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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Chaos
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The youngest member of the Brown Wolf Mercenary Company, the ‘girl’, was unusually free.
Their current employer, the Midas Trading Company, had provided them with lodging in one of their buildings and while it couldn’t be called luxurious, the meals offered were of reasonably satisfactory quality.
While the responsibility for the company’s lodging and meals rotated among the members, the girl was a constant exception, always assigned to these tasks, leaving her with little to no personal time.
It could be seen as harsh, but the girl didn’t mind.
She knew it was Captain Clark’s way of looking out for her.
Many members had been dissatisfied with having a young child, especially a girl, as a comrade. However, as the girl’s role in the company’s chores increased, the complaints subsided.
They realized that if the girl were to leave due to petty harassment, all the “annoying tasks” she handled would fall back on them.
And during this precious free time, the girl was…
*Swish, swish.*
…busy maintaining her weapons.
She sharpened her shortsword with a whetstone and wiped it clean with an oiled cloth.
The shortsword wasn’t the only weapon she attended to.
Two daggers, one with a straight back and the other with a gently curved blade, and a dark-stained wooden club lay in a corner.
“…Aren’t you tired of that?”
“Not really.”
Clark, who had been watching her, asked in disbelief, but the girl replied indifferently.
It was a rather informal tone for the youngest member to use with the captain, but Clark wasn’t surprised.
She had been like this since their first encounter.
He considered himself lucky. Most of the other members thought she was mute.
At first, he assumed she was just shy or inarticulate, but after observing her for several months, he had reached a different conclusion.
She just couldn’t be bothered to respond most of the time. This little girl was more talkative, more ill-tempered, and above all…
“Will you be alright, though?”
His train of thought was interrupted by the girl’s question.
Clark asked back,
“What do you mean?”
The girl shrugged.
“Me. The client seems to dislike me.”
“It’s fine. Who does that bastard think he is, telling me to dismiss a member?”
Recalling the earlier incident, Clark made a disgusted face and declared firmly.
“Besides, you saw it, right? How he groveled in front of that young master. I never knew his back was so flexible. He won’t utter a word about this incident for a while.”
“He may not say anything, but he’ll hold a grudge.”
The girl’s indifferent remark left Clark speechless.
Because he knew she was probably right.
“And some of the other members might be harboring resentment too.”
This pointed observation also hit home.
After all, it was Clark himself who had pushed through the contract with the Midas Trading Company a few years ago, despite internal opposition within the mercenary company.
Fifty years ago, the Hegemony War concluded with the Kingdom of Barhardt rising as an empire after a struggle for dominance among four kingdoms: Barhardt, Morian, Sphero, and Nahat.
Twenty years ago, the Judgment War saw the Barhardt Empire, the dominant power on the continent, clash with the Ivesthan Empire, supported by demons from overseas. Barhardt emerged victorious.
Unlike the past, when numerous mercenary companies were formed and legends were sometimes made, the present was an era of peace, and consequently, the need for mercenary companies had diminished.
The Brown Wolf Mercenary Company, which once boasted over a hundred members in its prime, had dwindled to just over twenty since Clark inherited leadership ten years ago.
Seeing the decreasing number of requests and the ever-increasing deficit in their accounts, Clark realized they had no future if things continued this way.
That was why he had endured the disdain of others and joined hands with the Midas Trading Company.
If they could secure a position within Midas, their livelihoods would be stable, even if it meant enduring some criticism.
Given that Clark, who had made that decision, had suddenly acted out of character by opposing Dorf from Midas, he was in no position to argue if the girl’s words were true, that he had prioritized her over his long-time comrades.
“It’s not like I gave you special treatment. I would have done the same if he’d told me to dismiss any other member.”
However, at least this much was Clark’s genuine feeling, without a shred of falsehood.
So the girl, instead of pressing him further, simply said,
“Well, if you had readily agreed to dismiss me, you would have been called a rat who talks big to his own people but cowers before money. Good call.”
“…Do you have some kind of grudge against me?”
Glancing at Clark, who was grumbling like a wounded puppy despite his imposing physique, the girl thought,
It seemed like she wouldn’t be staying in this place for long either.
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The next morning, inside the carriage heading out for that so-called charity work or whatever it was, I had spent the entire night sorting through the situation and had reached one conclusion:
‘Ignore anything that’s pointless to dwell on.’
Was this place truly the same “Planetarium” that I knew?
If so, was I now a character in the game?
What about other players?
Numerous questions arose and faded throughout the night, but there were no clear answers.
It wasn’t like I was a brain in a vat. Thinking too deeply about it would only give me a headache.
Therefore, I decided to set aside the details and assume this was a “world extremely similar to the game I knew.”
And in that case, the biggest problem was something else entirely.
The sheer number of death flags lurking in this world!
The hallmark of “Planetarium” was its vast scenarios and diverse events.
From a gamer’s perspective, it was exciting, a wealth of content to enjoy!
But from the perspective of an inhabitant of that world, it was a minefield.
I could think of at least three villainous factions off the top of my head, and more than five catastrophic events that would impact the entire continent.
Considering the events I hadn’t experienced and the planned expansion packs, it wasn’t something I could avoid simply by hiding or running away.
Even if I didn’t personally solve every single event, I needed to be prepared to confront the major threats.
And what I needed to do for that was clear.
Recruit allies!
“Planetarium” was indeed full of dangers, but it also provided ways to overcome them.
The most prominent of these were the player and the various allies the player could recruit.
‘Utilize the abilities of the “Greedy Prodigal” to the fullest, gather and strengthen allies, and deal with those damn events.’
It would be a long journey, a fight with an uncertain end, but I preferred to struggle rather than cower in fear and waste this new life I had been given.
‘By the way, if “Hero Assembly” is in effect, are the protagonists from other templates somewhere in this world?’
The protagonists available as templates generally possessed top-tier qualities within the game’s world, so they would be a great asset if they existed.
‘But with gender and names all randomized, how am I supposed to find them?’
I sighed, facing one obstacle after another.
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After about three days of travel by carriage…which, contrary to my expectations, was surprisingly smooth and comfortable…the first impression I had upon arriving at the territory that had placed a large order for food from the Midas Trading Company could be summed up in a single phrase:
‘A dying town.’
The streets were deserted, and the stalls that should have displayed various fruits and ingredients were covered in dust.
The few people I saw had faces etched with fatigue and poverty, and their gazes held a mixture of hostility, fear, and expectation as they looked at us.
“The Baldwin family, the rulers of this territory and our trading partners, were originally a prestigious knightly family. The lord earned the recognition of the old royal family for his loyalty and martial prowess, and the knights and soldiers of the territory were considered among the elites in the surrounding area.”
As if reading the question in my eyes, Dorf Brahms began to explain.
“But that was the beginning of their downfall. Master Chrom, are you familiar with the Hegemony War?”
I drew on both Chrom’s memories and those of my previous life as I answered.
“Fifty years ago, it was a war fought among the four kingdoms…Barhardt, Morian, Sphero, and Nahat…located in central continent, for control of the continent. In the end, Barhardt was victorious at the hands of Ludwig Barhardt, who ascended the throne at the young age of 15 after the death of the previous king. He is now known as the ‘Great Emperor.'”
The current Midas family’s sudden rise to wealth was a result of riding the wave of chaos created by the birth of the new empire.
In a sense, it was the war that led to our family’s existence.
“Indeed. The then-head of the Baldwin family and his forces fought fiercely under the old Sphero royal family, and thus suffered greatly in the defeat. The lord and most of the key figures in the territory perished, and the powerful elite soldiers were mostly annihilated.”
Hmm, that was certainly a devastating blow. A family that thrived on military strength had lost its core.
“But it happened decades ago. Could the aftermath really have reduced the territory to this state?”
“Of course, that wasn’t all. The next lord of the Baldwin family, who remained in the territory, struggled for decades, and by the time he passed it on to the current lord, it had recovered to a reasonable extent.”
But as they say, misfortunes never come singly.
“Five years ago, a major earthquake struck this area. The earthquake itself passed without significant loss of life, but the problem was the series of crop failures that followed in the surrounding areas.”
Dorf continued with a cunning look on his face.
“By the time they realized there was a problem with the spring that served as the territory’s water source, the surrounding soil was already ruined. Even a disease began to spread among the residents, and their downfall was swift. Even then, it was only because the lord poured money into continuously importing food and medicine from outside that things didn’t get worse.”
“And our trading company supplied those medicines and food?”
“I told you, it’s a charitable project.”
No matter how I looked at it, calling this charity was utterly shameless.
Well, it was no wonder they were called nouveau riche, obsessed with money, and unscrupulous.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had sabotaged other suppliers of medicine and food to monopolize the trade, or if they had taken advantage of the dire situation to inflate prices and rake in profits.
I hadn’t expected them to conduct business honestly and fairly in the first place!
By the way, if what Dorf said was true, the lord had been using his assets to feed the residents of his territory for years.
Were there no financial problems?
Well, he was a nobleman and a lord, so surely he wouldn’t have ordered goods without the means to pay.
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