Chapter 2

When I poured the tea, the woman with the radiant platinum blonde hair—so different from Chris—bowed her head slightly in a nod. It was an elegance completely unsuited for this church, no, for this entire district. Furthermore, her attire hardly seemed appropriate for this place. In the sanctuary, I had only seen her crouching from behind, and at best, I could only tell she was wearing a skirt. But now, sitting across the table, she looked exactly like a princess straight out of an old European fairy tale.

The reason that grandiose atmosphere didn’t collapse was likely due to her facial features, which were refined enough to not be outshined by her clothes.

Besides, upon closer inspection, while her features were indeed beautiful, there was still a lingering, childlike sweetness, a kind of charm that made such a ridiculous outfit permissible.

Because her movements were graceful, she looked mature, but in reality, she was probably about the same age as me.

“It’s delicious.”

What came out from the gap in her thin lips wasn’t a completely clear, cold voice either.

That being said, the way she held the cup was elegant, vastly different from Chris next to her.

Right. Chris was next to her—that’s when I finally noticed. That shy Chris was talking to the “princess” with a friendly smile, holding her cup with both hands as she drank her tea.

“Lisa-san is very particular about her tea.”

“Indeed, the coffee was delicious too.”

“I can’t drink coffee because it’s too bitter, though…”

As Chris shrugged and gave a bitter smile, as if she were drinking coffee right at that moment, the princess smiled gracefully. The shy Chris simply didn’t possess the social skills to casually chat with a complete stranger.

Not being in a position to criticize Chris’s lack of sociability, I had been looking at my mobile terminal, but when I happened to look up, my eyes met the princess’s.

For some reason, I felt like I recognized that face.

“…Have we met somewhere before?”

When I asked, the princess just tilted her head slightly with a faint smile.

“Ah, um.”

When Chris hurriedly tried to say something, the princess stopped her lightly with a gesture that would perfectly suit white gloves.

Chris, having a small palm directed at her, closed her mouth looking troubled.

“Are you Yoshiharu Kawaura-san?”

From across the table, I was asked my name.

I am well aware that I am expressionless, but that is by no means just because my face doesn’t move.

“So, we have met somewhere.”

“No.”

The princess said that and drank her tea.

Her demeanor was far too refined, offering no opening for me to ask questions.

“But, I know you. To be precise, I heard about you from Chris-san here.”

“Ah…”

Chris shrank her neck and looked at me.

“Um, there’s a reason for that—”

“I forcibly dragged it out of Chris-san.”

“…”

“…And?”

“Yes, I will get straight to the point.”

Then, the princess finally looked at Chris and smiled sweetly.

It felt so deliberate that it was almost intimidating.

In fact, it seemed intended to make Chris agree to something.

Chris, whose small mouth had been moving wordlessly, yielded to the princess’s smile and slowly nodded.

“I have come to recruit you.”

“If it’s for a picnic, I have a bad leg, so I’ll pass.”

“Yes. But, in this world, there are mountains to climb other than with your feet.”

I stared intently into the other person’s eyes.

Beautiful eyes, like glass beads.

“My name is Eleanor Schweitzer.”

I thought it was a European-sounding name, and then I felt like I had heard it before.

“Are you sure we haven’t met somewhere? Your name sounds familiar.”

“Impressive.”

“…Eh?”

“Perhaps what sounds familiar is a company name?”

“A company…”

“We have been in business since my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s generation. Until just the other day, there was a company with the Schweitzer name on the Lunar Stock Exchange as well.”

“Schweitzer & Selga.”

“Oh, how wonderful.”

Eleanor smiled as she said that, but somewhere on her face, she wasn’t smiling.

I remembered it based on how it sounded, but if I recall correctly, it was a small investment bank.

“However, it is already gone.”

Eleanor’s voice brought me back to my senses.

“Gone?”

“It was bought out. And using dirty methods, at that.”

The way she smiled sweetly and tilted her head made her look like a noble’s daughter who had failed to win a desired tea set at a Sotheby’s auction.

However, the emotions in Eleanor’s chest seeped out in a way that words couldn’t conceal.

“Bought out” undoubtedly meant a corporate buyout. And as for methods of a buyout, there are countless ways that are perfectly legal but morally reprehensible.

“They say prosperity and decay are the way of the world, but that was the last company bearing the Schweitzer name. Grandfather told me it couldn’t be helped, but I cannot accept that. Because, despite my youth, I was entrusted with its management.”

I finally realized what was unnatural about Eleanor’s smile. It was will. Strength of will. From her neck to her shoulders, from her shoulders to her fingertips, she moved elegantly and smoothly, and the cheeks of her small, well-featured face moved softly. Yet, only her eyes remained unmoving, like sapphires set in a pedestal. With flowing movements, Eleanor took out something resembling a small bundle of paper from her bag. Placed next to it was a gold-trimmed fountain pen, a rare sight on the Moon.

“I must fight for the honor of the Schweitzer family. To do that, I need ‘power’ in this world. That is why I have come to recruit you.” “But, to recruit me… I’m…”

Just as I was about to say I’m merely a working scholarship university student, Eleanor’s hand slid smoothly across the table toward me. My gaze was drawn to it like a cat’s. Right under Eleanor’s beautifully polished nails and slender fingers was that. A check bearing the logo of the highest bank on the Moon, E.J. Rockburg.

“I have seen the data from the Ratzinger Economic Research Institute. It’s magnificent.” “Eh.” “Yoshiharu Kawaura-san.”

I’ve never had a gun pointed at me, but I thought that perhaps someone with a gun pointed at them would freeze up exactly like this.

“I need your power. Therefore, I want to hire you for… 100,000 Mool.”

The check presented before me had a six-digit number written on it. Four years ago, I shaved off parts of my life to earn 70,000 Mool. Faced with an amount that easily surpassed that, I was at a loss for words. I looked at Eleanor, then at Chris next to her. Chris was staring at me with a brooding expression.

“What do you say?”

My gaze was pulled back to Eleanor. However, my mind went completely blank, and I couldn’t say anything. The sheer abruptness of it was part of the reason. But being surprised by the amount wasn’t the real reason. Rather, I couldn’t understand why someone like me would be evaluated so highly. After all, I am someone who lost in that world and ran away just like that. My usual routine is doing meaningless data preprocessing at a government branch office, at best exposing false subsidy applications for welfare organizations. Above all, I felt I no longer had the right to return to that world. After committing such a blunder, it was a place I should absolutely never approach.

Eleanor patiently waited for my words, but suddenly turned her gaze toward the entrance. Voices could be heard approaching noisily from a distance; the drunks must have returned. As if pushed by that sound, Eleanor opened her mouth.

“I understand this is an extremely personal request. In short, it’s a losers’ revival match. But fortunately, I have some capital, and there are people willing to lend a hand. Such as her,” She said, looking at Chris. “Chris-san is one of them. And according to Chris-san’s story, you were truly amazing.”

So, you want me to come? But that was the me from four years ago. The me before I failed.

“If you would join us, you would become a massive asset to our fight. What do you say?”

Eleanor asked again, but I felt like I was losing track of who she was even talking about. I couldn’t even open my mouth; I had no choice but to look away. While this was happening, the voices of the drunks could be heard clearly from the entrance, and Eleanor stood up from her chair.

“Our structure is a private equity fund. I believe it’s an agile system that allows us to use any means available in this world, and we can provide high incentives to those who help us.”

Meaning she had no intention of being stingy with money. But I still couldn’t give her an answer.

“I truly wanted to have a more proper discussion with you, but…”

Clatter, clunk, came the sounds, along with laughter. If they entered the room, it wouldn’t be the time or place for this conversation.

“Let us treat today as just a preliminary greeting. I will take my leave now.”

Eleanor gave a light bow from her standing position and walked down the hallway, her back stretching straight and slender. Chris hurriedly chased after her and seemed to run right into the drunks who were just trying to enter the church, exchanging some words with them. However, none of that entered my ears. My eyes were locked onto the 100,000 Mool check.

This wasn’t a story about a world where you gnaw on a cheap chicken sandwich for lunch while doing unrewarding work, desperately clinging to spare change. A check for 100,000 Mool was a symbol of that world; a ticket to that world of investment. The world I had yearned for, and the world I was cast out of. A world where true egoists ran rampant, incomparable to the petty folks throwing their weight around at the government branch office. And it was a wonderful world that even permitted the reckless dream of building massive wealth just to stand on uncharted ground.

Everything there was the exact opposite of the word ‘tranquility’. The sensation of chasing rapidly moving numbers, the excitement when your prediction hit the mark, and the memory of despair when it missed all erupted in my mind. Just recalling those things made my pores open, my breathing shallow, and my heartbeat race. I was obsessed back then. It was definitely fun. But I had committed a massive, irreversible failure. There’s no way I can go back anymore. There’s no way I should go back.

My mouth suddenly felt itchy, and when I touched it with my hand, a nosebleed was dripping down. Investment. I squeezed my eyes shut at the word. I was set up by Burton, utterly and completely crushed, fled for my life, and the place I ran into while trembling was that government branch office. There’s no way someone like me should return to the world of investment again. But what is this excitement? What is this feeling of starvation? Did I forget what I did back then, four years ago?

Gripping the area over my painfully pounding heart, I curled up on the chair and suddenly noticed a shadow. Looking up, Lisa was there. However, Lisa, who was usually like a sister gently caring for my health, was looking down at me expressionlessly.

“So you really hadn’t come to terms with what happened four years ago, had you.”

Lisa said that in a terribly dry voice, narrowing her eyes toward the entrance.

“It’s not that I’m telling you to accept that girl’s offer or anything.”

Then, she looked at me.

“But you really need to take a good look in the mirror.”

After saying that, Lisa sighed.

“For now, let’s go somewhere quieter.”

Lisa supported me as if holding me, lending me her shoulder to carry me to the adjacent sanctuary before the drunks came in. Then, sitting on the pew, still unable to properly thank her due to my excitement and confusion, I accepted the wet towel and water Lisa brought me. Watching me clumsily hold the water in my mouth while wiping my nose and mouth, Lisa finally spoke.

“I wondered about bringing up the past, but the past must be properly settled. I thought this was necessary for that.” “…” “Was I being meddlesome?”

Taking back the glass, which was now half empty, Lisa said such a thing. I couldn’t even tell if those words were a joke or serious.

“Well, it was meddlesome of me. But I wasn’t the one who first tried to have you meet Eleanor.”

Unable to open my mouth, I narrowed my eyes, wondering who on earth would do such a thing.

“It was Chris.” “!”

As I gasped, my surprise clearly reached Lisa. Lisa gently grasped my hand and shook it slightly up and down, somewhat like encouraging a comrade.

“She probably thought it would be impossible to wake you up with just the two of us. I think so too. But you know,”

Then Lisa turned her gaze to the Christ on the cross hung on the sanctuary wall.

“Chris, who was by your side the most, understood very well just how much you blame yourself while living your life. That’s why she earnestly wished for you to properly come to terms with what happened four years ago and live. And so, she took action. That Chris, of all people. Do you understand what that means?”

Withdrawn and timid. The type to keep overthinking and stop in her tracks if she had even the slightest concern.

“Everyone is properly moving forward. You’re the only one who has stopped. No,”

Returning her gaze to me, she laughed in exasperation.

“You’re the only one who remains lost. I thought you had recovered for a time, but looking at you just now, I’m convinced. You were just deceiving yourself. And doing it intensely, at that. Am I wrong?”

Studying law to help people in trouble. If that goal were truly the same as that pure dream of wanting to stand on uncharted ground back then, I probably would have pushed through the subsidy applications for those immigrants even if I had to deceive Rena. But reality is different. I clung to fundamental principles and pushed the responsibility onto Rena. On this Moon, Lisa is a hardcore supporter who wears a sister’s habit, opened a church, and shelters those who have lost their way. She must have sniffed out my deception in no time.

Lisa’s eyes, of course, weren’t angry. Yet, I couldn’t look into them and had instinctively cast mine down. I felt like I had reverted to a five-year-old child who was terrified of his mother. Over these past four years, it’s not like I was hurting anyone. Nor was I causing trouble for anyone. Even if the goal of studying law to help people in trouble came from a hypocritical reason, as long as it resulted in helping those in trouble, Lisa probably wouldn’t have said anything. But I was lying to myself more than anyone else, desperately choking myself and pinning myself down.

You are a failure. You are someone who failed, I told myself.

And, Lisa had a personality that wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt someone, no matter who it was. Even if the act was hurting oneself.

That was why Lisa’s eyes were scary.

Lisa is very kind and meddlesome. She truly cares for and reaches out a hand even to the kind of guys everyone else on this Moon would abandon.

Furthermore, no matter how embarrassing it is, she will just give a small laugh and accept it.

That’s probably why I could keep from averting my eyes.

That’s probably why I could admit my lies of the past four years.

Feeling more pathetic than when I begged Lisa for a lap pillow four years ago, I said what I had wanted to tell someone more than anything else.

“…You’re not wrong.”

“Yeah.”

Lisa said shortly, and patted my head like a child’s.

“Then, you see, I get the urge to push you forward even if I have to force it. Because I’m meddlesome.”

“…”

“Well, Eleanor isn’t a bad girl either, and her story is true. She comes from a distinguished noble family on Earth, and almost all of her companies on the Moon were taken over. Chris herself must have had her reasons for entrusting Eleanor with such a major role. While it’s true she wants to wake you up, Hal, she probably also wants to borrow your power. When Chris and Eleanor consulted me about today, those were one part of the reason I agreed. And there’s another, realistic and serious reason.”

What else could there be?

When I turned a half-frightened look toward Lisa, she spoke in a carefree tone, as if she didn’t care about my worries in the slightest.

“By the way, Hal. Do you know how this church is being run?”

“Eh?”

At Lisa’s words, accompanied by a somewhat mischievous smile, I was completely taken aback.

However, being asked made my mind race on its own, and I had actually harbored no small amount of doubt about that very issue.

“Cerault seems to be quite a high earner and gives us a decent amount of donations, but the number of people wandering in here has also increased since those days, so our expenses are large too. It absolutely can’t be run on donations alone.”

Then, what do they do?

With that, I remembered Eleanor’s words.

—Chris-san is also one of the people lending a hand.

“Don’t tell me… Chris, is?”

“That’s right. That child is donating to us. By earning money using the program Hagana left behind.”

Four years ago, Hagana and I cooperated in investing, and Hagana created an investment program. Its contents automated all of my investing abilities, and its level of perfection was so high that it gave me nightmares for a time. If Burton hadn’t taken everything, I think we surely would have been able to save everyone in the 3rd Outer District.

However, Hagana disappeared, everyone scattered, and I distanced myself from the world of investment like a dog burned by a stove.

That’s why I had completely forgotten—or to be accurate, forcibly pushed it out of my mind—but indeed, the engrossed Hagana used to consult Chris about mathematical problems.

Besides, since Chris also possesses talent rivaling Hagana’s, that possibility naturally existed. In other words, the possibility of making money in the world of investment by mastering or improving that program.

“I told her to stop a few times, but she’s captivated just like you were back then and won’t listen, and it seems to be going astonishingly well. However, it feels more like she’s enjoying testing her abilities rather than being driven by greed, so I can’t speak too harshly to her, and she is helping us out…”

“And, so?”

And so, how does that become a reason to introduce me to Eleanor?

I wondered that, but immediately realized. A mathematical genius girl operating a money-multiplying machine, and a noble’s daughter swearing a comeback after having her company taken over.

“Chris is cooperating with Eleanor. She receives a reward for increasing Eleanor’s assets, and donates that here. It’s an incredible amount. But, money aside, honestly, I still don’t know whether I should stop Chris’s actions or not. It’s not greed driving Chris, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing for her to be of help to Eleanor. If there’s one problem, it’s that Chris is still a teenage girl.”

Lisa said this painfully.

“I know you don’t suddenly become an adult just because you turn twenty. Besides, I also know Chris is much more of an adult than the average grown-up around here. But, I’m anxious. Eleanor is a person living in a different world from us. A true wealthy person, a true noble lady. You saw how she prayed, right? She is always serious. Do you know what that means?”

Precisely because someone like Lisa says it, it carries persuasive power.

The look in those eyes, so unsuited for that delicate body, makes a chill run down my spine when I recall it.

“For Chris to go somewhere with an Eleanor like that… no matter how mature I know Chris is, it makes me anxious. No, having told you not to lie to yourself, Hal, I shouldn’t lie either. I’ll be honest.”

Lisa paused her words for a moment, then continued.

“I don’t have a proper reason sufficient to tear Chris away from Eleanor. But, when I think about someone else advancing further and further into a place I don’t know, and ending up like what happened to you and Hagana, I just can’t sit still.”

Unreasoning fear.

If that’s the case, the reason for introducing me to Eleanor is automatically deduced.

“In other words… you want me to keep an eye on Chris?”

“It’s pathetic, but simply put, yes.”

“But… I’m a failure. For someone like me to—”

“That’s why. That’s exactly why. Chris is an amazing child, and looking at the big picture, I think she might be even more amazing than Hagana. But, in her life up until now, I don’t think there’s ever been a time when she worked hard and wasn’t rewarded. Unlike you, Hal, or Hagana.”

“…If my face could move, I’d be laughing.”

“It’s not sarcasm or anything. Just, that’s exactly why it’s scary. I’ve failed plenty of times myself too, but there truly is a kind of caution you can only obtain by experiencing failure. So, there are times I want Chris to learn from failure. But, in places where large amounts of money are involved, irreversible failures easily happen. I don’t think it’s a place a teenage girl should go. You understand that well yourself, don’t you?”

Human life is cheaper than money.

I learned that very well in the brief moments I spent with Hagana.

“Besides, Chris still acts a bit timid even now, but lately, she sometimes gets a gaze so sharp it startles me. The fact that I find it scary might just be my selfish thought of wanting a cute child to stay cute forever.”

“That, might be true.”

“Yeah. I thought you would say that, Hal. That’s why, you see, I consider this a form of divine providence.”

“Divine…?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to live continuing to lie to yourself, and I want someone to watch the back of Chris, who is advancing further and further without knowing fear. Don’t you think this is destiny?”

“…But, I’m—”

Not suitable.

My attempt to say that was sealed by Lisa’s words.

“Besides, Hal.”

“…?”

“I live my life always wondering ‘what if Hagana comes back’, but what about you? Do you think that?”

“!”

I swallowed my breath.

If Hagana came back, what would she think seeing me clinging to that government branch office, studying law in obscurity?

“Hal. It might be possible to spend your whole life protecting your wounds and continuing to lie to yourself. But, life only happens once, and there are many more people than you think who wish for you not to lead that kind of life.”

I couldn’t return any words, but Lisa stroked my cheek with the back of her finger and smiled warmly.

“Of course, I’m not saying you have to come to a conclusion right here, right now. But think carefully. And, don’t look away. Chris, too, chose to introduce you to Eleanor following her own thoughts. She probably knows better than I do what feelings you harbor about the past. Even you understand that, don’t you, Hal? That’s why, there was a possibility you might get furious, or suffer a terrible panic attack. She was prepared for the fact that either way, she might never be able to see you again. It was by no means a thoughtless act.”

I recalled that brooding look on Chris’s face.

I had thought she was a plain girl unsuited for bold steps, but before I knew it, she had grown up.

“…That’s, true.”

“That’s right. People cannot stand still forever. But, as long as you walk anyway, you can move forward.”

“…”

“That applies to me as well, though.”

As if, I thought, looking at Lisa, and Lisa gave a slight wry smile and shrugged.

“So, what will you do?”

“Eh?”

“Chris must be feeling anxious right about now. Since she must have been extraordinarily prepared for this. I’ll go call her for a bit, how about it? Are you okay?”

Honestly, my head was still in chaos. I had been crouching down and hiding my head for four whole years. There’s no way I could suddenly stand up and walk.

However, I rubbed my nose and took a deep breath.

Even though there was something akin to dizziness, there was also a sensation similar to the refreshing feeling right after waking up.

“More or less. The nosebleed stopped too.”

“Getting a nosebleed from excitement is quite something, isn’t it.”

“…I think it’s weird myself.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Eh?”

“Because, that’s what you call true passion, isn’t it?”

Lisa said, placing her hands on her hips and smiling brightly.

---

If it were a massive cathedral, Chris probably never would have reached me.

With steps that heavy, she made her way to my side. She hesitated even to enter the sanctuary, so Lisa forcefully pushed her back, closing the door the instant she shoved Chris inside.

Doing reckless things despite being timid.

Many people might call this being young.

“You surprised me,”

I said, and Chris shrank her body as if surprised by those words.

“I’m not mad, and I didn’t have a panic attack.”

When I pulled up the corners of my mouth with my fingers, Chris gave a smile far more awkward than mine.

However, what was different from the Chris of the past was that she didn’t cast her eyes down there.

“What did… Lisa-san say?”

“Are you asking if everything is off because Lisa was mad?”

Though Chris closed her mouth, she stared at me with somewhat stronger intensity.

“I-I’m not saying that.”

If my face could move, I absolutely would not have been able to hold back a smile.

“Lisa was her usual self. If anything, I was the one who got scolded.”

“Eh?”

“That if you hadn’t done all that, I might have stayed steeped in my own lies forever.”

“Then—”

“But, even so, it’s impossible for me to just jump right on board with that offer.”

It was my turn to look away.

“It’s true that I’m terrified of that world. I don’t even… feel like taking revenge on Burton.”

Even though he was the man who stole everything from us, I couldn’t even bring myself to hate him.

I should have hated him, but the one I hurt was myself.

“But, it’s also true that after hearing Eleanor’s story, I was struck by the excitement of that world for the first time in a long while.”

To the point of getting a nosebleed, in fact.

“I think I still love it even now. But what happened there was just too shocking.”

I opened and closed my right hand as I spoke. Talking about this, I never know when a panic attack might strike.

However, despite that anxiety, my right hand remained soft and warm.

“I hear you’re… using Hagana’s program?”

When I asked, Chris seemed to shrink.

“I’m not mad,”

I said it instinctively.

“I’m simply surprised. To think that you were doing that. And you’re even supporting this church so it can keep running?”

“…Yes.”

“But Lisa said making money wasn’t your motive.”

“…Yes.”

“Lisa wants me to keep an eye on you, Chris, so you don’t get entirely swallowed up by that world and end up like Hagana and me.”

“…”

Chris didn’t reply to that.

“I am not entirely unwilling to fulfill that purpose. It’s better if as few people as possible go through an experience like that.”

Your mouth runs completely dry, your vision narrows, your bladder aches, and you are forced into such a desperate corner that you have no choice but to pray to a god who doesn’t even exist.

After verbalizing the state I was in back then, I inwardly apologized, Excuse me, to Jesus Christ at the back of the sanctuary.

“Besides, you might lose something important. In that world, there are times when you are truly pressured into surrendering absolutely everything. Of course… you might think you won’t make a failure like I did, but—”

“I wouldn’t—… I don’t think that.”

“Lisa is worried. There are the examples of me and Hagana, after all. Besides, if it was just about investing to run the church, you could have used what Cerault earns as seed money. You must have a reason for not doing so, right?”

Chris looked down and fell silent.

However, I was a little surprised. I couldn’t quite imagine what kind of reason would be hard to say at this point.

“For Eleanor’s sake?”

When I asked, Chris hesitantly shook her head sideways.

Then, once her head stopped moving, Chris, still looking down at a tilt, pressed her lips tightly together and raised her gaze. I was momentarily overwhelmed by that brooding expression.

Could it be that she was planning to team up with that rich girl to save everyone from the past?

I couldn’t exactly laugh and call her an idiot.

Four years ago, when I was the same age as Chris, I believed with absolute, genuine sincerity, from the tips of my hair to the very ends of my toes, that I would become the richest person in humanity and stand on uncharted ground.

Then, biting her lower lip and making her clenched fists tremble, Chris spoke.

“Hal-san. Thank you very much… for that brush.”

“Eh?”

“I will cherish it and use it for the rest of my life.”

It sounded like a parting greeting.

Right after I thought that, Chris, looking straight at me, said clearly:

“I want to become like Burton.”

I couldn’t grasp the meaning of those words the first time.

“I want to become like Burton.”

Chris said it once more, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes as she took a deep breath.

“I think I understand what I am saying. But, it’s true. When I put my feelings into words, I can’t express it any other way. I’ve thought over and over that maybe it’s just my imagination, or maybe I’m losing my mind. But, but, I can’t think of it as anything else. I want to try living freely like that.”

I couldn’t find the words to follow up. Even my breathing felt uncertain.

“But—”

Chris stumbled over her words with a sob.

“But, the first person who made me feel that way was you, Hal-san.”

Chris’s beautiful blue eyes looked at me.

The color of those tear-wet eyes is probably what they call marine blue.

“You had conviction, you had a goal, you had a means, you took action… You didn’t care at all about what anyone else might say, you never compromised just because someone thought a certain way, and seeing you advance like a block of iron was truly so cool. I still remember the shock I felt back then. It was when I was told that you, Hal-san, said you wanted a cut of the profits from the money my dad entrusted you with.”

The reason I unconsciously rubbed my nose was because of the nosebleed from earlier.

It wasn’t just nostalgia, thinking Ah, I did do something like that. It was this sensation of blood thumping somewhere in my head.

Lisa had called the nosebleed a sign of passion.

My judgment back then held undeniable passion and conviction.

“It felt like my soul had been pulled out right then. I couldn’t even imagine that someone existed who would say such a thing. My dad was exasperated and bewildered, but in that instant, I was captivated. I realized this is what I want to be… and so…”

Without even taking off her glasses, Chris wiped her tears with the sleeve of her clothes and sniffled.

“But… but… Hal-san, you…”

“Ever since then, I’ve been in this sorry state.”

When I said it in a calm tone, Chris, despite looking anxious that I might get angry, nodded. And for Chris, it was a strong, clear nod.

“But… Burton was different. I’ve been researching him all this time. Wondering what kind of person could do something so amazing… so terrible… When I looked into it, there weren’t many, but I found several fragments of stories. All of them were amazing. So amazing it made me tremble. I hated myself. Trying to work hard for my dad’s sake, trying to work hard because everyone is cheering for me—I hated the me who ended up working hard for someone else’s sake like that. But, it’s not like I hate my dad because of that, it’s nothing like that…”

Chris wiped her eyes with her sleeve over and over again, but perhaps more than wiping tears, she hated the confusion within herself.

“Besides, I hate money. I never want to be manipulated by it ever again. So, this time, I will be the one manipulating it. And, and then… I truly want to try living… exactly as I please.”

Once she squeezed out those words, the only sound echoing in the sanctuary was Chris’s sobbing.

I don’t know what to say. Having witnessed Chris’s hard work firsthand, I naturally couldn’t laugh at her, nor could I scold her. Not only did I not have the right, but there was no reason to.

Even looking at my right hand, it showed not a shred of stiffness.

I truly want to try living exactly as I please. Without caring about my surroundings, I want to try living looking only straight ahead.

I understand that feeling. I understand it to a sad degree.

Repeating those words in my head, I tightly clenched my right hand.

But, at the same time, I understood with equal sadness that I was no longer like that.

“So, for that, you need a large amount of capital… huh.”

Investment profits, up to a certain point, are simply proportional to the size of the funds being managed. Having a large starting capital versus not having it produces completely different results.

Eleanor’s capital would be incomparable to Cerault’s earnings, I suppose.

And perhaps most importantly, Eleanor was someone who had led an investment bank. Not an amateur, but someone who had been in that world over there as a professional.

However, I felt something incredibly strange about Chris’s confession.

I certainly thought Burton was amazing, and for a time I truly wanted to look up to him as a mentor.

But, with the results being what they were, I thought everything had ended there. I never imagined there was someone watching me from afar, admiring the me of that time.

“But, why invite me to join Eleanor?”

“That’s…”

“If it’s about the program, I truly don’t know how much help I can be. Not out of modesty or self-deprecation.”

Even physical strength atrophies if you don’t move for four years.

“That’s… but…”

However, Chris mumbled something like that.

Is there some other reason?

Thinking that, I directed my words at her.

“Is there something else?”

Then, from between her tear-stained sleeves, Chris said.

Before I knew it, her face was bright red.

“Hagana… Sensei was…”

“Hagana was?”

“Uhm…”

“Uhm?”

“Because… I was jealous.”

Chris hid her face behind her sleeve just like that.

I think Chris is cute. I couldn’t possibly be unhappy being on the receiving end of her affection.

But when you know you can’t meet those expectations, there is nothing more painful.

“Even if you invite me, I can’t do things like I used to anymore.”

“I-I know. But—”

“Even so, I’m glad you invited me.”

“…”

“Truly.”

Even being self-aware that I am saying something incredibly cruel, there is no way to sugarcoat it.

Chris had stepped just a half-step over the line she had kept ambiguous until now.

But what I realized from that was, after all, about Hagana, who is still inside me. That girl dressed all in black still occupied a very important part of my heart, and there was hesitation in reaching out my hand to Chris.

Thinking that piling on any more words would only hurt Chris, I abruptly changed the subject.

“Where did you meet Eleanor?”

Chris didn’t answer for a while, but after vigorously wiping her face with her sleeve once more, she finally opened her mouth.

“That was, about a year ago now. In between my studies, I was looking into the contest from back then… and then, I happened to find someone on an online investment forum who said they had the contest logs…”

“And that was Eleanor, huh.”

“Yes. That was the trigger, and we started talking about various things. It was mostly just talk about investing, though.”

To think she was living such days of studying, and still making time to study investing.

I simply thought that we were practically a different species.

“Hal-san…”

“Eh?”

“It seems you were a person of interest in that world.”

“…”

Faced with Chris, who was speaking while looking up at me anxiously, I was a little taken aback.

“Me?”

“Yes. The person who took first place in the contest back then is now an incredible figure. So, they figured that Hal-san, who lost to him but closed in on him for a time, must also…”

The first-place winner of that contest, if Burton’s words were to be believed, was a super-elite raised on Earth.

Even without that, it is said that many of the top prize winners are active in the financial world.

Regarding being evaluated in such a way, I felt surprise and something akin to a strange sense of anti-climax rather than happiness. Is that really all it takes? Is it really that simple? I thought.

“So that’s why it was 100,000 Mool.”

It seems Eleanor’s side had some sort of reason for wanting to hire me, after all.

Even without any investment track record, investment banks and the like would easily shell out more than that amount for some guy who just got an MBA from a good university. If they could confirm even a little bit of actual ability, 100,000 Mool for a trial run is cheap. It was probably such a simple line of thought, but I felt it was very typical of that world.

And in the silence that descended, I closed my eyes and ruminated on our conversation. For someone like me who had spent the last four years practically sleeping with my head stuck in the mud, it was full of things that were far too stimulating. But for some reason, my mood felt surprisingly light.

It was a sensation like getting a nosebleed and having a blood clot in the brain removed. It was probably partly because I had spewed out everything I had been keeping vague.

I closed my eyes and took a single deep breath.

Searching my memories, the first words that came up were the same, no matter how many times I tried.

The words Chris said: “I truly want to try living exactly as I please.”

And I haven’t done that for these past four years.

Where is it that I really want to go?

I had even been deceiving myself.

“Was telling me everything a part of your dream? Wanting to try telling someone everything you’re thinking?”

“…”

“Or is it because it’s in front of that bearded old man over there?”

“N-No.”

“Then, whether I’m keeping an eye on you or not probably won’t change anything, right? If you just listen to what other people say, you can’t live the way you want to.”

“U-Um, but—”

“Even so, I might want to watch someone advancing like that by their side.”

I no longer have the dream from those days. All that remains is the fact that I enjoyed that world.

The purpose vanished, leaving only the means.

But thanks to a shock that gave me a nosebleed, and Lisa, who is scarier and more caring than a mother, I woke up and realized that even without a purpose, I loved the means just as much.

I just had to imagine what Lisa said: what would Hagana think if she saw me now?

Seeing me clinging to fundamental principles at the government branch office, desperately continuing to lie to myself to protect myself, she would definitely be disappointed. But, even if I couldn’t harbor a grudge against Burton, and was still terrified of that failure and couldn’t hold even a fragment of a dream, if she saw me continuing to stay in the world of investment anyway, she would definitely sigh and say with exasperation, Are you an idiot?

If I had a chance to apologize for brushing Hagana’s hand away, which of those two versions would it be? Which one could I believe she would lend an ear to?

If so, I already know the answer. Acknowledging the mistakes of the past is different from denying the past self.

Thinking about it that way, watching the journey of the overly grandiose dream hidden within Chris’s delicate body right beside her would undoubtedly be the ultimate side entertainment.

“No matter how many excuses I make, while I’m still terrified of that world, it seems I also love it.”

I rubbed the nose that had bled from excitement, took my crutch in hand, and stood up.

Perhaps from the exhaustion after crying, Chris looked up at me blankly.

“Divine providence… is what Lisa called it. I kind of think so too.”

I said, opening and closing my right hand.

“Besides, if I return to that world, I might be able to meet Burton again.”

“Eh! That… is…”

“It’s not that I want to kill him or anything. Strangely enough. I just have something I want to ask him.”

“Something, you want to ask.”

“I thought I’d never get the chance to ask in my entire life, though…”

Muttering that, I rubbed my face and said to Chris.

“Don’t tell Lisa. She’ll worry.”

“Ah, y-yes. Um, then…”

“I won’t tell her about you either, of course. Besides, with a brazen face like this, I won’t slip up during Lisa’s interrogations.”

When I said that while pinching my own cheek, Chris finally gave an awkward smile.

“Also, you don’t actually have to use that brush for the rest of your life.”

“Heh?”

“If it breaks, I’ll buy you another one.”

Saying that, I patted Chris’s head as if mixing her hair up, and Chris brushed my hand away, puffing out her cheeks.

“I’ll buy it myself. The exact same one.”

“That’s good.”

I pulled up the corners of my mouth with my fingers and started walking. Chris also stood up and opened the sanctuary door for me.

With a bit of expectation, I looked left and right down the hallway, but there was no sign that Lisa had been eavesdropping. She’s meddlesome and likes to pry, but when it comes to truly important matters, she’s exceptionally scrupulous. Because of that, the situation worsened four years ago.

Here is the translation for the next section of the chapter:

---

But, in the end, I’ve never once thought Lisa’s judgment back then was bad.

That’s just how it is.

“Even though this is the Moon.”

“Eh?”

Chris asked back at my muttering, but I didn’t answer anything.

Even though this is the Moon, it’s just like Earth a century ago.

People cannot become completely rational.

Still, I headed toward the kitchen, looked at the folks making a huge ruckus while ignoring Chris—the star of the show—and Lisa who was managing them, and thought, This isn’t bad.

Rena said it made her sad that the Moon was filled with malice.

I thought that was exactly right.

---

If hesitating would lead to a conclusion, I would hesitate endlessly.

But even in investing, simply hesitating accomplishes nothing.

“I’ll probably do it.”

I said that in passing to Lisa, who was managing the banquet, after my discussion with Chris.

Lisa, who was mixing drinks and carrying simple dishes, just smiled warmly.

If it doesn’t work out, come on back, her eyes seemed to say.

However, just to be sure, I tried searching for Eleanor. What came up was a story about a small investment bank run by descendants of nobility that suffered massive losses due to a trader’s mistake and was eventually bought out. Normally it probably wouldn’t even make an article, but a dilettante noble who expanded to the Moon bankrupting their last company seems to make for decent gossip on the Moon.

It might also have been because Eleanor, the manager and largest shareholder, was young and beautiful. The photo showed an aloof, composed face, but it was definitely Eleanor herself.

I braced myself and emailed Chris.

However, I made sure to emphasize to Chris herself that when she gave Eleanor my reply, I might still decline depending on the contract terms. Even if my current life was the result of continuing to lie to myself, clapping my hands wouldn’t instantly make it all disappear. Just as Lisa said, connections with people remain.

I could clearly tell that my parents, though they didn’t show it outwardly, were happy that their idiot son was at least going to university and studying law. Four years ago I had nothing but a rebellious spirit, but since some point, I had started being able to see through to my parents’ feelings. Besides, even though I was a scholarship student, they naturally took care of me while I studied, and to think ‘It’s only natural for parents to take care of their children’ was too selfish of me, considering I had returned with a massive failure I couldn’t handle.

Yet they were the parents who accepted me. As for living expenses and such, if I signed with Eleanor, I could probably pay them back in a lump sum with interest. But, if they had expectations of me, I thought it might be better for me to graduate just in form.

Chris had said she hated the self that ended up working hard for someone else’s sake like that. I didn’t misunderstand that feeling, but for my current self, ignoring it wasn’t impossible, but it was difficult.

Besides, I thought amidst the crowd of people commuting in the morning.

In front of the government branch office before opening hours, a line of people waiting for the free legal consultation clinic stretched out in the cold morning. The reason I aspired to study law was because I noticed the existence of these people who hadn’t entered my field of vision at all before.

Failing at investing, separating from Hagana, and altering the destinies of the people who took care of me—there’s no excuse that the path I chose was an escape.

But, as power shortages began and the temperature inside the dome dropped, it was also a fact that I thought it would be nice if I could be of help to the people who came to the government’s free legal consultation clinic because they had nowhere else to go.

And besides that, there were other things I had to consider.

I greeted the usual security guard and walked through the cold, deserted branch office before the doors opened. Going up the stairs, my workplace was right in front of me. As always, it was quiet, and hardly anyone came in before work hours, but “hardly anyone” meant there was an exception.

It was Rena, doing paperwork with her face so close she looked like she was dozing off.

“Good morning.”

“Eep.”

Letting out a small scream at my greeting, Rena hurriedly tried to gather the things on her desk and shove them into her drawer. When she realized it was me who called out, she went so limp it looked like her body might fall apart.

“What were you doing?”

The things a timid person like Rena would hide are pretty obvious. Looking for a new job, typing a personal email, or studying for a certification exam—something around those lines.

I didn’t care much and was about to take my seat when my eyes found it on their own.

It was the false application form for those immigrant couples that I had pushed onto her.

“That’s…”

“Eh? Ehe, hehe…”

“Are you going to submit it?”

“………”

Rena didn’t look at me, keeping her hands gathered over the documents, and fell silent for a good ten seconds.

Then, looking at me, she forced a smile and replied.

“Will you… stop me?”

This time it was my turn to be momentarily at a loss for words, but I had reached my own conclusion on this matter.

After hearing Lisa’s scolding and Chris’s story, I decided I wanted to be a self that I could forgive.

“No. I won’t stop you.”

“…”

“In fact, I was going to say we should push it through after all.”

“…”

Rena made a dumbfounded face.

“Liar.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re lying.”

Rena said, but by that time, she had a relieved smile on her face.

“But, if it’s true, I’m happy.”

“It’s true.”

“…”

Although Rena was still staring intently at me, a somewhat mischievous tint had appeared in her eyes. It was the look of looking at a partner in crime, someone to do a little something naughty with.

“After thinking about it all night, I decided that even if it’s against the rules, it’s fine as long as we can support people in trouble.”

“I truly have no objections.”

“Ah, um, it’s not that I’m doubting you, Hal-kun, it’s just my own feelings. A report.”

The way she laughed a little embarrassedly was so innocent it made the person watching feel anxious.

But, there was certainly courage there. A warm light that I had completely forgotten about.

“I thought I also needed to properly consider the words you said to me, Hal-kun.”

“…Rules are rules?”

“Not that one, but ‘a judgment once made is hard to retract. At least, within oneself.'”

“…If I do say so myself, I think I said something pretty good.”

It was meant as a self-deprecating remark, but strangely, it sounded positive when Rena said it.

“Fufu. But I thought it was true, and that’s exactly why I know myself that this action follows my own feelings.”

Dropping her gaze to the documents at hand, Rena narrowed her eyes affectionately and said,

“Having someone other than myself agree with that decision is very reassuring. Hal-kun.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Rena looked up from the documents, looked at me, and smiled warmly.

Lisa’s kindness has a strength to it. But Rena’s retains a sweetness, and I used to think that the ones who could survive on the Moon were those with tough convictions like Lisa.

But perhaps that thought was mistaken.

In any case, this was one of my concerns about accepting Eleanor’s invitation. It was the fact that if I quit this place, Rena would be fighting all alone in this workplace. I wondered if she would be okay without me.

But perhaps that was underestimating Rena too much.

“By the way, Hal-kun.”

“What is it?”

“Did something good happen last night?”

“Huh?”

I was about to sit in my seat, but my movement stopped.

Looking at Rena, she was looking at me with a beaming smile.

“You have a very refreshed look on your face.”

“Eh.”

I unconsciously stroked my own cheek. It’s a face that can’t make expressions even if it tries. Thinking No way, I watched as Rena stared hard at my face and nodded once more.

“Yeah. I was right. You look like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders.”

“…”

“Did you sleep well?”

At Rena laughing innocently, I shrugged and sat in my chair.

“I’m surprised by my boss’s unexpected sharp-sightedness.”

“Oh, how mean.”

“It’s just… well.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know if it’s a good thing, but I feel like a turning point has arrived in my life.”

“Eh… um, that’s—”

To Rena, who was about to speak, I swiveled my chair, made sure no one else was around, and said this:

“I might be quitting this place.”

“Eh.”

“Depending on the circumstances, though.”

“…That’s… um, what do you mean…”

“It’s not a bad thing. It looks like I might land a lump sum of money and a lucrative job.”

“It’s not… a dangerous job, is it? Ah, I’m sorry. But, quitting here… that means paying back your scholarship and leaving the dorms too, right? I just can’t quite imagine it…”

“I understand what you’re trying to say. It’s an old connection, sort of.”

“An old…”

What is a twenty-year-old student talking about? is what the adults of the world would probably think.

Thinking about it that way, I felt a little proud that, four years ago, I had done something substantial, even if it ended in failure.

“So… it’s presumptuous of me, but if I were to quit here, I only had one concern.”

“Concern.”

Rena repeated the word and tilted her head, wondering.

Then, she seemed to immediately realize something.

“Hal-kun, does that mean me?”

“I won’t say it explicitly.”

“You are saying it! How rude. I admit that I’m clumsy myself, but I was doing it all alone before you came, Hal-kun. I’ll be fine!”

The way she got angry was also cute. She felt more like a grown-up Chris than a Lisa.

But, just as Chris had a core of steel in her heart, this Rena also had strength.

“Yes. I actually just thought the same thing.”

“Jeez… But I do get worried about by a lot of people. I know I’m clumsy, though.”

“That just shows how easy it is for people to like you.”

“My. That’s the first time I’ve heard such flattery from your mouth, Hal-kun.”

“It wasn’t really flattery, though.”

When I said that, Rena looked as if to say she was being made fun of even more, but in the end, she gave a small laugh along with a sigh.

“It’s fine. This is my life, after all. But in a little while, I’ll be able to say I’m quitting a job like this too.”

“Eh?”

Rena looked at me, playfully pursing her upper lip.

Then, averting her gaze abruptly, she let her eyes wander for a few moments as if hesitating, before slowly reaching into her bag.

“I wasn’t planning on telling anyone, but.”

“…What is it?”

“Well now, what could it be?”

Taking a small pouch out of her bag, she rummaged around inside. What came out of the synthetic leather pouch, which combined cheapness and durability, was something I completely hadn’t expected.

“I just can’t help but feel anxious without some funds lined up, you see.”

“That’s…”

“But, I’m almost at my goal. Once I get there, I’ll be able to think ‘I can quit a place like this anytime’. And if I can do that, I think I can keep going for another five years or so.”

“…”

Under my dumbfounded gaze, Rena gracefully and proudly extended the fingers of her left hand. Her round, child-like nails had no decoration, and her hands didn’t look like they were properly manicured either.

Still, on her ring finger was a brilliantly shining ring, and just by having that, Rena looked like a princess protected by a knight, capable of enduring any hardship.

“Fufu. Therefore, Hal-kun.”

“Ah, yes.”

I instinctively straightened my posture.

And, feeling ashamed, I smashed to pieces the assumptions about Rena I had repeated over and over in my mind.

“Please quit with peace of mind.”

“…”

“This is the Moon. It’s a place where everyone chases their dreams, after all.”

Rena was my direct boss and supervisor as a working scholarship student. Ever since I started working, I had always been exasperated wondering which one of us was the boss, but at that moment, I truly recognized this woman in front of me as a proper boss.

“Understood.”

“Fufu.”

“Thank you.”

When I bowed my head, Rena took off the ring, shrugged, and laughed as if it tickled.

---

“Well then, see you tomorrow.”

That evening, after the day’s work was done, leaving behind an unusually cheerful greeting, Rena disappeared into the crowd with a step that was light even for the Moon’s gravity.

To think she actually had a man and was even engaged.

The depths of my stomach felt so ticklish that my face felt like it would break into a smile, and I thought that this was probably what it meant to be happy. Just the fact that such stories existed on the Moon made me feel like I could keep trying.

To have such a story waiting for me right at my turning point feels so fitting that it’s a little scary.

However, Lisa’s words are definitely right to the very end.

You must not let an opportunity slip by.

I felt that this opportunity was surely right now.

After seeing Rena off, I walked down a different path than usual. Inside the city that spreads out radially with Newton City at its center, the movement of people is fixed like the ebb and flow of Earth’s tides. In the morning, they head towards the central Newton City, and at night, they scatter to the surrounding residential areas.

Going against the flow of people, I boarded a train heading for Newton City while gazing at the dome covering the lunar city, which was currently simulating a sunset.

In the past, I would head to Newton City every weekend and literally recharge my batteries, but it had been quite a long time. The memory of swaggering around, bragging that I would succeed here and walk with the wind in my sails in a few years, felt so incredibly nostalgic that I couldn’t even bring myself to find it embarrassing. I could somewhat understand the reason why Lisa treated me like a child and doted on me back then.

But, since then, I hadn’t set foot in Newton City. If you’re in the lunar city, you can view the skyscrapers just by going to a slightly scenic spot wherever you are, and that was more than enough. I had no intention of participating in the battles unfolding there, and I thought I would never be involved again.

Central Station, where I alighted for the first time in years, hadn’t changed at all from the old days. They say sharks are a completed form in evolution, so they will probably keep that shape even tens of thousands of years from now, and the Moon might be the same.

I just thought it might have gotten a little bit older, though.

There was a reason I came to the crowded Central Station. When I went to the meeting spot around the bust of the founder of the giant bank E.J. Rockburg, I immediately spotted the person I was looking for.

“Ah, Hal-san.”

“Am I a little late?”

“No. I tend to get lost easily, so I thought it’d be better to come early.”

“…Are you okay guiding the way?”

“I’m fine. Probably…”

“…”

“W-Well, let’s go. We have a bit of a walk.”

Chris’s spirit from the sanctuary was nowhere to be found; she started walking with her usual timid demeanor.

While thinking good grief, I also thought this Chris was cuter, so I had no right to criticize Lisa.

Following Chris, who guided me while being considerate of my crutches, Schrödinger Street soon came into view. It was the largest financial district not only on the Moon but even including Earth.

Harboring a cynical feeling toward the nostalgia, I stopped by the bronze statue of a cat that sat enshrined there, unchanging even now. The cat, narrowing its eyes slyly, seemed a little thinner than four years ago. Maybe it had been worn down from being pet by people too much.

The Moon was in an unprecedented economic boom, boiling over with a stock boom. Since even Rena was buying stocks, hordes of people hoping to be blessed with good fortune were probably swarming the place.

“Annie-chan is cute, isn’t she.”

“…Is that its name?”

“It seems so. But it apparently comes from ‘money’, so it feels very typical, doesn’t it?”

“Then they should’ve just named it Lucky or something.”

“Wouldn’t that sound like a dog?”

“True.”

Even after we exchanged such words and walked away, people visited incessantly to pet the cat’s head.

As the sun set and the streetlights came on, Chris and I walked slowly down Schrödinger Street like a pair of tourists. This place, the eye of the typhoon of the Moon which was more steeped in desire than anywhere on Earth, was just a normal street to walk on.

However, perhaps because it overlapped with the time people went home, drivers in white gloves waited for their masters in front of black limousines outside luxurious buildings. Before I knew it, they seemed to be everywhere. As expected, this seemed to be a place where money roared.

Realizing that, my heart pounded loudly with a tension like when you miss a step on the stairs.

“What’s wrong?”

Chris called out to me as I stopped.

I took a few deep breaths and started walking again.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

Just touching a fragment of the excitement from four years ago, what a pathetic state I’m in.

However, it felt similar to the excitement of facing a wrapped present.

Following Chris’s lead, we passed the bustling area, and the prestige of the buildings began to drop. The entrances were no longer lobbies where you could see chandeliers through large single panes of glass, but became plain and austere. If you kept going straight for a few more kilometers, you would hit the circumference of Newton City, where the rent was high again because of the good views.

The building was located between Central Station and the circumference, in a sunless place exactly like a valley. To put it nicely, a place filled with a hungry spirit.

To put it poorly, a place for those who couldn’t catch a break.

“It’s here, on the 12th basement floor.”

Passing through the automatic doors, we entered a dreary lobby. There were hardly any decorations, and a mishmash of office names was listed beside the elevators. In Newton City, the ground floor is over a hundred meters above the actual ground.

Anything below that is treated as a basement, and our destination, the 12th floor, was quite close to the actual ground, hence the corresponding rent. We got into an elevator bearing the logo of Emerald Industry, which controls the Moon’s infrastructure, and Chris familiarly pressed the button for the 12th floor on a panel with nearly a hundred buttons.

The doors closed, and hearing a hyuiin sound, I thought vaguely.

I had heard that the size of a building is actually limited by the efficiency of its elevators. If you build a building endlessly high with poor elevator efficiency, it would take hours just to go from top to bottom. That’s why there are apparently specialists who endlessly program combinations of how fast the elevators should go, how many to place on which floors, which ones should be express, and which should stop at every floor.

The reason the Moon’s skyscrapers are absurdly high is because the low gravity allows elevators to reach considerable speeds, and because Emerald Industry holds the secret algorithms.

However, with an elevator that’s too fast, going down apparently means your body will float softly in the air if you aren’t holding onto something.

I had expected a little bit of weightlessness, but we arrived at the 12th basement floor without anything major happening.

When the doors opened, we stepped out into an incredibly drab space. After twenty years since construction, the atmosphere anywhere probably approaches that of a rundown building in the Outer District. The ceiling wasn’t very high, a beige hallway sandwiched by cream-colored walls stretched out, and an outdated, rugged vending machine made a buzzing jiji sound. From far away, the sound of a poorly-fitted door closing roughly could be heard.

Windows were installed, but since the sky was completely blocked, hardly any light came in. On top of that, being surrounded by buildings on all four sides, someone had once described it as an underground world.

It was exactly that; peeking out the window showed absolutely nothing. At best, I could only see a man in a dress shirt staring at a display with an exhausted face in the adjacent building.

“The Outer District is better than this…”

“Fufu. But you get used to it, and this atmosphere becomes calming.”

It wasn’t pitch black like they couldn’t pay the electricity bill, but perhaps to save power, several lights were turned off.

There was a floor map partway down, but it looked like I’d get lost for a while.

Chris, having gotten this far, must have been used to it. She walked without hesitation and soon stopped in front of a room.

Schweitzer Investment.

It seemed it used to be an investment bank, but the naming showed a lingering attachment.

“Oh, you have arrived early.”

Just as I was about to knock, we were suddenly called out to, and Chris and I looked in surprise toward the voice. A bearded gentleman, looking like he had stepped right out of an early 20th-century Earth movie, was staring intently at us.

“Good evening. Le Goff-san.”

“Good evening, Miss Chris. Ho, which means this must be Mr. Yoshiharu Kawaura.”

I’m confident in being expressionless, but a poker face is a different matter.

A poker face is a technique to toy with the opponent by weaving emotions into an expressionless face.

The gentleman twitched his eyelids as if appraising me, and lifted his chin slightly.

“I’m Yoshiharu Kawaura.”

“A pleasure. But we can do proper introductions later. My Lady is waiting inside.”

Opening the door revealed a dreary, square room with about four cheap-looking steel desks facing each other. The glass-fronted cabinets were lined with books like Lisa’s old room, and in one corner was an electronic display board. It automatically displayed taken photos or images for interior decoration one after another.

However, it was neither photos nor paintings, and when I realized what it was—seemingly newspaper articles or something—it made sense.

It’s called a tombstone advertisement, a sort of monument issued when an investment bank manages the issuance of corporate bonds and the like. Whether they can’t forget their past glory, or if, true to the name ‘tombstone’, they are displaying it there as a grave marker.

While I was thinking that, the sound of knocking on the door leading to the back echoed.

“My Lady, Miss Chris has—”

The old butler called her ‘My Lady’.

I became convinced that Eleanor was a noble, exactly as my first impression suggested.

“Please wait a moment.”

However, the voice that came from beyond the door wasn’t one of noble elegance, but sounded busy.

“She says so.”

At the words of this Le Goff person, we nodded and waited a while.

“Sorry to keep you waiting… A conference call went on a bit longer than expected…”

The door opened, and Eleanor came out.

While curious about the term ‘conference call’, I behaved as amiably as possible.

“Good evening.”

When I said that, Eleanor’s face lit up, and she spoke as if involuntarily.

“Hal-san.”

Eleanor casually called my name, interrupting the old gentleman’s attempt at an introduction.

Then, after saying it, she perhaps thought she was being too casual.

“Is that acceptable?”

She asked shyly.

“…I don’t mind, whatever it is.”

The ticklish feeling I got when Lisa first called me by that name was long gone.

More than that, I was curious about the room Eleanor had come out of. Briefly glimpsed, it was dim, lit only faintly by the glow of displays, but what I saw illuminated by that light looked like a mountain of garbage with no room to step.

However, a moment later, Eleanor elegantly closed the door.

“Welcome today.”

I don’t know how serious she was, but Eleanor pinched her skirt and gave a slight curtsy greeting. The gentleman next to her stood up straight with a thoroughly serious face, so they must be completely serious.

“Were you surprised by how narrow it is?”

She asked with a laugh, but for someone of a status to lightly write a 100,000 Mool check, it surely wasn’t modesty.

“Yes, well.”

“Le Goff suggests a wider room, but fixed costs should be reduced as much as possible.”

“Ahem.”

The gentleman gave a deliberate cough at Eleanor’s words.

“Besides, doesn’t it feel nice, like starting from zero?”

I didn’t reply to her words, but it seemed to be an undeniable fact that Eleanor was a true noble lady.

“I’d like to do formal introductions again… but it seems everyone isn’t here yet.”

“Oh, hasn’t Marco arrived yet?”

The gentleman, Le Goff, took out a pocket watch—something highly impractical on the Moon—and said that. If he had a monocle, he’d be a perfect character in a movie.

“Ah, but it seems he has arrived.”

Right after Le Goff spoke, the sound of running footsteps came from outside the door, and almost simultaneously with a knock, the door was thrown open.

“Good evening!”

“Exactly 18:00. Five minutes late.”

“Eeeh…”

I don’t know what kind of penalty there was, but the boy wearing a hunting cap rested his hands on both knees in disappointment and exhaustion. He looked quite young, maybe twelve or thirteen.

As I stared down at him, the boy, probably Marco, noticed my gaze and looked up.

“A guest?”

“I was just about to introduce him.”

When Eleanor replied to Marco’s words, the boy Marco stood straight up, stretching his back even more than Le Goff.

“So, since everyone is here, I will introduce you.”

“Eh, just this?”

When I accidentally let my voice slip, Eleanor changed her smile into a grin and tilted her head slightly.

“Are you surprised?”

“…Somewhat…”

“With this, we have a full house for now.”

I looked at Eleanor, Le Goff, Marco, Chris, and then Eleanor again, and pulled my chin back slightly. It was indeed surprising that the force led by Eleanor, who casually wrote a 100,000 Mool check, consisted of only this.

Moreover, to not mince words, no matter who looked at them, they seemed like nothing but an amateur group.

“Fufu. We just need to gradually expand.”

“We will!”

Marco said, and Eleanor laughed. Le Goff looked like he wanted to sigh any moment and stayed silent. Chris was also floating an excited smile she rarely showed at the church. It looked like something fearless might jump out at any moment; if Lisa saw it, she might make the sign of the cross.

“Then, let me introduce everyone. First, myself, Eleanor Schweitzer. The 29th head of the Schweitzer family. Nice to meet you. Hal-san.”

“…Nice to meet you.”

I exchanged a soft handshake with Eleanor, and Eleanor then looked at Le Goff.

“This is Jean Le Goff. He is the Chief Officer of Corporate Ethics and Risk Management for Schweitzer Investment.”

“Corporate… ethics?”

“Perhaps it is easier to understand if I say we do not invest in tobacco or weapons companies.”

“…I understand perfectly.”

“I am Jean Le Goff. I bear full responsibility for protecting My Lady’s assets, entrusted directly by the 27th family head.”

His dark brown eyes possessed a bewitching intensity, like clouded amber. The hand that shook mine was carved with wrinkles appropriate for his old age, but there was a solid bone structure beneath them.

“Le Goff has been managing our family’s assets since my grandfather’s generation. He was originally a private banker in Switzerland, and when it comes to the Schweitzer family’s money, he knows everything down to the amount of my pocket money.”

“That is correct.”

Tradition and formality. Everything the Moon lacks exists in the mountains of Europe.

That’s probably why these two stand out so much here.

“And, this is—”

“M-Marco Schneier!”

The boy, stiff with nervousness, said this while directing his gaze as if something were on the ceiling. Eleanor, interrupted in her introduction, looked a little surprised, and Le Goff made no attempt to hide his scowl.

However, Eleanor quietly bent at the waist, lightly tapped Marco on the head, and whispered.

“Marco, your hat, your hat.”

“Ah, w-wa…”

As Marco hurriedly took off his hunting cap, Eleanor smiled sweetly at him.

“And this is the Chief Secretary of Schweitzer Investment, Marco Schneier.”

“I’m Marco Schneier!”

‘Chief Secretary’ was another exaggeration; he was basically the chore boy.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you!”

I grasped Marco’s hand and thought, Oh?

“Are you Moon-born?”

“Eh? Yes, I am… but,”

Marco looked blankly at Eleanor, and Eleanor also seemed a little surprised.

“How did you know?”

“…Just a feeling.”

I let go of Marco’s hand and said that. Truthfully, there is a faint difference between those born on the Moon and those born on Earth. The sensation when shaking their hand feels somehow unreliable.

“I heard you are also Moon-born, Hal-san.”

“That’s right. I was born the very day my mother landed on the Moon as part of the first immigration group.”

“You’re a living dictionary of the Moon, then.”

“If such a thing as ‘history’ existed here, that is.”

When I said that and looked at Marco, he flinched at my expressionlessness but still awkwardly directed a vague smile at me.

“Marco used to be a messenger boy at my previous company, but he volunteered for this endeavor.”

“Yes, I will do my absolute best!”

As Marco said this while stretching his back as much as possible, Eleanor giggled.

Le Goff wasn’t laughing, but I understood his reason too.

Marco must be completely head over heels for Eleanor.

“And… Chris-san, you’re fine without an introduction, right?”

“Fufu. So I’ll be your senior, Hal-san.”

“I suppose so. Though I still don’t know yet.”

When I directed my gaze at Eleanor, she smiled with an air of confidence.

“But well, I look forward to working with you.”

“I look forward to working with you too.”

“And now, allow me to introduce him to everyone. This is Yoshiharu Kawaura-san, the only investor—known as Hal—who closed in on that Jeremy Botzman in the Ratzinger Economic Research Institute contest four years ago.”

It was a rather embarrassing way to be introduced, but there was something that caught my attention.

“Jeremy Botzman?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? I believe he went by the name Mr. Troche. There’s an anecdote that it was because he had a cold at the time, though.”

“Ah.”

The man who left behind a staggering record in the contest.

If Burton’s information was correct, he was supposed to be a super-elite, born and raised on Earth.

“Right now, he’s one of the heroes of the stock market.”

Come to think of it, Chris had said something like that.

“Are you familiar with a company called Avalon?”

“No…”

I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere, but I don’t know it.

“It’s the largest power company on the Moon, a conglomerate that recently also owns multiple infrastructure-related enterprises. Their corporate motto is exceedingly brave.”

“Crush Emerald Industry!”

Marco shouted, Le Goff sighed, and Eleanor smiled.

My memory finally returned. It had probably entered my field of vision on TV or in the newspapers.

For a time, it was the talk of the town that there was a company like David challenging Goliath, standing up to Emerald Industry, which almost physically rules the artificial mass that is the lunar city.

“Exactly. And one of the three people leading that Avalon is Jeremy Botzman. He’s the CIO and CTO of a company with forty billion Mool in sales at twenty-six. Just what you’d expect from the Moon.”

Chief Investment Officer, Chief Technology Officer.

“If it’s someone who closed in on him, they must be active and flourishing brilliantly in the financial world. Everyone searched frantically for you about two years ago when the current stock boom started, but no one could find you. Your contact information had long since been disconnected, the brokerage account you used, Hal-san, had been canceled, and even the records had vanished due to corporate consolidation.”

“…I heard from Chris that I was a person of interest.”

“Fufu. The world works in unexpectedly funny ways, doesn’t it? When I coincidentally met Chris-san last year and learned about you, Hal-san, I thought it was a blessing from God.”

“You were praying at Lisa’s church too, weren’t you.”

“Yes. Since there are no proper churches on the Moon, it’s a great help.”

The way she spoke with a smile was just like a chatty young lady.

Even the old man next to her glaring at his watch and clearing his throat felt cinematic.

“Ahem. My Lady, if we do not get into the specifics, time will…”

“Oh, I’m sorry. So, Hal-san, have you reviewed the contract terms?”

Amidst an atmosphere like a European tea party, I recalled the fine print on the ticket to the world of greed.

“An annual salary system with 100,000 Mool for the first year. Along with a claim right to twenty percent of the trading profits. However, if a loss is incurred, the bonus will not be paid until it is recovered. It’s a typical financial incentive, but…”

I cut my words off mid-sentence and looked at Eleanor, who tilted her head with a smiling “?” expression before immediately saying:

“You’re wondering about my personal goals, aren’t you?”

The boss here is Eleanor. If that Eleanor has a goal, the people under her should care about it. At the very least, all I can do is simply make money; I don’t seem like I could be of any help in taking back Eleanor’s company or rebuilding a new one.

“You don’t need to think too much about that point. If you invest, increase our assets, and raise our performance, that will naturally align with my objectives.”

“Understood.”

“Do you have any other concerns?”

I almost laughed at the way she asked.

However, I did have a few concerns that made it hard for me to just say yes to this contract.

“What about the working arrangements?”

“You may come and go whenever you please. You are, of course, welcome to stay overnight here as well. Though you’ll have to sleep under the desk…”

“It’s actually not bad, you know?”

Marco said with a friendly smile that didn’t seem like a joke.

However, this meant that in theory, I wouldn’t have to drastically change my lifestyle.

“However, we will set an upper limit on the transaction amount. For anything exceeding that, I will issue approval on a case-by-case basis. Is that acceptable?”

Le Goff said in a tone that brokered no argument.

“Yes… Also, regarding the type of money-making I’ll be doing…”

Eleanor answered that question.

“Do you do anything other than stocks, Hal-san?”

“No, just checking. I think I’ll probably stick exclusively to stocks. It’s what I’m used to.”

“I think that would be best.”

Stock trading that I was used to. But that was a story from four years ago, and I didn’t know if I would actually be of any use now. At the same time, despite my anxiety, truthfully, I also felt an equal amount of excitement.

As I was thinking that, I noticed Marco staring up at me intently.

His eyes were like someone looking at an admired athlete. When I pushed the corners of my mouth up with my fingers to form a smile, Marco flinched and shrank his shoulders, but his mouth twitched as if his curiosity was about to overflow at any moment.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. So, until when is your trial period?”

“What if I said it was until today?”

Eleanor said such a thing without hesitation. Giving off a scent somewhat reminiscent of Lisa, perhaps, true to the look in her eyes, she wasn’t just a simple noble lady.

I shrugged and sighed.

“For now, one month.”

“I only hope it comes sooner.”

And so, although provisional, my life as a member of Schweitzer Investment began.

---

“Well then, I will step out for some errands for a bit. If you need anything, please ask Le Goff or Marco.”

“Understood.”

“You aren’t going to make a massive trade on the first day of your trial period, are you?”

“In current Earth time… it would be the Asian market. If you wish.”

Seemingly not expecting such a reply, Eleanor, who had been smiling mischievously, widened her eyes.

“…Fufu. It seems you would hold your own even at a dinner at ’23’, Hal-san.”

“’23’?”

“Let’s all go if you produce good results.”

“My Lady, the car has arrived.”

Le Goff said, checking his mobile terminal, and Eleanor finally gave a nodding bow and left the room. Once Eleanor was gone, it felt like the density of the room suddenly dropped.

Perhaps that is what they call ‘presence’.

“She means an expensive restaurant.”

As I was vaguely looking at the door Eleanor had exited through, Marco suddenly spoke.

“Eh?”

“’23’.”

“…Ah.”

“It seems it’s originally based on a restaurant in New York called ’21’, though.”

“That place famous for being used by the Wall Street crowd, huh. They have one on the Moon too?”

When I muttered that, Marco’s eyes suddenly sparkled.

“You know about it?”

“Ah, well… it pops up occasionally in those kinds of books. Of course, I’ve never seen the actual place.”

“Wow, I’m so happy. You’re ‘like that’ too, Hal-san.”

I didn’t understand for a moment what ‘like that’ meant, but looking at Marco—who looked like he’d be wagging his tail like a puppy if he had one—I figured it out.

A hunting cap and a light brown vest. A checkered shirt, dark brown trousers, and round leather shoes.

I shrugged and asked.

“That outfit of yours, I doubt they even wear that on Earth anymore, do they?”

“Eh? Ehehehe…”

I sighed at Marco, who looked unbearably happy to be told that.

Blatantly pro-Earth Earth-fanboys are a bit annoying, and I dislike Moon-fanboys of the same sort even more.

However, when they are this thorough about it, it actually becomes charming.

“American immigrants laugh at me and take pictures.”

“I don’t criticize people’s hobbies, but I’m not ‘like that’. I just happened to know about ’21’.”

“Eeeh…?”

“I just like financial stories and history a little bit, that’s all.”

“But you knew what was up with this outfit, didn’t you.”

“Well, I think I understand more than Chris does, at least.”

When I directed my gaze at Chris, who was sitting at her desk blankly listening to my conversation with Marco, she shrank her body as if a little nervous.

“Chris-san is much more of a Moon-fanboy than I am.”

“I kind of get what you mean.”

“…Wh-What is it?”

“It’s nothing. Just that this guy is an Earth-obsessed… no, a 20th-century-obsessed kid.”

Marco looked dissatisfied at my words, but the way he adjusted the angle of his hunting cap with both hands to show it was exactly like a boy straight out of an old movie.

“More importantly, what should I start with first…”

“If you need a terminal or something, we have one.”

Chris spoke up, as if she finally had a topic she understood.

“Not that, it’s just that I haven’t looked at the market at all for four whole years.”

“If it’s the Schrödinger Street Journal, we subscribe to the paid service, so you can see the past several years’ worth.”

Marco said this while opening a terminal, probably his own. On his desk were a small table clock and a paper knife. There was even a pen stand and an inkwell. It seemed partly influenced by Le Goff and Eleanor, but I thought he was taking his obsession a bit too far.

“What about the Daily Post?”

“We have it, but… that’s a general paper.”

“Are you saying industry people only read industry papers?”

When I said that, Marco blinked his eyes rapidly, then nodded as if he had discovered some profound meaning. Thinking that it was like watching myself from four years ago, I watched as Marco tapped the terminal keys a few times and then gave up his seat for me.

“You can see the past ten years’ worth.”

“Thanks.”

When I sat in Marco’s chair, he stood beside me, staring intently at the terminal. He seemed determined not to miss a single movement of what I was going to do.

However, I immediately pushed Marco out of my mind. Taking a slightly deep breath to calm the tension of returning to the world of investment, I exhaled. What I did next was look only at the front-page headlines of articles, spaced one week apart.

Naturally, the front page covered matters deemed important to the people of the Moon. Four years ago, there was a lot of talk about the large-scale redevelopment of the First Lunar City. Along with that came the usual suspicions of bid-rigging by Emerald Industry and discussions about whether it violated antitrust laws. What was happening in the 6th Outer District where we were, of course, wasn’t touched upon in the slightest. Once that uproar settled down, the talk shifted to the increase in immigrants and the various minor problems associated with it. Partway through, there was a presidential election and talk about that, but here, where the government is mocked from the top down, it vanished in the blink of an eye. The topics generally looped. Development, increase in immigrants, problems, development, increase in immigrants, problems…

The occasional varied topics included a rare murder case on the Moon—which is said to be safer than anywhere on Earth—breakdowns of the orbital elevator, and health problems faced by long-term lunar residents when returning to Earth, which became quite the hot topic for a time. The core of the uproar was a report from some research institute claiming that as people age, muscles accustomed to low gravity might become unable to withstand life on Earth. Problems particularly seemed to arise in the respiratory system, and the fire caught when some researchers reported that death was a possibility. So far, because there are still few elderly people who have lived on the Moon for long periods, there have been no cases of death on Earth, and the uproar faded as a temporary thing. At the time, I probably just thought, Huh.

The power issue started being covered around the year before last, and the company name ‘Avalon’ also appeared.

Avalon, according to a brief company history, originally started about ten years ago as an independent power company established cramped within the gaps of regulations. It grew by repeatedly acquiring other companies, and finally became the David trying to take down Emerald Industry.

What made the top article covering half the front page last year was that Jeremy Botzman, young even by lunar standards, had been appointed CIO and CTO of Avalon, a company with sales exceeding 30 billion Mool. According to Eleanor, they now boast 40 billion Mool in sales, and even back then, Avalon seemed to be the stock with the highest trading volume in the stock market. With revenue increase after revenue increase, it was a stock that made everyone happy.

And from then on, front-page articles increasingly featured talk of the overheating stock market.

Are the guys not doing it idiots? Or are the guys totally absorbed in it idiots?

The top articles frequently featured dialogues between the president, bank representatives, and others, as well as market regulation issues. Besides that, the completion ceremony and unveiling of the Third Lunar City. The start of construction for the Fourth City. An article about the number of housing units exceeding 500,000. Right after that, the housing problem for the poor class, the first protest march on the Moon with the slogan “Houses for Us!”, and a photo of the bearded man leading it. Below the bearded man was the caption, “Mr. Fidel Gazanica Howls.” Apparently, he is the only independent politician on the Moon who receives no donations from any company, and is a presidential candidate. However, such social movements seemingly died down quickly on the Moon, where making money is the ultimate justice. The next article was about Mr. X, a lunar resident, recording the highest salary income in human history at 3.2 billion Mool. Perhaps related to that, an article about an encyclical from the Pope of the Catholic Church on Earth condemning the Moon as a place of desire. Following that, a government announcement that the Moon has recorded an unprecedented economic boom since statistics began. A spur in immigrant increases. The expansion of poverty. A cabinet meeting on tax system revision. And, the postponement of the revision…

It was last month that there was a headline stating the Moon had become the country with the most rich people anywhere on Earth (and beyond).

Since I was mostly just looking at headlines and small photos without reading the contents, even ten years’ worth didn’t take much time.

Since the Moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, it’s said that things progress six times faster on the Moon than on Earth. Glancing through the headlines, it certainly felt that way.

On this fast-moving, intense Moon, exposing false subsidy applications for welfare organizations submitted to a government branch office feels from the bottom of my heart like a futile and powerless act.

If this is how it is in a relatively stiff general newspaper, a more mass-oriented one would feel like an even more raucous, rowdy party. Let alone if you did the same with the money-money-money Schrödinger Street Journal, it would surely make your eyes swim.

In any case, no matter how long I had been away from the market, it didn’t take much effort to grasp the general atmosphere. Even living while staring at the ground for four years, some information had trickled in, but with newspaper headlines this bullish, the stock market went without saying.

Borrowing a phrase Marco would probably like: Hello, Gilded Age.

“…So there’s a way to do it like this, huh.”

“Hm?”

“This is a hundred times more interesting than history class at school.”

The eccentric 20th-century-obsessed boy seemed to have immediately understood what I was doing.

“‘Be objective’ is Eleanor-san’s favorite phrase.”

“If only I could do this while being fully immersed in the market.”

“Is it difficult?”

“It was difficult.”

The more I got absorbed, the narrower my field of vision became. Inside a field of vision that had narrowed to a pinprick, there was no way I could see my surroundings; I just executed things without even questioning the right or wrong of what I came up with. I didn’t think for a single second about what lay beyond that.

Imperturbable. Clear as a mirror, still as water.

Those were the words my taciturn father delivered to me instead of his fists when I returned to my family home.

I’ll probably never be able to truly understand their meaning even if I take my whole life.

“Well, one swallow does not make a summer. One hot day does not make a summer.”

“Eh?”

“It means it all depends on your daily mindset. Though I don’t know about swallows or summers. I just don’t want to make the same mistake I made in the past again. Right now, that’s all I hope for.”

Seeing Marco speaking innocently and me answering him, I could tell Chris was feeling a little nervous. Even so, my right hand moved smoothly, flicking through the news articles on the terminal.

“…Hal-san, why did you stop investing?”

I think it’s the privilege of a highly curious kid to immediately vocalize whatever doubts come to mind.

When I pushed the corners of my mouth up with my fingers, Marco seemed to suddenly realize what he asked.

“I’m sorry…”

“I’ll tell you if I feel like it.”

I said that and shrugged at Chris, who was directing a worried gaze my way.

“Ah, right, Chris.”

“Y-Yes!”

Chris, who had been watching me, stiffened her back and looked surprised at being called.

“I want you to show me your investment data.”

“Eh.”

Chris’s blue eyes widened perfectly round behind her round glasses.

“Um… well…”

“Hm?”

“It’s embarrassing… you see…”

Shrinking her neck so much it hardly looked like a joke, Chris looked up at me from under her brows.

The feeling of being embarrassed to have one’s investment data seen is probably an emotion only someone who has actually done it can understand. However, Chris is using Hagana’s program, and if so, my investment judgment lies at its foundation. Therefore, I need to see it.

“I heard your performance is good, after all. I want to know how much my past judgment holds up now.”

“………”

Chris averted her gaze.

I want to refuse if possible, was written all over her face.

“If it’s a secret, that’s fine.”

“Ah, no… Understood…”

“I just want the trading records here.”

Saying that, I took out my own terminal from the bag I bring to my workplace and handed it to Chris.

The reason I said it so businesslike was because I understood Chris’s hesitation. It’s a strange thing, but having someone look at your stock trading history is truly embarrassing. Unless you are a genius who hits the mark 100% of the time, there are almost certainly failures in there. Moreover, the more seriously you approach trading, the more those aren’t just simple mistakes. Normally, you buy and sell stocks thinking your judgment is correct, so a mistake becomes proof that your judgment was wrong. And looking back, it’s not uncommon to hold your head in your hands wondering why you made such a mistake. Buying too much out of greed, selling too much out of fear; those things are commonplace. In short, because all of your emotions and abilities are packed in there, it’s embarrassing.

While transferring the data via wireless communication, Chris fidgeted with her hands wedged between her knees. That data was a history of thoughts and emotions: what Chris was thinking, what mistakes she made, and what successes she achieved.

That Burton, upon seeing my contest trading history, had said this:

—It’s a good trade where one can feel your will.

I think it’s only natural that some people get angry when stock trading is called a gamble. Stocks are not a matter of probability. It is an act of pure intellectual challenge, where people try to outsmart others through their own speculations.

“Um…”

“Hm?”

“Please don’t laugh, okay?”

Chris said that as the data transmission completed.

“You probably wouldn’t be this embarrassed even if I asked you to show me your panties.”

“!”

To Chris, who understandably turned bright red this time, I shrugged and looked at Marco next to me.

“Chris-san… are you wearing embarrassing panties?”

“I am not!”

Marco was a quick-witted guy. Since I couldn’t laugh with my face, I shook my shoulders to show my laughter instead.

Chris puffed her cheeks and looked away, and Marco bared his teeth like a grown-up, laughing nishishi.

While we were doing that, the door opened and Le Goff returned.

“It is quite lively in here.”

Because of his demeanor and appearance, it sounded like nothing but sarcasm, but it didn’t seem to hold any particular malice.

“However, sexual harassment is something I cannot overlook as the person in charge of corporate ethics.”

It was an extremely valid concern, but he was so overly serious that the rebellious spirit of four years ago I had long forgotten reared its head.

“I thought it would be important for when we invest in an underwear manufacturer.”

“Hmph. But I told you at the beginning.”

“Told me what?”

“That investing in companies dealing in weapons is not permitted.”

While I was taken aback, Le Goff slightly lifted his silver mustache before immediately returning to his original expressionless face.

“Marco, instead of laughing, is your work progressing?”

“A-Ah, no.”

“My Lady has placed exceptionally high expectations upon you. Do not disappoint her.”

“Yes, sir!”

He replied while straightening his back, and then implicitly urged me to stand up from the chair with a look that said So that’s how it is…

Of course, since it was Marco’s desk, I complied, but Marco pulled two more terminals out of his drawer and turned them on.

“What will the two of you do?”

“Huh?”

“Ah, no, we’re heading home.”

Leaving me asking back, Chris replied like that. Since I wasn’t trading on the first day, there wasn’t anything left to do. Le Goff nodded, and Chris shut her terminal with a snap.

“Would you like to stop by the church?”

Chris invited me while, beside us, Le Goff was ordering delivery over the phone.

Having a meal and putting in more work from this hour. It wasn’t unusual on the Moon, and there probably weren’t many places where overwork existed more than on Schrödinger Street.

However, the atmosphere toward overtime was vastly different from the government branch office. Neither Le Goff nor Marco showed any strain or reluctance. Rather, it seemed they were brimming with fighting spirit, as if the real work was just beginning.

I found that attitude reliable, and it made me feel excited too.

“What’s wrong?”

Chris asked as we walked down the dim hallway after saying our goodbyes and leaving the room.

“Nothing really?”

When I answered, Chris looked a little dissatisfied, perhaps thinking I was evading the question, but that only lasted until I took out my terminal.

“U-Um.”

“Hm?”

“Are you really going to look at it?”

The trading history.

“You sure don’t give up easily. It was originally our program, right? Even if there are mistakes, I’m the one who should be embarrassed.”

“That’s… well, um…”

“Of course, no matter how bold you were, Chris, I won’t be surprised.”

“Jeez!”

Chris held her head, pressing her messy blonde hair with both hands, but when we got into the elevator, she said quietly beside me as I loaded the data.

“But, it might certainly be stimulating. Because everything of yours and Hagana-sensei’s is packed in there.”

“…”

When I looked down at Chris, who was right beside my left, she looked up at me.

“Therefore, um… I h-hope you don’t have a panic attack.”

Saying that, she lightly wrapped her arm around the arm I was using to hold my crutch.

She looked down and turned her face away, but I could tell she was bright red to the tips of her ears.

If anything, it felt like the beating of her heart would transmit from her chest pressing against my arm.

“…”

Chris had said she wanted to try living exactly as she pleased. That might mean she hated the part of herself that stayed passive, or it might mean she didn’t care about the fact that I still couldn’t forget Hagana. In any case, I thought it required courage.

Paying close attention so it wouldn’t turn into a sigh, I cleared my throat and said this.

“Hey.”

“A-Ah, y-yes—”

“Both my hands are full, so could you press the key for me?”

I turned the terminal screen in front of Chris’s eyes, and with the hand not wrapped around my left arm, Chris timidly pressed the key.

---

We hardly exchanged a word until we reached Lisa’s church. Chris seemed too nervous about taking a man’s arm and walking in public to talk, and I was also preoccupied. Chris had said she was trading using Hagana’s program, and just as she said, the data was truly stimulating.

To an unknowledgeable person, it would just look like a string of numbers. Corporate codes, stock prices, number of shares, profit and loss. When boiled down, the data at hand was condensed into that, and if push came to shove, just the number of shares and profit/loss would be enough. However, the volume of data was massive, and looking at the trading times, trades were concluding in seconds, or tens of minutes at the longest. Chris’s method was typical program trading, a method of scooping up loose change with speed and calculation power that exceeded human limits.

Amidst executing hundreds or thousands of trades a day, corporate codes, stock prices, and share counts looked like nothing more than random numbers appearing whimsically in the data list, but among them, there was one number that made you feel a pattern.

That was the profit and loss.

When you scrolled through the data list, that column alone increased in a fascinating way. Scrolling smoothly down the screen, I could clearly see the profits swelling literally right before my eyes.

The current value was plus 1,448,281 Mool. The seed money was 2,000,000 Mool from half a year ago. I thought I misread the digits, but I wasn’t mistaken.

Of course, the seed money wasn’t Chris’s, it must have been provided by Eleanor.

Still, no matter how much mathematical talent she has, two million Mool to a mere sixteen-year-old girl.

Like Lisa said, this wasn’t play. Eleanor and her group were the real deal, and they were entirely serious.

And looking at those numbers, I felt I understood the reason Chris had gained the courage to take a bold step forward. If you add her base salary and twenty percent of the profits, Chris was suddenly earning a respectable income even by lunar standards at her age. The amount I had frantically scraped together and saved four years ago, vowing to reach the ends of the world from there, was insignificant.

When a genius capable of proper effort, someone who could skip grades and pass into Lunar City University, gets serious, this is the result. Even if you handed two million Mool to the me from four years ago, I don’t think it would have gone like this. I realized even during the investment contest just how hard it becomes to move when the bulk gets too large. To hold something big, you need a large vessel.

Chewing over my own mediocrity once again, I simultaneously felt an endearment toward the ignorance of my self from four years ago.

But, I wasn’t frustrated.

On the contrary, I honestly couldn’t help but enjoy watching the trajectory of Chris’s talent.

“Hal!”

“!”

I came to my senses at that voice and looked up. Before I knew it, the potato gnocchi I should have been holding with my chopsticks had dropped onto the table. I know my face doesn’t move, but nevertheless, feigning innocence, I picked it up again and ate it. It was softly simmered in cream and delicious.

It was probably a dinner made with the donations Chris provided from her earnings.

Even though back when Hagana and I were here, the food Lisa brought back from her part-time job was the staple.

“…Ha-al?”

“…”

Then, receiving a warning once more, I naturally couldn’t ignore it.

“I get it…”

“Get what?”

Asked back by Lisa, I shrugged and answered.

“No looking during meals.”

“Then put it away.”

Seeing me keeping the terminal at hand but stubbornly leaving the screen on, Lisa spoke clearly. It was like disciplining a child, but I didn’t think she was too wrong.

Because that data was violently shaking up what I had forgotten for four years.

“Catnip to a cat.”

“?”

Lisa muttered, and Chris tilted her head while chewing on the end of a fork instead of chopsticks.

“Chris, the fork.”

“Ah…”

“You need to fix that habit of putting things in your mouth too.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Cats, you see, get drunk on a plant called catnip. Didn’t you know?”

“…Um… I don’t really know much about things that aren’t on tests…”

“Hmph? But you have that kind of humility even though it isn’t on tests, right, Chris? So it’s fine. When you give catnip to a cat, they get like this.”

Lisa gestured at me with her chin and ate a pickled olive in exasperation.

“Catnip fruit looks a bit like this olive, but the moment they see it, cats are glued to it. Drooling all over the place—it’s true, you know? Drooling buckets, meowing weirdly, rolling all around. It doesn’t matter if you smack their head or pull their tail. The only way is to take it away. Like this.”

“Ah.”

Lisa snatched away the terminal I had been restlessly glancing at.

My gaze chased the terminal like a cat, finally landing on Lisa’s gaze.

Feeling awkward, I mumbled and ate the gnocchi.

“Was he like this on the way here too?”

“Eh…”

Chris looked at me, then nodded somewhat apologetically.

“Good grief… you’ll get into an accident even on the Moon where there are few cars.”

I hung my head as Lisa sighed.

Chris clearly compared the two of us, hesitated for a few moments, and finally asked this.

“Was he… like this before too?”

Lisa glanced at Chris, then looked at me with an exasperated, contemptuous, but above all freezing cold gaze, and answered.

“Yes. Exactly like this. If anything, he was an even more unreasonable brat back then. Just a straight line of cheekiness. Finding it annoying to be told off by me every time over a nice meal, he’d just cram as much as he could into his mouth—bam, I ate, bam, I’m done—like that. It was exasperating.”

“…Pfft.”

Chris was holding it back, but a small smile slipped out at the end, and she hurriedly rubbed her nose to cover it up.

“Boys really don’t grow up, do they.”

Lisa said, then let out an exaggerated sigh.

---

Listening to the sound of dishes being washed, I was looking at Chris’s data as usual.

After grasping the overall trend of the wildly dancing string of numbers, I started peeking into the contents in a bit more detail.

The criteria for selecting companies, the criteria for determining prices, and the most important thing that Hagana had struggled with the most: the timing of buying and selling.

Chris’s investment data wasn’t just “amazing” or anything like that; it was comfortable. It was as if everything I had thought and felt was being actualized right in front of my eyes without a single obstacle. In fact, it was almost as if a spotlight was shining on something I had only vaguely understood.

Four years ago at that time, I thought I understood Hagana very well, at least up until a certain moment.

We ate and slept under the same roof, exposing everything about what we thought and felt, so it shouldn’t have been a complete delusion.

However, there was refinement here. The program Chris used was highly polished.

I prepared the iron, Hagana melted and shaped it, and Chris sharpened it to a fine edge.

Just as Chris said, Hagana’s vestiges were naturally here. Some of the judgment criteria were things I could only convey as a ‘feeling’, resulting in endless back-and-forths with that stubborn Hagana. I don’t get what you mean. Speak more clearly. Are you an idiot? Hagana’s words seemed to echo in the back of my ears right this moment.

Yet, what I felt from Chris’s program was not Hagana’s own breathing. It was Hagana’s vestige, and merely the immaturity and clumsiness of four years ago. When Chris said it was stimulating, it must have been a kind of confidence.

The pride of knowing she was the new generation.

I felt a slight twitch in my right hand, but that might have just been from flicking through the data too much.

“That habit, too.”

Suddenly spoken to, I directed my gaze that way.

With no one else around, it was Lisa wiping her hands after finishing the dishes.

“It’d be good if you fixed it, though.”

“…Habit?”

“You were thinking about Hagana, weren’t you?”

No way, I thought, swallowing my breath, as Lisa continued.

“Your habit of looking at your right hand. It makes it completely obvious that you’re thinking about Hagana.”

“…Has it… become a habit?”

“Yeah. Besides, when you look at your right hand, Hal, it doesn’t look like you’re looking at your own right hand at all. It’s like looking at something incomprehensible. Something scary. Something you can’t control. I can tell immediately.”

“But that’s the first time anyone’s told me that.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Lisa smiled wryly, and finishing wiping her hands, she untied the sash holding up the sleeves of her sister’s habit and let out a sigh.

“…And now?”

“Hm? Well, it’s much better.”

Lisa was rummaging through the cabinet as she spoke. What she took out was a brown bottle; four years ago I only knew it was alcohol, but now I recognize it as brandy.

“Want some?”

“I’m a kid.”

“Fufu. Does that mean you want some, then?”

It was a jab at the me from four years ago who was always trying to act older.

When I shrugged, Lisa chuckled happily.

“I don’t need any.”

“I know.”

Lisa poured just a little into a glass and capped the bottle.

Then, without even sitting down, she downed it in one gulp.

“The sisters in my imagination don’t do things like that.”

“Gah~~… Phew. This is the Moon, after all.”

“You almost cracked a smile there.”

“Oh my, I messed up.”

Lisa said this completely devoid of emotion or feeling, then immediately opened the capped bottle and poured more than before.

“Just kidding. But it’s fine. This is drinking out of desperation.”

“Desperation?”

“Yep. The wounded lamb, who couldn’t even walk properly without my help, support, and comfort, has finally stood on his own two feet and walked out of here.”

“…Stop saying things like that.”

“Hm? But if I don’t say at least this much, you look like you’ll forget right away.”

“I won’t forget!”

Slipping into the familiar speech from four years ago, I suddenly came to my senses.

Seeing me like that, Lisa narrowed her eyes, looking genuinely happy.

“I know. But looking at that terminal, Hal, you look exactly like a boy looking at a treasure map. Even if I hugged you now, you’d just be like, ‘You’re annoying, let go, old hag’ wouldn’t you?”

“…”

Lisa must have sensed how disgusted my face looked beneath my expressionlessness.

She finally shook her shoulders and laughed.

“But, I might welcome a lap pillow.”

When I said that as a small counterattack, Lisa looked blank. Even so, like the law of inertia, a smile slowly floated onto her face again. She shook her glass even though there was no ice in it, peered inside, and said:

“If it’s a lap pillow, you could still just jump right up and run out if you thought of something, couldn’t you.”

“Oh… that’s true.”

“Jeez, don’t sound impressed. But, a lap pillow might be difficult now too.”

“Huh?”

“Because, I want to stay on good terms with Chris.”

This time it felt like even my face was going to move in disgust.

However, the smile had vanished from Lisa’s face as she looked at me.

There was even a slight sharpness in the eyes looking at me.

“Have you not noticed?”

“…N-Noticed what?”

“That thing you’re looking at, it’s Chris’s trading something-or-other, right?”

Her way of speaking like she was completely ignorant of that sort of thing was the same as always, but feeling overwhelmed, I nodded.

“Chris was right beside you the whole time you were engrossed in looking at it, right?”

“A-Ah.”

“Do you remember even a little bit what kind of face she was making?”

Prompted, I searched my memory, but absolutely nothing came up.

“See, this is what I mean… Chris, you see, was right beside you, and every time you took a deep breath or sat up straight, she was super expectant.”

“Expectant?”

“Expectant. You don’t get it?”

“No…”

“Jeez… Listen, she’s waiting for a single word from you. Like ‘Amazing,’ or ‘Incredible,’ or ‘Whoa.’“

I was dumbfounded, and my gaze involuntarily drifted toward the bathroom.

Chris had gone in there to take a shower.

Since she wasn’t the type to calmly walk out naked like Hagana, she wouldn’t be coming out for a while.

“Anyway. Got it?”

“Eh, ah?”

“When that child comes out, say something. Understood?”

“A… Ah…”

“Honestly… it hurts my heart more just watching.”

Lisa muttered complaints like that and downed her drink.

“But well, I’m truly glad.”

“…About what?”

“You look like you’re having fun.”

Prompted by Lisa, I directed my gaze to the terminal at hand. It was true, even though I had thought the market was so terrifying, once I actually looked at the data, even eating felt like a chore.

But, I am different from the me of four years ago.

If I’ve grown even a little bit, this is what it means.

“Looking from the outside is different from being on the inside.”

“Hmm?”

“If I can bet money and still find it fun, I’ll come thank you, Lisa.”

“…And if not?”

“If not? Well… I’ll want you to help, comfort, and support the suffering me.”

“…Somehow, that doesn’t sound very rewarding to dote on…”

“If so, then maybe that’s what it means to become an adult.”

I took Lisa’s glass and took a light sip of the alcohol. It wasn’t as bad as when she let me drink in her room four years ago, but I still didn’t really like the harsh sting of the alcohol.

“It’s weird that something bitter tastes good.”

“And on top of that, you get intoxicated by it.”

“Because you are completely that type, Lisa.”

When I said that, Lisa took the glass back from my hand.

Then, she fumbled around her chest and pulled out a rosary from inside.

“The Lord bestows trials upon me.”

“It’s better not to have trials.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Because not every human can brush off the devil’s temptations.”

It wasn’t an expressionlessness due to paralysis; I was truly expressionless at that moment.

As I stared intently into Lisa’s eyes, Lisa, of course, didn’t look away in the slightest.

I think it’s amazing about Lisa that she can still maintain such gentle eyes while doing so.

Lisa reached out a hand, touched my bangs slightly with her fingers, and stroked my cheek.

“If you know that, you might be able to save someone who is just about to be led astray by the devil right now.”

“But won’t I myself be saved?”

Hagana is gone, and I can’t find her. I was able to stand up for the first time in four years by thinking, What if Hagana comes back?, yet the person whose hand I want to hold doesn’t exist.

I knew this was a dependency bordering on taking it out on Lisa, but Lisa seemed to understand that too.

“It’s impossible as long as you think you won’t be saved.”

A coldly dismissive string of words, delivered with a smile.

At times like this, I feel glad I got to know Lisa.

“I’ll engrave it in my heart.”

“I’d like you to engrave having good manners during meals while you’re at it.”

“…My bad.”

I said, unable to argue or make a joke about that one point.

Lisa flicked my bangs with her finger, picked up the liquor bottle on the table, and stood up.

“But, it’s not a lie either.”

“Eh?”

“If you believe there is no God, then even if God appeared right in front of you, you’d think, ‘This isn’t God.’ In that sense, the world takes the shape a person wishes for. ‘Those who believe shall be saved.’ That is the meaning of those words. So, even if the fact that Hagana isn’t here remains the same, the world Hal sees should be completely different depending on whether you think she will come back or not.”

I couldn’t even feel frustrated.

“…Lisa, you’re,”

“What is it?”

“You really are like a sister.”

“My.”

Glared at by Lisa, I pulled up the corners of my mouth with my fingers to at least show a gesture of frustration.

Lisa shrugged her shoulders as if saying good grief and put the alcohol away in the cabinet. Just then, the sound of the bathroom door opening came from the hallway. Chris sauntered out leisurely, flapping the hem of a worn, thin shirt that was probably her sleepwear, and seemed to have finally remembered I was there.

She hurriedly let go of the shirt’s hem and frantically wiped her face with a towel.

“A-H-Hal-san, y-you were st-still here…”

Chris said that with a poor, excuse-making smile, and Lisa, the one in charge of public morals, hung her head and shook it sideways.

“I was thinking of heading home soon, but.”

I could tell Lisa was glancing at me.

But, I’m not that clueless.

“I have some things I want to ask you.”

“Wh-Which means…”

“It’s been improved in an amazing way. I want you to teach me various things.”

“O-Of course!”

Her face shining as brightly as her freshly washed blonde hair, Chris said that.

However, as Lisa passed by Chris heading toward the hallway, she gently moved the bath towel hanging over Chris’s shoulders to drape it over her chest.

“Before that, change your clothes, okay?”

“!! !! !!”

It was probably a regular occurrence, but a single thin shirt is not enough to hide a growing maiden.

Chris panicked, not knowing what to do or how to do it, and eventually ran back to her room just as Lisa instructed.

“I wonder why all the girls who come to our place are like that?”

“Isn’t it because you’re like that, Lisa?”

Despite looking delicate, I think Lisa is actually quite uninhibited.

I’ve often seen her drinking water fresh out of the bath with her shoulders completely exposed.

“…I want to argue back, but that might actually ring a bell.”

“I think it’s fine because it’s very ‘you’, Lisa.”

“…You’ve got some nerve.”

Lisa pointed at me, then walked down the hallway with an exasperated air.

Swapping places with Lisa, Chris, looking like she had just thrown on whatever was available, returned before the post-bath sweat had even subsided. Four years ago, Hagana used to get so absorbed in creating the trading program like this too, and if she thought of something, she’d fly out of the bathroom completely butt-naked without a care in the world. Thinking of that, Chris is quiet, has a sense of shame, and falls within the category of an easy-to-get-along-with, common-sense girl.

Besides, her physique is a bit different from Hagana’s delicate, undernourished one. A sweet scent of soap drifted from her freshly washed body, and her face, looking more mature perhaps because her hair was wet, was so slender and neat you couldn’t imagine her father’s ruggedness.

I couldn’t help but think, If only I hadn’t met Hagana.

However, the reason Chris thinks of me this way is precisely because Hagana was there. Because she said that seeing Hagana and me engrossed in doing something together and feeling jealous was one of her triggers.

The world really doesn’t go around as smoothly as one would hope.

Still, as someone who has aged a bit, I have the capacity to at least hide the bare truth.

“Tomorrow is my day off, so you don’t need to rush; I won’t be going home right away.”

When I said that, Chris, just as a drop of water fell from her wet bangs, looked blank for a moment, then smiled shyly.