brought home yesterday?"
"Yeah! Tell us!"
"She was kinda cute..."
"Is it true that she is a Red Whistle?"
Riko sighed. F course they had listened in on their conversation. She shouldn´t have expected anything different. Word spread fast in the orphanage after all.
"Let me eat first. Then I´ll tell you." she grunted.
That bought her a few relatively peaceful minutes until she had wolfed down her meal until she was pestered with questions again. She did her best to answer them, but some of the younger ones seemed to possess an insatiable curiosity. Was this how Rose had felt?
Luckily they had classes again and nobody dared to show up late or make noise during the Director´s lesson. Not that she could concentrate on listening today. She didn´t even notice the end of class before Nat yelled out to her:
"Oh hey, look! Isn´t that your new friend?"
Instantly she perked up and looked through the nearby window where Ermi was pointing at.
Outside stood Rose and waved at her. She was back! Riko sprinted to the door and threw it open to make sure it was real.
"Rose! Where have you gone? I was so worried!"
"I am sorry that I troubled you Riko. I just had to take care of some business that couldn´t wait and I did not want to inconvenience your caretakers at the dining table. Every scrap of food is valuable in an orphanage, I know that well."
"Eh? Well... I don´t think we are that poor... I mean... I only ever went hungry to bed when I was being punished for something. The orphanage makes enough money through the auction of artefacts to properly feed all of us."
"Oh..."
Awkward silence ensued as Riko had no idea how to comfort somebody who had grown up in an apparently worse situation than herself. Should she hug Rose? Or apologize?
"Anyways, I came back to suitably thank you for your hospitality yesterday. Sleeping in a real house is a pleasure you too will learn to appreciate in the future. So thank you." She said while bowing.
Riko nervously waved her hands:
"No, no, no it´s fine! It was no big deal at all! Even if you didn´t tell me too much it was super interesting listening to you!"
"Is that so? Well, I hoped I could beg you for another favour. With suitable compensation of course."
"W-what?"
"Naturally I would never demand something for free, so I brought this Neritantan pelt with me. You probably know of these little critters in the third layer and of how fluffy they are. I hope you like it."
Rose produced a (in Riko´s eyes) large piece of white fur from a pouch at her hip and presented it to her carefully. Riko was speechless.
"Ehm... Was I wrong? If you don´t want that I also have-"
"By the Abyss, that is soooooo awesome!" she screeched in such a high voice that a nearby window slightly cracked.
Eagerly she grabbed the pelt and began to reverently pet it.
"Awwww! It´s so comfy! So silky smooth!"
Rose cleared her throat and tried to get the attention of the gushing girl in front of her, but Riko was far too occupied with feverishly stroking the fur in her hand. It took a whole minute for her to calm down enough to take note of her surroundings once more and blush in embarrassment.
"S-sorry. I got a b-bit carried away. Hehe..."
"No big deal. I imagine it is not often that you get gifts from the third layer."
"N-no... Wait... Why would you even give me something so precious?"
"Because I would be delighted if you could show me around the area and maybe inform me about some of the local gossip. Shouldn´t be too hard right?"
Rose smiled underneath her scarf and Riko felt something weird in her gut. Ah, that was probably just the old oatmeal she ate earlier messing with her stomach.
"Of course! You didn´t need to gift me anything though... I gladly would have done that without this Neritantan skin! W-we´re friends right?... N-not that I want to give it back! I really like it!"
Protectively she clutched the fur to her body. Never would she let go of this treasure! She would even shower with it if she had to!
"Wonderful! Nonetheless am I a firm in believer in fair compensation for adequate labour. Friendship is nice and all, but on a competitive, capitalistic market you need to be aware of the worth of your services or else you will get scammed by some no-good social parasite real quick! You wouldn´t want to get roped into a pyramid scheme would you?"
"W-what? A-adequate? C-competitive? Pyramid... something? What does t-that even mean?"
"Do you have any appointments in the next few hours?"
"Ehm... I don´t think so?"
"Good. Come with me. I have much to explain any you much to understand."
Needless to say that when Riko returned in the evening her head was swimming with strange concepts and theories. That night she dreamt of selling her individual body parts to the highest bidder and bathing in a river of money.
∞•۞˂Tanya´s point of view˃۞•∞
Scouting out Orth went quicker than expected. Thanks to Riko´s helpful cooperation and a few tips towards location where huge amounts of citizens tended to discuss their daily lives she had a rather good picture of how the public was feeling. The political climate was tense as the new major in town had hiked up the import taxes which caused many wares to increase in price much to the displeasure of the populace. Honestly, what was he thinking? This was an island dependent on supplies from the mainland. The only natural resource not originating from the Abyss was fish, but you could not feed people with fish alone.
Well, that played in her favour. When people grew desperate for money they automatically looked up to those that they perceived as wealthier and tried to emulate their success. She could practically see the interest into delving skyrocketing.
Tanya had told Riko as much during her little crash course into modern economics. If the girl wanted to become a delver then she needed to know at least the basics of the free market to prevail, lest a predatory employer take advantage of her. By helping her she would hopefully gain a valuable business partner in the future. A negligible amount of her time was a small price to pay for an educated ally.
Casualties always occurred in her line of work and Bondrewd would surely appreciate a possible replacement candidate when the time came. He was fond of children after all.
