23 The Upright Mercenary

"I do not care about your concern. The Guild has no guideline on how many members there should be in a team, or how low the age of deployment can be."

I tiredly replied.

"And even if they do, I am the guild master. I have no obligation to follow them."

"Letting your adventurers die senselessly like this will have dire consequences, my lord! I beseech you to understand!" The imbecile in front of me spoke disrespectfully. What consequence, you goddamn annoying fudgehead?

As long as there are people, there will be parasites without land, without a roof on their head, without anything to themselves but their worthless lives. Adventurers and citizens in this village are commodities. Their lives are my money.

I pretended to consider what he had said. He ranted on and on about how people would stop joining the Guild if the death rate was too high, letting children fighting on the frontline is immoral.

Ah, apple is really the king of fruits. My chewing sound drowned out the rest of his words.

"You see, this village is one among the frontline villages against the vile beasts." I put on a wise, understanding face and slowly explained to the lowlife adventurer. If this scoundrel was not the leader of the best team in the guild, I would not have wasted so much of my precious time with him.

"We all have to do our best to protect the citizens that are willing to stay with us in this dangerous place. It is our noble purpose! We have to stand in the face of vile beasts and deliver our sword and spear to their neck!"

I stood up, opened my hand.

"You should feel encouraged by the brave act of such a team. A team with so few people but they still stood up to add stones to our protective wall between our farmers, loggers and the vile beast! A team where children are taking up arms to protect their families! You should feel honoured!"

"I will not hear about this anymore! You're undermining the effort of courageous adventurers! You should be ashamed!"

I waved my hand, refusing to listen to another word. The thorn in my eye finally left my office. A loud crash could be heard outside.

The beast is getting more and more uncontrollable. Should I pay someone to dispose of him?

When he no longer has any use for me, I'll take his life. I'll have them torture him to death. Or I will turn him into a vile beast.

A smirk widened on my face. My imagination was running wild. I felt the inspiration to write another story. "Fuller Peyton, the heroic adventurer, slaying a hundred despicable vile beasts." I would name it. No, "a thousand despicable vile beasts".

I turned my eyes to the pleading letter on my desk. [I implore the honourable guild master to dismiss the adventurer team of Anver Remington, for their lack of personnel, and the adventurer team of Garrett Milton, for their employ of children on the frontline.] It read.

I must have seen a hundred letters like this from him. He was as tenacious as a leech. I crumbled it and threw it into the fireplace.

Adventurers exist to keep the population in this town stable, and it'd be better if they can die steadily, so I can reap more profit.

For every of their life perished, the naive Marquess Margaret pays me a gold coin. "Please give this to their grieving families." She said, with her angelic voice and hypocritic mellow eyes.

[Wouldn't it be right for me to take it then? For this guild is their family and I am their father.]

I laughed in my heart.

***

"Hi, my name is Jack Rutherford, the merchant. I'm looking for Hank, the adventurer. Do you have any idea where he might be?"

"Oh my, good day mister Rutherford." The miss standing behind the receptionist deck replied with her seemingly friendly attitude. "Mister Hank is having a meeting with the guild master." She mumbled under her breath. "As usual."

Jack caught that.

[There is corruption going on in this place.] Jack thought. [Hank seems to be an upright guy that doesn't take it. Or he could be pretending and is colluding with the guild master.]

[I hope I'm taking the right bet.] Jack looked around the guild.

The crowd of Hank mercenary team was sitting in their corner.

Stone walls surrounded the hall, propping a thick wooden roof. Windows lacked, only small skylight vents were present. Thanks to the abundance of these openings, the hall where mercenaries met up and occasionally had drinks was bright enough to look different from the only other stone building in the town, the church.

These were also the buildings that housed administrative organizations. The Adventurer Guild protected the fields and the area of forest near the town, and the church soldiers manned the wooden gates and walls surrounding the town. The Merchant Guild building was only a small wooden house, and they only served as the middleman in high-value transactions.

There was no noble living here. This place was also tax-free, similar to most frontline towns that had their back to the Beast Forest. Only the Merchant Guild collected transaction taxes, as a fee for their service.

Thanks to the policy, this dangerous Redshire village attracted a few citizens in the North Osland Kingdom, looking to live risky days in exchange for ease of life. Lots of travelling merchants also frequented here.

Loud noises came from the stairs, interrupted Jack's thoughts. A tall, red-haired man, with a scar crossing his nose bridge from the forehead to the right side of his mouth, came down in heavy steps. There was ferocious fury in the man's eyes. His hands were rolled into fists full of dark red veins. It was clear that whatever conversation that went on upstairs, did not go well.

Jack felt more assured that his character evaluation was not wrong. This man could be a major help in the plan. He approached Hank, and with his best wry, sympathetic smile, spoke to him.

"Good day, sir. My name is Jack Rutherford, the weapon merchant. Would you be interested in our latest, most innovative long-range vile-beast-slaying invention?"