Chapter 164 Part B

  “Finally we’re done!” Sunghee said as she and Gyle wrapped up the st touches of the letter for the introduction letter they’d been working on. Naturally we also had to transfer the content to special beautifully made watermark paper that the dwarves have for social cards and so on and so forth.

  Thank goodness. I didn’t think I could bear it any longer.

  The costs today for mailing letters and sending errand runners will be a pain in the ass. After we finish it and Gyle comes back from the restroom and for sending some errand runners for us I pull him back to reality.

  “What about the response from the guild on the money split from st night’s work bringing in the rancher refugees?” I asked.

  Gyle snapped his fingers quickly. “Oh right that. Just a sec.”

  He rummages through the mail we received in our inn mail box, which is basically the inn employees receiving letters for us. He goes through a few which he sets to the side before pulling the envelope in question out.

  Then he’s interrupted by Rina, “what are all those other letters that you are treating like junk?” Rina asked.

  “Oh right. Those are just sales offers from businesses trying to sell weapon and armor services to adventurers and mercenaries. You know, you can’t expect me to let you have junk mail, besides my family’s shop is so much better. Someone gave them your names and from now on you’ll get junk mail from them probably twice a month,” Gyle said with a casual tone in his voice.

  Sunghee and Rina are giving a ‘what’s up with that’ look suddenly.

  Why does Gyle start most of his responses with ‘Oh right’ anyway?

  “So even in this world you can’t escape junk mail,” Sunghee said to Rina carefully in whisper. Gyle didn’t hear it but I did. The girls have a dead look in their eyes.

  “Well let’s go onto the next one,” I said.

  “Right…” Gyle cracks open the wax seal with a small knife and unfolds the parchment carefully. He carefully read.

  “To the esteemed Miss Sunghee and Team;

  As you know our decision wasn’t easy regarding a judgment of work conduct and performance in the recent bodyguard escorting job your team performed. We took into consideration the needs of both teams and who did what and when. We both believe both teams accepted the contract for escorting and saving ranch vilgers back to the fortress with integrity, courage, and admiration. We wish you know to know that…bh bh…let me skip that nonsense part,” Gyle said.

  He moved down a few lines and began reading again.

  “We did count that over two hundred orcs were sin by one team, while less than twenty sin by the other team. Please note that we don’t want any further conflict or bad feeling among teams. Both teams will be paid for their hard work in defending the dwarven kingdom. We’re gd both teams could be of use with very few losses in manpower.”

  “We have concluded after consulting with the city guard, myself, and my knowledge of both teams, and several acquaintances of both teams that the gold from rescuing the 2nd ranch bounties (which would have gone only to the Akira team) will be split in half evenly among both teams for the gold that would have gone entirely to the Akira team.”

  Akira team and Company; 7 gold 17 silver

  Sunghee team and company; 7 gold 17 silver.

  Thank you for your brave service on behalf of our nation and people,

  Svinn

  Newly appointed Military Advisor to Prince Malthiir

  Oh…looks like Svinn just became some big shot too. I couldn’t miss that part.

  This is good.

  This means we get our own cut, plus +50% of that other teams cut!

  Gyle finished reading.

  The girls cheer and so does Gyle.

  “Actually wait a minute. There’s a problem,” I said.

  They all look at me strangely.

  “How so?” Gyle asked.

  “We didn’t hire the guys that helped our team. Those dwarves assigned by the military to keep our team numbers up,” I said.

  “Eh? That’s true,” Sunghee said.

  “Who did hire those guys anyway? And what are their terms?” I asked.

  Gyle goes through his letters and documents for us.

  In short, we have to pay those guys too. This is not cool at all. I don’t like it a bit. Actually how do we know some official didn’t just pocket that amount and give some few coppers or short change to those dwarven escorts while pocketing the rest?

  Crap.

  Now our money got split a bunch of ways differently than we originally thought it would go.

  “We have 12 people to divide among,” Sunghee reminds me. “The group consisted of me acting as team leader, Gyle as acting team secretary, Shun, Rina, and eight newly trained but low on experience young dwarven recruits,” she counted off.

  “They aren’t going to charge us to make us pay back for the lost horses are they?” Rina asked.

  I held my breath. We shouldn’t be charged for that. Hell if we did it would bankrupt us, but the problem is if you had greedy tyrant pig they might come up with some bullshit like that just to want to not pay you.

  “No. On that we’re safe,” Gyle concluded after going over it.

  “Thank goodness,” Rina said.

  “But if it weren’t a state sponsored emergency it might have been a different story,” Gyle said.

  Somehow that doesn’t make me feel good. Horses don’t seem to do well around orcs I guess? I should research more on this. I know if I was a horse like hell I’d want to stick around when orcs are around, even if I did ditch my owner.

  “Next time we do a job like this we better make sure that’s accounted for in the contract. But for now we have an understanding,” Sunghee said.

  “This is good dialogue. We know what to look for in the next contracts because of this,” I said.

  The others agreed.

  We run the calcution and look at the economic loot contract. It’s already divided and calcuted with a breakdown but we went over it to be sure.

  The 7 gold 17 silver divided among 12 people became, 51 silver 21 copper. It would have been more for the grunts, but the fact that Sunghee and I had adventurer’s licenses make it counted as if it were 14 people with her and myself counted as two people each, thus lowering the total to 51 silver 21 copper for Gyle, and the other recruits from what should have been a huge stack of money going to us.

  That pissed me off still that we had to give bonus money to people with no experience and who had just been coasting along for the ride with no loyalty to us. If they’d had loyalty to us that would have been a different story however. Gyle thought it was unfair too, because he thinks he, me, and the girls are sort of the real team and the others grunts. We were obviously cheated.

  I keep Rina’s, Sunghee’s, and my portion which totals 2 gold 56 silver 07 copper after the license bonus is factored together for both us and Rina’s portion; (51 silver 21 copper X 5), (51 silver x 2 (license) plus 51 silver x 2 (license) + 51 silver). For us to both have adventurer’s licenses did help a bit in preserving some of the leak in the money boat.

  Gyle looked a bit forlorn seeing my huge gold stack and his little 51 silver stack.

  But 51 silver is still a lot of money for him. That’s like a whole 2 months worth of work pay for just 1 day of work for him!

  Amazing!

  Defensive magic is really the way to go. Because I can mitigate all the risks, we’re in a position to make some serious money all the time with less fear of dying or getting bad injuries when we go out!

  But there were some losses too for surcharges and stuff on some small change. I needed to give some money to Gyle for mail delivery funds, inn fees, and other bookkeeping fees that he’s doing as part of his secretary duties. The total reduces a little down to 2 gold 54 silver or maybe 53, I forgot which after I had to break a silver piece tipping Inn employees and settling small charge fees too. I probably gave him a bit too much but it can’t hurt for him to remember that gold is his boss and I’m the one who has it.

  We quickly go over the next letter which shows the adventurer guild’s payout and accounting of funds letter for the economic contract for the 1st ranch that we’d saved people from, which was a separate matter and not to be divided up at all. This is our real original reward breakdown. This is our real job and where our real accountability is.

  Breakdown of our rescue (not the other team’s shares we ‘inherited’ via performance; 16 food producing dwarves, with 7 children;

  16 gold 7 silver total to be divided in 14 shares (12 people with 2 licenses);

  Each share comes out to approximately 1 gold 14 silver 78 copper. Gyle received his share. The other funds are already sent to the other recruits. And I like that this amount is way bigger somehow.

  My portion comes out to 5 gold 73 silver 90 copper.

  5 gold is a lot of money. This is enough cash that some people live on just that alone for years!

  Am I becoming a gold demon rather than a sex demon? I seem to be pulling it in all the time. And it’s a big deal to pull in even 1 gold. With just 50 gold I can buy a small homestead right? So to make 5 gold just like it’s nothing…

  But to be fair, I still think 50 gold for a house is way too much. It’s like that because this is a hell world where people get exploited and still there are people that are working their days out like serfs in a way.

  And we had to have the inn bouncers keep nosy people away from our table when it was time to go over the gold break down too.

  In this world you can buy a lot with gold.

  So today from both teams reward money, the total comes to, 8 gold 29 silver 97 copper.

  My gold bag = 183 gold 59 silver 22 copper + 8 gold 29 silver 97 copper.

  New gold bag total in demon inventory box = 191 gold 89 silver 19 copper

  “That’s my money tree shun!” Gyle patted me on the back breaking my thoughts. His heavy hand pounded my back so hard it was hard to breathe though it wasn’t on purpose. Dwarves are just freakishly strong and don’t realize their own strength sometimes.

  “I’m not a money tree jeez,” I shook my head.

  “Be careful Shun. Now you’ll have to watch out for thieves more carefully from now on,” Sunghee said. Already she’s looking about on guard slyly.

  “Dang, she’s right,” Rina and Gyle both said at the same time.

  I didn’t say it but who treats their friends like a money tree to be shaken when they want something?

  “So there’s one more matter to be discussed…did you notice that the other team’s leader was named Akira?” Rina asked me.

  This is something I’d wanted to address AFTER going over the gold. The gold is way more important to me than that guy. But what does that mean actually?

  “Hmm, do you think it’s the same guy? I haven’t analyzed naming practices around here in this area. What are the chances of it being someone with a simir name? And what if it got mispronounced in the letter and isn’t Akuru or Akra instead of Akira?” I asked.

  “Who?” Sunghee is confused. So is Gyle actually.

  “It said the other team’s leader was Akira. We know an Akira. And we don’t know if this is good or bad to run into one,” Rina expined.

  “So you think it’s the same guy?” Sunghee asked.

  “Possibly. But what are the chances of someone else having that same name?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s not a dwarven name. So that makes it harder to figure out,” Gyle said.

  “Is it good or bad that we’re seeing a name like that?” Sunghee asked me.

  “I actually don’t know. There were a lot of problems with some of the other people that came out here with us,” I said to Sunghee, who nodded. She understands I’m hinting at coming to this world, but thankfully Gyle doesn’t.

  “I don’t know. That guy was selfish,” Rina sighed.

  “We won’t know right away if it’s him or not. We better not get our hopes up either way. Gyle see if you can find out something on this before we do anything about it,” I said handing him some change for some errand runners to find out more.

  “Got it,” he said slipping the money in his jacket.

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