10. The 100-Coin Blueprint
“Lady Maya, Lady Maya!”
Lili, who had done nothing but squirm in my pocket all day, finally emerged and scurried up my arm. I felt a slight, familiar weight settle on my shoulder.
“What is it?” I asked.
‘You don’t look very happy,’ Lili chirped, tilting her tiny head as I turned to look at her. ‘Ever since Miss Rowel left, your mood has been in the gutter.’
“My mood hasn’t been ‘good’ a single day since I arrived at this mansion.”
I let out a heavy sigh, resting my chin in my hand. Lili gave a sudden, violent start, as if she’d been pricked by a needle. Her absurd overreaction forced a small smile onto my face. In this dry, suffocating estate, I suppose I was lucky to have her.
‘I knew it! You need a Snuggly Baby Bear, don’t you?’
I take it back.
“You really are a born merchant, aren’t you?”
‘I’m the System Administrator in charge of the Shop, after all!’
Despite my lack of praise, Lili puffed out her fluffy chest and let out a proud little huff. To anyone else, it would have sounded like a faint, wheezing ferret sneeze.
‘But honestly, I’m worried about you. If you keep moping like this, you’ll get sick.’
“Do you think falling ill is that easy?”
‘You just don’t appreciate my sincerity!’
Squeak! Lili shrieked, her voice echoing in my mind while her physical cries rang out shrilly in the quiet room. Ferrets were much louder than they looked.
“Alright, alright! I get it.”
‘Then, the Snuggly Baby—’
Before she could start her sales pitch again, I stood up abruptly. Startled by the sudden movement, Lili flinched before blinking her beady eyes at me.
‘Where are you going?’
“To find Arsen. Do you know where he is?”
‘I don’t, but this might help.’
As soon as she spoke, the Shop interface shimmered into existence before my eyes. After scrolling down a few times, one particular item caught the light.
[The “Show Me Everything” Map] Grade: E ~ A Price: 50 ~ 10,000 Coins Description: Displays the surrounding area centered on the user’s current location. Note: Due to height limitations, it does not display high ceilings, upper floors, or basements. It perfectly distinguishes between interior and exterior spaces.
‘If you use this, you’ll be able to find out where he is!’
“It’s just a map. Arsen’s name won’t show up on this…”
‘If it showed that, it would be a cheat item!’
I stared at Lili, exasperated, but she ignored my gaze and dove straight back into her pitch.
‘Arsen might not be on the map, but you can deduce where he is, right? Besides, you don’t know your way around this place. This map will fix that!’
“Fine, fine. I’ll buy it. But the price…”
The range was ridiculous. Fifty to ten thousand coins? That meant the final cost was a total gamble. I cut a side-eye toward Lili; she flailed her tiny paws in the air, looking flustered.
‘Look at the name! It’s the map that shows you everything! The price goes up depending on how many secrets a place holds, but usually, it’s quite cheap!’
“This is a Duke’s estate. I doubt it’ll be cheap.”
‘…! W-well, you never know! You have to take risks in life!’
“You really are a…”
‘A merchant?’
Lili tilted her head from side to side. She looked so pathologically cute that my resolve almost melted.
‘Oh, but don’t buy it right here. The map generates based on where you’re standing the moment you purchase it, so you should go to the right spot first.’
“The right spot, huh?”
I walked over to the window. Outside, the world was being stained a deep, burning crimson by the setting sun. If the Duke intended to enroll Arsen into the Knights, he wouldn’t be in this main building. If I went outside and bought it there, I might be able to pinpoint the Knight’s training grounds.
With Lili perched on my shoulder, I slipped out of the room. I hesitated for a moment upon seeing servants bustling through the hallways, but they merely offered quick bows before hurrying back to their tasks. I preferred it this way—being ignored was far more comfortable than being scrutinized.
I headed for the stairs to reach the ground floor. On the wall between the second and third floors, the large frame remained draped in cloth.
“He said he’d remove it, but it’s still here.”
‘Maybe he forgot?’
“That Duke? No way.”
I pictured his face—that sharp, calculating gaze that seemed to miss nothing, and a mouth that looked like it had never known how to smile. …Then again, precisely because he was like that, he might have forgotten. He probably deemed it an inefficient use of his memory. Yes, that sounded more like him.
I continued down the stairs, mentally grumbling about the Duke. A grand hall sat at the base of the stairs, leading out to the massive front doors. When I first arrived, they had felt like the gates of a fortress. Of course, a real castle gate would be grander, but these were imposing enough.
I threw my weight against the heavy wood, slipping through the gap and out into the cool evening air. The breeze felt like a caress against my skin.
“Haa…”
I hadn’t been confined for long, but the outside air tasted incredibly sweet.
“Alright. I should buy it here, right?”
“Squeak!”
With Lili’s confirmation, I reopened the Shop and scrolled down. Thanks to her recommendation, the item was still pulsing with light, making it easy to find. I tapped the purchase button, and a new pop-up appeared.
[Would you like to purchase? Y/N]
“Yes, I’ll buy it.”
[Locating purchaser…] […] [Reviewing current location…] […] [Calculating price…] […]
The map item took longer than the water balloons I’d bought before. It seemed it required a bit of processing power.
“I wonder what the damage will be…”
To be honest, a Duke’s estate was bound to have its share of secrets. Even without them, the sheer scale of the grounds and outbuildings would surely drive the price up. I only had 500 coins. Would it be enough?
[Price calculated. Current location: Exterior of the Federway Duchy.] [Price: 100 Coins.] [Would you like to pay?]
“Eh?”
Only 100 coins? I looked around. There were massive gardens, the stables, and various other structures in sight. How could all of this be worth only a hundred?
I squinted at the system window, and Lili leaned over my shoulder, mimicking my confusion.
“Is there a zero missing somewhere?”
‘The system doesn’t make mistakes like that!’
“I’m just saying, it’s a Duke’s estate. A map shouldn’t be this cheap.”
‘Maybe there just aren’t many secrets hidden here.’
“Is that it?”
Or was I being scammed? With a lingering doubt, I finalized the purchase. A piece of parchment appeared out of thin air with a soft pop. It hovered in the void for a second before I grabbed it, and as if waiting for my touch, ink began to bleed across the surface, forming a map.
“Let’s see… This large part in the middle must be the mansion.”
The main house took up a staggering amount of space—nearly a quarter of the entire map. I should have walked further away before buying it. Feeling a bit cheated, I glared at Lili, who sheepishly avoided my eyes.
“Fine. Complaining won’t get me a refund anyway. Speaking of which, can I—”
‘Absolutely not.’
Lili was suddenly looking at me with an indignant expression, her previous guilt forgotten. I reached out and poked her tiny nose.
“Squeak!”
She covered her nose with her cotton-ball paws and dove into the thick of my hair. Ignoring her, I studied the map and began to turn in circles to orient myself.
“If I go straight this way, it leads to the exit… and that’s just the garden in front. Maybe that’s why it was so cheap.”
I began to skirt the perimeter of the mansion. To my left, the rose garden sent a delicate fragrance drifting on the wind. The estate was so vast it didn’t even need designated walking paths; the whole place was a park. Despite my earlier mood, my steps felt lighter.
As I rounded the back of the massive building, I spotted a square structure in the distance—the same one marked in the top-left corner of my map. On paper, it was just a simple square next to an even smaller one, but in person, it looked significant.
“I probably don’t need to go that way…”
However, since most of the outbuildings were clustered behind the main house, that seemed the most likely place to find Arsen. I walked past the rear of the mansion and looked further out. Beyond the buildings lay a large lake, and behind that, a dense, dark forest.
“What is that…?”
I squinted. A signpost was planted at the edge of the woods.
“Probably a ‘No Trespassing’ sign.”
Not wanting to wander too far into the unknown, I turned toward the cluster of buildings on the top-right of the map. There was one large building flanked by two smaller ones. Beside them lay a wide, open clearing. My intuition told me that was the training ground.
“Arsen must be there.”
Lili, who had been quiet for a while, poked her head out from my hair. I pointed toward the buildings, and she sniffed the air, her nose twitching. It seemed to be a purely animal instinct rather than a magical one, as she simply nodded.
‘He did say he was recruiting him into the Knights.’
Lili’s confirmation was all I needed. I set off toward the training grounds with renewed purpose. Pail, the Duke’s personal knight, had been kind to me. Even if I ran into him, I doubted I’d be in any real trouble.
