Volume 8 Chapter 4 Part 1
[previous_page]
[next_page]
Translator: Kell
A while later.
We were in front of the kingdom’s treasury. The knight in charge opened the heavy door.
A dazzling pile of gold coins, some precious-looking jewelry, and other items that I could tell at first glance were valuable came into my vision. I could probably take a couple of them home with me and they wouldn’t even notice anything was gone. Not that I was planning to steal anything.
“That’s quite a lot of stuff,” I remarked. “The enemy didn’t take them when they took over the palace?”
“We checked the contents right after the incident, and it looked like nothing was stolen. The previous treasury custodian noticed the takeover and hid the key.”
“Previous custodian? So they’re dead… No, killed?”
“Yeah. I didn’t get to see him in his final moments, but I heard he didn’t give up the whereabouts of the key until the end. We lost a valuable personnel.”
So he died protecting the key. Now that’s loyalty. I think only very few from Count Meigis’ army have that level of loyalty.
“It looks like there are ways to destroy the door even without the key, but they didn’t go that far, huh.”
“Destroying it would have caused a ruckus,” the king said. “They were trying to take over the kingdom without being noticed. I think they didn’t want to start rumors on the outside by destroying the treasury.”
“So their objective was the kingdom itself. Well, if they succeeded in taking over the whole kingdom, they could do whatever they wanted with the treasury later on.”
“Yes. In fact, they were almost successful. If you hadn’t come along, they probably would have taken over the whole kingdom just like that.”
That was a strong possibility. But now the kingdom has become much more stable. The number of people picked up by Sachylis’ Search Enemy was just enough that we could chalk it up to personal grudges and the like.
I looked at a nearby sword. It was finely-crafted, coated with gold and adorned with jewels in places.
“Does that sword interest you?” the king asked.
“As a piece of art, it’s amazing. I see what you meant when you said that the items in the treasury are not exactly useful.”
“Ahuh. This is exactly what I meant.”
The king looked around. There were a variety of equipment and accessories that must have been made by skilled craftsmen.
However, most of them were either décor or works of art. I don’t think you can use them in battle. If a country like Japan had a lot of similar items, the government would be accused of wasting taxpayer money. Then again, showing off your power makes sense diplomatically, so perhaps it’s necessary in this world.
“Do they still make these kinds of stuff?” I asked.
“No, we hardly ever make them these days. We were supposed to make some when the king was succeeded, but the plan fell through because of the incident. Feels too late to make them now.”
“So they’re relics of the past. Where’s the stuff that’s more plain-looking and don’t have any use?”
“This way.”
The king led me to a corner of the treasury. There I found some old equipment and a metal device—probably broken—that I wasn’t even sure what it was for.
The items in other sections of the treasury were arranged neatly, but the ones here were crammed in crates. Not the way you’d treat precious items, if you ask me.
“Huh. So the treasury has stuff like this too.”
“Yeah. They’re mostly artifacts from ruins and gifts from the old nobility. I don’t really know why they’re here either. I think some king in the past collected them. There was some talk about getting rid of them because they don’t belong in the treasury, but it’s hard to get rid of something when you don’t even know why it was in the treasury in the first place.”
I see. True, they looked like trash at first glance, but they could be heirlooms of past kings or something. If they were gifts sent from foreign nations as tokens of friendship, throwing them away could cause international problems.
“In short, with the custodian gone, this has become a collection of trash,” I said. “You don’t even know if you should get rid of them or not.”
I’m not sure about keeping unidentified items in a treasury, though, in terms of security. Some of them could be dangerous magic items, and no one would even notice.
“That about sums it up, yes,” the king said. “Some of them might be valuable, but we don’t know their worth. Do they look valuable to you?”
“It’s garbage. I have no idea what they’re for.”
I more or less remember every single item that existed in BBO, but everything I see right now is unfamiliar to me. I would definitely remember precious items in particular, so even if some of these were found in BBO, they would probably be worthless.
“If you have no idea, then I suppose we can dispose of them,” the king said.
“All I can tell you is if an item is useful in battle. I know nothing about their historical value. It’s possible that some of them are valuable, you know. There might be something in there, though. Can I touch them?”
I approached a box filled with a lot of junk. All I could see looked like trash, but it was so randomly packed that I couldn’t see all the junk just by looking at it. I can’t really touch national treasures—even junks that happened to be designated as one—without permission.
“Of course,” the king replied. “If you accidentally break one, I’ll turn a blind eye.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“It shouldn’t be a problem for the stuff around here. Even I don’t have any idea what these things are.”
“Doesn’t the custodian keep like a record or something?”
“Actually, yes, but it’s just descriptions, like shapes and their characteristics. If you replaced an item here with a fake that looked exactly like it, no one would notice.”
Talk about sloppy management. Well, if I find even one useful thing, I’d count it as a win. I started pulling out junk from the box one by one.
Immediately I found an item that existed in BBO.
[previous_page]
[next_page]
Comment (0)