Book 1
Chapter 21: Reputation Inflation: The Toilet Paper & The Tracker
The Temple's gilded spires still glimmered in the distance as the party trudged down the mountain path and into the town clustered at its base.
The whispers had already taken root. Pilgrims who saw the boy strut past the sacred wards spoke as though a prophecy had been fulfilled. Their words scattered down the mountain trails, carried by merchants, and warped in every retelling.
What had been sacrilege within the temple walls became miracle outside them.
Pilgrims shuffled past incense stalls, their prayers dissolving into the racket of hawkers shouting. Holy charms dangled beside roasted skewers. Half the banners already bore Ken's smirking face—hastily painted and unmistakably his.
Narutama slowed, as if the sudden leap from sacred silence to commercial frenzy was itself an insult.
Ken, meanwhile, looked around with the wide-eyed wonder of a man discovering the commodified species of himself.
The Hero's face was everywhere. Ken's grinning mug smiled down from banners and awnings. Children squealed and ran with paper masks of his face.
An old merchant shouted that his "Ken-brand cabbages" came with a guarantee of heroically fart-free digestion.
And then, the pinnacle: Ken-brand toilet paper. It came in rolls the size of wagon wheels, his signature stamped on every sheet, his face grinning on the packaging like a saint of sanitation.
A vendor shoved a sample into Narutama's hands. "For the hero's friend! Wipe with greatness!"
Narutama stared at the paper. He tried to hand it back. The vendor just shook his head and pointed to a sign: "All returns subject to a 50 Quid restocking fee."
Ken waved a fresh roll of "Kenroll" toilet paper, beaming. "This is it, Fluffy! My legacy!"
Fluffy tilted his head, his wide eyes full of genuine curiosity. "But... isn't this for cleaning?" he asked simply. "Why does it have a face?"
"Because it's heroic cleaning! You're cleaning with a hero's greatness!"
"Is it more clean if it has a face?" Fluffy asked. "I think the one without a face is also very clean."
Ken opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He blinked, momentarily baffled by the innocent logic.
---
Ken loved it. He flexed, he posed, he autographed an entire stack of rolls while crying about "posterity."
"It's about hygiene," he said, radiating sincerity. "And heroism. Heroic hygiene."
Narutama, however, looked like he'd bitten into spoiled rice. "Fame without merit is emptiness," he muttered.
The crowd began chanting. "Kenroll! Kenroll! Kenroll!" In seconds, the town looked like it had been redecorated by a drunken festival committee armed only with novelty paper. Vendors leaned in on the frenzy with:
· Ken-brand sandals ("Walk heroically, smell questionably"),
· Ken-brand spoon ("For heroic stews only"),
· and Ken-brand mosquito nets ("Even pests bow to Ken").
Ken, basking in it all, declared: "Behold! Even hygiene itself has knelt before my legend!"
Ichiban, holding one roll like a holy relic, whispered reverently, "Soft. Two-ply. Just like his heart."
Narutama walked away, muttering under his breath.
---
Laluna's Ledger Nails
Away from the market roar, Laluna sat cross-legged on a town shrine's step. Her rune-nails scratched faintly against one another, their glowing lines flickering. The etchings weren't recording sales; they were logging the energy.
"Side hustle?" Narutama asked, because he could identify a side hustle even through sarcasm.
"Field research," Laluna said, not quite looking up. "Which is what adults call side hustles when they have a license." She tapped one nail; the etching pulsed. "Every time someone cheers, Ken's ambient Mone spikes. Every time they buy a roll, it… shifts."
The rise of Ken's fame did not flow clean. It rippled, bent, and folded into itself like a corrupted ledger. For every toilet roll sold, her nails marked an interest spike. For every cheer, a debt shadow.
Ken signed a baby's sock. The baby sneezed. Confetti fell for no known reason. The rune at Laluna's thumb did not dim. She glanced at Ken, haloed by banners of his own face. Her lips pressed thin.
"Fame is too fast. Fame this cheap always costs something." Her nails itched.
The runes weren't just marking spikes; they were logging transactions. The ledger was live.
---
Narutama Against the Neon
Ken's parade of endorsements marched past him like a fever dream. Narutama stood stiff in the middle of the street, his hand on his katana. Children swarmed him, begging for signed Kenroll paper. He shoved it back, face dark. "Fame without merit," he muttered, "is emptiness."
A little girl in a paper Ken mask tugged Narutama's gauntlet.
"Are you the one who holds the bags?"
Narutama looked at her, then at Ken, and felt a familiar heat behind his ribs. He crouched to the girl's level. "I'm the one who keeps the lines straight," he said gently. "What's your name?"
"Shika," she said. "Grandma says heroes don't make messes."
"Grandma is wise," Narutama said, and saw the old woman beyond her, face pinched, a small packet of medicine in her hand and not enough Quid for it.
He stood, took out his own pouch, and made the difference without announcing it. The apothecary tried to refuse; Narutama insisted with a politeness that is, in some countries, a duel. The old woman bowed to the wrong hero.
"Thank you, Hanzori-sama," she said, even though he was six stalls away, drawing hearts on napkins.
As she bowed, Narutama felt a slight vibration from the scabbard at his side, a subtle sign that the sword only responded when treated with respect. Narutama swallowed the taste of metal. His katana, sheathed at his side, remained as dull as a cloudy mirror.
The market did not hear his words; they were too busy trying to out-shout one another in Ken's name.
---
Pigaro's Footnote on Fame
On the town shrine's step, Pigaro wheezed out a single, trenchant truth: "Fame comes with a price tag. Every cheer is just another bill to pay. Nothing's free. It never is."
Ken didn't hear; he was too busy signing his face onto sandal straps.
The crowd didn't hear; they were too busy chanting his name like a hymn.
---
By evening, the square was a long smear of trampled paper and confetti. Vendors counted Quid and promises. Sprites collected their own tips with professional guiltlessness.
At the tea stall, Narutama finished the last of the cold brew and stood. He bowed to the old woman, who bowed to the wrong man again, and Narutama did not correct her. He adjusted his scabbard, which held its silence.
Ken finally stumbled to Laluna and Narutama's table like a man who had heroed through a rainstorm of small adoration.
"Tomorrow?" Ken said, clapping Narutama on the shoulder. "We do towels."
"No," Laluna and Pigaro said at the same time.
Ken laughed, assuming they were kidding. He had lived a very lucky life. But Laluna's rune-nails glowed one shade darker. Narutama's grip on his sword grew tighter. And Pigaro, wheezing, sneezed again.
It's another quiet line in the cosmic account. Ken's smile stretched wider. The debt ledger ticked, quietly, in the background.
---
A Final Transaction
Laluna sat cross-legged with her notebook, its pages filled with flickering, half-formed runes. Pigaro was perched beside her, letting out a series of small, wheezy sneezes that smelled faintly of scorched parchment and ozone.
Laluna tapped a rune on her nail, and its light cast a faint glow on Pigaro's chest. "Fascinating," she murmured. "Your sneezes aren't random. They're a precise metric of the Mone corruption. The volume, the frequency… it's all data."
Pigaro let out a particularly long, rattling wheeze. "I'm not data," he rasped. "I'm a tragic emotional support animal for a walking liability."
Laluna wrote something down. "Your allergies are our best sensor," she said. "They're more reliable than my rune-nails. A true transaction in a world of false ones." She gave him a small, precise pat on the head, the kind you'd give a good machine. "Thank you for your service."
Pigaro managed a wheezy, sad sigh. "I'd rather be a hero's mount than an overdrawn balance sheet's collateral."