Chapter 3

The rain had already stopped.

The cluttered and cramped town was wet and glistening under the usual evening light show. Usually, I would take advantage of the low gravity to jump from wall to roof, and from roof back to wall, but Hagana couldn’t perform such stunts, so we were walking quietly. Of course, that doesn’t mean she couldn’t do it because she’s a woman. There are sports programs featuring women with supple, cat-like bodies running through complex terrain in ninja style. It just fundamentally didn’t suit Hagana. She would be better suited drinking tea while frowning at the noise outside a venue boiling with sweat and cheers.

So, Hagana and I were slowly heading toward the shopping district that was supposedly in the 2nd District, but Hagana occasionally looked back at me. It wasn’t because she found me dear or anything like that. It was because I absolutely couldn’t walk side-by-side with a woman, so I kept a little distance. Besides, if we were walking through the town, there were many things I wanted to see, so I tended to lag behind, enough that I could clearly understand Hagana’s irritation.

After all, there is nothing in this world that doesn’t have a price. That means everything is used for business and plays a role in economic activities. For a person like me who invests, the town was a treasure trove of information.

If something is being sold, someone is definitely making a profit, and as those profits accumulate, companies prosper.

Of course, I don’t intend to start a company and sell razors. I want to share in the profits by investing in a company that makes razors, and that method was stock investment.

If there is a way to earn money without sweating and working yourself, shouldn’t you do so?

Rather than making furniture by hand like my father, I respect the guys who buy that furniture and sell it to someone at a high price, and by investing in such guys, I want to save even the effort of resale.

Even by casually looking at the houses built along the road—from building materials, doors, toys decorating window frames, furniture glimpsed inside, to electronic devices—I can know what the income bracket around here buys and what is popular.

The clothes worn by people passing by, the terminals they hold, the shops they enter. If there are four thousand or so companies in the stock exchange, something made or sold by a company among them will surely catch my eye wherever I am. Seeds of making money are sown everywhere. I just harvest the fruit those seeds bear.

And that method was supposed to be the only way to become quickly and transcendently rich.

Now my performance is slightly dropping, and my confidence is wavering, wondering if that method was also a mistake. As a result, I came up with the idea of having Hagana lend me her mathematical power as one option, but I wonder if such a thing is possible.

According to what I desperately researched while consulting a dictionary, there were indeed investment methods devised by mathematicians that only mathematicians could use.

With formidable names like financial mathematics or financial engineering, they are things that people in specialized courses can only learn by going to graduate school.

Instead, it said that if you could handle them freely, you could conduct stock trading scientifically.

The power of mathematics is tremendous.

The reason the orbital elevator can be operated without accidents is that it can perfectly predict the trajectories of fist-sized debris flying around the Earth at tens of kilometers per hour.

Trading can be done with that accuracy.

If I could also benefit from that method, I should definitely be able to break through the current fog.

However, naturally, there were concerns.

One is whether Hagana can understand financial engineering or whatever.

Another is simply whether Hagana will cooperate with me.

“Arrived.”

Hagana stopped and said.

Before I knew it, we had finished climbing a large staircase.

From there, a suffocatingly dense shopping district continued, with buildings about seven stories high on both sides of the road standing as if about to cover the road at any moment. This seemed to be the 2nd District Shopping Street.

The shopping street was narrow and long, and the road curved slightly to the right. The flow of people in the shopping street was sandwiched between shabby commercial buildings on both sides, becoming like a narrow river. The road of the shopping street was slightly lower than where we were, and we had to go down stairs again. At present, the place we were standing felt like a sluice gate of an irrigation canal, but then I suddenly realized. It seemed that where we were now was a remnant from when the Lunar City was undergoing expansion work long ago. This elevated part was the place where the foundation of the dome covering the Lunar City, which stages from morning to night by program, used to be.

Now the edge of the dome is quite far back, and due to technological progress, such a primitive embankment is not used. Instead, because it was primitive, standing on it actually had an impact. I don’t know if it’s concrete or carved out of the lunar terrain, but something like an embankment certainly continues endlessly to the left and right. Now swallowed by the cluttered buildings, I can’t chase it very far, but I could clearly see the history of the Moon there.

“What?”

Hagana looked at me with a suspicious face.

I looked up and explained to her.

“This is a remnant from when the edge of that ceiling dome was here.”

“…”

Hagana looked up at the sky, straining her eyes at the dome whose junction could be faintly seen far away.

“No way.”

“I wouldn’t lie. I was about eight years old, I think. They were building the current larger dome over the smaller dome.”

“…Is it true?”

Hagana looked at me doubtfully.

I shrugged and answered.

“It’s something you can find out immediately if you check, so I wouldn’t lie… look, there’s a sign standing there.”

At the entrance of the shopping street, although it was a small sign that was unmaintained and rusted tatters, it read Former Dome Foundation Site.

Hagana looked at it, eyes wide.

“So, I still remember it well. In the old days, the moon’s sky was double.”

When I spoke while looking up at the sky, Hagana was also drawn to look up.

There was cat-likeness in the edges of her behavior, but being drawn to look is also exactly like a cat.

However, I thought that maybe Hagana, who has a complex and strange personality, is just simple at the root.

“Amazing.”

It was brief, but precisely because of that, I could hear a powerful impression.

My nostrils flared as if I had been praised myself.

“Because I’m Moon-born. I don’t know much about Earth, but I know mostly about the Moon.”

“Moon, born?”

Hagana, returning her face, blinked and asked back.

“Ah? Didn’t I say? I was born the moment the first group of the First Immigration Corps arrived on this land. The Lunar City and I are about the same age.”

“…”

Hagana seemed very honestly surprised, and I became a little proud again.

However, eventually surprise slowly faded from Hagana’s face, returning to her usual expressionlessness.

“Since construction took many years, the age isn’t the same.”

“…Humans aren’t counted in age while under construction either.”

“…True.”

She seemed taken aback for a moment, but Hagana nodded as if convinced by a profound truth.

“But well, looking at it again, you wonder how they built something like this.”

I said, narrowing my eyes and looking up at the dome creating a sky on this lunar surface.

It seems over a thousand companies participated in the large-scale public works project that ranks in the top five in lunar history.

However, the reason I sigh in admiration every time I see this dome is not because of the scientific technology supporting it, but because of a more understandable fact.

Emerald Industry-affiliated companies supporting this city’s infrastructure accounted for 40% of the participating companies in the construction, and the annual maximum profit at that time of 29 billion Mools is still the highest record in lunar history.

Since this happened despite the existence of antitrust laws to prevent competition from being hindered, I can understand why it is said that without those laws, the logo of Emerald Industry would have been carved into the Sea of Tranquility on the lunar surface long ago.

Emerald Industry continues to leave unprecedented records in lunar history with money and power.

And in this world, there certainly exist humans who have built assets comparable to that as individuals.

“Is there something in the sky?”

I snapped back to reality at Hagana’s words.

“No… I was just thinking about existence above the clouds.”

Of course, being Moon-born, I have never seen real clouds. However, in the sense that I know them through images and knowledge, the idiom “existence above the clouds” felt like a perfect expression.

Hagana, who would definitely not know about Emerald Industry, looked up at the sky with a questioning face, then stared at me suspiciously.

“Do you believe in God?”

“Huh? Haha. That thing Lisa says?”

Our God who art in Heaven.

Earthlings thought there was an afterlife beyond the sky.

Certainly, this might be heaven for those who earn money, but in this day and age, there are hardly any guys who use the word heaven in a sense other than ‘somewhere happy.’

It’s like hearing “book” and not thinking of those tattered, hard-to-use real books that Lisa cherishes.

“There’s no God.”

When I said it, Hagana neither denied nor affirmed, staring at me intently.

Her face looked like her usual expressionlessness, but it also looked more serious than usual.

I wondered if she was angry that I spoke in a way that mocked Lisa, but after a while, Hagana slowly closed her eyes.

Then, like a haughty stray cat turning away, she swiftly averted her eyes.

“I think so too.”

I thought about making a light remark like It’s surprising you agree, but in the end, I didn’t say it.

Because her profile looked terribly lonely.

Seeing that, I remembered Lisa’s story. Lisa said Hagana might be a child bought with money. For a girl likely having such a past to agree sadly that there is no God was very meaningful.

The silence was awkward, so I directed words at her.

“…How was it at your place?”

“Eh?”

“You’re Earth-born, right? What was the sky like? Was it a sky that made you think maybe God exists when looking at it?”

Since Hagana seems to hide her identity even from Lisa, she might not tell me anything that could lead to her background. Thinking so, I still wanted to ask a little.

Because I purely knew about Earth only through images and had never heard what the sky was actually like.

Surprisingly, Hagana answered while looking up at the sky.

“The scenery felt similar to here.”

“Meaning like the Moon?”

“Yes. Just mountains, lots of rocks. Trees growing were all thorny things that looked like they would pierce your hand if you touched them. Winter was cold, and summer was short. A place with lots of fog and gray.”

Even without having been to Earth, I also roughly grasp the image of lands on Earth.

Somehow, I imagined high-latitude Europe or Eastern Europe.

“But…”

Hagana narrowed her eyes, as if straining to see a single point of Earth beyond the dome, and continued.

“Occasionally when it cleared up, the sky was very blue. Everything depressing looked shining only at that time. If you say God created that… it might not be a bad delusion.”

Hagana added something like an impression at the end, which was rare.

However, judging from her tone, I couldn’t think her days in her hometown were fun. If I asked one of the roughnecks in my parents’ home, it might be a place they have an idea about.

Still, even told it was a blue sky blue enough that it wouldn’t be strange if God created it, I couldn’t imagine it at all.

A blue sky is something that can be scientifically reproduced even by the dome covering the Lunar City. However, since no one looks at the Moon’s sky and says God must have created it, Earth’s might indeed be different.

Earthlings boasting about Earth is nothing but irritating, but if Hagana says so, I feel like I want to see it a little.

Thinking such things, I looked up at the dome with Hagana.

“More importantly, we have to go buy clothes quickly.”

However, Hagana quickly returned her gaze and said businesslike.

I, who was feeling a strange affinity for Hagana, felt like I suddenly woke up from a dream.

“Ah, yeah.”

I answered and then said,

“Then, shall we meet here in thirty minutes?”

I hear women’s shopping is generally long, but she doesn’t seem to be that kind of typical woman.

Thinking it won’t take that long, right, I directed my gaze at Hagana, and the girl all in black was directing suspicious eyes at me.

“Are we acting separately?”

“Huh? Wait, are we going to the same shop?”

There are so many small shops in the shopping district that it seems impossible to go around them all in one day. Unlike the city center, huge capital has not entered.

However, Hagana didn’t waver a bit and said:

“If we buy at the same shop, we can get a discount.”

It was a remark full of daily life sense that didn’t suit the statue-like Hagana at all.

“Th-That’s true… But… then, a shop that has both our clothes…”

“Men’s items are fine. If it suits you, it shouldn’t not suit me.”

Hagana, with slender limbs and handsome features, said with a straight face while keeping her back straight.

Imagining Hagana dressed boyishly, I inadvertently thought that’s good too, so I couldn’t deny it.

“Then… I’ll search a bit. Walking around to find one is a hassle.”

“Okay.”

It seems she doesn’t have a shred of intention to help or care to say a word of thanks.

However, perhaps because of the exchange over the sky earlier, I felt like I started to understand Hagana somehow, and I didn’t get irritated.

She seems difficult, but as Lisa says, she doesn’t seem to be a bad person at the root.

If this is the case, if I propose the trading using mathematics, she might surprisingly go along with it.

It was when I was searching for a shop thinking such things.

“Sensei—!”

“Sensei—!”

Such voices were heard.

I looked up toward where the voices came from.

Then, from the aerial corridor connecting the buildings on both sides of the shopping district, several elementary school students about the same age as Chris were waving. They were frolicking happily.

“What?”

When I muttered, a girl with chestnut hair who just met my eyes covered her mouth as if screaming kya and whispered something to the child next to her happily.

“Acquaintances?”

When I asked Hagana next to me, a quiet word returned.

“Students.”

“Hmm?”

“Sensei, goodbye—!”

And the girls who were discussing something while looking at me said that with full smiles and waved their hands largely.

Next to them, for some reason, about two boys were staring at us in amazement.

Then, the girls pulled the ears of the dumbfounded boys and dragged them away forcibly while waving.

“Haha, what’s that.”

I said it with a mix of amazement, but looking at Hagana next to me, I was surprised.

Hagana was waving back at them while smiling faintly.

“…What?”

However, immediately after realizing I was looking, the smile vanished from her face. You could say it was terrible treatment, but I was flustered by Hagana’s smile and couldn’t care about that.

I was genuinely surprised that she looked so kind when she smiled.

“N-No…”

I suppressed my throbbing palpitations and told myself it was just that she looked good.

And after regaining some composure, I said this.

“I was really surprised you’re actually doing the teacher thing.”

It wasn’t a lie since I was definitely surprised at that point.

Like Chris, being adored by kids who look like they wouldn’t listen is quite something. At least, it would be impossible for me.

“…I just teach math, so even I can do it.”

She’s unexpectedly humble, I was surprised again.

Also, seeing Hagana’s oddly stiff expression, I wondered if she was perhaps embarrassed.

“But, only that.”

“Eh?”

Hagana looked toward where the children disappeared and muttered with distant eyes.

“I can only do that.”

“Only that… isn’t that enough?”

When I asked back innocently, Hagana closed her eyes and opened them slowly.

“Mathematics does not solve reality’s problems.”

I inadvertently stared at Hagana’s profile.

Usually, she would glare at me saying “What?”, but Hagana just gave me a light glance and looked far away again.

Are Hagana’s words directed at herself?

Probably so.

Her talent was bought and she was brought to the Moon, and ran away for some reason.

Also, Lisa talked a little about Chris. Smart and fond of studying, skipping lunch to scrounge up tuition for Hagana to learn math, yet not knowing if she can go to university on a scholarship.

That can be said to be the biggest gamble of life on whether she can escape poverty.

Hagana surely knows Chris’s family circumstances too.

And she knows well how powerless her talent is in front of that problem.

Therefore, while looking at such a profile of Hagana, I felt my heartbeat rising.

What was in my head was stock trading utilizing mathematics. That was clearly something I intended to propose for my own benefit, but at the same time, I realized it might solve many of Hagana’s problems.

I thought she had a difficult personality, but Hagana was adored by students and smiled back gently.

If so.

Isn’t there enough possibility? Rather, isn’t it a good story for Hagana?

I inhaled to call out to Hagana.

It was at that moment that Hagana turned to me abruptly.

“Did you find a shop?”

Asked head-on, I swallowed the words that were about to come out.

I don’t know why, but my face turned red and the words dispersed into mist.

Since Hagana looked suspicious again, I hurriedly returned my eyes to the terminal.

“Ah, yeah, found it, found it.”

“Where?”

Before I could answer, Hagana peered into the screen. Being approached without hesitation, my body stiffened.

“…Near here.”

Of course, Hagana didn’t care, said that, and started walking quickly.

“Ah…”

I chased Hagana’s back with my eyes, and my mouth tried to say something, but no voice came out.

I had completely missed the timing.

While I stood there, Hagana turned around swiftly just as she reached the stairs descending to the shopping district road.

“Why aren’t you coming?”

At those words, I hurriedly tried to put away the terminal, indignant that this made me look like a henchman.

Hagana snorted lightly hmph, faced forward again, and started walking.

I knew it was meaningless hostility, but somehow it was frustrating.

Partly because of that, I thought there was no need to force the invitation now.

I can bring it up when I find a chance after returning to the church.

Thinking so, I chased after Hagana.

---

“Why is this twenty Mools for this sewing?”

Hagana snatched the clothes from my hand, placed them on the counter, and declared. The clerk who was fixing a frayed product inside the counter looked up at Hagana blankly.

“Huh?”

“There were clothes for twenty Mools for two over there. Why are the fabric and sewing better on this one?”

What I chose was a used hoodie for twenty Mools.

On the lunar surface relying on imports for everything, clothes are far more expensive than food.

In the limited space cultivated on the lunar surface, grains are prioritized over cotton and hemp. If the orbital elevator stops and imports are delayed, you won’t die naked, but you could very well starve to death.

Therefore, twenty Mools for used clothes is by no means in the expensive category.

Besides, the condition is good.

It’s probably unsold goods from mass retailers in the White Belt or Newton City.

However, Hagana pressed the clerk further.

“Is the price tag wrong?”

“Ah… no, this is a product from a bit of a brand, so it’s expensive.”

“But, an item from the same manufacturer as this was on the ten Mool shelf.”

“Eh? Ah, but that was short-sleeved, right? This is long-sleeved so it has more cloth.”

“Then, why is the price of the three-quarter sleeve one the same? There’s no consistency.”

At Hagana’s words, the clerk was taken aback for a moment, stared at Hagana, and sighed troublesomely.

“You mean give a discount?”

“Quick to understand.”

“Man… we don’t do discounts.”

“Strange story. Even though there is a discount shelf?”

“That’s just lowered for our convenience…”

“Understood. Today, I didn’t come to buy just this, but also these.”

Hagana said and placed clothes that seemed to be for herself from the basket she had placed at her feet onto the counter. I was a little amazed because what was in the basket was a black blouse, a black skirt, and black stockings.

“Thanks for that.”

“How much cheaper if together?”

“No, we don’t do discounts. Our prices are set at the limit.”

“Then, why do you cheapen the leftovers?”

“That’s… because they were left over.”

“Then, thinking these will also be left over if we don’t buy them, I want you to make them cheaper.”

Reckless logic.

Since I thought so, naturally the clerk thought so too.

“We price them because we think they will sell for twenty Mools. If we give up and make it ten Mools, you can come buy it then.”

“There is a possibility they will be sold. Therefore, I want to add three Mools to the discounted ten Mools and buy it early.”

The clerk pulled back and looked down at Hagana while twisting his lips.

I watched the situation with some suspense.

“You said that item is relatively good, right? Probably, it will sell for twenty.”

“Even though a similar item of similar shape was on the discount shelf?”

“Like I said, the manufacturer is different.”

“There was one from the same manufacturer too.”

“No, that’s why, that wasn’t a hoodie, right?”

“There was a hoodie too.”

“I’m saying the manufacturer is different.”

Hagana was intentionally looping the conversation, obviously aiming for him to give in.

Honestly, I was worried about when the clerk would start shouting. Even doing all this, it would only get cheaper by a few Mools, at most ten Mools.

Considering we might not be able to come to this shop anymore, ten Mools is nothing.

“Or rather, if you have complaints, buy somewhere else.”

The clerk, whose patience was wearing thin, said.

Hagana stared at the man much taller than herself and said.

“I will remember that Clerk So-and-so said that.”

“Guh…”

Even looking just at the 2nd District Shopping Street, there are mountains of shops.

Since everywhere should be operating on a small scale, a little bad reputation could be fatal.

Hagana ruthlessly poked that point.

“Then, fifteen Mools.”

And Hagana said it as if she had given in.

The clerk put his hand on his forehead and looked down as if he had encountered an alien with whom words didn’t communicate.

Then, he looked up abruptly.

I involuntarily took a stance assuming a fistfight, but the clerk said with a grimace.

“Okay, okay. Then how about seventeen.”

“…Fine.”

“Sheesh… never seen such forceful haggling…”

I understand the complaining clerk’s feelings well.

I don’t understand the meaning of cheapening it by three Mools doing all this. I generally think of myself as a brazen guy, but I was made to realize I’m surprisingly delicate. If it saves three Mools at the cost of creating an explosive atmosphere with the clerk, I’d rather add three Mools with a smile.

The clerk, not hiding his thought that he hit a troublesome customer at all, took the products out of the basket and input them into the register along with mine.

Hagana directed words there deliberately.

“So, I think there is a possibility of price reduction for all products.”

The clerk and I peeled our eyes and looked at Hagana together.

Hagana looked back straight at the clerk and said this.

“Also, I run a private school. The students are chatty growing children.”

Do you understand what that means?

Hagana’s silent message pierced the clerk along with the silence.

If it goes well, new customers. If it goes badly, bad rumors will be spread.

For such an individual shop that doesn’t look profitable no matter how you look at it, it would be quite a big deal.

Finally, the clerk looked at me with a face begging for mercy.

Just as I thought you’re passing it to me?, Hagana’s dignified voice rang out.

“Lower another five Mools from the total.”

A concession not impossible.

The clerk seemed to want to curse Hagana with trembling lips, but in the end, he drooped his head and discounted eight Mools in total.

---

Leaving the shop, I was exhausted.

Instead of a “thank you,” I received a hateful gaze from the clerk that seemed to say “never come again.”

However, only Hagana was nonchalant.

Immediately after leaving the shop, she demanded payment.

“Thirty-three Mools.”

Since Hagana paid everything in the flow, there is no mistake in being billed.

However, after being shown such a haggling scene in front of me, I was driven by the thought that I wanted to demand compensation for mental anguish.

“…What?”

“No…”

I didn’t have the energy to say anything, and just as I was about to pay thirty-three Mools as told, I realized.

“Thirty-three Mools?”

“What?”

“Isn’t it strange? What I bought was a twenty-Mool hoodie, shirts that were two for eighteen Mools, and a three-Mool towel.”

It should come to forty-one Mools total.

“Just subtract eight Mools from that.”

Hagana said, but I hesitated a little.

“No… I’ll pay forty-one Mools.”

Since I had exactly two twenty-Mool bills and one one-Mool bill, I handed them together to Hagana.

“…Thirty-three Mools is fine.”

However, Hagana said in a firm tone.

“You’re the one who got the discount, right? I didn’t do anything.”

“But, thirty-three is fine.”

“…”

What’s that?

I was a little put off and looked at Hagana.

This is like being given small change as charity.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

“Why?”

“…”

Hagana didn’t answer and averted her eyes with a sullen face.

I sighed and shoved forty-one Mools into Hagana’s bag.

“Ah.”

“I’m not particularly troubled for small change. Or rather, that way of haggling was too much.”

Hagana’s hand trying to take the bills inside the bag stopped.

However, my mouth didn’t stop.

“I feel sorry for the clerk, and we can’t go there next time. Even though that place was certainly quite cheap as per net reputation…”

I scratched my head and looked at the shop entrance.

In Japan, my parents’ hometown, they apparently scatter salt when a nasty customer leaves, but I think it wouldn’t be strange if that clerk came out right now holding a salt pot.

“Looking at the whole picture, it’s a minus. Besides, you should think a little about people’s feel—”

It was the moment I said that much.

Thud, a tremendous sound was made, and I was flipped over on the spot holding my shin.

“Ah… tsu, ouch! What are you doing you—”

Shitty bitch… I tried to continue, but my mouth froze.

“…Tch.”

If suddenly kicked away, normally I would counterattack, mount them, and beat them up regardless of crying or screaming.

However, I couldn’t even stand up.

Because the eyes with which Hagana looked down on me were filled with tears.

“…Ah…?”

My head was confused more than the sudden kick, and I didn’t know what to say. Like a fool, I stared at Hagana’s eyes that looked like she would start crying any moment. Because, if anyone is going to cry, it should be me who was kicked, right?

The spell broke because Hagana wiped her eyes roughly, turned on her heel, and started walking.

There was no time to stop her.

I hurriedly tried to get up, but due to the excessive pain in my shin, I couldn’t lift my leg, tripped, and fell flat. I thought it might be broken, but my gaze was still chasing Hagana. I could see her through the gaps in the fence, descending the stairs and trotting across the aerial corridor. People passing by all looked back at Hagana, and Hagana was wiping her eyes with her sleeve while running.

But I don’t understand at all.

Why on earth did I meet with such a fate, and moreover, why is she the one crying?

I managed to stand up enduring pain and confusion, reshouldered my bag, and suddenly realized.

Mool bills were scattered in the corridor.

The forty-one Mools I shoved into Hagana’s bag.

I gathered the crumpled bills, put them in my pocket, and sighed.

“Don’t understand…”

My shin hurt, and the sun was setting.

By the time I returned to the church, the sun had completely set, and chairs and tables were lined up on the streets and under the eaves for modest evening enjoyment. People dressed in worn-out work clothes were drinking alcohol or chatting while having light meals.