The next day, Shulim arrived at the caravan's campsite, following the address Chandler had provided.
“Welcome, Miss Shulim!”
Chandler invited Shulim inside with great enthusiasm.
Munching on the snacks he provided, Shulim brought up the purpose of her visit.
“Mr. Chandler, I was wondering if the bounty for the bandit subjugation has been processed yet?”
“Ah, that! If you hadn't come today, I was actually planning to send someone to find you! Come, bring Miss Shulim's items!”
An assistant quickly entered carrying a bulging money pouch.
Chandler handed the pouch to Shulim.
“Miss Shulim, take a look. Are you satisfied?”
Shulim took the heavy pouch and opened it. Inside, it was mostly gold coins with only a small amount of silver and absolutely no copper.
“Mr. Chandler, is it really this much?”
Shulim was quite astonished.
“Haha, you must be joking, Miss Shulim. This is your deserved share. As we said before, it is distributed based on contribution. You were the one who provided the intel, came up with the plan, and even captured the bandits' chief in the end! So tell me, who else could possibly have the greatest contribution if not you?”
“Well...”
Shulim couldn't refute it, but after doing some quick mental math, she realized the amount still wasn't right.
“Even so, isn't this money still a bit too much...?”
“Not at all. This was strictly distributed according to the ratio we decided on beforehand. The reason it feels like so much is because we got lucky this time. There happened to be two high-value wanted men among the bandits, which ended up boosting the final amount quite a bit. Thanks to that, even if we hadn't made a profit from this trade run, our caravan still made a tidy sum.”
“Two high-value bounties...?”
Shulim understood the reason and stopped refusing, putting away the pouch.
“Mr. Chandler, would you mind me asking who those two high-value bounties were?”
“Those two? Hmm, I recall they were the bandit group's Second-in-Command and Third-in-Command...”
The Second-in-Command and Third-in-Command?
A trace of doubt flickered in Shulim's eyes.
“Only the Second and Third-in-Command? Not the chief?”
Chandler nodded. “I found that quite strange too, and even went out of my way to confirm it. There indeed wasn't any bounty for the chief.”
“How strange...”
“Haha! Miss Shulim, don't overthink it. Regardless of what that chief did to cover his tracks, he's locked up in prison now, isn't he? It's not like he can break out of Count Leicester's dungeon. There's no need to worry!”
“Yeah, that's true...”
Shulim nodded, figuring she was probably overthinking.
After leaving Chandler's merchant association, Shulim headed straight back to the inn.
She poured out all the remaining money on her person onto the table and began to count it.
Once she finished counting, a rather delicate expression appeared on her face.
“How much funds did Father give me when I left? I recall it was supposed to be one hundred thousand Cole... but now I have... eight hundred and twenty-three thousand five hundred and forty Cole!”
“...I'm supposed to be spending money on this trip, so why do I have more than when I started?”
Shulim calculated carefully. The reward Alec had given her was about one hundred and twenty thousand Cole, which was roughly the going rate for a C-Class adventurer on a long-distance escort mission.
And the bounty from the bandit group added up to over six hundred and sixty thousand Cole.
That made over seven hundred and eighty thousand Cole in total. Factoring in her original one hundred thousand Cole and subtracting her travel expenses—especially yesterday's shopping spree—the final balance came to eight hundred and twenty thousand!
“...Could it be that I actually have a talent for making money?”
Shulim crossed her arms, musing to herself, before quickly shaking her head.
“No, no, no, that's not it. It's not that I'm good at making money, it's that I'm incredibly suited to being an adventurer!”
After all, a veteran C-Class adventurer would have to work tirelessly for days and nights just to make about one hundred thousand Cole. What's more, it was questionable if such high-paying commissions even came around once a month. Most of the time, they only took on jobs worth tens of thousands of Cole, which was already considered quite good. A D-Class adventurer only got a few thousand Cole per commission, and E-Class novices only had low-level quests that paid a few hundred Cole.
“To make as much as a veteran adventurer earns after doing seven or eight escort runs in one go... Adventurer life sure pays well. No, wait—bandits are just extremely valuable!”
“Should I consider becoming an adventurer in the future...?”
“Well, let's keep it as an option!”
Afterward, Shulim found a larger pouch to hide most of her money away, leaving only a reasonable amount of gold and silver coins in her original wallet that she might need during the trip.
Making money was a good thing, but letting others see it would definitely only lead to trouble.
...
In the blink of an eye, another day passed.
Shulim checked out of her room at the inn and headed to the vicinity of the post station.
Since it was still early before the carriage convoy was scheduled to leave, Shulim decided to first check her luggage onto the beast carriage she would be riding, then wandered off to browse the nearby street food stalls.
“Mmm~!”
Shulim chewed on an unidentified skewer while wandering aimlessly down the street.
Suddenly, she seemed to spot something. Her entire body froze, and she quickly ducked behind a roadside display rack.
Peering through the gaps in the rack, her eyes searched for the figure she had just seen.
Once she got a clear look at his face, her eyes widened in shock. She hadn't been mistaken.
“How is this possible...? Shouldn't that man be in prison?!”
The person she was looking at was none other than the chief of the bandit group, whom she had personally watched being escorted away by guards just a few days ago.
Yet, the chief, who should have been locked up, was now walking casually down the street, only wearing a hooded robe that left even his face completely uncovered.
...
Shulim quietly stared at the bandit chief for a while, then shifted her gaze to the person beside him. Their identical robes and the shared atmosphere between them made it abundantly clear that they belonged to the same group.
The two seemed to be talking about something, but since they were too far away, Shulim couldn't hear clearly. Just as she was thinking of a way to eavesdrop on their conversation, to her surprise, they began walking right toward the post station!
Shulim pressed her back against the display rack, trying to stay out of their line of sight.
Upon arriving at the entrance of the post station, the two didn't go inside. Instead, they looked around and moved toward an empty corner.
Shulim: “...”
Standing less than five meters away from her, yet unable to see her behind the rack due to the angle, Shulim didn't know what to say. This was far too much of a coincidence...
In reality, however, this wasn't purely a coincidence.
When ducking away, Shulim hadn't overthought it and instinctively chose this display rack. Little did she know that due to her habits, she had chosen one of the best hiding spots in the area. And because time was short, she had been forced to forgo the absolute best hiding spot.
But it was fortunate that she hadn't chosen that absolute best spot, or she would be awkwardly facing them right now...
Upon reaching the corner, the two robed men didn't immediately speak. First, they checked their surroundings, starting with a wooden advertising sign in the corner that stood slightly away from the wall—which was, indeed, that absolute best hiding spot.
After ensuring there was no one around, they resumed their conversation.
Shulim withdrew her gaze, afraid they would notice her eyes at such close range. She slowed her breathing as much as possible and strained her ears to listen carefully...
“...Zev, you fool. I don't know what the hell you're doing, getting yourself captured by a mere merchant caravan and a handful of adventurers. If it weren't for the fact that you still have some use, with how much you know, you'd be rotting to death in prison right now!”
The bandit chief's companion, a scarred man who addressed him as Zev, spoke coldly.
“You can't blame me for that! Those bandits were all too stupid, throwing themselves into the enemy's trap all at once. How could I face so many people on my own?”
“If you couldn't fight them, couldn't you run? Don't tell me you actually charged the frontlines with those idiots!”
“I... I originally had a chance to escape!”
Zev defended himself vehemently.
“Oh?” The scarred man smiled disdainfully. “Then who was it that I just broke out of prison?”
“I—”
Zev choked on his words, before becoming extremely resentful.
“It's all because of that damn brat!!! If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have been discovered in the first place, let alone captured!”
“A brat?”
The scarred man narrowed his eyes.
“What brat?”
“I don't really know who she is either. In any case, she was the one who spotted me. I was up on the mountain! I needed a spyglass to see what was happening below, yet that brat actually saw me?! Most importantly, I still had a chance to escape afterward! But it was her again! She found my trail! The one I hate most right now is that brat—I want nothing more than to crush her pretty little face!”
...
The scarred man frowned deeply.
“If you don't even know who she is, how do you expect to find her?”
“No,” Zev shook his head, saying with venom, “although I don't know who she is, I heard when we entered the city—that brat is a student of Manacos!”
“Manacos?”
The scarred man froze for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“Hehe~, interesting. Truly interesting! You mean to say that the brat who got you thrown in jail is in Langard—which is to say, the Imperial Capital where our headquarters is located?”
Zev nodded. “Exactly. That brat will definitely head to Langard! I remember her appearance clearly. Someone with looks of that caliber can be recognized at a glance, there's no way I'd mistake her!”
“...Is that so?”
The scarred man stroked his chin.
“I suppose. Anyone who dares to ruin our plans, even if they're a student of Manacos, must be taught a lesson.”
With that, the scarred man cast a sidelong glance at the chief.
“More importantly... have you thought about how you're going to explain yourself to the boss?”
“This—”
Zev's face instantly collapsed into a grimace.
“Hehe~!” the scarred man continued. “The boss entrusted you with the crucial mission of ‘procuring’ slaves, and look what a mess you made of it. In the end, the organization had to pay to bail you out! Tsk tsk... if I were the boss, I'd skin you alive at the very least.”
Zev trembled with fear.
“N-No way... right? I've made significant contributions to the organization. The boss wouldn't just discard me after I've outlived my usefulness...”
“Hmph, it's precisely because you have those ‘contributions’ under your belt that you are still standing here and talking!”
The scarred man had a faint smile on his face, but his eyes were exceptionally cold.
If it weren't for the fact that you're in charge of slave ‘transportation’ across a massive region, manage several smaller organizations on top of the ruined bandit group, and hold the contact channels for several key slave merchants, you really wouldn't have made it out alive...
“Ha! You'll find out how the boss handles you once we return to Langard. But before that, there's another matter that falls on you. The money used to bail you out this time is considered a loan from the organization. Remember to pay it back!”
“What?!”
Zev's vision went black, and he nearly collapsed.
“T-That's an incredibly large sum of money!”
The scarred man smiled faintly and said “amiably,” “So you'll have to work hard to pay off your debt as soon as possible. You should know that the organization's interest rates are very high~!”
“Hahaha~！”
With that, the scarred man left a laughing trail as he abandoned Zev and entered the post station.
Meanwhile, Zev stood frozen on the spot, his fists clenched tight. His expression fluctuated continuously, but in the end, his face turned pale and he slowly released his grip. He still didn't dare to rebel. After all, doing so would only lead to an even more miserable future.
Then, looking completely defeated, he followed him into the post station.
Once both of them had completely gone, Shulim emerged from behind the display rack. She looked in the direction they had left, her face completely expressionless, her gaze calmer than ever before.
“Is that so? Then I have no other choice.”
...
...
Rate on N.U.
