Jun was quickly learning that the aftermath of battle was never pretty. As the adrenaline rush from the sudden ambush faded, Jun couldn't help feeling nauseous, but at least she managed not to vomit in front of her new team. Though that success was threatened with every pair of ears her team piled up in front of her as they cleared the battlefield. Including the 3 archers that Jun captured, a total of 18 bronze ranked goblins and the iron ranked goblin mage had made up the ambush party. The team had briefly debated interrogating the goblins themselves, but none of them spoke the monsters' language. The debate on what to do with the live goblins had been fierce.
"We should just kill them and take their ears for the bounty," Keira said, gesturing at the 3 archers with a bloody dagger.
Aya nodded in agreement. "Since none of us speak their language, keeping them alive is just a threat."
Killing prisoners left Jun ill at ease. She'd already done that once before, and the guilt had quietly gnawed at her even with the evidence of the goblins' predations in front of her. "But I can keep them restrained, and besides, what if bringing them in alive counts as an intelligence bonus for the bounty?" she argued.
"Even if it's just 3 of them, they're still a threat and we're still a couple hours away from the city. Keeping them alive is a risk to all of us!"
"Aya and Keira are right Jun," Michael joined in. "As distasteful as just killing prisoners is, these are goblins." The man gestured at the 3 short humanoids as they snarled and futilely struggled against Jun's spell. "They don't look like they're ready to surrender."
"I just don't feel comfortable killing a sentient being..." Jun said.
Aya looked at her with a complicated expression and came in closer to put her hand on Jun's shoulder. "Goblins might be sentient, but they're still monsters that harm the innocent. Unless we can ensure they will never harm another innocent person, we can't let them live."
"But... we could... I could keep the spell up? My mana recovers fast enough that I can maintain it until we get back to the city!"
"And what if we're attacked again? What if there's more goblins or another ambush? Would you be able to keep them restrained while still using your barriers?"
Jun did the math in her head. As much as she wanted to say that she could, the math didn't lie. Her mana was less than a quarter full and slowly dropping while she recovered mana fast, maintaining the snare took slightly more mana than she recovered. If all she did was maintain the spell, she could last another 2 hours, but she would have nothing left to protect herself, Aya, or the team. She'd be betting their lives against the goblins', and nothing she could think of could justify the risk. "Just... do it," she said quietly as a tear started to leak from her eye.
Aya nodded at Cian and pulled Jun in for a hug, facing her away from the 3 prisoners.
Even though Jun couldn't see it, she heard and felt it happen. A goblin would snarl something in its guttural language followed by a wet thump, and the strain on her spell eased. It was only a matter of seconds before the only strain on her spell was that of keeping the ropes manifested. With a silent thought, Jun pulled her mana back and dismissed her spell constructs as she wiped her tears on her sleeve.
Shiori meowed as she padded over and rubbed up against her legs, and Jun bent down to pick up her Master and hug her close. Shiori's warm fur and the vibrations of her purrs helped take her mind off the execution she'd just been part of, but even though she hadn't killed them, her hands still felt dirty.
"Rest and recover Jun," Aya said, rubbing her on the back. "We'll finish cleaning up and go find their camp after." Aya left Jun to her thoughts as she held Shiori.
"Your friends are right," Shiori said with her magical voice. "You are a gentle soul kitten, one who would show mercy to those who would harm you, but the world is not kind. Mercy is a privilege of the strong, and you are not yet there."
Jun sighed and set Shiori down before turning to help clear the battlefield. The gruesome task left her heart heavy, but even if she only defended against attacks and captured enemies, she still contributed to the deaths of their ambushers. Jun helped search the corpses for any valuables and used a borrowed knife to harvest the goblins' ears with shaking hands. Her stomach remained unsettled and she couldn't help feeling guilty at the casual mutilation of the goblins' corpses, but the odd disturbing trinket she found helped her control her guilt and discomfort. After a few minutes of hard work, the battlefield had been cleared with the goblin corpses stripped of any valuables and items of importance in a few small piles.
The largest pile was an assortment of iron and steel weapons, some finely forged, others crudem including 3 short bows and a handful of crude iron tipped arrows. By mutual agreement, the team had agreed ahead of time on the standard adventurer practice of each taking anything they needed first, and splitting the rest. Jun and Aya each grabbed a steel dagger even though they focused on magic as they'd had to borrow one from Keira to harvest ears. Keira claimed a bow and all of the arrows, claiming that while she didn't know how to shoot well, she should learn for her role as a scout. Both Michael and Cian declined to take anything.
The party had piled all of the goblins' trinkets together, and agreed that they should be returned to the guild as part of the bounty alongside the ears.
The last and smallest pile held a few thin purses of copper and silver coins and a few pieces of jewelry, most of which had been pulled from the goblin mage. Not able to identify anything, the group evenly divided the coins and agreed they would appraise the jewelry when they returned.
With the loot settled, the party started to discuss how they would carry everything back before Jun volunteered to carry everything in her Void Bag.
"I still have space in my bag," she said quietly.
"You're joking right?" Keira asked. "We shoved over 100 pounds of meat and a whole rolled hide into your bag earlier!"
Jun could only nod in confusion. She'd obviously been there for that. Ambush or not, she wouldn't forget shoving a giant sack of meat and a hide into a bag the size of a purse like it was nothing. "Yes?"
"Then there's no way you'd have more space!"
"But... I do?" Jun grabbed one of the larger weapons, a longsword that one of the goblin warriors had wielded like a great sword, and put it in her bag, the weapon disappearing without a fuss before she pulled it back out and set it in the pile.
The rest of the party stared at her. "Aren't you a commoner and a scholarship student?" Michael asked pointedly, looking at Jun's bronze school medallion.
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"What's that have to do with my bag?"
"Jun..." Aya groaned as she pressed her palm against her forehead. She knew her friend was a bit clueless, but she didn't think it'd be this dangerous. "Storage devices are expensive. It was already a bit weird that you have one, but no one said anything about it because they probably thought it was one of the cheaper storage bag that can only fit a bit more than a mundane travel pack. But even then, one of those costs at least 5 gold and would be full from the meat and hide."
"Oh..."
"Yeah." Aya turned to stare down the rest of the party. "Okay, so we're all agreeing right now that we don't know anything about Jun's bag. Got it?"
The twins nodded seriously while Michael just shrugged. "What bag?" he said pointedly, while turning around and ignoring the pile of weapons.
Shaking her head, Aya helped Jun load the pile of weapons into her bag. The jewelry, ears, and trinkets were quickly placed in separate sacks that Michael tied to his belt. When Jun offered to carry them as well, the healer only stared pointedly at Jun and said "no you won't. Your bag if full," as Aya groaned again.
With the loot dealt with, the party reassembled with Keira in the lead, followed by Cian with Aya and Jun in the middle, and Michael bringing up the rear. Keira was able to find the goblin's trail from the tree the archers had been in when they ambushed the party, and a few minutes later the trail led to a well hidden empty campsite. The adventurers split up to search the camp though beyond a few purses of coins and more trinkets, little of value was found.
As Jun searched one of the tents, Shiori casually nudged the crude pile of furs that reminded Jun of what she'd slept on for over a month. "Check under the furs," Shiori suggested.
Ignoring the rank smell coming off the greasy furs, Jun used her new dagger to flip them to the side, revealing a leather bag stuffed in a shallow hole. Pulling the bag out, she was shocked to see a crude map and scribbles in a strange language on pieces of hide done in charcoal, and another, smaller bag beneath it that jingled when she picked it up.
"I found something!" Jun called out. Aya and the others soon joined her outside of the tent she'd been searching where she handed over the two bags she'd found, explaining that they'd been under the pile of sleeping furs. After pouring over the map and scribbles on the hide, the party agreed that this was probably notes the best they could hope for for the information bonus, and Aya slung the small satchel over her shoulder.
The smaller bag was even more of a surprise. As they opened it, a soft glow came out of it and Aya reached in, pulling out a faintly glowing transparent crystal in the shape of a ball. "A beast core," she whispered. Looking inside the bag, the party could see that it was half full of the glowing things. Handing the bag of cores back to Jun, the party split up again, double checking under every pile of furs in the small tents, finding another 2 small bags of the cores.
"Well, I'm not sure we'll find anything else," Michael said, looking around the thoroughly ransacked campsite. The others chorused sounds of agreement.
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The walk back to the city was uneventful, though the party had to jog once they got back to the road to make it back before the gates closed. After checking in with a grumpy guard corporal as the sun started to dip behind the mountains, the students were let back into the city.
Tired and covered in grime from the day, the party stumbled into the guild hall as the street lighters started their rounds of igniting the street lamps to find a smiling Arwen waiting for them at a table . "Welcome back students!" he said with a smile, raising a half full mug at them.
The adventurers just glared at their advisor. "We almost died." Aya said flatly.
"But you didn't!"
"There was a goblin mage."
"And you clearly killed it or escaped!"
"We walked into an ambush!"
"Then we'll have to work on everyone's awareness!" Arwen smiled wider as his eyes took on a manic gleam. Jun barely suppressed a shiver at the elf's crazed expression. The man truly disturbed her, but she took comfort in the fact that Shiori seemed unbothered, simply jumping from Jun's shoulder to land on Arwen's table. The elf's gaze turned to curiosity as he watched Shiori pad across the table and sniff his mug. "Well hello there," he cooed as he reached out to touch her. With every other person that Jun had seen try, her Master had simply let people pet her, but with Arwen something unexpected happened. As Arwen's hand got close to her, Shiori hissed and arched her back before swiping at Arwen's hand!
The elf's speed was too fast as his hand blurred out of the way, avoiding Shiori's claws, but somehow her paw smacked perfectly into his mug and knocked it over, sending the contents spilling over the table and into Arwen's lap. As if nothing strange had just happened, Shiori turned and jumped back onto Jun's shoulder and started cleaning her paw like a regular cat, though a disembodied snicker filled Jun's ears. The elf's eyes narrowed in irritation as they flicked back and forth between his spilled drink and Shiori calmly licking her paws. Jun watched as Arwen closed his eyes as he took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before exhaling loudly. As he opened his eyes, his usual too friendly smile reappeared and he stood. "Well then, let's go get your bounty turned in, shall we?"
With his usual cheer, the man stood and started walking to the guild clerk's desk, seemingly forgetting that his pants were dripping with beer. With barely hidden smiles of their own, the party followed behind their advisor to the clerk, but not before Aya and Keira both gave Shiori quick scratches behind her ears.
Turning in the bounty was fast with the party handing over the sack of ears, trinkets, and the satchel with the map and notes they'd found. After confirming the bounty completion, the clerk disappeared for a few minutes, before she returned with a sack of coins.
"Right, Arwen's bronze academy team. Confirmed completion of the Iron Bounty to find and eliminate a goblin scouting party. A total of 19 pairs of ears submitted, 18 of which have been confirmed as bronze ranked goblins ranging from mid to high bronze, and a single low iron rank goblin mage. The standard bounty is 10 silver per bronze rank goblin and 1 gold for the iron ranked goblin mage. The map and notes captured have been confirmed to be goblin in origin, though the notes still require translation. A bonus of 1 gold 50 silver has been assessed for the captured intelligence. Among the trinkets returned included a bronze IAG badge for a missing adventurer now presumed dead or captured. A 25 silver recovery bonus has been approved for the return of this badge. After deducting 10 percent for Advisor Arwen, your total is 410 silver. Do you have established party split rules for bounty completion?"
Jun and the others exchanged a look before Aya frowned. "Equal split," she told the clerk.
Nodding in confirmation, the clerk quickly split the sack of coins into 5 equal stacks and shoved them into simple rough sacks before handing them over to the students. Nodding their thanks to the clerk, the students glanced their advisor. "See you for team training on Second Day!" he said with a cheery smile. "Dismissed!" Before any of them could say anything else, Arwen spun on his heels and marched back to his table, waving down a server as he went.
Watching their advisor go, the students exchanged another look before turning as one to leave. The group walked in silence until they reached the safety of campus, where Keira finally broke the silence. "Can you believe that jerk took a tenth while doing nothing?!" Cian frowned and patted his sister's shoulder awkwardly.
"It is unfair," Michael agreed with a frown. "But he is our advisor. It is the way of things."
Aya started snickering softly, nudging Jun in the side. Confused, she glanced at her friend before turning her attention back to her teammates' complaining.
"Still, he left us alone and we almost died!"
"...he is a bad advisor..."
"He took 45 silver out of our pockets while he sat in the city and drank!"
A thought crossed Jun's mind as Keira complained, and the reason Aya nudged her side became clear. "I was wondering when you'd figure it out kitten," Shiori privately whispered in her ears as her tail flicked in amusement.
Unable to contain herself, Jun started snickering as well before she and Aya both broke down into giggles.
The other 3 stared at them like they were crazy for a few seconds before Keira shouted at them. "What's so funny about us getting robbed you two!"
Aya looked around the area of the Academy campus and shook her head slightly, motioning around them. Jun nodded as she glanced around as well, noticing the students that were hanging around in small groups, not in earshot but easy enough to see. Holding her finger to her lips, Jun motioned for the other 3 to come closer. As they leaned in, Jun said a single word. "Bag."
Keira stared at Jun with a dumbfounded look as understanding came over Michael and Cian's faces. Cian looked at Keira's face for a moment before letting out a high pitched squeak of a laugh. His merriment was contagious as Michael joined him with deep guffaws, and Aya and Jun soon devolved into another giggling fit. Finally, realization flashed across Keira's eyes and she soon joined them with a tinkling, high pitched laugh.