Chapter 9. Heart of Gold

“Idiot saint.”

“Stupid murderer.”

The conversation got nowhere, and I only got more annoyed. It wasn’t like I could just keep glaring at her, though. Let’s try to change the topic.

“Fine, I’ll apologize first. Let me just ask you something...”

“What is it?”

She had a sour look on her face.

“Oh~ so even a genius like you has things you don’t know? As an idiot, I don’t really know if I can answer you properly?”

A high school girl who was unfazed by a murderer in front of her. Well, it was obvious that she wouldn’t be afraid, really. After all, she beat me once already, and her HP pretty much forbid her from dying.

“At least you can tell me where we are?”

The saint pouted, and spoke in a sulky voice.

“It’s an underground containment room.”

“Containment room?”

The saint pointed at me and shouted, as if she had been waiting for me to say that.

“After all, you need to learn just what your power is! Of course, you have no choice in this matter!”

I’ve heard this several times already.

“Are powers really that dangerous?”

The saint put her finger on her chin, and made a thinking pose.

“Mm~ I wonder? I almost got eaten once, and my neck got snapped that one other time, so against ‘you people’, it’s pretty dangerous, I’d say.”

...You people?

“But rather than dangerous... I think the adjective ‘useful’ is more fitting. Just look at my love & peace! This room is only there for the exceptions!”

She made a disgusted face as she pointed at me again.

“You seem dangerous, so make sure you get locked up in a prison like this if you ever commit a crime. Ah, you said your power was called ‘Heart of Gold’, right? Seems quite terrifying.”

The saint let out an exaggerated gasp, and made a fearful face.

“Could it be... an ability to make people turn into gold just by looking at them?”

“Who knows. We’ll know when I use it.”

“Don’t you look down on my guesses! I always get one out of ten powers right, you know?”

“So you get nine wrong out of every ten guesses...”

“Eh, it’s good enough. Now, I’ll teach you how to use your power, so just you wait!”

The saint leapt over the sofa behind her, and ran away from me. She stopped in front of the steel door. She seemed to think that wasn’t enough, and used her mana to create a shield around her.

“The way to use your power is simple! Just think of the name of your power for three seconds!”

It’s that simple?

“There’s no ceremony or anything like that...?”

“Nope!”

Was she for real? I didn’t fully trust her, but still followed her instructions.

[Gold Achieves All = Heart of Gold].

Ding.

A window that was about 32 inches big appeared in front of me. I thought it was a function of the skill Oracle for a second, but once I saw that “Heart of Gold” was written at the top with a list below it, I was rendered speechless. This... is my power...?

“Did you succeed?”

The saint asked me this from afar. I thought about lying for a second, but gave up on it immediately.

“Well... I don’t know if this really counts as success, really...”

The saint found my answer to be quite peculiar, and walked towards me. She sat down right next to me, and looked into the window with a guarded look.

“This is... internet shopping?”

After thinking a little bit, the saint took out party poppers from somewhere, and popped them in front of me.

“Congrats! Yay!”

“Thanks.”

I pinched the saint’s cheeks with a smile.

“U, uugh, please shtahp..!”

My fingers caught fire. My body, which was only moving due to the effects of black magic, was capable of being purified just by touching the saint.

“Dangerous? Terrifying? 10% chance of getting abilities right?”

“It’s not my fault! It’s not my fault! Eii!”

A little later. I looked carefully at the saint sitting on the other side of me. She took a sip of her tea, and smiled brightly.

“Don’t be so disappointed. Perhaps it was a disguise to hide your true power? It’s only possible to get a clear idea of what your ability is after reading its description anyway. The analysis must’ve been completed about now, so I suppose we can check it together?”

“Analysis?”

“Powers, skills, and items that have been recorded by the Oracle are analyzed by the skill for its users. New abilities take about five minutes to analyze, though.”

When I thought of the word “click”, a mouse pointer of sorts appeared. Right, so this is how this works?

Click.

[Gold Achieves All = Heart of Gold]

- An ability to buy anything with money.

- [Lv.1] Trade (Buy, sell)

There wasn’t enough information.

“I clicked it.”

“Hold on.”

The saint pressed something with her finger in the air.

Was it possible to share information with those you partied with? YES.

The saint’s eyes moved quickly, as if she was reading something.

“It seems to be a manifestation of money worship of sorts, but... Hm, [Whitehead] and [Menticide]...”

It seemed that she was reading some other things as well. I, too, was looking into the saint’s abilities.

[Complete remembrance = Total Recall]

- Perfect memory.

The descriptions were completely useless. Was it like photographic memory? I imagine this would come at a cost as well.

“I’ve confirmed it! Your ability seems to be a shopping ability!”

That’s it? After all that time of thinking?

“Oh, I see... is that what you thought I’d saaaayyy!”

“Puha!”

When I reached out to grab her cheeks again, the saint sprayed out the tea in her mouth out of surprise.

“Gah!”

Hiss!

My hands and face caught on blue fire, and pain ran across it.

“My eyes... my eyeesss..!”

“Ahh! Uhh... what do I do?!”

To think the tea in her mouth would turn into holy water... After rolling on the floor in pain for a while, I stood up as if nothing had happened once the fire dissipated.

“Er...”

The saint carefully opened her mouth as she handed me a handkerchief.

“This...”

“I don’t need it.”

The saint hugged her chest with a shocked face.

“Could it be... you think it’s too precious...?”

“Precious? What’s precious?”

“Holy water that sprayed out of a young female student?”

“Shut the hell up.”

It seems that I am sort of a laughing stock for her.

“So? Results?”

“I don’t know how to put it, but...”

The saint looked away as she said this.

“Now that you’ve found out that your ability isn’t combat oriented, why not give up?”

This kid... She was clearly holding back her laughter. Her shoulders were shaking as she said this.

“It’s just at level one? I think it’d get better over time. Plus, it’s an alright power. If I were to look at it with a positive light...”

The saint’s hand that was currently over her mouth trembled. Her face was beet red. Well, it was understandable. Humanity’s worst murderer, menticide, the heartless monster... has attained an internet shopping ability, after all.

“I think it’s pretty good.”

And I wasn’t lying. It had almost an infinite number of uses, and it allows the user to lower the risk for his ventures as much as he wanted. I just haven’t leveled it up properly yet.

“Even so, it’s just a shopping ability... Pft! Ahaha!”

In the end, the saint let loose. And my patience ran out as well.

“Gyaah!”

Doesn’t matter if my hands burn or not. I grabbed onto her cheek again. I can’t take it unless I begin stretching that mochi-like cheek of hers.

“Kya!”

“Don’t laugh at other people’s abilities!”

“It hurs! It hurrrts! Ora! Shiniing-!”

That again?!

A little later. I, who cleaned up the general mess in the room, looked into the eyes of the saint. The lecture began.

“I’ve said this multiple times already, Mr. Murderer. You touch the skins of little girls too easily.”

“I’m sorry...”

“You need to be more mature. I almost invoked the power of a cop within me, you know?”

I, whose body was completely messed up due to the shining buster, bowed deeply.

“I have nothing to say...”

This is quite unfair, but let’s stay still for now.

“I think that, with this ability, it’ll be... quite hard to deal with the hero and his companions. Anyway, let’s start again, shall we? Appearance isn’t everything, after all.”

“Then...”

[Heart of Gold]. A shopping window appeared in front of me.

“Buy something, would you?”

“Alright.”

I found an e-cigarette using the search bar, and put it in my cart. It cost $250. Alright. Checkout.

“I can’t buy anything?”

I stretched out my hand. The saint looked down at it curiously.

“What is this?”

“I need cash.”

“To think you’d ask for money like a pimp... fine, I’ll lend you some, so just take it. 10% interest per day.”

High interest, huh. The saint took out a gold coin out of a wallet shaped like a frog.

“Thank you for your donation.”

“I’m lending you!”

I ignored it. Anyway, what should I... I tried putting the gold coin on the shopping window.

Ka-ching!

The gold coin disappeared, and I had acquired $1500.

“......”

“Power” was something that was akin to a manifestation of all the experiences of my life. Then this must mean that my ‘true self’ spent quite a time working on this sound effect... Was he that bored? When I pressed the checkout button again, I was told to type out an address.

“Address.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re no help.”

“Kuh...!”

I put in “in front of customer” instead of the actual address. It should come, right? ...Right? It was hard for me to look into the eyes of the saint. Time to press the confirm button.

Mm...

“Apparently it takes eight hours.”

“Eight hours? How useless!”

“......”

The saint put away her teacups, and stood up.

“We’ll end it here. We can meet tomorrow at the same time. Useless Mr. Murderer.”

Looking at her tired face, it seemed that she was about to go to sleep.

“Ah, just a second. Would you please bring a dictionary tomorrow?”

“What? A dictionary?”

There is no better way to learn about a world than through a dictionary. After all, a dictionary contains all the words in the world. I could buy it using my power, but that’d be a waste of money.

“A dictionary of this world. The biggest one, if possible. Ah, I also need a map and a history book.”

The saint had a question mark above her head. No, it’s not a metaphor. There was an actual question mark above her head. Probably done through the use of the Oracle.

“What are you going to use it for?”

“Studying.”

Just identifying the existence of these things is enough. I need to learn, research, and study in order to win. After all, this aspect of life should be a concurrent in all worlds.

“...Hm. Alright. Anything else? No? Ok! I’ll be going, then?”

After talking to herself shortly, the saint yawned, and disappeared while waving her arms.