>>5518180 >>5518200 >>5518360 >>5518448 >>5518784Elimination of the enemy is viable. But perhaps it would cause more issues than it would resolve. For the time being, you can accept this agreement.
<span class="mu-i">Permission granted.</span> A short pause. 「Thank you.」 You feel your connection with Takigi disappear, as it is replaced with that of another mind. You restrain your thoughts, intending to hide your presence, and simply scan the surface emotions of the new holder. Happiness. Greed. Disdain, perhaps.
You continue to observe the holder as he returns to the more populated village center. The spiritual energy concentration within this man's body is slightly higher than Takigi's. You are unsure if this qualifies him as a member of the warrior caste or not.
Eventually, the holder reaches his nest. It is made out of the same material as Takigi's, but the floor is of the hard brown tree material, and not soft plants. The nest contains two chambers. In the second chamber sits an elevated resting mat and a workstation covered in paper. The giddiness in the man's mind disappears as he sits down at the work station, focusing on a series of written documents in front of him. You are placed on the workstation, along with currency divided into around 10 separate piles.
After sorting the documents, the man extracts a black pigment with water, wields what appears to be a writing implement, and then begins altering the documents. He intermittently stops and moves beads on some sort of wooden device as he does so.
As the man goes through the documents, you attempt to decipher them. A difficult task given that you only know 15 characters. Specifically, the numbers 1-9, the two characters used for marking trees, and the three used in Takigi, Nui, and Kinzou's names that are not included in the former groups. The documents are covered in numbers, however, and after a few you manage to deduce that they are all balance sheets. From this, you learn the characters for ten and one hundred, as well as one you can only assume refers to a unit of currency. You also discover how the math is formatted. Fortunately, the logic itself is universal, and the most advanced calculations are basic multiplication. Easy to reverse-engineer.
Across the documents, you seem to notice that most debts are only slowly worked down, increasing by around the same amount as is increased per calculation. Likely interest. Given that each calculation spans a pay period of one month, the average interest rate for an orbital period is around... 400% to 600%. Highly concerning. Just as you think this, a document marked with Takigi's character appears. You hurry to commit the information to memory. Initial debt of 130, increasing by 15% per period after subtracting payment, always rounded up to the nearest integer. Current debt 107 after 9 periods of payment totaling 176 due to compounding interest. Estimated repayment period at least an additional year, totaling up to around 400 at best.
