One Night in the Suite: Results

"Twenty-five gold coins."

In the morning, Haku-san plopped a coin-stuffed pouch down in front of me with a heavy thud.

… Excuse me?

"This is the value of one night in the suite. Twenty-five gold coins per person per night, so fifty coins for two."

… One copper coin equals one hundred yen. A hundred of those makes one silver coin, ten thousand yen.

And then a hundred silver coins makes one gold coin. One million yen.

Fifty gold coins.

Fifty million yen.

Sure, I'd sent Rokuko to serve them to raise the value a little, and I'd guided things so they'd enter the hot spring together, but fifty million yen per night was a price I'd never heard of.

However, Haku-san then placed another thirteen gold coins on the counter.

"As for the meal… charging just one gold coin for that is… quite cheap. I know your circumstances, but normally you could charge ten gold coins for something like that. At the very least, you should set it at five gold coins. This is the difference, plus Rokuko-chan's portion."

… Five million yen for a single meal?!

[DX Kid's Meal (10 DP)] and [Cream Soda (8 DP)] for five million yen… The inflation here is completely insane. Forget net profits; no matter how I calculate it, that's over 99% profit margin…

I mean, sure, I want to get as much as I can, but I don't want to take what I don't deserve.

Even if I'd added "DX" as a token gesture, I'd still served a [Kid's Meal] to Haku-san, and at this price. Ichika did say I should charge five gold coins too, but selling something that goes for a thousand yen in Japan for five million yen is really… hard on my heart.

I'm just an ordinary citizen here. I'm not some rip-off bar employee.

"No matter how you look at it, I feel like this is too much…"

"Do you not trust my appraisal?"

"N-No! Not at all, I'll gratefully accept it!"

Feeling a spine-chilling killing intent, I straightened up with a clatter and saluted in response.

If Haku-san, who stands at the top of the Empire, says it's "twenty-five gold coins per night," then that becomes the legitimate value even if it seems unjustified. Value doesn't exist before Haku-san; it comes into being after her.

… This isn't a joke or anything. When you don't know the price of a product, the amount someone pays for it becomes its actual value. And if the buyer has a title like "Top of the Imperial Capital" or "A-Rank Adventurer," other people will go, "Ah, I see, so that's how much it's worth." This tendency is especially strong with art and similar goods.

Moreover, since I'd asked Haku-san to appraise the price this time, you could say she's guaranteeing its worth. In other words, "twenty-five gold coins per night" and "five gold coins per meal" are correct prices that Haku-san has determined. To make them any cheaper would be to distrust Haku-san… you could even say it'd be disrespecting her and picking a fight.

"… Since you don't seem fully convinced, let me explain my appraisal."

"Ah, s-sorry…"

"First of all, you're probably setting prices to match the DP you use, but you seem to be leaving out all costs related to labor, such as transportation fees and technical expenses."

For example, cherries are a fruit from Wakoku, a country at the far east. To eat one in Tsuia would cost at least fifty silver coins per cherry. Since they spoil easily, you'd need someone with the time-space magic [Storage] to eat them fresh… and [Storage] users are generally A-Rank or above. Treating it as an A-Rank "courier quest," a single transport run would cost at least five gold coins, apparently.

When you factor in acquiring enough quantity for inventory and add the cherry purchase costs on top of that, that's how you get fifty silver coins per cherry… I see.

Now that she mentions it, that had completely slipped my mind.

… Right, even a ready-made bread roll you can get for a hundred yen in Japan only reaches that price after factories, transportation, labor costs, and everything else involved in mass production.

If you're producing such bread in another world that doesn't even have factories or recipes, of course the hidden value becomes extraordinarily high. In this world, precisely because there are dungeons and magic, mass production technology never developed.

… Kuh, my simple assumption that one copper coin equals one hundred yen was a mistake.

By carelessly creating a yen conversion standard, I'd been calculating with a modern Japanese mindset.

As for the meal specifically, it matched almost exactly what Ichika had told me. Ichika should have been more insistent about it… wait, she's a slave, so of course she couldn't speak forcefully. This is completely my fault.

"By the way, adventurers of B-Rank and above are treated as nobility. They're actually granted peerage, you know. B-Rank is technically optional, but from A-Rank onward it's mandatory… And so, the baseline for an A-Rank adventurer's payments starts with 'gold coins.'"

And apparently there's a saying among A-Rank adventurers: "Take out a gold coin to buy an apple. Keep the change, it's a nuisance."

It's a phrase meant to mock A-Rank adventurers' absurd sense of money… yeah, I get just how extreme the inflation is.

… That said, there aren't many A-Rank adventurers. Excluding Haku-san's group, there are only about twenty of them, apparently.

"But even so, you don't really need to pay for Rokuko's meal too— ah, no, that's right, it is the utmost honor to have been able to provide you with dinner time alongside your precious Imouto-sama. Yes."

"I actually want to pay her lodging fee too as her older sister, you know? But for Rokuko-chan as the owner, this place is essentially her home, right? So I compromised by treating it as having had something special prepared, paying just the meal portion. Understand?"

"I understand completely, so please stop with the killing intent, sorry!"

"Fufu, as long as you understand, that's fine… By the way, for Rokuko-chan's tip, I wonder if it would be better to give it directly as DP?"

"Y-Yes, I think that would be best."

Incidentally, regarding Haku-san and Chloe, their daily DP income was [0 DP] for both of them. I'd been hopeful since they're each A-Rank adventurers individually, so this was disappointing.

… I suppose it's natural for Haku-san since she's a Dungeon Core, but why Chloe? Maybe monsters summoned using DP from a dungeon don't provide daily DP income.

"Now then, Rokuko-chan, say 'ahh'?"

"Y-Yesh!"

Haku-san had Rokuko prepare to receive DP. Another kiss scene, I take it… is what I thought, but Haku-san stuck her index finger into Rokuko's mouth instead.

"Nn, ku, nnn!"

"Now, don't pull away, alright? … Relax your shoulders, just relax… Ready? I'm going to pour it in."

"Nn! U, nn, fah, nn…!"

Haku-san's cheeks were slightly flushed, while Rokuko was desperately sucking on her finger, red all the way to her ears… T-This is, well, how should I put it. It really gets to you.

After a while, the finger slipped out of Rokuko's mouth with a soft pop. A slightly thick strand of saliva trailed between her finger and Rokuko's mouth.

"… No kiss today?"

"That's right. Since Rokuko-chan has officially debuted her dungeon now, considering that other Dungeon Cores might come to crush her, I thought she should get used to transfers other than through mucous membrane contact… You'll turn the tables on them anyway, right?"

You wouldn't want her kissing other Dungeon Cores at times like that, would you? Haku-san smiled.

… Wait, then licking Rokuko's saliva-covered finger clean is unrelated, right? I wanted to say that, but saying something unnecessary and getting bathed in killing intent was already getting old, so I held back.

"By the way, did you know? There's another dungeon on Tsuia Mountain. It's right on the opposite side of the mountain, so you probably won't encounter it immediately."

"… Haku-san, do you know what the word 'flag' means?"

"A flag? Like the little one stuck in the [Omelet Rice] from the [Avarice Meal]? What about it?"

"No, never mind…"

What is this. I'm getting nothing but bad feelings about this.