Cecilia and Sara stared at Jun's team members and the assorted pile of loot sitting on the table in their shared room.
"So let me get this straight," Sara said, staring the younger students down with an unreadable look on her face. "Arwen forced you all to take on an iron ranked bounty as newbies that you barely survived, claimed 10 percent as an advisor's fee, and you just so happen to have forgot to declare all of this extra loot to the guild?"
The five of them shuffled awkwardly, while Jun looked at the floor in embarrassment. "H-He was drinking when we got back and I was just so tired and Aya told me not to tell anyone about my bag..."
Her roommates glanced at the black bag on Jun's shoulder as she mentioned it. While Aya had said not to tell anyone about it, she trusted Sara and Cecilia. They'd known about her war wand when they first met, and Jun had slowly realized how significant of an item that was given just being able to research it was enough for the Headmaster to give her a full scholarship. What was one more apparently extremely valuable magical artifact? Besides, other than a curious look after Jun started pulling stuff out of her bag, they hadn't said anything about it.
"And now you're asking us to help sell all this off without your advisor finding out?" Cecilia finally said, pointedly refusing to say Arwen's name.
Jun nodded awkwardly. "Sorry to ask you... I know you have history with him..."
Aya started to step in front of her. "Jun didn't—"
"Of course we'll help!" the two women said at the same time, cutting Aya off.
"—do anything wrong..." Aya trailed off as Sara fell into Cecilia while giggling. Her laughter was infectious as Cecilia started to chuckle. When the warrior woman saw the dumbfounded looks on the younger student's faces, she started laughing even harder.
After a minute, their laughter stilled, though Sara's face was flushed pink with good humor and Cecilia had a strange smile on her face. "That bastard of an advisor and I have history, but helping you with this screws him out of a share," Cecilia's smile took on a hint of savage glee as she gestured at the pile of loot on the low table. "He probably knows you have at least some of this, but since your bounty included looting rights, you're technically within your rights not declaring what you found to the guild. He's probably waiting for you to come to him so he can try to offer you a low ball offer on all of your loot assuming none of you have any contacts to sell these things, since it's not as simple as just dragging stuff into a shop and selling it to a merchant."
Cecilia hefted an iron axe as an example. "This axe for example is decent but not in the best condition. The axe head is serviceable, but the haft is cracked and needs to be replaced. If you just took it to a blacksmith, they'd probably offer just a silver or two for the trouble of melting it down for materials since no blacksmith would want to sell something they haven't made or repaired themselves, and bringing this axe back up to a like new standard would cost more than melting it down. But if you took it to a gear wholesaler, you could probably get 5 silver since they could easily replace the haft themselves and sell it for 10 silver. Plus, they'd be more willing to give you a decent price even on all the lower quality weapons because you have a decent amount of them. Altogether the right wholesaler would offer you a couple gold for all of these weapons."
Cecilia set the axe back down on the pile of weapons then gestured to the small pile of jewelry. "A few of these pieces are enchanted, though you'll want a professional to identify them before you try to use them or sell them. You can tell by reaching out with a tendril of mana. Enchanted objects will try to suck tendrils in, just resist the pull."
Curious, Jun did what Cecilia said and spooled out a mana tendril to drift towards the jewelry. It was harder to move a mana tendril out of her body and the difficulty exponentially increased the farther her tendril moved from her body without a spellform. Before she could push her tendril farther than a couple feet, she lost control and it dissipated in the air. Frowning, she realized she'd stopped paying attention as her friend continued to talk.
"—jeweler should give a decent price for the lot. At least a couple gold, but depending on the enchantments it could be more or less."
"As for the cores, hide, and meat," Sara said, taking over. "First, Grass Bears aren't that rare, though the meat is fairly tasty and decently full of mana for a bronze rank beast and their hides make good cheap leather. You've all probably eaten some at least once in the cafeteria. The meat's pretty cheap at a few copper a pound from any food merchant, so you'll probably only get around a copper a pound selling it off. The Academy cafeteria usually buys meat from adventurer students at a better rate than you'll get from food merchants though. The hide could easily be sold to the Crafting Branch for a handful of silver."
"Second, and most importantly, your true prize is the cores. Even the smallest bronze core can be sold for at least 50 silver, and you have 23 of them. Just like with the hide, the Academy's Crafting Branch. The only problem here is that the Crafting Branch will report their purchases to Administration and create an official record that you had these cores, and Arwen almost certainly doesn't know you have them. They're valuable enough that if he's enforcing the advisor cut as a high Gold adventurer which most adventurers would waive, he would've made a point to call you out on holding back, even if you did it accidentally," Sara winked at Jun with a giggle, causing her to blush slightly. After a few seconds Sara sobered up again and continued. "If Arwen complains that you cut him out, the Academy would have easy access to the sale records and could enforce the advisor's cut on the sale of the cores, meat, and hide."
"Sara's right about that. You'll probably want to avoid leaving too many records, but leaving none would be weird. The best option would be to sell the hide and meat to the Academy since your advisor would only get a couple silver if he complained about those sales cutting him out, and 2 or 3 silver just isn't worth the hit to his reputation to complain about. The weapons and jewelry would be best sold to merchants in the city who can also perform an identification on the enchanted pieces. The cores you could try to sell to an enchanter in the city, or sell direct to some of the enchanting students. What do you all want to do?"
The younger students traded looks and turned to huddle and started whispering a discussion. "Other than screwing over Arwen, neither of them said what they'd get out of helping us. How much is your roommates' help going to cost us Jun?" Keira asked.
"I'm not sure, but I'd still rather give them a cut over giving it to him," Jun couldn't help but look out of the corner of her eye at Sara and Cecilia. From the bemused looks Jun could see on her roommates' faces, she had a feeling both of them could hear their conversation anyways.
"...they are much nicer than Arwen..." Cian said with an awkward smile. Jun didn't miss the way his eyes flickered toward her roommates and the way his ears turned a slight shade of red. Did the quiet man have a crush on her roommates?! A strange feeling of protectiveness came over her. She liked Cian well enough despite the man's quiet nature, but the thought of him making a move on one of her roommates gave her a strange feeling.
"I like Cecilia's suggestion of selling some of the stuff to the school and some to merchants, but selling the best stuff direct to students. If Arwen really does know we have at least some of this stuff, he's going to expect us to sell at least some of it off in the city. Besides, this will give us the chance to make connections with merchants we could sell more stuff to in the future."
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"...that's a good point Aya," Keira conceded.
"So all agreed we get their help?"
After a series of yeses from the party, they turned back out of their huddle to see Sara and Cecilia with serious looks on their faces, though Jun knew her friends and roommates well enough that she didn't miss the slight crinkling at the corners of Sara's eyes or the slight tightness in Cecilia's face betraying their amusement. "We'd like your help selling everything without our advisor finding out," Aya said, puffing herself up as the party's leader.
After a short discussion with Jun's roommates, the party agreed that Jun, Sara, and Cecilia would sell the loot the next morning while the rest of them were in classes for a share of 5 percent of the loot. With a rudimentary plan in place, their party split up to return to their rooms.
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The next morning Jun was woken up while it was still dark by Shiori using her chest to launch herself from the bed to Jun's desk just before Sara barged in and ripped her blanket off her. "Time to wake up Jun!" Sara sang as Jun squeaked with surprise. "Oh!"
"Sara! What are you doing?!" Jun squeaked as the cold pre-dawn air chilled her skin. As she blinked the sleep from her eyes, she realized that Sara was sheepishly holding her blanket out for her and had her head turned away, her pointed ears turning slightly pink, That was when she remembered that she'd taken to sleeping in just her panties, lacking any pajamas. Her bras were comfortable enough to wear during the day, but at night they had just felt constricting. Squeaking, she took her blanket back as her roommate quietly left the room, closing Jun's door behind her. While they'd seen each other naked several times on trips to Grandma Deedee's bathhouse, something about Sara seeing her topless in her room was different, more intimate.
Her heart racing and her face warm, Jun quietly slipped out of bed and started dressing.
"Kitten, I've been watching the two of you making eyes at each other when the other's not looking for over a month. Just mate with her already!" Shiori said in an exasperated tone.
Jun ripped a button off of her shirt as she whipped her head around to glare at her Master. The button strained in her grip as the shirt's enchantment fought against her physical stats to repair itself.
"What? The two of you are constantly leaking pheromones around each other. Why, every time you go to the bathhouse, it smells like the two of you are in heat."
The button fell from Jun's fingers as she stared at her Master in shock, her mouth dry as her face grew even warmer. Jun barely noticed as the button snapped back into place on her shirt as the threads wove themselves around it, locking it back into place.
"You—" Shiori started to say something else, but Jun rushed at the cat and put her hands around her small mouth, keeping it shut. A sigh filled her ears. "You realize that does nothing because I use mana and aura to talk, not my mouth right? Looks like we need to go back to basic mana manipulation lessons and soup." Jun groaned quietly as she removed her hands from Shiori's mouth. Her Master yawned slow and wide as her ears and tails twitched in a cat's version of an amused laugh.
A wooden bowl of soup manifested and shoved itself in front of Jun's mouth, the meaty herbal smell of weeks ago coming back. It was the same bitter soup she'd had so many times before. She'd thought that soup was done with as Shiori had only given her a bowl once a week of the better tasting soup, but it seemed she was wrong. Giving up on fighting the inevitable, Jun just gulped the persistent bowl of soup down with a grimace while Shiori continued to gently tease her.
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After a couple minutes, Jun left her room with her bag on one shoulder and Shiori on the other to find Sara and Cecilia waiting for her.
"Ready to go?" Sara asked, fidgeting awkwardly as a light hint of pink graced the tips of her ears.
"Pheromones..." Shiori whispered as the cat flicked her tail against Jun's neck, sending her heart racing.
"Yes," Jun gasped out as gestured awkwardly at her bag that she'd refilled the night before.
Cecilia glanced between the two of them and smirked, though she had the good sense not to say anything as she led the way out into the still dark campus of the Academy.
To Jun's surprise there were a surprising number of people out in the early morning, though few wore the uniforms of a student as the three of them did. Most wore work clothes and carried sacks and boxes or pushed along carts of materials, while a few wore various kinds of armor and carried weapons as they headed for the front gate of the school. The number of people wearing work clothes steadily increased as Cecilia led them to the cafeteria and around to the back where a gruff man in a stereotypical chef's hat was directing workers moving sacks and boxes around.
"You students! Cafeteria's not open yet, come back in an hour!" a worker yelled at them, stepping in front of Cecilia and barring her way to the man in the chef's hat.
"We're looking for Conrad," Cecilia said.
"What do you students want with Conrad? Come to complain about the quality of the food?" the man sneered, crossing his arms as two more men dropped what they were doing and joined him. Jun shivered as the men seemed to flex their muscles. They were all large men, and while Jun had seen Sara and Cecilia fight before, both were unarmed and there were a lot of men turning to look at them.
"No, we're suppliers," Sara said from behind Cecilia as she made a covert hand signal at Jun.
Seeing the signal her roommates had coached her about on the way over, Jun reached into her bag and pulled a package wrapped in paper and passed it to Sara silently.
The man who stood in front of Cecilia held his hand out as Sara approached and handed him the package. Opening it to reveal a small cut of meat, he gave it a sniff. "Freshly slaughtered Grass Bear," he said, handing it off to one of the men that had joined him.
The man stared at the piece for a moment as Jun felt the faintest hint of mana moving in a cast spell. After a few seconds, the second man spoke. "Level 57 young adult Grass Bear from the plains outside the city, D grade mana density. Killed quickly and properly drained," he said, wrapping the meat back up and handing it back to the first man.
Nodding, the first man took the package and gave Sara a look. "How much you got?"
"Enough that Conrad will want it," Sara said confidently.
The first man gave her a long look before glancing at the package of meat in his hands. Turning around, he took the package and walked over to the back door of the kitchen and spoke to someone inside, handing over the package. After a couple minutes, the man returned and clapped the other men on the shoulder. "Conrad will see you, follow me, but the cat stays out of the kitchen." Nodding, Jun picked up Shiori and set her down on the ground, already having been warned that her Master wouldn't be allowed in the kitchen.
The three students followed behind the man as the others returned to their work and he led them into the kitchen. Men and women in aprons and wearing hats or bandanas rushed about the busy kitchen, preparing various dishes in massive quantities. Their guide led them to a man who stood before a wooden butcher's block, the open package of meat in front of him with a small plate of thinly sliced grilled meat. "Thanks Von, you can return to your duties" the man said with a nod at their guide, before turning to look at Sara. "Sara! Cecilia! It's been a while! How's my favorite team of suppliers?" he said with a smile before glancing at Jun. "I see you have a new party member!"
"We're doing good Con," Sara said with a smile. "Though Jun here isn't a party member, she's a friend of ours. The meat you sampled was a kill from her team, we're just showing her the ropes."
"Showing her the ropes eh?" he said with an appraising look at Jun. After a second, he glanced at the dish of cooked meat and nodded. "Meat's good," he said, gesturing at the plate of grilled meat. "How much you got?" he asked impatiently.
Jun waited until Sara gave her another hand signal and started pulling out packages of the meat from her bag, forming a steadily growing pile on the metal table beside her. Conrad watched her impassively until she finished removing packages, and Jun felt another feeling of mana moving as Conrad cast a spell. After a few seconds, he let out a low whistle. "117 pounds, plus the 1 pound sample. Must've been a decent size beasty. Shame you didn't bring the bones too." Conrad rubbed his bare chin in thought for a few seconds before looking at Jun. "Sara's right I want it. A C a pound and we say it came from the usual suppliers, or 2 C a pound and we fill out some paperwork."
Jun glanced at Sara, who gave her a nod and gestured her forward. It was close to the price Sara said she'd get, and the plan was to leave a record of this sale.
"We'll do the paperwork," Jun squeaked.
"Right, step into my office then," Conrad said, leading the students through the kitchen to a small side office. As they moved through, Conrad barked orders at a few of the cooks to deal with the meat. After a few minutes of paperwork that included Jun signing a pair of documents and holding her medallion against an orb mounted in the wall of Conrad's office, the man handed her 23 silver coins and 4 copper ones alongside a handwritten receipt. "Pleasure doing business with you. You get any more quality ingredients, you bring them to me first you hear?"
Jun nodded. "I will."
"Great! Pleasure doing business with you Jun," he said with a smile. "And you two," he said turning to Sara and Cecilia. "Do let me know if you get your hands on any more Sprite Sage, the damned Central Duke upped the price and the Count's increased import taxes again."
"Of course Conrad, the Forest is bountiful after all," Sara said with a smile.