“I-it’s not that bad, Master!” Carmine defended. “I never let my room get messy!”

“That’s because you had bought five storage rings!” Mary snorted.

“I could stop whenever I wanted!” She defended. “Rather, if the church hadn’t abandoned me, I definitely would have been able to pay back the debt I owed!”

“Carmine!” Mary’s expression turned angry for a moment. “Did we not already give you enough?”

Carmine winced, looking away like a beaten dog. Something about what Mary said seemed to strike a chord with her. Her expression was filled with a bit of guilt. Mary sighed, trying to take the angry expression off of her face. Crossing her arms across her enormous chest, she turned to me and gave a weak smile.

“I hope you understand things now.” She explained. “Carmine was actually the highest-paid Paladin. This wasn’t due to skill, but because we were worried based on her spending that she would fall into debt. Yet, every time we raised her pay, her spending increased.”

“Part of the reason we sent her to search for the clockwork dragon was that we thought her spending would decrease with that. We gave her a salary of 25 gold a year and put her on a 5-year expedition. That is to say, we gave her 125 gold. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize by giving her all the money at once, she would then proceed to spend it all at once.”

“I-it lasted…” She said tearfully. “For three months.”

So, in the end, that was what happened. She had been given a lump sum and sent where the cost of living was cheaper and extravagances were harder to come by. Yet, even then, she found a way to blow all of her money. If I recalled correctly, by the time I found her, she was living mostly off the goodwill of the town, whom she healed to curry favor and probably coins. Yet, she had also accumulated almost 500 coins in debt during that time as well.

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“You know, although the sales of her storage rings and all of the stuff inside to make the debtors back all of their money, the expenses we accrued were many. We expected her to at least be able to bring back something from her expedition. No one enters a dungeon and comes back with nothing. Yet, after two years, she still hadn’t acquired anything…”

“I was researching…” She said with a pouty expression.

“When we heard the city she was in was being attacked by a bandit queen, we sent our soldiers to try to save it. They were late, only managed to clean out the bandits left in a ransacked city. However, they arrived with enough time to hear about the clockwork dragon. Had she successfully obtained it, I could have written off any amount of debt, but she left it buried. After a month of digging to recover it, we found that anything of value had already been smashed to bits. It has left the church suffering quite a bit.”

She seemed like she was talking to herself, but I had a feeling she was aiming those words in my direction.

“Are you asking for a tithe?” I frowned.

Mary gave me an innocent look. “What? Why? The church would never do such a thing! It’s up to every man for himself to decide how devoted he is…”

As she said this, her eyes grew watery and seemed even larger. She also smooshed her chest together, making it nearly burst forth.

“What was it she left you, 100 coins of excess loans to the church?”

“112 gold, 7 silver, 3 copper.” Mary politely coughed.

I rolled my eyes and pulled out a bag of money. It probably had around 200 gold in it. I went to hand it to Mary, but she cocked her head. Looking at her robes, she had absolutely nowhere to put the money. Then my eyes fell on a spot.

“Ah!” She made a cute noise as I pushed the bag between her cleavage.

My hand went in, going in deep. When I got worried it’d get stuck, I let go and pulled back out again.

“Oh my…” She blushed. “Your contribution will definitely go to a worthy cause!”