Chapter 147| What Ten Billion Dollars Buys

The prize money landed in Fallen Crown’s official accounts eleven days after the tournament’s devastating conclusion, the Association’s considerable payment processing having been delayed, deliberately, until the initial shock of Haruki’s death had settled enough for the announcement to avoid feeling like grotesque celebration layered atop genuine tragedy.

Allen studied the confirmation notice with none of the excitement such a considerable figure might once have provoked, the number itself feeling almost abstract against the continued, hollow weight of grief still settled in his chest.

"Ten billion dollars," Myria said quietly, reviewing the same notification beside him. "Even accounting for the Tanaka Fund’s ongoing allocation, that’s a considerable, transformative sum. We should discuss how the remainder gets used."

"I don’t want it sitting in some account collecting interest," Allen said. "Not after everything it cost to earn."

They gathered that evening for what became, gradually, a genuinely thoughtful conversation about exactly what the family wanted to build with resources considerable enough to reshape entire communities, and Allen found himself, listening to his wives’ own individual perspectives, struck once again by exactly how different each of their instincts proved, and how naturally those differences complemented one another once given proper space to breathe.

"Hegeville, obviously," Myria said first, already pulling up the town’s ongoing development plans. "The water infrastructure project barely scratches what this town genuinely needs. Full modernization, properly funded schools, considerable expansion of the medical facilities that currently amount to little more than a converted storefront."

"I want to expand the Tanaka Fund considerably beyond what I initially committed," Allen added. "Not just supporting individual Hunters. Full training infrastructure for underfunded parties. Equipment grants, proper coaching resources, everything Haruki’s team had to build from nothing."

"Housing," Vivian said quietly. "Real, permanent housing, not just infrastructure repair. I’ve spent considerable time in Hegeville’s poorer districts these past months. There are families living in conditions that shouldn’t exist anywhere, let alone somewhere we’ve claimed to genuinely care about."

"And the Wasteland," Everlyn added, softer but no less certain. "We made a promise there. To Ashkar’s people, to the Desert Elves, to Ancient Sorrow herself. I know it hasn’t been our most urgent priority, but we have the resources now to properly fund a return expedition, whenever we’re ready to honor that."

Allen felt a familiar, uncomfortable weight settle at the reminder, the Wasteland’s unresolved promise having quietly, persistently lingered at the edges of his conscience since their return home over a year earlier. "You’re right," he said. "We can’t keep deferring that indefinitely."

"Not indefinitely," Everlyn agreed gently. "Just — when the timing allows it properly. I’m not suggesting we drop everything immediately, given everything else currently demanding our attention."

Irene, who had remained quieter than usual throughout the conversation, finally spoke up, her own considerable grief still evident beneath her words. "I want part of it to go toward something specifically memorializing Haruki. Beyond the fund. Something permanent, here in Hegeville, somewhere people will actually see it and remember exactly what he chose to give."

"A monument," Allen said slowly, turning the idea over.

"Something like that," Irene confirmed. "I don’t know exactly what yet. Maybe something in the town square, somewhere the kids walking to that new school you’re building will pass every single day. I want them growing up knowing his name, even if they never get the chance to actually meet him."

"I don’t want him fading into just another news cycle’s tragic footnote."

"He won’t," Allen said firmly. "None of us would allow that."

They spent the remainder of the evening working through the considerable, practical details — allocation percentages, timeline projections, Myria’s characteristic thoroughness ensuring every commitment carried genuine, sustainable structure rather than simple, well-intentioned impulse — and Allen found himself, by the conversation’s conclusion, feeling something closer to purposeful direction than he had since the tournament’s devastating final moments.

"This won’t undo what happened," Myria said gently, recognizing the complicated mixture of grief and cautious hope settling over him. "But it’s not nothing, either. Building something genuinely good out of considerable tragedy — that matters, even when it doesn’t feel like enough."

"It doesn’t feel like enough," Allen admitted. "I don’t think anything ever will."

"No," Myria agreed. "But we do it anyway. That’s what he’d have wanted, I think. Not grand gestures for their own sake. Just genuine, considerable good, built patiently, the way everything worthwhile in this family has always been built."

Everlyn moved to sit beside him, resting her head against his shoulder with quiet, familiar warmth. "Do you remember what you told the residents at that very first town council meeting?" she asked. "That you didn’t want to impose some outside vision. That you wanted to listen first, before deciding anything."

"I remember," Allen said.

"I think that’s still the right instinct," Everlyn said. "Ten billion dollars is considerable enough to build almost anything we want. But I don’t want us deciding, in one evening, exactly what an entire town needs without properly asking them again, now that the stakes are considerably larger than a water pipe and a schoolhouse."

"She’s right," Vivian said. "We should hold another council meeting. Let residents weigh in on the larger allocation, the same way we did for the first project. It kept faith with them then. It should keep faith with them now."

Allen nodded slowly, something settling more comfortably into place at the suggestion. "Damon Willis would probably appreciate being asked properly," he said, managing a small, tired smile at the memory of the old man’s skeptical, considerable patience during that very first meeting. "He did tell us to prove ourselves one project at a time."

"Then we prove ourselves again," Myria said. "Properly, transparently, the same way we always have."

Allen let her words settle, drawing quiet strength from his family’s steady, unified presence, and turned his attention, finally, toward the considerable work still waiting ahead — a town still transforming, a fund still growing, a memorial still taking shape, and a promise, made in a dying world months earlier, that still, patiently, waited for its own eventual reckoning. He thought, briefly, of Ancient Sorrow’s own considerable, mournful patience, and found himself hoping it hadn’t yet run out.

"Ten billion dollars," he said quietly, watching the notification’s considerable figure one final time before closing the panel. "I hope we use every bit of it in ways that actually matter."

"We will," Vivian said, with the same quiet, unwavering certainty that had carried them through every previous impossible circumstance. "We always do."