Chương 28: Important Announcement
Raymond walked in the direction of the mercenary guild with Jasmine in tow. Along the way he had to pretend like he didn't care about the strange gazes and weird faces made by the people who saw him.
Jasmine skipped happily by his side like she had nothing to do with his current predicament.
Since it was still early in the morning not many people were present in the streets. As such Raymond hastened his walking speed and reached the mercenary guild within a few minutes.
"Huff…huff… slow down, master. Why are you walking so fast?"
Jasmine complained as she had practically run with all her strength just to keep up with him.
Raymond pressed his knuckles to her temples as he gave her a noogie.
"You are asking why I am walking so fast? Don't you know why? It's because of you!"
"Awww, what are you talking about, master? What did I do?"
Jasmine asked, feeling wronged by her master's accusations. She really looked convincing on her part so much so that Raymond for a second believed that she was hurt by his words.
But the slight shaking of her shoulders, as she tried to suppress her laugh, didn't go unnoticed by him.
"You are terrible at acting, you should take training from some real drama artists."
Raymond ignored the scowl on her face and entered the guild building.
Instantly, all the murmurs going on inside the guild hall stopped as numerous pairs of eyes landed on Raymond.
Raymond had really thick skin so he decided to put it to good use and headed straight for the mission board.
His face darkened when he read the contents written in bold letters under the name of important notice.
[
"Important Announcement: All the missions involving the forest outside the Capital city have been cancelled due to some unforeseen circumstances. We kindly request your cooperation in this matter.
Also, we would like to advise our members to stay away from the forest for the time being."
]
'Great! Things are just perfect today.'
Raymond sneered looking at the mission board. There were still some E-ranked missions available on the board other than the monster subjugation in the forest. But they weren't exactly combat oriented.
"Tch, there isn't a single mission in E-rank that has higher payment than monster subjugation."
Usually, someone in E-rank could only take up the missions that aligned with their rank. This rule was in place so that the mercenaries wouldn't overestimate their abilities and end up dying. But for an exceptional case like Raymond, it was just a hindrance.
So he decided to completely disregard that rule as soon as his eyes landed on some of the higher ranking missions.
Those bounty hunting missions looked ripe for the picking. Even if he didn't get the reward for clearing the bounty he could just take whatever the target had on them.
After all, it wasn't considered robbery if he took things from thugs and bandits.
'Heh, I will just take whatever they have and never report it to the guild.'
Raymond started looking for a bounty of someone stronger. He could even hit a jackpot if he ended up catching some big fish.
He rubbed his hands excitedly, having forgotten his irritation. Jasmine looked at him curiously as he sometimes frowned and sometimes smiled wickedly looking at the mission board.
It wasn't her business to ask what he was doing so she kept quiet and let him do his thing. After looking through the list of bounty missions for a while Raymond finally found the right one.
[
Mission Type: Bounty Hunting.
Target: Mobi aka The Miner.
Whereabouts: To the south of the Capital city.
Strength: Martial Greatsage.
Guards: Unknown.
Difficulty: ★★★★
Description: Mobi is an infamous thief who is known for his escape technique. Born with an affinity to earth, he has mastered the art of merging into the ground and escaping without a trace.
He has managed to avoid getting caught due to his quick wit and rich fighting experience…
Reward: 100 Gold Coins.
]
Raymond read on and memorised the key points of the mission. He couldn't just tear off the poster and take it with him. This mission board was inlaid with special runes that alerted the guild officials whenever someone took the poster. They would immediately know who took the mission poster.
-Swoosh!
"Ray, watch out!"
He heard Jasmine's cry from behind and reacting quickly, he narrowly dodged a flaming sword coming his way.
"Damn! You're really quick on your feet!"
There she was. The culprit who attacked him out of nowhere. Sasha was standing within his arm's reach with a sword that was spitting flames.
Sasha jumped back as she sensed Jasmine lunging in her direction menacingly.
"You! Why are you always trying to attack him?"
Jasmine screamed at the top of her lungs. She was scared for her master's life ever since she had heard that fortune teller's divination about death.
And this red bitch here seemed like she was after his life from the moment they had met her. Sure, she behaved herself well when they were in the forest but that didn't mean Jasmine had let her guard down.
She still couldn't be sure what Sasha wanted from her master though. At times she acted like a nice person and sometimes she acted like a bloodthirsty beast hell bent on taking down Raymond.
"Calm down, girl. It's not like he is hurt or anything."
Sasha tried to placate her seeing as Jasmine was about to explode due to anger.
"That's because he is built like a bull." Jasmine rebuked furiously. "But you shouldn't go attacking people like that."
Raymond's cheeks twitched in irritation when he heard Jasmine's words.
"Hey, hey, I am right here! Stop calling me a bull."
But both of them completely ignored him as they were engaged in a staredown contest.
Finally, after staring for a few minutes Sasha relented and averted her eyes.
"Tch, I was just trying to get my part of the deal. He promised to fight me if I gave him a recommendation."
"Hmph, you could have fought him fairly instead of attacking from behind."
Jasmine said with a smug look on her face as if she had won a big lottery.
"Haha, how naive?" Sasha chuckled scornfully. "Do you think everyone will fight fairly in this day and age? The only thing that matters is winning, the sooner you realise it, the longer you will live."
"That's just you trying to justify your actions, tell me you wouldn't be pissed off if someone attacked you from behind."
"Alright! That's enough bickering for one day."
Raymond shouted seeing as the situation was escalating by the second.
"Miss Sasha, you want to fight me, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, come on then!"
Raymond said as he cleaned his ears with his pinky.
-Voom!
Sasha lit up her sword instantly and pounced on him with a vertical slash. Raymond caught the sword in his hand making sure that the flames on the sword caught on to his sleeves.
"Oops!"
Sasha let go of the sword when she saw that she had accidentally burned his dress.
"Oh no! What am I going to do? This is my favourite robe. Miss Sasha! Look at what you have done."
Raymond said in a painful voice sounding like he had lost his best friend.
'Yuck! What terrible acting!'
Jasmine snickered inwardly to herself.
"Why are you whining like that?" Sasha asked. "It's just a bit singed. Get a new one, problem solved."
'What? She is buying his act?'
Jasmine was flabbergasted. How can someone not see his terrible acting, was beyond her understanding.
"Sigh~ must be nice, to be so rich."
Raymond sighed wistfully. All this time he held onto the sword trying to see if he could reignite it to burn his robe even more. Alas, he couldn't.
Sasha scowled when Raymond mentioned her being rich.
'It's not my fault that my father is the emperor.'
From the moment she was born, she could have anything she ever wanted with just a snap of her fingers. So she couldn't be blamed for thinking that if something is broken then buy a new one.
"So what? Do you want me to pay for your dress?"
"Yes, that would be 2 gold coins please."
Raymond opened his palms towards her shamelessly. Sasha just shook her head and gave him 2 gold coins as if it was nothing.
"Man, you really have a weird taste to be dressed like that. I mean who considers a servant's dancing robe as their favourite?"
Raymond's hand that was reaching for his pocket froze at her words. He mechanically raised his head to look at her and whispered in a barely audible tone:
"What?"
"Eh? Don't tell me you didn't know? This robe came into fashion three years ago. Usually, nobles make their servants wear this dress when they have to dance in front of the guests."
Sasha raised her eyebrows comically.
'Was this guy living under a rock or something?'
"You!"
Raymond stared daggers at Jasmine when he heard that. Now that he thought about it, some of the locals' reactions were ridiculous when they saw him today.
'With my handsome face and lean body, anything I wore should make me look good. Heh, They must have thought that I couldn't be someone's servant, that's why they were looking at me strangely.'
He shamelessly made baseless assumptions in his mind to quell the raging fire in his chest.
Jasmine whistled and looked away guiltily.
"Ah! Look, Ray. This mission is perfect for us. Let's go herb gathering."
Jasmine tried to divert the topic as quickly as possible. But she knew he was going to take revenge later.
"Herb gathering my ass. I am going after this bounty."
Raymond said pointing at the poster but his eyes were spitting flames as he locked his gaze with her.
"Ahem! That mission is out of your rank, Ray."
Jasmine kindly reminded him lest he got his licence revoked by the guild for trying to take higher ranking missions.
But Sasha had other plans looking at the poster he was pointing at.
'That bastard has escaped from me two times already.'
As she thought of Raymond's speed back in the forest, she guessed she might just be able to complete this mission if she had his help.
"Hmmm, how about I take the mission and bring you along as my helper?"
She chimed in cheerfully and looked at Raymond with hope filled eyes.
"Uhh, that's fine but how are we going to split the reward?"
Raymond asked curiously. If she took the mission he would be able to get the reward while also loot–ahem taking the target's money.
"How about fifty-fifty?" He suggested.
"Sure, I don't mind."
Sasha replied nonchalantly. The reward was the last thing on her mind right now because this mission was personal to her.
Mobi had managed to fool her twice and escape from her. Not only that, according to her informants, he had been boasting about fooling the city's best mercenary wherever he went.
'What the? Should have asked for more, dammit.'
Raymond groaned in his mind.
"Alright! Let's go!"
Sasha exclaimed in excitement and tore off the mission poster from the board. Raymond and Jasmine followed her as she led them towards the southern part of the Capital city.
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
DracoKnight
DracoKnight Hi, Dk here,
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