The whole town was celebrating while few mourned the dead, but to the great surprise of the crowd the heroes of the day didn’t even show up. In the end people decided that the duo was too tired after the fight and maybe even injured, thus it was decided to not bother them.
The next morning the governor invited Nick and Clayton to his mansion.
“Sorry for doubting you earlier and thank you very much for saving our town.” He started and both mercenaries smiled and nodded as if the man was talking about catching a petty thief or a another random ‘good deed’.
“Sigh, please tell me, how can I reward you?” Governor felt really uncomfortable. From what he saw, these people could easily take on the whole town and come out victorious, what could he even offer?
Nick glanced at Clayton who simply shook his head without any change in his expression.
“Thank you, but there is no need. Please look at it as us performing our duties – we had to protect the caravan after all.” Nick smiled and shook his head as well.
Governor sighed again. For the last three days he was doing it annoyingly often. Then he got up, came over and put a small box in front of Nick.
“Then at least take its beast core. Even you should find it valuable and as the governor of this town I can’t let you leave without a reward.”
“Sir, thank you for your generosity, but you surely know that a treasure in beggar’s hands will cause only his premature death.” Nick shook his head again.
“There is only three of us here and no one else will know.” Governor obviously understood the implication – the beast core was worth more than his town, therefore he even wanted to get rid of it, “I’ll announce that I gave it away only next month or a moth after that.”
Nick thought for a bit, “Alright, but I would like to make an additional suggestion.”
They discussed few things for twenty more minutes and then the duo left. Nick wasn’t against getting the rank five beast core this way at all. Even if he had about dozen of those stacked up, this was a rare treasure and one couldn’t buy it only because they wanted to. Of course, Clayton didn’t care much, expensive things were only expensive things and the Evans family didn’t lack anything while he commanded ships because he loved it and not because he had to.
Shortly before the noon governor came out with an announcement. The two heroes who saved this town will be rewarded with a title of the ‘Honorary citizen’ and after their retirement could move here and freely choose any place to live as their own except for the governor’s mansion. In addition, they will be rewarded with a small sum of gold. The remains of the beast will be processed by the townsfolk and the skin will be used to craft the armor for the town guards for a better protection and to always remind the citizens of the dangers that lurk in the surrounding mountains and forests. The unnecessary parts of the snake will be sold off and the earned money will be divided among the families of those who lost their lives in this terrible incident.
Townsfolk was delighted about these news and praised the governor for his wisdom while the latter cursed to himself that the little kid with his ideas might be a better leader than himself.
But ‘the little kid’ at that moment was darting over the turbid waters while helping workers to renovate the primitive ferry station by carrying the thick ropes and tying them at the other side.
Meanwhile YunYun was practicing her skill to walk on water closer to the coast and with a decent success at that. During the last battle she gained quite an inspiration while trying to balance on the slippery snake that even repelled her Qi, thus now she did her best to catch up to her fiance.
On the next day the caravan finally crossed the river and the whole town came out to send Nick and YunYun off with loud cheers. Nick glanced at the bloody remains of the snake and involuntary touched his left wristband – it held few barrels of the snake meat that he gathered last night along with a roll of long sheet of the snake’s skin. The guards who had to watch over the corpse didn’t mind him tanking it at all and even offered their help despite the strict orders to not let anyone close. This young guy was not ‘anyone’, but the one who killed the monster and obviously didn’t count.
Nick could’ve taken much more, but there was a limited ‘cargo’ space, even for him. Still, he was satisfied with the amount of meat he got since it would be a nutritious addition to his usual stews in the months to come. Even kings couldn't eat rank five beast’s meat on a daily basis, but he could, at least for a year if he was alone and frugal enough. In addition, there will definitely be future uses for the snake’s skin that regular Qi masters couldn’t even cut, that is when the beast was alive, of course.
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The next part of the journey was incredibly peaceful compared to the last twenty days. Although there were some mountain ranges which were difficult to cross and few rainy days when even the girls had to help to push carriages uphill, their feet sticking deep in the mud, there were very few beast attacks and the few that happened, took place only during the nighttime. Beasts came in small packs and even the regular guards easily defended their posts.
After ten more days when caravan closed up to the first larger city, the already forgotten hillbilly teams started to assault the caravan in their usual fashion only to get slaughtered before even coming close to the wares. The bonus that vice caravan leader Rushdi promised was still enticing prospect and, in addition to that, the guards created some internal rankings counting the beast and bandit kills that could change every day if some part of caravan got ‘luckier’ and got attacked more. The usual safe spot at the front was now avoided by all the guards as they tried to get stationed more towards the ‘dangerous’ end, for the fortune and fame, of course.
‘The Southern mercenary group’ continued to practice every day and there was a day before arriving in Ulum when girls killed a couple of attackers on their own. Of course, from the onlookers point of view it was described as ‘the Hyena brothers playing with their pray’, but the girls didn’t care and the event boosted their confidence and motivated them to practice even more.
The caravan camped for the last time before reaching Ulum and everyone was excited. Merchants, servants and guards drank in their respective companies and looked forward to the two weeks of rest and good business. Part of them would be staying and some new people would join before departing to the very south of the Nestri continent.
‘Southern mercenary group’ didn’t look much different from the usual, but the head covers hid their smiling faces and they did their best to not talk at all to not raise any suspicions at the last moment before leaving this damned place. Nick already expressed his worries that Olava’s Qi masters might look for suspicious people around the Ulum similar to what they experienced in Beliz and everyone agreed to change their attire and looks right after entering the city.
After the dinner Nick and Clayton received an invitation from Rushdi to visit him in his tent. They didn’t care much for the reasons and went over. They saw the both leaders, Solomon and Rushdi, drinking expensive alcohol and already celebrating the successful end of the long trip. Even though this was what their life looked like, every time they concluded a part of the Golden road, it was a notable milestone not only for the others, but their own income as well.
“This time we mostly have to thank your mercenary group for the big profits we’ll make.” Caravan leader Solomon received them with a warm smile.
“No need for that.” Nick shook his head, “We were hired to do the job and did it to our best capabilities. That is one of the rules of our group.”
“Where are you heading next? Maybe I can point you to some good clients? I know many influential people in Ulum.” Master Solomon suggested.
“Well, we still have to finish our trials.” Nick said, but then got an idea, “Maybe you can point to some wealthy traders who do intercontinental business?”
“Hmm, sure. There are a few. Which continent do you prefer?”
“It’s a trial, so it doesn’t really matter. Although probably most of the business is done with the Sand kingdom anyway, correct?”
“True.” Caravan leader agreed, “I guess the easiest to talk to would be the slave trader Mudin – he has few large ‘warehouses’ on the south side of the port, but you can try your luck with Ahad who transports volunteers to fight in the war between the Sand and Sun kingdoms. His recruiters will be all over the city, so you’ll notice one sooner or later.”
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind. If there is nothing more, we would like to have an early rest tonight.” Nick politely said and with Clayton leading the way they went back to their friends.
“I told you they are foreigners.” Rushdi said after the duo left the tent.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with us. Even if you worked for the castle when you were younger, you work for me now and this bunch indirectly earned us a ton of gold and quite a lot of fame as well. I bet during the next year the size of our caravan will double – we might even become the largest in the empire!” Solomon replied in elated tone.
“But they are obviously on the run! We saw there was some kind of search back in Beliz and only just because no one cared about the smaller towns in the middle of the continent doesn’t mean they’re some local criminals from the east coast. They have definitely done something big, but it was some kind of political secret since there is no open search.” Rushdi argued, “And I didn’t like that cocky kid from the start! He’s some kind of a genius from an enemy force to become a Qi master this early. I still don’t know how he managed to trick everyone in believing he’s still a Qi practitioner, but he’s danger to the empire for sure!”
“Alright, let me put it in a way you’ll understand. I agree with everything you said, but imagine that kid finds out you sold him out and escapes, or even worse – no one would catch him in the first place. What are the chances of him holding a grudge? I don’t want to find out and I don’t intend to as well. You are forbidden to act in any way! Pretend they really are an elite mercenary group and after they leave – forget they existed! In the future every time someone asks to tell a story about them, just sigh deeply and say it’s too painful to remember or some kind of similar nonsense. If you don’t agree, I have few other vice caravan leader candidates at my disposal. I don’t want a monster who is capable of killing a rank five beast uninjured look for me and if you have a death wish – don’t put others in danger!” Solomon sternly said and instantly the joyful atmosphere they had fifteen minutes ago was gone.
Rushdi still grumbled something, but agreed in the end. The image of those frightening seven people was vivid right in front of him and he was, in fact, scared.