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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: TushChen
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Two money pouches came out of Bu-rin’s bosom.
When I opened the pouches, the money in each pouch was roughly half and half.
So you put them in separate pouches because you were trying to pocket half, right?
When I glared at Bu-rin, he coughed and averted his gaze.
I will deal with Bu-rin later.
For now, to get the exact amount, I started counting the money.
Other outcasts, in their first life as outcasts, think the intermediaries are ripping them off.
Still, they only have suspicions without evidence, so they can only express discomfort, not confront them.
So, the intermediaries just need to obstinately stand their ground, and that’s it.
However, I, Ho Cheon-an, have also played as an intermediary a few times.
So, I roughly know how much a request of this level comes in at what rate, and how much it costs when certain situations occur.
Murim Cheonha directly reflects the martial arts era; in this era, pocketing money is actually “common.”
If you do honest business, you’re called a fool, and it’s a merchant’s virtue to boast about experiences of ripping off customers like heroic tales.
In an era where people sell their conscience and brag about their own cleverness with that money, it would be pointless for me to bring up modern concepts of contracts or trust.
“Black Cat. Sit.” I tapped a spot beside me.
I didn’t know what fragrance it was, but a refreshing scent spread around when Black Cat sat next to me.
Do peerless beauties have a mood-lifting scent ingrained in their bodies?
Amidst the bachelor smell permeating this Outcast Inn due to only men swarming, the occasional scent emanating from Black Cat elicited involuntary exclamations of refreshment.
Bu-rin must have also sensed it because his nose twitched, and his face turned bright red.
The charm of the mysterious masked woman Black Cat, who implanted the judgment of a peerless beauty in people’s minds just with her atmosphere, voice, scent, and figure, even though her facial features were not properly visible.
Come to think of it, even if the face hidden behind that mask-like veil was ugly, her voice was beautiful, her scent was fragrant, her figure was good, and she was charming.
Regardless of how her face looked, wasn’t she a peerless beauty?
Looking at Black Cat and then at the flustered Bu-rin, whose face was red, my confusion cleared.
The sight of that guy, who looked like the Goblin King with his stocky build and threatening appearance, blushing shyly damaged eye health.
Look at this fat, ugly bastard.
He already had an unpleasant face, but making a happy expression on top of that made me want to hit him.
Let’s pummel him with facts since I couldn’t hit him with my fists.
“We did an intermediate request yesterday. For an intermediate request, would it be about this much?”
I separated a stack of silver taels and pushed them to one side.
“And yesterday, I dropped my sword and ran away, right? For a typical request, the compensation would end at adding a few more percentage points based on the used value of that sword.”
“Shouldn’t a sword that a martial artist is accustomed to be quite valuable?”
“Then you shouldn’t have dropped it. You made the choice, so why are you blaming others? That’s something you have to take responsibility for.”
“Ah…”
“So, if we assume my sword was handled with the usual expense treatment yesterday, it would be about this much.”
I pushed out another stack of silver taels.
“But the client probably included an amount that could select my sword as a good item among ready-made ones if they had any sense. If they received that much convenience yesterday, they would spit out at least that much, no matter how clueless they are. So the actual amount they gave for my sword price is about this much?”
I pushed an additional stack of silver taels and combined it with the sword price.
“And ha… Thinking about yesterday makes me angry again. Anyway, that guy Gang Jun really ignored the basic courtesies that can be considered the righteous faction’s etiquette, no, just the common-sense etiquette of martial artists, several times. He practically disrespected an outcast who is his business partner, so we should receive an apology fee, right?”
I pushed all the remaining silver taels.
“But you know what? Where did the additional money that the client paid, satisfied with the request, go? Could that additional money be dust? Or is it the Qi-concealing treasure that can only be seen by the eyes of immortals?”
“Oh, there’s a Qi-concealing treasure like that? What’s its name?”
“Goddammit Black Cat, read the room.”
When I glared at her once, Black Cat shut her mouth.
Bu-rin’s complexion was already not looking good.
“So, where did the money for the gratitude fee go?”
“Hah, do you know how many years you’ve been working with me? How unpleasant!”
As I mentioned earlier, the prerequisite for being an intermediary is to be from a distinguished family that wouldn’t be unusual for people from any sect to visit.
This could also be called the power of bloodline.
Although intermediaries should be called merchants, their skills are several levels below actual merchants.
In these advantageous conditions, intermediaries collude with each other and do business without any real competitors, so what kind of merchants are they?
They’re just thugs.
“In the first place, what do you know to classify money like that? That sword price! No matter how satisfied the Taegyeong Sect was…”
“So did you do your part to receive all your share?”
“Of course!”
“Hwang Geum-go Bu-rin, I’ll say it one last time. Did you perform your intermediary duties well?”
Bu-rin’s expression hardened.
I tended to have a lenient attitude toward intermediaries.
First, I would suffer if the intermediaries harbor resentment and omit the requested information.
And second, because I could roughly estimate how much they were pocketing and how much effort it would take to uncover that pocketing.
Intermediaries pretending to take low commissions and then secretly pocketing money was like bargaining with merchants who insist they sell at a market loss and refuse to give even a single discount.
And above all, even if I had money, it would all be sucked into the gambling house as stakes anyway, so I wasn’t very sensitive about compensation.
After all, I had to invest all but a small portion into the gambling house regardless.
But now it’s different.
To break out of the second-rate realm and enter the first-rate realm, I am still determining what kind of situations will unfold, and to deal with those situations, I need to accumulate money first and foremost.
People often compare money to bullets.
It’s literal. The more money, the better, and my life could depend on a single bullet of that money.
Since I am now in a situation where I don’t know how much money my future actions will require, I need to at least prevent my share of the funds from being skimmed.
My words wouldn’t be taken lightly by Bu-rin.
Intermediaries know best how far my abilities can be utilized.
Because I solved the requests that gave them headaches with my exceptional skills.
“Bu-rin, do you know what Gang Jun of the Taegyeong Sect did to me at the Gyeongsu Market?”
“The field work is your responsibility! Don’t try to pin it on me! I received all the money I had to receive from the Taegyeong Sect!”
As our voices raised, the gazes of the outcasts gathered again.
He is a frustrating guy who can’t assess the situation and only knows how to abuse his power.
That’s Bu-rin, as I understood him.
It’s OK to skim the intermediary fee.
Bu-rin also needs to make a living. I can just take back the money he pockets.
But this case is something I can’t just let go of.
Because this request was truly absurdly messed up.
Indeed, Bu-rin’s requests were always a mess.
The reason there were no accidents until now was because when I received requests through torturer-like intermediaries like him, I was sufficiently aware of the situation.
But now the situation has changed.
I need to keep taking requests, but I don’t have the leeway to monitor Sacheon’s trends like before.
In the end, I was caught off guard by that guy named Gang Jun of the Taegyeong Sect yesterday because I hadn’t been able to keep track of Sacheon’s recent trends at all.
I had been too busy surviving after the Yeo Il-ye incident.
I had been cooped up in the Outcast Inn for 5 days because of the Black Cat situation.
[I heard the Taegyeong Sect has been expanding at an alarming pace lately, and their disciples lack manners.]
If I had continued my outcast life usually, I would have heard rumors to that extent.
I was also careless, but the outcasts at the Outcast Inn these days were also half out of their minds due to my enlightenment and Black Cat’s beauty, so the quality of rumors circulating within the Outcast Inn had drastically decreased.
But is this normal?
Isn’t it the role of intermediaries to screen requests based on the danger and quality of the client or to provide accurate information and clearly warn us so that we can be fully aware of the risk factors?
That’s what should be expected, the rightful privilege that outcasts should receive and the service intermediaries should provide.
As I get involved in other matters in the future, I will inevitably neglect to gather intelligence for outcast work, so I have no choice but to make up for that by straightening out the lax attitudes of the intermediaries.
Ultimately, Bu-rin was responsible for allowing an absurd troll to be delivered to me.
Then, he should have taken responsibility and handled it.
Still, he just looked at the money pouch and came running excitedly.
I need to properly set these guys straight so that Black Cat and I can move on to the next stage.
First, let’s start by adequately dealing with this fat pig who got caught red-handed.
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Money talks and Ho is taking all the money