Dike Goldiron asked Osian.
What do you want?
It was a jaw-dropping sight for anyone who knew him.
The millionaire, who is considered a billionaire by some estimates, was offering a reward in his own words.
"For the record," he says, "I don't bluff in this business. If I say I'm going to give it to you, I'm going to give it to you."
Of course, there are few people in all of Tirna who have heard this from Dyke.
The difficulty of getting a reward directly from Dyke made it all the more valuable.
"You want money? I can bathe you in bills if you want. No, not bills, but gold. I can fill a whole room with gold."
Dyke stirred Osian's desires as if he were asking him to imagine.
An entire room filled with dazzling gold.It was a sight that would make anyone in the golden city of Tirna, or anyone in need of money, blush.
"Is that what you want, or do you want this villa? It's no longer of any use to me after everything that's happened, so I don't care who it goes to. It's a little broken, but I can get a handyman to fix it."
The idea of giving away a huge, endless mansion just because it's a vacation home was appealing.
Everyone had at least once thought about living in such a large, opulent place.
If you put a monetary value on the value of the mansion itself, it was clearly unbelievable but Osian still found himself staring into the Duke's eyes as if trying to figure out what the hell the old man was asking him.
"What do you think?"
Dyke asked, subtly prodding Osian for an answer.
His sudden offer to reward Osian wasn't just a gesture of gratitude.
‘My lord wishes to confirm that he is a worthy fixer.’
Dustin, his faithful henchman, realized immediately what Dyke wanted.
"It's an offer from the head of the Goldiron family, who owns the gold mines and all sorts of other interests, and it's hard for even the most extraordinary of men to remain rational when they hear it.
When a person's desires breaks through the mask it’s when a man's true colors are laid bare, so he stirred Osian's desire to see what lay beneath that blunt, somewhat bored face.
‘Osian. You're no ordinary fixer, I can tell by your demeanor and your work. But what about now?’
It's simple to corrupt people.
All it takes is a very large amount of money, and a person will crumble to the bottom and show everything they have.
Dyke was, in a sense, a nasty old man who used money to get a glimpse into people's inner lives.
It was his path, his way of life.
"Are you sure I can ask for anything?"
Osian asked.
Dyke smiled inwardly at the sight of him.
"Yep. You can ask for anything."
"I see."
Osian asked, his eyes transparent as he turned to Dyke.
"You said this was your doing, so did you use the ghosts as well?"
"......."
Dyke was puzzled by Osian's sudden interest in the ghost's story.
"I don't know what you mean by suddenly, but the ghost was not something I expected, though it did catch me off guard."
"You're lying."
"What?"
"You know why the ghost appeared."
Osian said with a tone of conviction.
Dyke stared at Osian for a moment, then asked.
"Is that what you want to know?"
"Yes."
"In other words, can I consider this question a reward?"
"It doesn't matter."
Dustin and Delan, watching from the sidelines, gasped.
The reward that Dyke himself would hand out was just an answer to a question?
No one had ever answered like this before.
"......."
Dyke was silent for a moment.
His expression was complicated.
His pride was hurt that his offer had been rejected, but he was also trying to figure out if Osian was doing it on purpose.
Whatever it was, it was unpleasant but Dustin, the faithful henchman, felt differently.
‘My lord,' he thought, ‘seems rather pleased, and more than that, he seems to feel a certain longing, or am I mistaken?’
The expression was too fleeting to be sure.
When Dyke finally composed himself, he turned to Osian.
"Wait."
Dyke got out of bed and went to a nearby drawer.
He pulled a blue glowing stone from the inside of the drawer.
“This is it. A long time ago, while mining, a stone was discovered that gave off a bluish glow.”
The blue stone looked like an untreated gemstone but the light emanating from it was vaguely familiar.
"I called it the Moonstone, because it seemed to capture the moonlight in the night sky. It was so unusual that I had it appraised by several jewelers, but they couldn't figure out how it glowed. I knew it wasn't ordinary, so I kept it, like a talisman of sorts."
Looking at the stone, which still glows faintly, Dyke feels nostalgic.
It didn't have any effect on him, except for its beautiful glow but Dyke had a faint affection for the stone.
So for decades, he kept it close at hand.
"Well, it's glowing a little less than it was before."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I'm sure of it. I've seen it every day for decades, so maybe it's just running out of energy."
"That's what ghosts do."
Dustin asked, shocked by Osian's statement.
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yes. Wouldn't someone who's seen ghosts know that?"
"That's because......."
"The energy in that stone has taken on the form of a ghost that roams the mansion."
It was unbelievable, but Dustin found Osian's words strangely easy to accept.
There was a clear cause-and-effect relationship between the stone's diminished glow and the ghost's appearance when Dyke collapsed.
Dyke, who had been listening, spoke up.
"So why did you ask me to see this?"
"You just asked me what I wanted. I want it."
"This? Why? If you're right, it's just a glowing stone that's lost all its power."
"Because it doesn't look like it, at least not to me."
Osian said in a voice of deep conviction and unwavering faith.
Dyke pondered Osian's words, and then let out a soft chuckle.
"Hmph, hmph. Hmph."
What started out as a small chuckle turned into a full-blown giggle.
"Hahahahaha, that's my favorite answer!"
Dyke stopped laughing and gave Osian a sharp look.
"Are you sure you don't want any other reward?"
"No, I don't. I did what I was asked to do anyway, and I'm not really interested in any other reward."
"You're serious."
Dyke had to admit that Osian was not someone he dared to judge.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Osian gave Dyke a questioning look at his out-of-the-blue statement.
"There's a truth of life I've come to realize in my old age. The greed of man knows no bounds. No matter how noble a nobleman is, no matter how much people admire him or her, no matter how much money he or she has, if you give him or her a billion, their attitude will change like a ghost.”
There are plenty of people who have acted like Osian and then crumbled in the face of money.
Dyke was a patsy.
Even his surname, Goldiron, was bought with money.
Today, he is respected and revered, but he wasn't always so.
He was all too aware of the subtle belittling and disdainful glances he received from such people.
“Those who were so stiff-necked, crumbled helplessly in front of money. What is money? They were even more dazzled when it came to gold. The dazzling gold color alone made everyone’s eyes roll.”
As he brought them to their knees with money, Dyke felt a kind of conviction.
The world is all about money, after all.
Even the ones who pretend otherwise are scumbags and reveal it in the end.
This case alone proved it.
An ugly family fight broke out over his inheritance.
"But you're different. You're not pretending, but you genuinely don't seem to be interested in money itself."
"Because I already have enough."
"I know. You just solved a big case and got a huge payout, didn't you?"
Osian was surprised Dyke knew that, but when he thought about it, it made sense.
Delan had his own connections, and it was odd that Dyke didn't know about Osian's extraordinary work.
"With money like that, you might not notice, but it's human nature to want to make more money. Who wouldn't want to have the opportunity to do nothing for the rest of their lives?"
But Osian didn't.
Dyke held out the moonstone to Osian.
"I lose, you win."
Dyke, a proud and hot-tempered man, meekly conceded defeat.
He actually looked more relieved than humiliated or angry.
"I don't know whose son he is, but he picked a good one."
"Thank you."
Osian took the moonstone.
The moment he held it in his hand, he was convinced. This was indeed a stone imbued with the power of the Moonlight.
He defeated the ghost and claimed its power for himself, but there was still more of it in this Moonstone.
The moonstone had yielded more than just the power of Moonlight.
It was a clue to how he could reclaim his other powers.
'It is likely that my other power is contained in a form similar to this, or something else.’
I felt like my blocked mind had been cleared, as if I had been given an answer, even if vaguely, on how to regain my strength.
Of course, the barrier of not knowing where and how to access these powers remained, but it was much better than not knowing anything at all.
‘I'm glad I took this job.’
The rewards were better than the money, and it was a satisfying trade for Osian.
He wondered if it showed in his eyes but Dyke clicked his tongue.
“You’re really satisfied with just that? I can’t do this. My pride as Dyke Goldiron can’t allow this to continue, so I’ll take care of you a little more.”
"I don't need money."
"I'm not giving you money, but I'm giving it to you in a different way."
Dyke chuckled.
"Tirna is a wicked city for a city of gold. Everything costs money here, but the most evil of all are the taxes that take a percentage of your income."
Tirna's taxes were notorious.
The more money you made, the higher the percentage of your income that was taxed.
The wealthy of Tirna shuddered at the thought of taxes, and would find any way to evade them.
"I'm sure you don't want to lose most of your profits from this commission to taxes."
"That's hard to deny."
He didn't have much desire for the money itself, but he needed it.
It's nice to have. And the thought of having his hard-earned money taken away in the name of taxes would honestly make him sick to his stomach.
"So I'm going to show you my favorite way to reduce taxes. Normally this is for people with money, but with your skills, I'm sure you're going to make a lot of money someday, so it's good to be prepared."
It wasn't illegal, it was just taking advantage of the law to dramatically reduce your taxes.
"I'll get you a dedicated tax accountant."
"Well, I'll take that as a thank you."
Osian wasn't the kind of person to turn down a pumpkin that rolled in on its own.
"Still, I'm surprised. I didn't expect you to go out of your way."
“Even if I’m called one of the four madmen, I know a lot about that.”
"The Four Madmen?"
"You've never heard of it? It's a title given to a very successful investor in Tirna."
Madman is a rather unsavory name for a brilliant investor.
As if reading Osian's mind, Dyke replied.
"You have to be crazy to make this kind of money, and I'm crazy about gold, so they call me the gold maniac behind my back."
It's a title that's practically reserved for the freaks, but at least it didn't seem to bother Dyke.
"They're the eccentrics of the century, hard to face, but I have a hunch that you'll face them."