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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“If you have any other questions, feel free to ask the receptionist at any time.”
After finishing his explanation, Servisso handed over a wooden token and said,
“If you go to the inn with the sleeping bear sign using this token, they’ll give you rooms. Rest there and come back in two days.”
The directions to the inn were also quite detailed and kind.
After expressing our gratitude again, we went to the entrance, where we met Juterus who had been waiting for us.
“Oh, you took a long time. How did it go?”
“All four of us were registered as advanced mercenaries. They told us to come back for the badges in two days.”
Honestly, since we were recognized as advanced mercenaries, it would be fine to speak casually at this point.
The man in front of us wasn’t anyone special, after all.
But I deliberately used polite speech to cultivate an image different from other warlocks.
When I showed the wooden token and explained, the man nodded quickly.
It seemed he knew what kind of token it was.
“I-I’ve confirmed it. I’ll report to my superiors. Please do your best for the territory in the future. Well then, I’ll be going.”
The man hurriedly blurted out his words, bowed his head, and left as if fleeing.
“…Warlocks really are avoided, it seems.”
“By tomorrow, the rumors will have spread properly. Athena, no matter what kind of looks they give me or what they do, don’t step in unless I’m directly attacked.”
I had warned her once before, but I warned her again just in case.
“…I understand.”
“Baldur, Kayla. The same goes for you.”
“I know. There won’t be many who dare to confront us openly anyway.”
It seemed Kayla thought there wouldn’t be much trouble due to my skills becoming known and the notorious short temper of warlocks.
“Well, we’ll have to wait and see about that.”
If things went as I thought… it probably wouldn’t go so smoothly.
“Not just me, but you all, especially Kayla and Athena. There will be people approaching you too.”
“Huh? Me?”
Kayla seemed to have guessed this as well.
“They’ll probably try to scout us. They won’t approach Baldur since it’ll be known that he’s Master’s slave.”
At her words, Athena’s expression turned to surprise.
“But we already have a team?”
“Poaching key members is a common practice behind the scenes.”
“I have no intention of leaving, so don’t worry.”
“Same here, right? I even made a mana oath.”
I wasn’t saying this because I thought they would betray me.
I just wanted to inform them in advance.
“They’ll be quite annoying… Just ignore them if they don’t cross the line.”
Kayla nodded silently, and Athena spoke as if already annoyed.
“There’s so much we can’t do…”
“Just endure it for the first few requests.”
The flies would decrease as we built up achievements.
She nodded as if resigned.
When we entered the inn with the sleeping bear sign and showed our token, we were each assigned private rooms.
Meals were also provided, so we were able to rest properly for the first time in a while.
The group was overjoyed at having proper food after so long, and we were able to get a good rest that day.
As soon as the day changed, numerous mercenaries flocked to the Sleeping Bear Inn.
“…This is annoying.”
Before noon, Athena’s face twisted and complaints burst out.
Even the innkeeper looked at them as if dumbfounded by the crowded situation in the inn.
“That’s why I said don’t work with that warlock bastard and come with us?”
“Our Persos Mercenary Group…”
They blatantly ignored my existence and clung to Kayla and Athena, tempting my companions with all sorts of conditions.
“Ah, I said I’m not going! I’m going to work with Inha, okay?”
“Warlocks receive penalties for requests. It’ll be hard to build trust, and even though you’re not warlocks, you’ll be subject to all kinds of biased views. Is there any need for that? If you join our party, even the distribution would be more favorable…”
Some boasted about their team’s strength, some about the numerous successful requests they had completed, and some even shamelessly used their looks as a weapon to cling to them.
‘It’s a mess.’
Usually, poaching didn’t happen this openly.
However, as rumors spread that the team leader was a warlock, they were blatantly showing such behavior.
They had no qualms about spouting words that diminished my value, and because of this, Athena’s face was full of irritation and anger, while Kayla’s face gradually lost all expression.
In the end, due to the countless mercenaries swarming them, the two chose to leave their seats, even going so far as to enter the same room upstairs and lock the door.
The guys seemed ready to knock on the door, but the innkeeper stopped them.
“If you do more, I’ll consider it harassment.”
At his words, the mercenaries’ actions stopped.
It was clear that this place was either operated by the Mercenary Guild or indirectly related to it, given that they even provided rooms specially for advanced mercenaries.
‘I didn’t know about it in my previous life because I never came here.’
Since it was not good for mercenaries to be at odds with the guild, the threat seemed to work properly.
Then their target shifted to me.
“Tch. Damn warlock bastard. You’ve done well to seduce such skilled people.”
“Those girls must be sticking with that bastard for some reason, right? For such a weak warlock, there must be something useful about him?”
“Who knows. They might have been influenced by black magic.”
“Hey, hey, don’t go that far. The guild certified them, right? They’re experts.”
“You never know. Why else would they not want to leave the warlock? Their skills might be related to black magic too. And that guy, he has an artifact, right?”
“Ah, the undead storage? That’s just for warlocks anyway.”
“An artifact for storing corpses. He’s basically carrying his own coffin around.”
They weren’t saying it to my face, but they were clearly saying it for me to hear.
‘How annoying.’
Nevertheless, I was calmly eating my lunch.
There was nothing to gain by getting involved.
‘They’re certainly not holding back.’
I had expected this sufficiently.
Probably some of them…
“Hey. Is it tasty?”
‘I wondered why they weren’t doing this.’
I ignored the guy, and…
“Hey. No answer? I asked if it’s tasty.”
Thump. Thump.
He wasn’t touching me directly, but he was indirectly banging on the table.
“Fucking hell, some of us are struggling with swordwork, while others make contracts with demons for easy power? What did you give in return? Your mother?”
The guy openly provoking me looked dirty and didn’t seem to have any mana at all, giving the impression of an ordinary person.
‘Did they already set him loose?’
When I didn’t react, he even spat in my food and escalated his insults.
Baldur flinched at this, but I restrained him with a look as if to say don’t move.
Even with the continuous stream of vulgar insults, my emotions didn’t waver much.
I glanced around the inn.
Some mercenaries were looking this way with interest, while others were watching intently, seemingly a bit tense.
‘If I move, they’ll stop me?’
This guy picking a fight with me was certainly not just someone recklessly risking his life.
‘He must be in cahoots with them.’
It seemed to be a ploy by existing forces to provoke me into causing trouble and then give me a penalty by associating me with this guy.
If penalties accumulated like that, my companions would inevitably suffer losses too, and if the situation worsened, it seemed they planned to use that as an excuse to lure away my companions.
‘Did they want my companions that badly?’
Well, they were in their 20s, with Athena in her early 20s and Kayla barely in her mid-20s.
It was impossible not to covet people with such skills at that age.
Even nobles would desire them, so how much more would ordinary mercenary groups?
On top of that, there were probably quite a few who hated warlocks, so there could be plenty who joined in just out of dislike.
Athena and Kayla, who had gone upstairs and entered their room, came out with hardened expressions, perhaps having heard the situation with their heightened senses.
The mercenaries who were about to cling to them again as soon as they came out flinched at their expressions and ominous aura.
I shook my head at them, indicating not to do anything.
“…You’re telling us to endure even after hearing such things?”
I spoke to the two, leaving the soiled food untouched.
“Just endure for two days, no, just one more day.”
“Why don’t you just stay in the room?”
“I need to eat.”
“Have Baldur bring it!”
“Well, I prefer eating out here.”
If I didn’t come out, someone might pick a fight with Baldur for no reason.
It was a leader’s responsibility, you could say.
‘Besides, I needed to identify those hostile to me.’
I had already identified the faces of all those who were here.
The ones here were the radical ones, and there would be more behind them, but I needed to know in advance those who were likely to interfere with me.
‘As I rapidly achieve results here, there will certainly be those who target me.’
Unmanageable good fortune can sometimes turn into misfortune.
Naturally, I intended to avoid such situations, which was why I needed to know the guys here.
Most would not act so openly like now once I started achieving results, due to the Mercenary Guild that would protect me, but these were the radical ones.
The fortunate thing was that, thanks to my memories from my previous life, I roughly knew which groups they belonged to.
‘Persos Mercenary Group. That one was from the Moses Company, and wasn’t that one from the Beythela Party?’
For now, I was weak.
But that wouldn’t last forever.
That was why I could smile even amidst all the insults and abuse being hurled at me.
As I showed no particular reaction to the insults and even smiled, at some point, the abuse directed at me gradually decreased.
A strange silence fell over the inn, and even the guy who had been insulting me with vulgar words began to hesitate.
The guy curled one corner of his mouth as if sneering and spat out one more round of curses, but his trembling pupils, shaking legs, and hesitant retreat showed none of his previous confident attitude.
“Innkeeper.”
“The food has been soiled, could you make a new one?”
“Hmm, certainly. Hey, you there.”
The innkeeper spoke to the man who had spat in my food and hurled vulgar insults at me.
“You’ll have to pay for the food. You don’t think you can live in this territory after getting on bad terms with the Mercenary Guild, do you? Or do you have some bigger backing?”
The man looked around, seemingly flustered.
Then a man stepped forward and said,
“I’ll pay for it instead.”
“Very well. I just need to get paid.”
I looked at the man who had stepped forward.
‘So he’s the one who was going to intervene.’
Unfortunately, he wasn’t someone I knew.
Which meant he wasn’t someone operating from the very bottom…
‘Has a fairly strong force stepped in from the start?’
That didn’t sit well with me.
Of course, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
As things quieted down, Kayla and Athena seemed to think it was okay and returned to their room, while Baldur received the newly prepared food, cleared away the old dishes, and started eating again with me.
As the situation turned strange, the mercenaries seemed to hesitate for a moment before starting to leave the inn one by one.
Thanks to that, we were able to spend the rest of the time quietly.
It seemed they were planning to act more carefully now that I hadn’t easily gotten angry, unlike a typical 4th class warlock.
Nevertheless, Kayla and Athena didn’t come out of their room in case of any situation, and Baldur had to take the trouble of bringing food to them.
On the day the mercenary badges were to be issued, we entered the Mercenary Guild together.
Murmur, murmur.
As if our information had already been widely spread, many mercenaries’ gazes focused on us.
Athena frowned, Kayla looked relatively indifferent, and Baldur was on guard.
I put on a lightly smiling face and calmly headed towards the reception desk.
“I heard you went through some troublesome incidents.”
Servisso spoke to me, having already heard the news.
“It can’t be helped. Our information was bound to be made public.”
To make requests, people needed to know what kind of mercenaries we were.
So mercenaries’ information was bound to be public, and information about other mercenaries was bound to spread through word of mouth.
‘Still, the speed was unusually fast.’
It meant the information had spread blatantly.
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