Chapter 9: The New Currency for Survival
Part 1
A week had passed since their return to the real world.
The Kurogane Mansion was comfortable in the way a museum was comfortable — marble floors polished to a sterile shine, imported porcelain arranged with surgical precision, the constant hum of climate control smoothing every rough edge of the air. Most people would have called it luxury.
To Kyle, it felt like a brightly lit cell.
The morning sun filtered through the tall windows, crisp and cold. Somewhere in the yard, the steady thwack of wood cutting through air echoed in a disciplined rhythm.
“Hah. Hah. Hah.”
Masayuki stood shirtless in the garden, sweat glinting across his back like war paint. His bokken carved sharp, practiced arcs — precise, but hollow. Each swing was a heartbeat with no rhythm, a ritual performed by a man who didn’t know what to do with stillness.
Inside, the dining table stretched across the room like a runway — long, gleaming, too symmetrical, too clean.
“Come on, come on…” Renji muttered, thumbs trembling. “Just one pull. Just one.”
At the far end, Renji and Luna slumped together in a single oversized chair, swallowed by a faded hoodie. The confiscated smartphone glowed in their lap. A tinny gacha jingle burst from the speakers — loud, synthetic, aggressively cheerful.
The sound ricocheted off the marble and glass, a desperate digital denial bouncing around a world that no longer made sense.
“Hell yeah, we pulled Tentacle-chan’s maid outfit!”
Kokoro and Kotaro sat side by side, quietly eating natto. They didn’t react. They didn’t even look up.
Kyle watched them all from the center of the room.
Masayuki’s restless discipline. Renji’s compulsive escapism. The twins’ quiet, practiced stillness. Luna’s aristocratic despair buried under Renji’s gacha addiction.
The silence pressed against Kyle’s skin like static.
The mansion didn’t feel safe. It felt curated. Symmetrical. A stage where they were expected to perform the roles of “recovered heroes” for an audience that hadn’t finished writing the script.
Kyle exhaled slowly.
Part 2
The silence in the dining hall stretched thin, humming with the static of too many unspoken fears.
Then the doors opened.
Minami stepped inside with the effortless grace of someone who had never once been denied anything in her life. Sebastian glided beside her — posture immaculate, expression unreadable, moving like a shadow that had learned to wear a suit.
“Good morning, everyone,” Minami said, her voice dipped in honey. “I trust your week of recovery has been… enlightening.”
The word enlightening landed like a blade wrapped in silk.
Seeing a group meeting beginning, Masayuki reentered from the garden, towel slung over his shoulder. The moment he crossed the threshold, the scent of sweat hit the room like a slap.
Sebastian didn’t blink.
He simply raised a silver atomizer and misted Masayuki with a cloud of expensive perfume.
“You reek of effort, sir,” Sebastian said, tone perfectly polite.
Masayuki froze mid‑step, the cold spray clinging to his skin like the mansion’s victory over his humanity.
Kyle watched the exchange with a quiet, sinking certainty.
This wasn’t hospitality. This was conditioning.
Minami took her seat at the head of the table, elbows resting lightly on the glass surface. Her smile didn’t waver — a flawless, lacquered expression that revealed nothing and promised everything.
“Now that you’ve begun to process your transition,” she continued, “it’s time to formalize your asset allocation.”
Kyle blinked.
Asset?
The word hit harder than any monster he’d fought. It was the term reserved for Sunbreaker, for relics, for things that could be used, traded, or stored.
Not people.
The projection unfurled across the glass table like a verdict.
Cold green numbers shimmered in the air — too clean, too precise, too calm for what they represented. Kyle felt the temperature in the room drop, as if the mansion itself were holding its breath.
Minami leaned forward, elbows resting on the glass. Her smile didn’t waver.
“We are a corporation, not a charitable foundation. However, the Kurogane family is pragmatic.”
Masayuki stopped toweling his hair. Renji froze mid‑scroll. Even the twins looked up from their natto.
Sebastian narrated with the smooth detachment of a surgeon reading a diagnosis.
“Your total outstanding balance is as follows.”
The list appeared line by line, each one a blow.
- ¥22,500,000 for property damage, vehicular replacement, and litigation
- ¥10,000,000 for suppressing local media coverage
- ¥9,200,000 for food, housing, medical, clothing, and utilities
- ¥6,500,000 for entertainment
- ¥1,800,000 for miscellaneous damages
The asterisk pulsed.
Renji swallowed audibly.
Sebastian tapped the screen. The entertainment tab expanded like a wound.
Ninety‑five percent of the ¥6,500,000 debt: Renji.
“Wait,” Kyle said, pointing at the projection. “The destruction costs I understand, but the rest—this feels manufactured.”
Minami sighed.
Not loudly. Just enough to signal that Kyle had missed the point.
“Kyle,” she said gently, “our hospitality includes certain standards. The property requires a dedicated team. You are assets. We require you to be healthy, optimized, and free from the distraction of menial labor.”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
Masayuki leaned forward, voice low and measured.
“If we are to repay this debt, we must minimize ongoing liability. We can take over some of the cooking and cleaning.”
He hesitated.
“And… What exactly is ¥6,500,000 for entertainment? That seems… excessive.”
Minami’s smile brightened — too sweet, too polished.
"Ah, yes, the entertainment budget."
She tapped the screen again.
“That includes premium streaming access, gaming platforms, and… shall we say, necessary security measures for your continued comfort.”
Sebastian cleared his throat and redirected the projection to a subsection. A new title appeared:
CULINARY HAZARD MITIGATION (ROYAL TASTE TESTER).
Sebastian cleared his throat.
“¥3,000,000 of the miscellaneous budget was allocated to the full‑time employment of a specialized Culinary Security Technician. Or, as Renji requested, ‘The Royal Poison Taste.’”
The room went still.
Every head turned toward Renji.
He bolted upright.
“That’s insane!” he shouted, pointing at the screen like it had personally betrayed him. “All I asked for was basic safety precautions! How am I supposed to trust the food when I still remember the time the Elves tried to kill us with poisoned fruit tarts?!”
No one spoke.
The silence was colder than the marble.
Luna seized control.
“You absolute buffoon,” she hissed, voice cracking. “We have not been poisoned once!”
Renji trembled — not with anger, but with the raw, ugly fear of being exposed.
“It was Luna!” he shouted, pointing at his own face. “She insists on having every meal pre‑screened for ‘plebeian toxins’ because she’s royalty! I just go along with her ridiculous demands in order to have more time with my video games!”
Luna’s voice slipped into a wounded whisper.
“Et tu Renji...”
Her mind recoiled from the room—from the stares, the judgment, the humiliation of having her deepest aristocratic delusion priced, itemized, and displayed for all to see.
Minami let the chaos simmer for a moment — just long enough.
Then she tapped the screen again.
“Regardless of who is to blame,” she said, voice smooth as lacquer, “a decision must be made.”
Kyle stared at the numbers glowing on the table.
He had fought corrupt kingdoms. He had slain monsters. He had survived multiple assassinations.
But this — this was a different kind of enemy.
A debt that felt like a chain. A number that felt like a curse. A price tag on their existence.
And Minami watched them absorb it all, her smile never wavering.
Part 3
The projection dimmed, but the numbers lingered in the air like smoke.
Minami folded her hands neatly atop the glass table, her smile softening into something almost maternal — the kind of expression a fox might wear while explaining the rules of a game it had already won.
“Now,” she said, “let’s discuss your options.”
The word options landed with the weight of a trapdoor.
“You may remain here under my patronage,” Minami continued, “pursue an independent life, or return to your original families.”
She let the three paths hang in the air like a contract waiting for signatures.
Kyle scanned the room.
Masayuki’s jaw tightened. The twins sat perfectly still, as if afraid to breathe. Renji stared at the floor, hoodie swallowing him whole. Luna’s posture was rigid, aristocratic, trembling at the edges.
No one moved.
The silence stretched — brittle, suffocating.
Then Renji broke first.
“I’m staying here,” he muttered, eyes fixed on the floor.
He scratched his leg with the other foot, a small, restless gesture.
“I’m staying,” he muttered, scratching his leg with the other foot. “This place is heaven. The only way I’m leaving is if I’m dragged out — and if I do, I’ll probably die in the sun.”
His voice was flat, monotone.
Then his face lit up.
“Oh crap, I just triggered a secret story for Tentacle‑chan.”
Luna seized control instantly. Their body snapped upright, posture regal.
“I sincerely apologize for the conduct of this gremlin,” she said, voice clipped and icy. “And so we graciously accept your invitation to continue our stay.”
Then her eyes darted to the phone screen.
“Yes, yes… come to mama,” she whispered, swiping with trembling fingers.
She swiped with trembling fingers, checking the status of Gacha characters, her composure fighting the digital craving.
Minami smiled, pretending not to notice the twitching that was clearly becoming an addiction.
“Excellent. With the primary objective sorted, we move to formalities.”
Sebastian slid a stack of documents across the table — pristine, official, quietly terrifying.
“Your Japanese identification records,” he said.
The IDs were spread across their faces like cold, plastic verdicts, granting them legitimate existence in this country, secured by the Kurogane family.
The room went still as everyone looked over the records presented to them.
Kotaro and Kokoro leaned over theirs together. Kokoro pointed at the card using Kotaro’s body.
“My name is correct,” she said softly.
Kotaro nodded.
Then winced.
“But… my gender,” he whispered, staring at the female marker beside his name.
During their two two years of adventuring in the Isekai’d world, they searched for a spell, a relic, a loophole to return the twins back to their respective bodies but nothing.
The pain wasn’t loud. But it was sharp.
A bureaucratic seal confirming the permanence of their swapped bodies.
Kyle stared at his own documents.
His name. His face. His blood type.
All clean. All precise. Yet all wrong.
The birthplace—Tokyo. The name—Kaito.
A phantom ache bloomed in his chest — the sensation of a life overwritten, not by magic, but by paperwork.
Minami watched them absorb the blow, her expression serene.
“These documents grant you legal existence,” she said.
Kyle wasn’t sure if she expected gratitude or obedience.
Maybe both.
