Three days had passed since Veralyn started working as administrative staff at the guild.
I should have considered this the best possible outcome. She had a stable job. A steady income. And most importantly, she was far from danger. No monsters. No dungeons. No chance of coming home wounded, or not coming home at all.
By all logic, I should have been at ease.
By all logic.
And yet here I was, sitting in the corner of the Ulbert Hunter Guild's first floor, draped in a dark robe with the hood pulled low over my face. Far enough from the reception desk to avoid suspicion, but close enough to keep my eyes on a certain silver-haired woman buried behind a mountain of paperwork.
From my seat, I watched her work. Her hands moved with a growing confidence, stamping documents, scanning forms, occasionally explaining something to whatever hunter stood fidgeting before her desk. Her expression was its usual blank canvas, but her posture had loosened since the first day. Next to her, Mira leaned in now and then to whisper something, drawing the faintest nod from Veralyn.
She looked fine.
Better than fine, really. She looked like she belonged there. Natural. As if sitting behind a desk and wrangling paperwork was something she had been doing her whole life.
So why couldn't I leave?
I knew the answer. I was painfully aware that what I was doing fell squarely into "stalker behavior deserving of arrest." A hooded man camped in the corner of a guild, staring at a woman for hours. If someone filed a report, I would have absolutely no defense.
And yet. I stayed.
"Still worried about Vera?"
The voice drifted from across the table.
Sitting opposite me was another woman in an equally ridiculous robe. Her hood sat a little loose, letting a few strands of golden-blonde hair slip free at the sides. Blue eyes peered at me from beneath the shadows, half amused, half pitying.
Serena Valenrose.
Disguised just as foolishly as I was.
Under normal circumstances, we held our meetings at her house or mine. Revenue reports, business expansions, new contracts, the sort of things discussed over tea at a proper desk with neatly organized documents.
Not at a beer-stained wooden table in the back of a hunter guild.
But I had moved our meeting here because, well, I was worried. And Serena, bless her, tagged along without pressing too hard. Whether out of understanding or a morbid curiosity to see just how far her friend's foolishness could go, I couldn't say.
"No," I said flatly. "I just don't want her causing problems."
Serena arched an eyebrow. "Problems?"
"Yes. Like losing her temper with a hunter and answering with her fists."
"Huh?" Serena gave me the look of someone debating whether I was serious or clinically insane. "That excuse is pathetic, Recci. Just be honest with me."
I could feel her stare boring through the hood. The same stare she'd leveled at me in the garden that day. The one that said, I've known you since we were kids chasing each other through wheat fields, that poker face doesn't fool me.
I chose not to engage.
"Drop it," I said, plucking a sheet of paper from the stack she'd brought. "Back to business."
Serena held her gaze for two more seconds, a sly smile tugging at her lips, then finally relented. She produced several parchment scrolls from inside her robe and unfurled them across the table.
"Fine," she said, and just like that, her entire demeanor shifted. The teasing girl vanished. In her place sat the head of the largest business empire in the known world. The switch never failed to impress me, even after witnessing it hundreds of times. "First, this month's revenue from Hartwell."
She tapped a column of numbers on the first parchment.
"Southern shipments have stabilized. Maritime trade revenue is up seven percent from last month. The distribution warehouse in Hartwell is almost at capacity, so we'll need to look into expansion."
I nodded, scanning the figures. "And the bank branch on the northern border?"
"Still under construction. But the lines are already forming even though the building isn't finished. People up there can't wait."
"Makes sense. Word's already spread through traveling merchants about how banking works. Storing your money without worrying about bandits, that's a pretty radical idea for people who've been hiding coins under their mattresses their whole lives."
Serena laughed softly. "You know, Recci, sometimes your ideas still catch me off guard. Where do you come up with all this?"
"Intuition," I said, straight-faced.
"Remarkably specific and thoroughly detailed intuition," she fired back, her tone making it clear she didn't buy a single syllable.
I let the comment slide and moved to the second parchment.
"How's the printing division?"
"Book sales are climbing again," Serena said, eyes brightening. "Romance novels especially. The latest series, the one about the prince and the village girl, has gone through three reprints in two weeks."
Romance novels.
I went quiet for a beat.
Romance novels about a prince and a commoner. That series had been flying off the shelves since day one. I never quite understood the appeal, but as long as the numbers held, there was no reason to pull it.
"Keep it going," I said, shoving the thought aside. "If it sells, it sells."
Serena nodded and pressed on. We covered the shopping center expansion into neighboring kingdoms, negotiations with local nobles angling for partnerships, and plans to open a new trade route along the eastern coast.
Throughout it all, my gaze kept drifting toward the front desk. Veralyn was still at it. A hulking hunter stood before her, looking distinctly uncomfortable as the silver-haired woman behind the counter calmly informed him, for the third time, by the look of it, that he'd filled out his form wrong.
I almost smiled. Almost.
"Recci."
Serena's voice yanked me back.
"You're staring again," she said, deadpan.
"I was admiring the guild's architecture," I replied without missing a beat. "Fascinating structural design."
"Fascinating architecture that happens to have silver hair and is currently stamping documents."
"Moving on."
Serena smirked but didn't push it. She rolled up the finished parchments and drew out one final scroll.
"Last item," she said. "This one isn't a business report. Think of it as a proposal."
I took the parchment and unrolled it. Inside was a breakdown of new hires needed across the Crescentia Group's various divisions. A list of vacant positions, requirements, and handwritten notes beside each entry, things like "candidate cannot read," "candidate cannot count," "candidate misspelled their own name."
I stared at that list for a long time.
"Serena," I said at last.
"Hm?"
"What percentage of this kingdom's population can read and write?"
She considered it. "Among nobles, nearly all. Wealthy merchants, maybe half. Commoners..." A slow shake of her head. "Less than ten percent. And that's only in the big cities."
Less than ten percent.
The number rattled around in my skull. I thought of what Mira had told Veralyn, that it was the first time in five years anyone had walked in and actually been able to read the application form. And the list in my hands told the exact same story across every branch of the Crescentia Group.
In this world, children born to common families didn't go to school. They spent their youth working alongside their parents. Tilling fields. Hauling crates at the market. Scrubbing floors in noble estates. Education was a privilege reserved for those lucky enough to be born with the right bloodline.
Just like the medieval era I'd read about in my old life.
I had already reshaped so much of this world. Banking. Printing. Shopping centers. Trade networks. All of it had transformed the economy, changed how people lived, what they ate, what they wore.
But none of it had changed how they thought.
Because to change the way people think, you need the one thing this world had never had.
Education for everyone.
"Serena," I said, and something in my voice must have been different.
She caught it immediately. Her posture straightened. Her eyes sharpened. She knew this tone. It was the tone that always came right before I dropped an idea that would leave her staring at me, speechless, for a solid ten seconds.
"What if," I said quietly, "we built a school?"
Serena blinked.
"A school?"
"A public school. Not a magic academy that only takes the talented. Not private tutors for noble brats. A school that's open to everyone. Commoners. Farmers' kids. Merchants' kids. Anyone who wants to learn how to read, write, and count."
Silence settled between us.
Serena stared at me. Ten full seconds without blinking, right on schedule.
Then her eyes went wide.
"Recci," she breathed, "that's..."
She trailed off. Her lips moved soundlessly, running numbers in her head. Costs. Locations. Teaching staff. Long-term returns. I could practically see the gears spinning behind those blue eyes at a speed only Serena Valenrose was capable of.
"...insane," she finished.
"I know."
"The costs would be staggering."
"I know."
"There's zero guarantee of short-term profit."
"I know."
"And the nobles will fight it. An educated populace is harder to keep in line."
"I know that, too."
Serena held my gaze. Then, slowly, like the sun breaking through clouds, that grin I knew so well spread across her face. The same grin from ten years ago, the first time I'd explained the concept of banking. The grin of someone who had just discovered a challenge worth living for.
"When do we start?" she asked.
I lifted the cold coffee to my lips and glanced one last time toward the reception desk. Veralyn was patiently walking a hunter through his form, guiding his hand with a gentleness I never would have guessed she had in her.
"Soon," I said. "This world has let people walk without legs for long enough."