Chương 12: Chapter 12

When we finished annihilating the bandits, it was the most crucial moment.

We checked inside the caravan where the girls were, just to confirm if there was nothing. In the caravan where the girls were, there was nothing, it was just empty. I think it was the one they used for adventurers to get on, the other must be the one containing the goods they trade.

"Let's check the caravan's goods!" was the first thing I said after confirming that none of the bandits were still alive.

"Do you like money that much?" Alexa asked, seeing how happy I was that the first thing I did after winning our first battle was to check the rewards.

"What do you know? Being a low-ranking adventurer is very expensive, rewards are scarce to the point that, apart from working as an adventurer, you have to get a part-time job in the village when we stock up on supplies and maintain our weapons," I said somewhat annoyed. The gold coins I obtained in the ruin may be a lot of money, but it's my money. I don't plan to share it with the group, I can use it to get a house or a base where I can be with women without worrying about anyone finding out. Besides, getting your own house costs a lot.

With that thought in my mind, I opened the caravan curtains, and there were several barrels and six boxes.

I hurried to the first box with some excitement, but when I opened it, I could only feel disappointment for what I found.

"Dylan, is there anything useful?" Frex asked, entering the caravan right behind me.

"No," I replied curtly. I went to open another box, and to more disappointment, it was full of common bread.

I felt like I had been ripped off, and the human girl outside the caravan said, "You won't find anything in either of the caravans, one was used for transporting adventurers, and the other for supplies. The bandits left in a hurry without seeing what goods were inside." Hearing that, I just felt like reviving the bandits to kill them again. How can they be so incompetent?! Not only that, they didn't even realize what they stole and were celebrating as if they had obtained a great booty, to the point where I believed they had acquired valuable items. The only valuable things were the caravans themselves along with the Holoplers.

I had to calm down a bit before opening the barrels and other boxes. To more disappointment, there were only more fruits and bread, aside from a barrel containing a lot of jerky. Three barrels were filled with water, and the other contained beer.

After checking everything, we started collecting the heads of the bandits, maybe we'll get some reward.

We left the caravan and walked to the corpses.

"Is it okay if we put the bandits' heads in a barrel?" Frex asked as he grabbed a bandit's head by the hair before putting it in a water-filled box.

"Yes, we only need the heads, the bodies will be devoured by the beasts and monsters in the area, so we don't have to worry about the bodies," I replied as I cut off the bandit's head that I had stabbed in the neck.

"But what about the mission?" Lina asked, avoiding looking at the corpses and decapitated heads of the bandits.

"We can do it before returning to the village, it will be much faster now that we have two caravans." When I finally managed to finish cutting off the bandit's head, I threw it into one of the barrels containing water.

Now that I think about it, it's strange that I don't feel much about taking the lives of these bandits. If I were in my old world, I would probably feel nauseous and start vomiting.

"By the way, you killed the bandits without any hesitation. Is it common to take the lives of others where you come from?" I always wanted to know this answer because in the game, many characters got 'Discomfort' when they killed someone for the first time, and depending on the character, some felt depression, others started with guilt, and there were also those who began to enjoy taking the lives of others.

Frex picked up another bandit's head and threw it back into the water barrel, saying, "No, it's just that our parents taught us that if we wanted to become adventurers, we should be prepared to take someone's life. When some people came to attack our village, they left some alive for us to finish the job, 'if we want to protect someone, we must be willing to take someone else's life to achieve it.' That's what he told us before throwing us at the people who came to attack us while crying." That's a brutal origin story.

"By the way, what will you two do?" Frex asked the two girls who were eating in one of the carriages.

The human girl was the first to respond "I don't know. The merchant who owned the caravan was my contractor, he wanted me to become his secretary to help him with accounting and product identification. Now I have to find someone else to give me a job." Although she said she didn't know what to do, she couldn't stop looking in my direction.

"What is your occupation? If you are a merchant, it would be very helpful for us so that we don't have to divide responsibilities when it comes to repairs, selling what we get, and replenishing supplies."

"My current occupation is 'appraiser merchant', I only got it this year." Hearing her answer, I was impressed, she seems too young to have a third-rank profession, and above all, she's a merchant, which is much harder to advance.

"How about working for us?" I suggested, and I saw everyone start to look at me.

"But, Dylan, we are adventurers. How would a merchant with no combat training help us?" Frex asked, and everyone else agreed with his doubt.

I didn't want to start talking to them about how much we would need her later on if we want to be a high-ranking group. I just showed them the knife I used to get rid of the bandits and asked, "How much do you think this knife is worth?"

"Maybe 1 silver coin," Alexa said with some doubt, and I just shook my head. Frex said, "Perhaps 50 copper coins." I just ignored what he said and looked at Lina. She simply didn't want to guess, so this time I asked the girl.

"Tell me the price."

She got off the caravan and approached me to hand her the knife, I gave it to her, and she began to examine it. "It looks like a knife reinforced with Kolsur mineral, making it much harder to break or wear out, but it loses a bit of its sharpness. It seems to be made by a skilled blacksmith, so the price can range from 3 silver coins with 50 copper coins to 4 silver coins."

Everyone was surprised to hear the price. A knife of this size and shape can be bought for 40 copper to 1 silver.

I took the knife from her hands and said, "This is why we need a merchant. Besides the things we are asked for in a mission, we can keep everything we find to sell later or use if we need it. But if we simply show what we get to merchants, they will give us a much lower price than it's truly worth."

They seemed quite surprised, and I don't blame them for this, even experienced adventurers often encounter these kinds of situations, and merchants often take advantage of the lack of knowledge of many adventurers.

After hearing my explanation, they agreed to let the girl join us, who, by the way, told us her name was "Laura."

"Well, what about you?" Frex asked the cat girl, but she just shook her head and said

The cat girl put on a sad face and said, "I have nowhere to go... All my group mates died against the bandits... It was our leader who managed all our money by completing missions... So now I have nowhere to go." I could see how everyone else in our group felt a bit sorry for her. But it only raised a doubt in me when I heard her.

I approached and asked her, "How did they manage to catch you? Even though they didn't look strong enough to give you a fight, you could easily escape from them."

She seemed a bit depressed when she heard me, but she replied, "Actually, when they attacked the caravans, our group tried to take care of a part of the bandits, but a bandit with one hand caught our leader's head and crushed it as if it were just a piece of cheese. We panicked, but still tried to fight, and I saw how my group died one by one by another bandit using two swords. I didn't pay attention to the other people in the caravan because of how difficult the situation was, and before I knew it, I saw the one who killed our leader hit me in the abdomen, and when I woke up, I was tied up."

"Do you remember the appearance of the one who blew up your friend's head?" The method of squeezing their heads until their skulls broke seems familiar.

"No, I just remember he was almost three times taller than me." Could it be a Barbarian?

"Well, you don't have to try to remember anything else, it's Frex who decides if you can join." Everyone looked at Frex, and he just approached her and said, "You must have been through a lot, so we'll be happy if you join our group."

She seemed like she wanted to cry, but instead, she said with a smile, "I'll be very happy to join your group, and my name is Scartha." It sounded like a foreign name.

After she said her name, we finished introducing ourselves to each other.

"I think we're forgetting about that." Lina broke the atmosphere and pointed to the two corpses that were poisoned with the expired potion on the tips of Alexa's arrows.

Just by looking at the corpses, I felt like vomiting. As I approached, I could smell a horrible odor, similar to a decomposing body, and the eyes of the corpses seemed to have melted into a black stain mixing with their much blacker blood, resembling oil.

"Where did you get such a lethal poison?" Alexa asked, seeing how the corpses ended up.

"Let's just leave those two corpses and go." Everyone agreed with what I said, and we looted the weapons from the other decapitated corpses, and Lina used the <Minor Freezing> magic to freeze the water barrel containing the bandits' heads.

After all this, we returned to where we had set up the camp, although it was no longer necessary due to being able to sleep well inside the caravans, while taking turns to watch over the night.