酷视

Chapter 31: How many borgars is that?

Only this metallic noise broke through the otherwise silent insides as I continued to sort the coins into different types and then stack them up in small towers.

"Seven gold coins, twenty-three silver ones, seventeen bronze," I muttered once I completed the task and leaned back in the chair to adore my finished works.

The coins that used to freely explore the insides of the pouch were now neatly stacked in a single row and one, three, and two columns for gold, silver, and bronze ones.

"Are they worth a lot of burgers?" Fay asked, her soft voice becoming a beacon that guided my thoughts back to reality.

\'Right, her sense of value might be... warped a little,\' I thought, raising my eyes to the girl for a short moment before moving them down, back to the coins.

First, I grabbed the stack of the seven gold ones and moved them aside.

"Those are worth quite a lot," I claimed before reaching for the only other item that I allowed to be on the desk during this procedure.

The weight.

I first turned it on before using one of the few coins I knew the precise weight off to make sure it was scaled properly. And then, with quite a dose of anxiety, I moved the small tower made from the thick gold ducats over to the weight.

The numbers shot up, then slowed down but continued to climb...

"Thirty-seven grams," I whispered while looking at the numbers that finally showed and then flashed up on the scale\'s screen to signify the weighing was now completed. "So, about five grams a piece? With a small margin of error of two grams between all of those... They are slightly heavier than I expected."

The coins from another world were nothing like the coinage I was used to in the modern world. They were far from uniform, with chipped edges on some and minting mistakes on others. In the world they came from, that likely didn\'t affect their value, but in here, where I could only sell them as raw gold...

"One gram should be around a hundred bucks when sold legally. Taking into account the fee the mob will take..." I took a moment to calculate the possibilities. "In total, those should net us about two and a half grand."

For someone like me, who used to live off pennies I managed to save here and there, this was one hell of a fortune. A treasure that would allow me to buy enough food to last a few months if not an entire year!

But I could use this kind of logic no more. Not when I had another soul to feed by my side. And definitely not when I was trying to show her all sorts of pleasures that money could buy in this world.

"Burgers!" Fay spoke out as if to remind me of the one truly important thing. "How many burgers is that?" she asked once she saw me turn my eyes towards her.

"Those simple ones are one buck each, so..." Suddenly, I hesitated. And on the part that I never considered to be problematic at that!

But how exactly was I supposed to explain the meaning of twenty-five hundred to Fay? How could someone who only ever needed to count stuff up to a few pieces comprehend the meaning of a number that big?

\'If I\'m right, then she will be able to understand the true meaning of over two thousand as well as I, or any other average human, could comprehend the scale of the distance between stars and galaxies out in space...\'

In theory, I could understand the meaning of lightyears and the mind-boggling distance they represented. But when it came to actually imagining that distance that one could fit several solar systems in with loads of space to spare...

"If you stacked ten rows of ten burgers each... and then made a total of ten layers of it, you would get a bit less than half of what this money\'s worth."

In the end, referring back to what Fay could understand was my only shot at conveying the meaning of this huge number.

"Ten rows of ten burgers..." Fay muttered before freezing for a second. Then, her eyes darted to the side, where a huge number of leftovers from yesterday awaited their fate in her lovely mouth.

Fay didn\'t ask any further questions. She dashed to where I dropped my bags yesterday, pulling out every last burger she could find before stacking them into a neat, orderly row.

Sadly, as much as I wanted to spoil her, I didn\'t expect this kind of development, leaving Fay with only about fifteen burgers of all kinds to play with.

Unable to focus on my task, I turned my eyes and watched how she created a single row of burgers... Only to then step away and lower her eyelids, as if she wasn\'t really sure whether she wanted to keep her eyes open or closed.

Then, as challenging as it was to look for such fine details, I saw her eyes move first to the side and then up.

\'Don\'t tell me she can actually extrapolate the size into all three dimensions in just her imagination alone...\' I thought while my eyes turned wide.

This wasn\'t a feat someone without extensive education would be normally able to achieve with such ease. Even with education, this was an ability that only a few had, as proven by the extreme lack of passing applicants for the local architecture course.

"Okay, Fay gets it!" this darn foxy announced, turning round to flash her wide smile, as if to rub the difference between her species and the one I belonged to.

"Good girl," I replied, putting on a slightly uneasy smile while reaching out to pat her head.

This happened all perfectly naturally as if that\'s how we had been around each other for years, rather than this being our only third day together.

My fingers brushed through Fay\'s soft, fluffy hair while I devoured the sight of a satisfied smile that blossomed on her lips as she closed her eyes and allowed herself to enjoy the caress.

"That\'s how many burgers we could buy with just those few gold coins alone," I repeated the very core of what I was actually doing with those coins. "I believe I will be able to sell the rest of those coins for about as much," I added, already equipped with the plan on how to turn this relatively cheap silver and bronze into far more than those coins were worth just by the virtue of the materials they were made off.

"Trouble?" Fay asked, only to furrow her burrows, as she herself realized the word she used didn\'t really fit the situation. "No, not trouble..." Stuck on the problem, Fay retreated a step and lowered her eyes, focusing so much her thumb involuntarily moved up only for her to start biting down at its nail...

\'Gosh...\' I rolled my eyes before turning them away, too scared of what would become of me if I was allowed to observe this adorable creature any further.

"Fay could get a lot of burgers," she said, once again using a slightly more advanced form of speech than usual. "But Fay can\'t. Fay... Is Fay right?"

The girl looked up, staring at me with unusual intensity. Judging by the few drops of sweat that now decorated her forehead like drops of flowery rose, she forced me to realize just how big of an improvement using a nearly proper way of talking was for her.

\'I already grew to ignore it... But she\'s literally figuring out a whole damn language just by how it sounds...\' I thought, gritting my teeth, undeniably jealous of her talents.

And out of this jealousy, a simple realization formed.

Regardless of how attractive and damn adorable she was... how could someone like me ever become worthy of her? And what would happen once I did what I promised to achieve and turn her into a quasi-modern person? With the leverage of my knowledge and experience gone, would Fay have any reasons to stick with me?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"You are right, Fay. We can\'t spend this money on just burgers. Not only because there is a lot more great food that I want you to taste," I spoke with a small smile that quickly turned sour as my thoughts moved from what I wanted to what I actually had to do. "But we need to prepare for our return to your world. And that\'s exactly what I wanted to talk with you about, today."