81

With the help of the young lady named Ramana after the overpopulated but pretty glowing magic flowers, we only needed about and hour to find the faces of all of the people in my possession among over a hundred bounty posters. These were all updated recently from older bounties as old as three months, but I had lucked out. Both in money as well as relevancy.

I made more than two platinum in captured criminals wanted for a variety of malicious charges and numerous accounts thereof. Then we had them pick out the faces of their crew members that I and the wolves had killed. I only kept the people who looked important.

I did, of course, already spend our time traveling together thoroughly questioning the captives and nearly completing my map.

If I rested everyone well and get back to it early enough we could get a complete map of the city underground by noon and loot all of their caches with minimal injuries or losses. However, because I captured all of the mini bosses and strongest lackeys I had gathered the more dangerous criminals and all of them would be given a public hanging somewhere. Yay.

After seeing several hundred gold- several platinum- worth of faces identified that had been left to rot, I felt cheated. However, I reassured myself that I would be making a big collection tomorrow.

Once all of the bounty stuff was said and done I was told to wait at the bar and order some food while waiting for my money to be served to me while she 'kicked in a door'. I was honestly interested in seeing what this turned up, so I went to the bar and ordered all of the subhumans and wolves some food with a gold blank. After such a larger order for and equally large entourage, I was of course asked for my age.

I ordered beer for the subhumans, though, to help them be tired and sleep hard in new environments.

As much as I would have preferred to keep that to myself, the skin of my face and proportions of my head and body still suggested that I was a young child on top of my almost squeaking voice. However, it was quickly covered up by a childish urgency to feed my 'puppies'. I tried my best but probably failed to be cute.

Everyone that could use a stool ate large bowls of stew thick with vegetables more than meat while the wolves and werewolves were all given dried but unsalted meats to eat. Before long, another young lady who worked at the booths near the front entrance came by bearing a large ceramic tray bearing and empty coin purse and stacked coins. My bounties.

I immediately wrote down a list of materials I would like to purpose by tomorrow or the day after at the latest before sending her back with the tray of money and my gratitude. About ten minutes later when everybody was full and relaxed Ramana reappeared with a tall and slender man wearing a simple leather suit styled after an actual double breasted suit and layered with enchantments. These were clothes he could fight in as well as attend a dinner party.

Ramana quickly introduced him, saying, "This is Guildmaster Tomas, we have a briefing room on the second floor where your subordinates and us can discuss things. If you would," she adds, gesturing for me to follow her.

After seizing me up while walking toward the nearby stairs, the guildmaster walking up the stairs not far behind me remarks, "It had truly been a long time before anybody has done anything as impressive here as turning in eleven live bounties. I hear you left behind proofs of many more, as well. What's your secret?"

"I might only have as much magic as most of your C ranks and some of your B ranked mercenaries, but I have trained for nearly as long as I could walk in making use of what magic I do have," I reply vaguely. "I also make use of familiars, but the wolves really only killed about ten people overall. They were the runners."

"So you killed the others with magic," says as if realizing something. "But, then again, some of the bounties you turned in were roughly C rank in the mercenary magic department. Certainly you have a few tricks you would be willing to share?"

Despite how much of a risk a move like the one I was going to make would be, I brought up my status window and showed it to both Ramana and the guildmaster. "Eight years old and over sixty natural Strength. They certainly make us halflings differently, don't they?"

"I was born with fifteen, but that honestly made it harder for me to gain Strength naturally in the beginning," I admit as we travel down one of only a few hallways in the second floor, which suggested the rooms on this floor were somewhat large. "However, pretty much since I could walk I started training in both magic and martial abilities. Right now, I have an opening at my local chapter for a B rank position but after I finish puberty I 'should' be A rank or even S."

While Ramana led us to a room nearby to find a square table surrounded by thickly furred couches the guildmaster said, "With results like today's, I dont doubt it. These criminals taking up in our sewers are becoming a severe problem that most of the city guard is ignoring, which I was hoping was something we could discuss."

Flopping leisurely down on a couch and wondering if they would be offering any refreshments, I gesture for the subhumans to pick their seats before saying, "But of course, it is only a small matter considering the reasons for my entire pilgrimage. By helping me grant these beastmen imperial citizenship, you're already working toward that very problem. Now, what do I had to do to get this done in a day? I can only spend two more days at the most working in the city right now."

"For the job like this," the guildmaster agrees, "the more you work and the better your results then the more dangerous it becomes to stay in one place. Most beasts cannot hold a grudge and find mercenaries in the city, without your help at least, but these gangsters liver here like we do. Now, Ramana can go ahead with the Guild memberships, but I want to ask you about helping us with a job."

"By all means, you have my attention," I encourage his with zero hesitation.

"Recently, the thugs have been making the mistake of thinking they can harass our lower ranked members since we've started sending monthly subjugation teams into the catacombs," the guildmaster tries to explain quickly. "Because of this, we've been getting a list of volunteers for doing a full sweep of the sewers together. We have several people with your capabilities who can lead other groups and we can wipe out at least half of their different criminal groups at once."

"No good, they use enslaved beastmen that I would prefer free and enlist into my own private forces so I can only ask that you leave dealing with the gangsters to me," I reject and quest immediately. "It's not that I question anybody's talents or abilities, it's just that I would prefer that the main resource I seek and is now readily available is fully exploited. I managed all of today's results with stealth and in two more days the sewers will be sufficiently emptied for you to send a squad in behind me."

After that I shared with the guildmaster the map that I had spent most of the day working on and so that the guildmaster's teams would have an easier time of working underground. I had cleared much of the underground already today but I aimed to save all the upper rank thugs under the upper class districts for the Guild. If they can nab all the high profile targets they can take all the credit for cleaning the sewers and bringing justice to the merchant princes.

Between the Guild's imperial power and my religious ranking, they could easily take back the city guard and replace the governor with a temporary parliament of sorts. Made up of specially selected district and faction representatives. Until a noble could be instated to assume control over the city and surrounding lands.

The parliament alone would take a few weeks at the least to be set up so we still had plenty of time to deal with the mine lords.

Unlike with these wannabe gangsters, the Guild could not freely go out and deal with the mine lord lackeys because of the rights of the mine lords without the governor or certain petitions from the citizens. I, however, had much more freedom and plenty of time on my hands to collect information and deal a few blows to their power structure. It should not be long before I saw results from the Guild even from outside the city.

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