Once Yuri had finished preparing, he climbed into the carriage sent to fetch him, seen off by a handful of servants.
For a moment, he thought he heard his mother's voice and looked back, but there was no sign of his family anywhere.
It made sense that his father was nowhere to be seen—he had already left for work—but the absence of both his birth mother and the younger half-sister he had been close to made Yuri's chest tighten.
So I really am being thrown out of the house...
A sharp ache pricked his chest, and a sting rose in the back of his nose. He bit down hard to keep the tears from spilling.
After several minutes of being jostled along in the carriage, he looked up—and saw the massive silhouette of the royal palace drawing steadily nearer.
Huh? She's a baroness regnant. Shouldn't her mansion be farther from the palace?
In the Kingdom of Oltania, noble residences were supposed to lie farther from the royal palace according to rank. So the fact that he was heading not away from House Leonidas—a count palatine house—but toward the palace itself made unease seep steadily through Yuri's chest.
Ignoring Yuri's anxiety, the carriage rolled onward, passed through the palace gates, and entered the grounds.
Wait. Seriously? Why the royal palace?
When the carriage came to a stop and the door opened, a maid who had come to receive him urged him forward, and Yuri stepped inside the royal palace.
The floors gleamed from polishing, and sumptuous decorations were displayed everywhere—luxuries of a kind he had never once seen in House Leonidas. It reminded him of the Palace of Versailles from his previous life. It truly was just like that.
And yet priceless objects had been left out in the open, so close that he could have touched them just by reaching out. Timid as he was, Yuri couldn't help tensing up.
Is it really okay for me to be in a place like this...?
After leading him through a maze of twisting corridors, the maid finally stopped in front of a single door.
"Please wait in this room."
Once she had shown him inside, the maid gave him a silent bow, quietly closed the door, and departed.
Left alone in the room, Yuri found himself wrapped in an odd sense of unease amidst the spreading silence.
The splendor of the lavish furnishings only made it harder for him to settle down.
"This is bad... What am I supposed to do...?"
After glancing uneasily around the room, he lowered himself hesitantly into one of the chairs at the round table in the center.
In his previous life, he could have killed time with a smartphone. In this world, no such convenient thing existed.
At a loss for what to do, unable to endure the silence any longer, Yuri turned toward his own shadow and spoke.
"Kokuyou, I'm sorry, but I'm lonely. Could you come out?"
As if answering his words, an animal's forepaw slid out of the shadow. A black cat emerged soundlessly, then rose onto two legs.
"Calling me out just because you're lonely? You really are hard on your star spirits, my hapless master, nyah."
"Don't say that. I got dragged into the royal palace out of nowhere and shut up in a room like this. I'm honestly at a loss."
At that, Kokuyou muttered, "Can't be helped, nyah," and leaped up onto the table.
When Yuri gently stroked Kokuyou's head as he sat there in a neat little loaf, the black cat narrowed his eyes in obvious pleasure and began to purr softly.
"Ahh... this is healing me..."
Yuri murmured with a softened smile.
He must have been more tense than he'd realized. Each time he petted Kokuyou, a warm little swell of happiness rose inside him.
This black cat, who could walk on two legs and speak like a person, was no ordinary cat.
In this world, beings like him were known as star spirits—supernatural existences thought to be spirits of nature, magical beasts, or powerful emotions that had become divine.
They normally did not show themselves before people, but once a contract was forged, they could be summoned.
As for why Yuri—who possessed nothing but the Merchant Gift—had been able to make a contract with such a supernatural star spirit, that was precisely thanks to the power of the Cheat Merchant.
Ever since he had been granted the Gift known as the Cheat Merchant, Yuri had spent his time exploring what it could do.
What he had learned, in simple terms, was that as long as he had money, he could make just about anything happen.
Calling it a cheat might have been easier for people to understand, but it truly was the kind of power that made you want to shout, "That's completely unfair!"
One of its abilities was called Universal Goods. It allowed him to purchase not only products he recognized from his previous life, but also buildings and farms, magical items and weapons from fantasy worlds, and even a space battleship that had no discernible use in this world—in short, merchandise from every sort of world imaginable.
He also had teleportation, extra-dimensional storage, a portable shop, instant delivery, all-language comprehension, and more—abilities that were invaluable not only for a merchant, but in battle as well.
Even more astonishing was the fact that he had abilities that required no magic power at all: as long as he had money, he could temporarily borrow the power of any god, create products to meet any need, restore any object to its original state with universal repair, and even perform an arcane overhaul on anything whatsoever.
That said, the more powerful the ability, the higher the price soared, so there were limits to what he could do in his current state.
Because he had spent his savings to form a contract with a cait sith, a cat-shaped star spirit, all he had left to his name was four crown gold coins—eighty shilling silver coins, the equivalent of about thirty-five thousand yen in the money of his previous life.
A single white bread roll cost five obol copper coins, which meant those four crown gold coins could buy him 192 of them.
With that little money, there was almost nothing he could do. At best, he could browse Universal Goods and indulge in nostalgia for products from Japan.
Since teleportation and extra-dimensional storage had been free to use, he had teleported to the forest where he had once trained, hunted magical beasts there without end, and stored them away in his extra-dimensional warehouse.
His extra-dimensional storage had also contained a supply of delicious golden fruit called the Divine Spirit Peach, given to him by the goddess as a reincarnation bonus. He had kept eating it whenever he got a little hungry during his monster hunts, and now he had become a tireless picture of health.
According to Kokuyou, he had simply eaten too many of them.
As Yuri was being soothed by Kokuyou, a knock sounded at the door, and a maid in a servant's uniform entered the room.
"Oh? A black cat?"
The maid stopped in her tracks and let out a startled cry.
At her voice, a beautiful woman in an elegant dress appeared from behind her and peered into the room with evident interest. She was so lovely she looked like a goddess.
"My, what an adorable little kitty."
"Mother, is there a cat? Please let me see too."
Then, from behind her, a fairy-like beauty peeked into the room.
"There really is a pitch-black cat. What a surprise."
The young beauty lifted a hand to her mouth, her face full of wonder.
"My Lady, Young Lady, if the others find you here, it will become troublesome. Please, inside quickly."
"Y-yes, of course."
The two women hurried into the room, and the maid quickly shut the door behind them.
As Yuri stood there transfixed by the sight of a goddess and a fairy, the goddess approached with a smile and spoke to him in a beautiful voice.
"Is that little kitty your pet, Lord Yuri?"
"Y-yes. He was as beautiful as obsidian, so I named him Kokuyou."
He was so nervous that he answered without even noticing that she had called him by name before he had introduced himself.
"I am not a pet, nyah. I am a contracted star spirit."
Yuri had been vigorously petting Kokuyou's head, but Kokuyou said, "That hurts, nyah," swatted his hand away, and corrected her with a sullen expression.
"""What?"""
Their startled cries overlapped perfectly.
"L-Lord Yuri... are you contracted with a star spirit?"
"Ah, well, yes. There are... various circumstances..."
Scratching his cheek in embarrassment, Yuri answered the goddess.
"Um, Lord Kokuyou... may I pet you?"
The fairy-like beauty asked the question as if she could barely contain her excitement.
"You may. Be gentle, nyah."
With that, Kokuyou flopped onto his side and bared his belly.
The girl edged closer and gently stroked his stomach, and Kokuyou purred with obvious delight.
"Wow, he's so soft and so cute!"
She looked so delighted she might sprout wings and fly away.
Lucky... I wish someone would let me use their lap as a pillow and stroke my head too...
Yuri muttered inwardly as he watched Kokuyou bask in bliss.
"My Lady, Young Lady, pardon me for interrupting your fun, but I believe it would be best if you properly introduced yourselves to Lord Yuri..."
The maid who had been quietly watching from behind them spoke up apologetically.
"Oh my, now that you mention it, we still haven't greeted him, have we? The little kitty was so adorable that it slipped my mind completely. My name is Celine von Strauss. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Celine dipped into a graceful curtsy and bowed her head lightly.
Celine? That name sounds familiar somehow...
Celine was one of the late King Sieghardt von Oltania's secondary consorts, and the woman he had favored most.
Granted the rank of the Virtuous Consort, she was a mother of one, yet still young and beautiful enough to resemble a goddess of compassion herself.
Her long golden hair fell in soft waves, and her eyes were a beautiful sapphire blue.
The generous swell of her bosom only heightened that gentle, radiant beauty, making her nothing less than one of the treasures of the Kingdom of Oltania.
"I, too, became utterly absorbed in the cat and forgot my manners. My name is Lieselotte von Strauss. Please do remember me."
The young beauty who had been petting Kokuyou also lowered her head in a beautiful curtsy.
Wait—then this fairy is Her Highness the Princess?
She, too, was an extremely famous figure.
After all, she was the daughter of Consort Celine, and the First Princess of the Kingdom of Oltania.
Lieselotte had gathered her mother's long golden hair at her side, and her amber eyes shone with jewel-like brilliance.
Her appearance was so pure and lovely that people called her the Fairy Princess, and her body, poised somewhere between girlhood and womanhood, was wrapped in a pale pink dress.
The graceful swell of her bosom was edged with lace, and her skin, white as snow, only made her beauty stand out all the more.
"My name is Yuri. I apologize for not being permitted to give a family name. I have been asked to wait here because I am to marry into the household of the Baroness Regnant of Reberk, but may I ask what brings the two of you to this room?"
Unable to understand why the Virtuous Consort and Her Highness the Princess were standing before him, Yuri somehow forced the words out through his confusion.
"Why, I am that Baroness Regnant of Reberk, my lord husband."
"Huh?"
Unable to process Celine's words, Yuri could only blink and give that foolish little response.
"Did I surprise you?"
Celine covered her mouth with one hand and smiled elegantly.
"Mother... you've gone too far with your teasing. Of course he would be startled."
Lieselotte spoke to Celine with a sigh.
As he listened to the exchange between them, Yuri pinched his own cheek, half wondering if he was dreaming.
"Ow... Then this is real? The real Virtuous Consort and Her Highness the Princess?"
"I am no longer the Virtuous Consort, but yes, I am quite real."
"I am no longer a princess either, but I am quite real as well."
Staring back and forth between the two smiling faces, Yuri pinched his cheek one more time, still unable to believe it.