MT Chapter 14.5 (Patreon)

He sat across from me with his group of adventurers. He oozed slimy smugness like a car salesman with greased-down hair in a set of equipment that was almost pristine. It really showed how little he actually did himself as everyone else was wearing worn-down clothes or armor. Everyone else was wearing slave collars while his neck was exposed, like he was happy showing off that he was different from the rest.

He was also the only human in the group. Stood behind him on either side of the couch was a giant orc with a permanent smirk on his face as the muscle that controlled smiling was cut and stitched back pulling his mouth into a permanent smile on one side. The dwarf wasn’t covered in anything but orange hair and plate armor.

Sat on the couch with him was a gnome cleaning his nails with a knife and a possible caster… What the hell would you call her? Mouse kin? Her features were far too clean to be rat kin but I’ve seen mouse kind before and she had several differences. Kin were half human, half animal. Snowy white hair covered her entire body, her facial features leaning more toward a snout than a nose.

Dressed in robes with a staff visible, her pristine white short-cut fur led me to think of Freya from Final Fantasy Nine except she was wearing a blue robe trying to keep her face covered as much as possible. She had to be of a race different from that of a wererat or mouse folk. He began to speak. “I hear you’re one of the few healers in this village… We plan on going out to wipe out the goblins for experience. We heavily overlevel the area but we’re power leveling our mage.”

He points at the girl as she shies away from the attention. “If you come with us you’ll get a ton of experience for free just for the safety measure of having a healer, plus we’ll give you an even split of the loot.” Of course, my first instinct is to decline him. Why would a group come to the outskirts to level instead of head to a town dungeon unless they were up to no good or trying to save money? He wouldn’t have offered me a part if they were trying to make money.

“I’ll have to pass. Thank you for the offer.” The man just stared at me, his fake smile not fading in the slightest as he stood up with his group and moved toward the door. Just as he’s about to reach it, it’s opened from the outside by another person and they all walk out smoothly. It isn’t another twenty minutes before the mayor comes knocking at my door.

He comes in with two of his guards, they both look and feel more dangerous than the group who just left. They were muscle-built knights of the order. The sheriff seems more dangerous than the both of them, but if they got the drop on him, he could lose. There were four of these guards in the town, if they attacked him they’d most likely draw the attention of the entire village, either dying, needing to flee, or having to kill everyone in the village.

That was the stalemate. The sheriff had kept the village mostly civil towards nonhumans and the knights were working together with the mayor to make the village more ‘pure’ by making non-humans second-class citizens. The mayor was portly, a fat man shorter than average even with the title and higher rank. Balding which made him constantly wear a hat, a rounded face with a thick almost Robotnik-like mustache, and dressed in a colorful suit that served no purpose except to draw attention to himself.

Just like the previous car salesman, the mayor gave off the same sickening aura. The kind of person who could spew shit from his mouth all day but you seem to be the only person who knows how he truly is. Everyone else somehow not realizing even though it’s so obvious. He had three wives four concubines and a dozen kids as ugly as him with a single beautiful daughter. If only her personality wasn’t such shit like her father's she might have been worth adding to my party.

He rolled his fingers on the armrest of the couch in my room as the two bodyguards stood on either side of it. Waiting for me to be the first to speak, I just sit in silence for half a minute before I completely ignore him and start preparing our breakfast. As he realized I wasn’t going to play his games he finally spoke. “I would like you to go with that group of adventurers.”

Without thinking too much into it I instinctively say. “No.” He wasn’t expecting such an instantaneous answer, it left the mayor flabbergasted. He took a deep intake of breath, not showing how truly angry he was he asked. “What can I offer you to keep an eye on that group for me?” I thought about it. The mayor didn’t have anything I truly wanted well… Except money of course.

“I want a platinum, no two.” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “That is more than a month's salary of mine. How about five gold instead?” Stirring the soup as I pulled out the bread from the top part of the stove. I didn’t bother looking at him. “Two platinum is my price, I don’t want anything to do with that group and if we have an agreement I want it in writing, it’s not that I don’t trust you…” I couldn’t think of a good lie so just leave it at that.

I could take it or leave it, the mayor was a control freak. He could either pay me or not but I would be cheaper than the help he’d get from the knights to keep tabs on the group. I just wanted money, they wanted as much power as they could get in the village, and the mayor would be far less likely to give up power than money. He took in a deep breath, that two platinum might be what he made as a salary of the mayor but if he did anything shady, which I knew he did, he probably made five times that amount every month.

The happy-go-lucky personality he tried to portray started to crack as he finally relented. “Fine, if that’s your price… For the sake of the village, I’ll pay it to make sure they’re not up to anything. Make sure they don’t destroy or steal the dungeon core, it’s valuable but if the goblin dungeon is destroyed we could see stronger monsters take their spot.”

My instincts were telling me to not trust the mayor or the group, both were in it for more nefarious purposes, but money was money. Like an adventurer risking his life in dungeons, it was worth the risk for enough platinum to live off for the next year. Aki was also getting anxious, the group seemed strong but not to the point of completely overwhelming her. If they fought one-on-one that is, so the slaver probably wouldn’t risk his own people to fight us for no reason.

I walk into the inn. It wasn’t manned most days, only when someone was actually visiting the village and seeing the person who didn’t come in with the slaver. It was another human, large facial scars crossed his face that were clearly from torture and not from combat. Like someone wanted to make him ugly and they succeeded. The scar even went into his hairline, other than that he would have been an above-average-looking man. Blonde hair, bulky but not as big as the orc and he had a set of swords and daggers on his person.

He felt like the most dangerous and if Aki could beat everyone else one-on-one, me and her would lose to him is what my gut was saying. He gave me a smile as I came in and I was about to walk out, fuck the consequences when the slaver looks towards me angrily. “So, you’re the hired help then? Seems kind of silly to refuse me then except for the deal your mayor gave you.” Fuck, he really roped me into this shit already, well… Fuck it, let’s hope they don’t have any other motive than stealing the dungeon core.