Ch. 128: Demanding after Unifying
“If they are that troubled, we should help.”
Unexpectedly to Loren, the one who said that was Layla.
Unloading the carriages wasn’t part of the job description, so after borrowing a room in Rose’s house, the party had a meeting, centered around Klaus.
The proceedings were of course, about the situation he and Loren had heard from Rose and whether they should help or not.
Loren expected everyone except Klaus to cast negative votes, but the one who suddenly betrayed him was Layla.
“I may be an adventurer, but I’m a former knight. I can’t leave the weak asking for help.”
“I knew I could count on you Layla.”
“Although, the sequence of events our leader went through to obtain this information makes pisses me off…”
Layla clenched her fist so hard it was shaking, but Klaus didn’t mind it.
She even started grinding her teeth as Klaus started applauding with a big smile, but Loren thought that unless something physical occurred, it was impossible to let him become aware.
“As a priestess…I also cannot ignore people in trouble…”
Roll followed up with her own opinion nervously.
This was within Loren’s expectations.
Although there was the difference of payment or free charge, priests in general had the mentality of having to help those in need, and if a priest ignored them, it would be a problem.
“As a priestess of the Knowledge god, I don’t think we should leave people in trouble.”
Although she said so with dead eyes and a flat voice, this was within Loren’s expectations as well.
If it were only Loren, she immediately would’ve told him she didn’t want to stick her head into any unnecessary trouble, but on the surface, she was a priestess, so she had to say that.
Loren and Ange were the ones left, but Loren thought that there was a very low chance that she would disagree.
In this circumstance, if she did disagree, he would be impressed at her straight personality, but there was no way she could’ve stuck with Klaus this long with one like that.
“I guess…there’s no use for me to be against it. In that case I’ll agree, but you owe me one, alright Klaus?”
“Thanks Ange.”
As Loren expected, Ange calculated that disagreeing with the two girls that agreed already wasn’t the best thing to do, and when she poked Klaus with her finger, Klaus smiled and took her hand.
Looking at them with cold eyes, as Ange’s face reddened and a small smile appearing on her face, Loren tried to resist.
“I won’t do it for free. That’s something I can’t take back.”
Since he couldn’t avoid it, he had to make it as worth his time as possible.
He had to at least secure extra payment, but in the back of his mind, he knew that it would be a difficult matter.
After all, Rose was thinking that she had managed to snag Klaus using her charms as a woman, so it didn’t seem like she would pay anything extra.
Even if she were to pay something, it could be that she spends a night with Klaus instead of payment.
It seemed difficult to squeeze it out of Klaus as well.
He had already paid them fifteen silver coins, and he was tight on money as well.
Although he was backed by the nation, he didn’t get all the money he wanted or with no conditions, and there was a limit to what he and his party could spend.
“For that, let’s see. I understand that since you’re only a temporary member, I shouldn’t force you on jobs you don’t want to take.”
Layla said so and nodded.
The reason why her words pointed only towards Loren, was because Lapis had already agreed with helping, and since she couldn’t go back and say she wanted extra payment as well, a weak laugh escaped her lips, which stretched across her face into a forced smile.
“How about this. Klaus and the four of us who agreed pay you two silver coins each, for a total of ten. Would that be enough?”
When Layla presented the idea, the air around Lapis became even heavier.
Klaus and the girls didn’t seem to notice, but Loren could see that Lapis didn’t like it, but it would be strange if he suddenly refused the payment, and with her position, there was no way Lapis could say that she didn’t want to pay.
“That’ll do. I guess.”
Loren decided to immediately jump on the suggestion.
He might’ve been able to raise the amount if he tried.
It was because Klaus and the girls had no idea if the job was something they could accomplish on their own, and needed all the help they could get, and it would be troublesome if they lost Loren.
But at the same time, it would mean taking money from Lapis, who had no choice but to agree with them, and to Loren, that meant there was nothing good for her.
“Thanks for cooperating Loren.”
Waving his hand to stop Layla from bowing, Loren said in a grumble.
“I already came this far. I can’t go back to Kauffa alone.”
“Since we all agree, let’s start heading towards the village Rose spoke of.”
When Klaus said with a big smile on his face, Layla and Ange pummeled him to the ground.
As Roll looked on with a sigh as she stepped on him, Loren drew close to Lapis, who still had the smile stuck on her face.
“I’ll give the coins back later.”
“It’s something I already paid. Please keep it…”
When Lapis said without even batting an eyelash, Loren frowned and whispered again.
“You don’t have to act so stubborn you know?”
“Then please buy me something worth two silver coins after the job…that’ll do.”
Loren nodded when he finally saw her expression change into a tired one.
If that would be enough to cheer her up and stable her mental, it wasn’t a bad deal.
“S-so…the neighboring village…”
“We should start by going to that hag and asking her the distance and other pieces of information, as well as supplies.”
“It would be much easier if she would pay extra…but since Klaus accepted it, I doubt she would do such a thing…unfortunately…”
“Why does he get caught so easily, I wonder.”
“I believe we can only take it as a trial from god…”
“Then your god must be a mean one. But as someone who got tangled up in all this, who am I to say about others?”
Ignoring Klaus, who had recovered from being stomped on by Roll, trying to take the lead again, Loren and the girls went to Rose to try to receive any kind of supplies they could get.
“Our village doesn’t have much to offer…If the nation did something, I wouldn’t have to ask you to do it…”
Rose’s response was pretty much what they had expected.
She also kept glancing at Layla, who was dressed like a knight, making it worse.
Although she had only prepared and hadn’t reported the incident yet, Loren knew that there was almost no chance of the nation doing anything.
The nation was at war, after all.
There was no way they would send anyone to deal with a small village’s problem.
Layla hung her head because she knew that as well.
“But Master Klaus has accepted.”
When Rose said so with a smile, Klaus blushed and smiled back.
While Ange and Roll immediately started punching him in the gut, Loren sighed in exasperation and said to Rose.
“I get what you want to say. But aren’t you being a bit too dirty about this?”
“Don’t make it sound like that. I’m just someone who doesn’t have the means to fight that’s appealing to you for mercy.”
“It’s not like I don’t understand why you want to do this. But just handing everything over without cutting yourself even a little bit isn’t the most praiseworthy thing to do, no?”
Loren understood weak or helpless people asking stronger people for help.
But Loren believed that even so, the ones asking for help should of course, carry a part of the burden as well.
But even when he said that, instead of responding, all Rose did was smile.
After thinking for a moment, Loren lowered his voice slightly.
“So that means you can’t give us anything to help?”
“I believe ‘we can’t give you anything even if we wanted’ is the correct response.”
“I see. I guess it can’t be helped. By the way, since there’s no payment, it means there’s no problem if we fail and we don’t need to report back, right?”
Rose looked at Loren with a wondering face, not understanding what he was saying for a moment, but her expression changed as she heard Loren’s next words.
“If you paid us, we would carry the risk of failing, and report back to you, whether the situation is wrapped up or not. But since there isn’t, it means you don’t need those either, don’t you?”
“That’s…”
“What I mean is, it’s alright if we made it so that we failed immediately after we leave, and just go back to Kauffa.”
If there was no payment, there was no risk or penalty if they failed.
Then all they had to do was silence Klaus somehow immediately after they left the village, consider the job a failure, and head back to Kauffa.
Since Layla, as a knight, wanted to help them, things wouldn’t go that smoothly, but Rose had no way of knowing that.
“Please, you can’t!”
“Then at least try to help, dammit. Don’t think that just because you’re weak, getting help is natural. Well, the biggest problem is that our leader is sloppy when it comes to women.”
“B-but…”
“I’m not saying that you need to pay us money. There’re things like food, water, or alcohol that you could supply us with, right? Maybe lend us a donkey to carry our things. What I’m saying is, at least try to show a cooperative attitude.”
Loren knew the village was in a tight spot.
On top of that, without any men, they didn’t have enough working hands either, so he understood that Rose wanted to save as much as she could for them.
But trying to solve the problem without carrying any of the burden wasn’t a good thing, and hearing Loren’s demands to give them what they could, Rose started calculating in her head, while cold sweat ran down her brow.