Vol 3 Chapter 40 – Boyhood: Autumn at Thirteen・Part 18

Summer break had just ended, and if you’ve never felt your heart leap because a girl came back looking like a whole new person, feel free to stone me.

“Hey, my friend… uh, it’s embarrassing, so quit staring at me so hard, will you?”

When dawn came and I saw Mika again, unrecognizable felt like the bargain-bin version of what had happened to her.

The basics were the same: lustrous black hair catching halos of sunlight, a perfectly balanced, handsome face unblemished.

But her nose now had a gentle roundness, her lips were fuller and dewy, her knees and shoulders had taken on a feminine contour, and her waist tapered sharply—she was unmistakably a girl our age.

“S-sorry… it’s just… wow.”

“I don’t think I’ve changed that much, though.”

She—yes, she now—fidgeted with the slightly longer, less-wavy hair, cheeks flushing.

If this counts as “unchanged,” every woman alive has the right to throw something at us.

Back when she was androgynous, the mystery made her beautiful; now she radiated pure girlish cuteness. The tomboy edge that once made you second-guess her was gone—this was wholesome, not dangerously charming, and that was somehow even worse.

Flustered by my unchanged-yet-completely-changed friend, I accepted the breakfast she’d brought. Straight from the healer, it was only a drab bowl of barley gruel with a tiny bottle of fish sauce. Frankly, unsatisfying…

“Complaining won’t help, Erich. You were out for six days. Stuff your belly too fast and your stomach will panic and toss it right back.”

Quoting the healer, she shoved the tray into my hands. Right—same thing that shaved-rat guy and that Toyotomi dude supposedly did. Bedsores and muscle loss you can fend off, but the stomach still forgets how to work. Convenient world, yet inconvenient.

“Even I only got the green light for solid food this morning. Endure it.”

Did puberty strike at the same time as the gender swap? Her clear boy-soprano had shifted to a higher, unmistakably girlish register. I’d half-expected a midway look no matter the switch, but nope.

Can’t wait to see the male version—sure to be the kind of pretty boy who makes every lady look twice. Absolutely cannot let Lady Reisen meet her now; giving that lady two—maybe three—of her favorite vices at once could spark an entire faculty war.

“…My friend, staring at me won’t make the porridge vanish.”

“Eh? Oh—right, sorry…”

She’d called me on the gawking. I hurriedly took the spoon. The stuff tasted like nothing, but I couldn’t stay shocked forever; there’s another surprise coming in two months, and we’ll still be friends after that.

Besides, I’m the one who said it—Mika is still Mika.

The bland meal vanished in no time. By the way, before she woke, I’d shoved the cursed sword under the bed—yes, the headache-y mental chatter was awful, but I ignored it—so no sanity-draining reunion event today.

“Apparently we have to stay put for another ten days.”

After clearing the dishes, Mika sat on the neighboring bed. Getting up can fool people into thinking they’re fine, she said, but the body sometimes forces itself online to avoid lie still and die mode. A relic from when humans were more primal—back then, being bedridden equaled death. Makes sense.

“Ten days in this incense-soaked room… sounds miserable.”

“Can’t be helped. They’re burning it for us. It’s medicine for the lungs.”

“This is medicine?”

“Uh-huh. You can’t smear ointment on a throat or windpipe, right? So they mix a potion into the air and have us breathe it.”

I’d assumed it was just a magical mood piece. Mages love decorating their lairs with showy gimmicks; even Agrippina stuffs her workshop with garden contraptions that make no sense.

Expensive-sounding, though. How deep did Lord Faige dig into his purse? He’s not the type to wave a bill afterward, but the total still makes me break out in a cold sweat.

Need to thank him later…

“Oh, right—I almost forgot. A letter came for you.”

Remembering suddenly, she produced an envelope from the bedside stand. Embossed flourishes, gold-leaf patterns, sealed with wax, and addressed in impeccable shorthand to Erich-dono, Königstuhl Manor.

Only one person is meticulous and rich enough to send something that costs a laborer’s day wage for the envelope alone. The silver-leaf crest on the wax proclaimed untouchable noble birth.

A reward from Lord Faige, no doubt.

I eagerly slit it open, and—

[Snap!]

A pop of air escaped. I glimpsed a flash of lingering magic; probably a curse for anyone but the addressee.

“You look awfully happy opening that. A love letter? No, guess not.”

“Even better, my friend. You’re involved too—it’s payment for that adventure.”

I patted the bed, inviting her over. Curious, she trotted up. When her shoulder brushed mine it felt softer than before, and her scent—always pleasant—had subtly changed.

Okay, calm down. Gender shift doesn’t make it legal, brain. Mika is a friend.

“Something wrong?”

She peered at me. I said it was nothing—likely obvious it wasn’t—and pulled the contents out.

…There were so many pages!!

“Wow, that’s court language in the Honchō style.”

Just as she said, the letter was written in the ultra-formal dialect reserved for the imperial family—exquisitely delicate, fiendishly indirect, impossible to parse unless you know that the high society of the Triple Empire signals respect by the grammar itself. Reading it should not require a skill check, yet here we are.

“Uh, this usage here—wait, what?”

“Hm… how does this rhetorical link work? Judging from context…”

“No, Mika, that clashes with the subject. Look, if you read it that way—”

“Ugh, then maybe it continues from the previous clause…”

Foreheads almost touching, we wrestled with the sentences, all the earlier awkwardness gone. Time spent as friends doesn’t just evaporate.

After half an hour of brain-wringing, two country kids cobbled together something vaguely coherent.

And all that work? Page one was seasonal greetings, a brief self-intro, and a recap of events. Are you kidding me—how many pages are left?

“Huh?”

“Oh… this is…”

Turning the next sheet, we found normal, plain Imperial. Not even polite court speech—just straightforward prose that trimmed the fluff, cut the extra self-intro, and got to the point: wishing us well, telling us not to fret about the medical bills, apologizing that a summons to the provincial capital kept him from visiting.

Finally, a postscript:

Keep the Honchō page as proof of our exploits for your lord or professor, he wrote. It’s tough to read, so I’ve inserted an easy, colloquial version—don’t forget to keep that instead.

We traded looks, glanced at the letter again, then together stared at the ceiling…

“MAKE THIS THE FIRST PAGE!!”

Perfect harmony, perfect rage.

【Tips】One theory for the baroque complexity of court language is that it helps smoke out foreign spies. A single wrong word betrays inexperience, and even flawless disguises crumble if you can’t mimic the speech.

After a joint tirade questioning why this linguistic nightmare exists, we felt a little better. Who actually benefits from needing a decoder ring just to speak? Maybe being a Triple-Empire noble is a lifelong penalty game.

Sorting the normal pages from the court pages, two tiny envelopes fell out—like some Far-East nesting-doll trick.

“To the Young and Valiant Swordsman-dono?”

“This one says To the Promising Mage Candidate-dono.”

We swapped for the best fit—a flimsy assignment, courage had nothing to do with it—and opened them to reveal a gold-stamped slip.

“What’s this?”

“A bill of exchange, I think… the professor sent me on errands using those. Issued by the Merchant Guild—solid.”

Ah, a classic draft. The issuer tells a third party to pay; safer than carrying cash.

If I take this to the guild, they’ll swap it for coin, then settle later with Lord Faige. Coins are cumbersome, heavy, and once stolen, hard to prove ownership—yeah, I remember a TV ad like that from my previous life.

Hence bills of exchange—one sheet can equal tens of thousands of gold coins—are a godsend on dangerous roads. Even in the well-patrolled Empire, bandits exist.

In short, Lord Faige just handed us pocket money. Nobles with cash really are built different.

“Let’s see, the amount is… 10—”

Wait. Did I just see something weird?

“Hey, friend.”

“Yes, friend? I’m seriously debating whether to borrow eyedrops right now.”

Funny—you read my mind.

Kidding aside, the currency unit looks wrong. Not as, not libra, but… drachma?

Drachma—gold coins. The highest denomination in the land. Unlike that sword-cutting stall that pulled the “ten gold coins” trick, this is ten genuine drachma coins. Ten.

My blood ran cold rather than excited.

Think about it: roughly two years of my relatively well-off household’s income. For an average modern family that’s four to eight million yen.

Sure, big allowances are nice, but if Grandpa stuffed that many bills in a New Year envelope you’d be baffled. Even the boldest doting elders don’t go this far. Do adventurers ever see this kind of payout? What next—should I fetch a dragon’s head?

My poor student friend, given the same note, clutched her head, neck practically twisting under emotions that had nowhere to go.

I’m a small-timer, too—haven’t touched gold since the festival, and the one drachma Agrippina promised was earmarked for living expenses. Now it’s ten times that…?

Dizziness hit. Six days in bed and they slam this on me. Happy, sure, but confusion wins; I can’t process it.

“Right—nap time.”

“…Yes, a nap sounds perfect.”

Before our brains boiled over, we opted for complete reality escape. We’ll deal with it when calmer. Thank-you letters later. One drachma into long-term savings, the rest toward Eliza’s tuition.

Too tired to care, we crawled into the same bed and conked out.

Later, rummaging the letter again, I’d faint solo once more.

Why in the world did Lord Faige transfer ownership of that book to me instead of the client…?

【Tips】In this era, the wealth gap dwarfs modern times. Lord Faige pockets several dozen drachma for a single manuscript, Agrippina drops over a hundred a year on books, and Lady Reisen blows two hundred drachma just on cosplay outfits for Erich and Eliza.