Back within the heavily fortified, oak-paneled private office of the Guild Master, the atmosphere was thick with a mixture of absolute awe and bureaucratic terror.
The pale, bespectacled assistant practically crawled into the room, carrying a heavily reinforced, crimson velvet-lined mahogany chest. His hands were shaking so violently that the heavy brass latches on the box were rattling like chattering teeth. He placed it onto the desk between Guild Master Gideon Vance and Shin'ya, stepping back immediately as if the chest contained a live explosive.
"O-One thousand... High-Grade Platinum Coins," the assistant stammered, wiping a sheet of cold sweat from his forehead. "Converts exactly to a flat one hundred thousand standard Gold Coins, Sir Arata. This is the largest solo payout issued by the Oakhaven branch in the last fifteen years."
Gideon Vance leaned back in his massive leather chair, crossing his scarred arms as he stared at the fourteen-year-old boy sitting opposite him. "A fair price for keeping a disaster-class titan asleep and saving this entire city from becoming a structural sinkhole. You earned every single piece, kid."
Shin'ya's face remained completely deadpan, a mask of unbothered, stone-cold professionalism. But internally? His inner anime-nerd was doing absolute cartwheels, screaming in pure, unadulterated capitalist joy.
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND GOLD COINS! Shin'ya's inner voice roared, his eyes sparkling behind his mental calculations. The Panther quest gave me forty-five thousand, and now this! A normal civilian family can live like royalty on twenty gold a month! I am officially a multi-millionaire in fantasy money! I can buy a mansion! I can buy a lifetime supply of premium glazed skewers!
"Do you require an armored guild escort to transport the chest to your vault, Sir Arata?" the assistant asked anxiously. "A sum of this magnitude will undoubtedly attract every high-level thief guild within a three-mile radius."
"No need," Shin'ya said smoothly.
He rose from his seat, walked up to the heavy mahogany chest, and casually rested his hand near the hilt of the pitch-black Ketsugai sheathed at his hip. Instantly, the dark blade responded to his intent. A ripple of pitch-black liquid shadow bled from his feet, climbing up the desk and completely enveloping the massive, heavy chest. A fraction of a second later, the shadow snapped back down, and the entire fortune vanished straight into his sub-space shadow storage like it had never existed.
The assistant's jaw dropped so low it looked like it was going to unhinge completely. He stared blankly at the empty wooden table, his soul practically leaving his body. Even Gideon Vance raised a subtle, highly impressed eyebrow at the sheer efficiency of the "magic."
Shin'ya picked up the official parchment receipt from the desk, scanning the itemized breakdown. Suddenly, his deadpan mask twitched. His eyes locked onto a tiny line of fine print at the bottom: [Administrative Handling & Mana Sensor Maintenance Fee: 2%].
Two Percent?! Shin'ya's inner gamer instantly went completely feral with rage. That's two thousand gold coins! Two thousand gold just for stamping a piece of paper and checking 'mana sensors'?! I don't even HAVE a mana core! I am literally a mana-less fraud carrying a parasitic sword, and the fantasy IRS is still charging me a magic tax?! Even in an Isekai, I cannot escape the clutches of corrupt bureaucracy! This world is lawless!
Squeezing the receipt into a tight ball, he stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets, coughing slightly to clear his throat. "The payment is satisfactory. I'll be taking my leave."
He turned toward the door, his eyes naturally scanning the corners of the room. He frowned slightly under his hood. "By the way... where did Sera go? I figured she'd be waiting in the lobby to do her usual double-thumbs-up routine."
Gideon Vance let out a low grunt, tossing a stray piece of parchment into his trash bin. "The girl? She left the second your boot crossed the threshold into the Northern Catacombs. The moment you stepped into the Sound-Eater Miasma, she turned around and walked out of the ruins without saying a single word to anyone."
Shin'ya froze, his hand resting on the brass doorknob. "She left immediately?"
"Yeah," Gideon replied, squinting slightly. "Thought she was just too terrified to watch you descend into an S-rank death trap. Why? Did you not send her on an errand?"
"No," Shin'ya muttered, his mind suddenly hitting a massive, unexpected gear-shift. "I didn't."
He opened the door and walked out of the guild headquarters, stepping onto the bustling streets of Oakhaven. The bright afternoon sun beat down on his face, but his hyper-analytical, over-thinking brain was already spinning into a spiral of wild, anime-fueled conspiracy theories.
Wait a minute, his inner voice whispered in a sudden panic. Sera left the exact millisecond I went underground? Why? She was completely dedicated to tracking my forty-minute sleep loops just an hour prior! Did she finally realize I'm a completely reckless fraud and quit on the spot? Or... wait. Don't tell me she's actually a high-level secret agent from a mysterious rival faction, and she used my deployment into an S-rank dungeon as a distraction to execute a shadow-operation somewhere else in the city?! Is my hype woman secretly a legendary assassin?!
The more he thought about it, the more his gamer brain convinced him that his innocent, energetic personal maid was actually a hidden boss character.
By the time he reached the entrance of his luxury tavern, his stamina-fried body was completely exhausted from the mental gymnastics. He trudged up the grand carpeted staircase, reached his suite door, and pulled out his key.
If she cleared out her room and stole my spare pillows, I'm going to be so upset, he thought, Shin'ya still hold the brass key tightly on his hands. His mind already thinking of a Twenty step tactical retreat if, just if, Sera turned out to be What Shin'ya some kind of rival assassin.