DTBTHS Chapter 33

The Chess Association was the organization the protagonist belonged to until he became an adult. It was also the organization that held his leash and jerked him around.

It pretended to sponsor talented individuals with potential, but in reality, it was a place that provided wealthy people with gambling tables and useful slaves.

'Masters are slave traders. Pieces are gambling objects and future slaves.'

Masters assign their pieces all sorts of dangerous missions.

The compensation for these missions goes entirely to the master.

Members bet on whether the piece will fail or succeed at the mission, whether they'll survive or die.

Occasionally, masters play matches against each other.

They make their pieces fight or compete with each other.

Here too, enormous gambling tables unfold. Many pieces die like toys on a game board.

There's also a promotion system for pieces.

The stronger a piece becomes, the more difficult missions they complete, the higher their rank rises.

At higher ranks, larger gambling tables open, and masters earn more money.

Of course, the pieces don't get a single penny. All they receive is support for living and missions.

But if pieces refuse missions or say they won't participate in matches, they're made to compensate for everything provided so far.

They're told to pay back all the food, clothing, shelter, weapons, armor, medicine, and items provided up to that point.

Pieces who've done nothing but missions without receiving any money have no way to compensate for all that.

Eventually, they end up owing enormous debts to their master.

Then the master either continues putting the piece on gambling tables or sells them as slaves to members.

'It's vicious.'

Among them, the master who caught the protagonist was even more vicious.

Robert Black was someone who even rigged matches to increase his gambling odds.

In other words, he'd secretly bet money that his own piece would fail, then set all kinds of traps while sending them on missions to ensure they'd definitely fail.

If it looked like they might succeed, he didn't hesitate to kill them.

But the young protagonist, knowing nothing, inwardly regarded Robert Black as a replacement for his adoptive father and devoted himself to him.

In missions, in matches, he trusted him even while brushing past death several times.

It was the same even after he realized his situation was no different from gladiator slaves in an arena.

No matter what, Black was the person who'd taken in and raised him when everyone else shunned him for his red eyes, who'd made him strong.

The young protagonist thought Black must be at least somewhat attached to him.

Since Axel himself regarded Black as family, he thought Black must feel that way to some degree too.

However, what came back as reward for that devotion was brutal betrayal.

'He nearly died but barely survived and escaped.'

Fleeing while being pursued by the Chess Association, Axel grew even stronger by creating miracles in the worst situations.

He went back and took revenge on the Association, killing Black with his own hands.

The protagonist's childhood ended with the Chess Association burning.

Therefore, Robert Black was both a villain and someone who made the protagonist grow.

In skill, of course, but also mentally.

Ariadne planned to steal precisely that role from Robert Black.

To become a stepping stone for growth, but just slightly less harsh than that bastard.

Reduce injuries, reduce pointless hardships, provide better environments and better items, guide the direction of growth.

'Basically follow the original work while helping just a tiny bit, imperceptibly.'

For now, she planned to betray him exactly the same way.

Since it was the trigger for Axel becoming strong, and the trigger for fixing his tendency to crave affection and his unexpectedly sentimental nature.

'This is deception.'

Ariadne smiled bitterly while turning to the next page of documents.

This was something she'd started because she felt sorry for using original work information, because she wanted to help the protagonist.

But was this really help?

She claimed to be creating a better situation than the novel, but wasn't this just her own self-satisfaction?

Actually, the best thing for the protagonist wouldn't be leaving him at the Chess Association but rescuing him and taking care of him directly.

But she was afraid he'd become weaker than in the original work.

'He already has fewer opportunities to grow strong because I have to prevent the regression.'

If they fail to conquer the Great Labyrinth, it's all over.

No matter how much she knew the answers, there were sections that couldn't be broken through without the protagonist's overpowered abilities.

'It can't be helped. This is the best option.'

She steeled her resolve while looking at the stack of documents.

On the next page of the piece roster was Axel Valentine's contract.

She could see the signature the protagonist had left.

It was a slightly more awkward signature than what she'd imagined while reading the novel.

The fingerprint stamped above it was small too. A child's handprint.

'He's still only 12... He really is young.'

It was a very strange feeling.

The feeling of something that had existed only as printed text in her head being thrust forward as a real person—

At the same time, the resolve she'd just steeled wavered faintly.

Ariadne gritted her teeth and turned the page.

She could see the Chess Association master's certificate.

The name written there wasn't Ariadne Eldier, but the pseudonym she'd created for this 'role.'

Adrian Black.

The name she would have had if she'd been born a boy.

The mask that would raise the protagonist in her place, betray him, and be avenged upon.

Ariadne closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, quickly checked the remaining contents, then set down the stack of documents.

"Perfect. Good work, Simon."

"Thank you."

"From now on, continue acting as Adrian Black's agent. I'll give detailed instructions, so you just need to relay them."

"Along with my secretary duties?"

"I'll pay you a separate agent salary. The same as your secretary salary."

"I'll do my utmost."

Simon answered immediately. Ariadne added:

"Just like with the Eldier distribution, when you're the agent, Simon must be someone who has absolutely no connection to me. Can you do it?"

Simon had been hired as a secretary who would stay in the shadows.

Ariadne conducting business openly would happen after donating the recipe to the Temple.

She planned to hire a separate secretary who would be known to the outside world at that time.

"Of course. No one would suspect that an 8-year-old young duchess is my real employer in the first place."

Simon answered with a raised corner of his mouth.

When he first met Ariadne, he'd thought the Garcia Trading Company owner was playing a joke.

Those thoughts flew away completely while preparing the Elixir business though.

"That's true."

Ariadne smiled faintly and moved to the next matter.

"Are preparations finished for releasing Elixir on the black market?"

"Yes. We were just waiting for you to complete it, my lady. The first batch will be released starting tomorrow."

She'd practically lived in the production room these past few months.

If her experimental aftereffects hadn't been completely cured, she would have collapsed and then some with that schedule.

The Weaver people worried so much she'd even tried to learn swordsmanship for exercise purposes.

Though that caused an even bigger fuss when they said she might get seriously injured doing intense exercise because of her weakened pain perception, so she gave up.

"And planting the clues?"

"Finished. No matter who tracks it or how, the source will point to Eldier territory."

She planned to pin the act of releasing Elixir on the black market on Duke Eldier.

When donating the recipe to the Temple too, she'd say it was a recipe the Duke created.

That made far more sense than it being the work of a young duchess anyway.

"How far have preparations for mass production progressed?"

"We've secured material procurement routes and workshops. But are you really not going to use slaves?"

"Garcia Trading Company doesn't traffic slaves."

"We could purchase them from other companies. Slaves are cheaper than hiring people, and there's less worry about the recipe leaking."

Elysium was a world where slavery was legal.

For Ariadne, who had memories of her previous life, it was a fact that gave her a sense of revulsion.

Not that she intended to start some slave liberation movement here, but she was reluctant to directly buy and use slaves.

However, her refusal to use slaves wasn't purely because of revulsion.

"If we use slaves, we can't create jobs. Slaves don't receive wages, so they have no occasion to spend money either."

"Pardon?"

"Weaver is barren and cold so they can't farm properly, and almost no one visits except hunters or mercenaries. That's why there are few jobs people who can't fight or hunt can do."

Simon's eyes widened as he caught on to what she was saying.

"...The reason you insisted on making the workshop in Weaver wasn't just because it's close?"

"This is my maternal family's home. I want to repay them even a little."

An Elixir production workshop was a facility that could enrich a territory and then some.

Even using slaves would do that to some degree, but employing territory residents would make the territory even wealthier.

Simon's composed expression crumbled as he stared blankly at his tiny employer.

The more he learned, the more unbelievable his employer's age became.

'Just paying well would have been enough...'

When he learned about the Elixir, he nearly fainted.

It was shocking that the one possessing the recipe for that insane potion was an 8-year-old child.

When he heard the circumstances of how she'd learned about it while being subjected to Elixir experiments by her own father, he was dumbfounded.

But after starting work, he kept being astonished in a different sense.

He bowed slowly, but deeply.

"Understood, my lady."