Money was something everyone could have more of… Especially those in the lower ranks. I was considered rank F, while the party I was sitting with was likely a D-rank party. Unarguably two of the lowest income jobs out there…
Being E rank was at least equivalent to making 25k talons a year… Not exactly a lot… But even that small raise from my 15k would stop me from starving at let me put on some weight. If that happened I’d probably jump to D-rank… Although that might have just been wishful thinking.
D-rank was twice that, at 50k average. When you are in a party though, each reward is split four ways for them. That means to get the same income they have to take on more dangerous quests at a higher volume. On top of that, the increased danger, and the higher volume would lead to increased expenses. Gear maintenance, consumable potions, and antidotes… Still, he was willing to buy me a meal, and their gear was well taken care of, so they couldn’t have been that poor.
“Who couldn’t use more money right?” Ted smacked me on the shoulder.
I was surprised, their mood didn’t seem to drop at all. It was the first time I had seen a dwarf content with only one drink in his hand. “Right…”
He raised his hand and began to scratch the stubble on his cheek. “Hey, what if… We bring the carcasses to you instead of the guild. I can handle wargs, but like you said I’m not one to risk my fingers. If you harvest the spiders, that might make us both a bit of extra coin.
“That’s…” I paused for a moment before I outright refused. I had made it a point to never take on a job that wasn’t related to being an adventurer… But even if I wasn’t killing monsters, harvesting them for a party didn’t seem entirely unrelated.
I leaned back in my chair. If there was one thing I was comfortable talking about, it was money. Having it feel more like a business conversation than a casual one eased my nerves considerably and let me finally think clearly without so much blood running through my face.
“Well, one acid gland is usually valued at around 100 talons, and the guild takes 25 percent as a fee for processing. So by that logic, if you pay me 20 talons per, we both walk away happy right?”
He nodded, “Hm… We’ve been killing just over 10 spiders every time we go out, so that would be 200 for you. We go out five times a week… Could you keep up with that pace?”
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My jaw almost dropped… Doing the math in my head, if I got 200 talons a day five days a week my expected income more than doubled, and that was without me doing any quests. Not to mention I wouldn’t have any fees for maintenance or consumables. ‘There’d… Be no reason for me to take quests anymore…’
“O-on second thought… I really only need ten talons per gland, I think that’s more reasonable.”
He narrowed his gaze “You're halving your price?”
‘Yeah… I guess that does look pretty suspicious…’ “Yes, but I have two conditions. The first is that I can harvest them whenever I want, and the second is that you don’t sell them here. Go back to Rothet to sell them.”
“Are there reasons for these conditions of yours?”
I nodded. “I like money, but I’m not ready to give up on being an adventurer yet, so I’m going to keep taking quests. It would be nice for us to be able to work around that. As for the place of sale…”
I leaned in and lowered my voice. “I’m pretty sure the beekeeper here, Alden, is ripping people off, or at the very least he’s shady.”
All three of them grimaced. “You sure about this?”
“I didn’t call him out on it, but when he realized what I was thinking he suddenly raised the estimated value of goods back to full price. So… I can’t really say he cheated me, but…”
Roaren let out a growl, his claws sinking into the table. “I should kill him.” ‘That was… A quick response…’ Dabai seemed to calm him down, but the tension remained.
“The more people he rips off the easier it will be to take him down, so honestly it might be better to wait before we report him. The guards could be in on it. For now… It’s better to just wait for a while and sell them all back at Rothet. We have to consider I’m wrong too. If he really is innocent instead then everything would just be a mess.”
He nodded. “It seems it was good fortune running into you. We’ll do that.”
I nodded back. “Good.” My left arm had fallen completely numb, and my body was exhausted. The full six hours still hadn’t passed, but the time frame was moved up due to my blood loss and the webbing being applied to an open wound instead of the skin. After finally relaxing from a more serious conversation it started to feel hard just to hold my head up.
I winced in pain as I took to my feet. “Thanks again for the meal… But, I’m going to go rest now. Lick my wounds and all that.”
Ted laughed. “I thought you said you knew healing magic?”
I looked down at my arm. “I do… A bit… But it’s pretty draining to use. It’s no good if it shuts down my body and stops my natural healing. Then I’d have to worry about the toxins. Plus I can only use it once a week, so if something worse happened later then–”
“Kid, just go rest already, you don’t have to explain it to us.”
“R-right… Sorry.”
I was so tired I nearly fell over on the spot. But I managed to say my goodbyes and stumble over to the counter to pay for a room.
When I finally got there I walked in, locked the door, took my helmet off, and fell asleep standing up, not even feeling the impact as I fell onto the bed.