“Someone teaches this kid how to relax.”

“Are you sure you want that, Captain? Don’t you feel motivated watching him?”

“... Fifty percent motivated and fifty percent annoyed.”

“Hahaha, I can understand the feeling. In my case, it is because he makes me feel like I am not trying hard enough.”

They got silent after that… it was better not to think too much about that. Regardless, soon enough, night came, and the group was forced to camp. They found a place to take shelter just in time it started to rain. Zelos couldn’t help but grunt in annoyance since that would make it many times harder to listen to the surroundings.

“The girls and I will take care of the first watch, you guys will take care of the last one. This division isn’t that efficient, but that should make things easier if there are actually any bandits around.”

“Are you trying to lure them out by making them think that you are all frail damsels? How devious.”

“Yeah, I guess I awakened something that day.”

In the end, Zelos shrugged and then decided to eat his meal and then go to bed earlier. He wasn’t that tired, but he had an easy time falling asleep when it was raining. Still, he suddenly grabbed his club when someone suddenly grabbed his shoulders in the middle of the night. It was Irlan, who made an apologetic expression.

“Sorry, but the others told me to wake you up.”

Zelos got up and found the three girls standing on the other side of the wagon. He saw them in the distance. It started to rain harder at some point, but they still could see a small light in the distance. Since it was night, it should have been clear that something was burning there.

“If I remember right, there is a village in that direction, am I wrong?”

“No… you are right. That village was known for producing oil from olives… that must explain why we can see the light of a large fire in the middle of a rainy night. Just our luck.”

The group wasn’t involved, but the people of the area would look for culprits. If they were found, they would be interrogated; if they moved away from it, they would look suspicious, and it would be impossible to hide their traces at night. They were truly in a bind.

“We will move like nothing is wrong. If they find us, then we will reveal who we are… the ingots will confirm what we are doing.”

The group could only hope that things would work out like that… in the end, soon the girls had their chance to sleep, but they didn’t sleep all that much thanks to those worrisome thoughts.

When morning came, Zelos and Irlan took the role of driving and keeping an eye on the surroundings, but the girls soon decided to check the surroundings as they approached the village. Two hours later, they were able to see in the distance the signs that some of the houses in the place had been burned… it hadn’t been an accident. That was confirmed. Some people saw them passing by the roads, but they were ignored… it looked like they already had their culprits. Irlan had some concerns about that situation, even more so when the war was approaching.

“We should report this to the Captain.”

“... Please, don’t, Zelos.”

“I didn’t even think about anything.”

Once again, Heirina’s words made him ask if she had accepted the report, considering that she was the captain of the job, but Hei was their real Captain. Regardless, it was hard to imagine that all that wasn’t connected to the war somehow. The enemies probably were trying to create panic and unrest in order to split the population.

In any case, the whole territory would be on alert now, so bandits wouldn’t have the chance to act freely… Thanks to that, the group was able to return home without finding any issues. Things looked pretty much the same as they returned to the town, but they could see a lot more people talking about rumors… the news about the attacks should have reached that part of their territory already.

After unloading the cargo in the town’s warehouse, the group went to Heirina’s house to report to Hei. Along the way, they saw some of the new clan members leaving while riding horses and fully armed. They wanted to avoid damage to their territories that would put them at a disadvantage when the battle started.

“Oh, you all are back already. Good work… I take it that you managed to avoid trouble along the way despite the things that we had heard.”

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“More or less. I had to shake down Rattay a little bit since he was trying to be smart.”

“... I want to hear details about that.”

When Heirina began to give the report about the whole mission, it looked like Hei wanted to hear from the others as well, but he could ask about their perspectives later. He paid a lot of attention to his daughter’s words and actions and felt pretty proud about the negotiation. Strangely enough, she tried to be humble instead of bragging about it.

“I wanted to see that… you all did a good job returning faster than I anticipated. Anyway, consider one of the things that you have heard… it is true. Elmer escaped, and he has already been rescued by his allies. He used the chaos on the territory of Carli’s clan and the fact that his son is still getting used to the job.”

That was the territory in the south… Elmer and others created a lot of problems to divert the attention of the people there, thanks to it, he was never found until the very end when he crossed the border. Edea showed a complicated expression when she heard that.

“He will be out for revenge… for now. He doesn’t know that I am working for you, but once he does, he will move his anger from my clan to yours.”

“You are already part of my clan, so it doesn’t matter, Edea. Besides, I have some grudges against him as well, so I will welcome his challenge.”

“... Yes sir.”

Edea nodded still looking troubled and soon left her head down. Zelos could only think that she was the type who felt bad for doing what she wanted, she always had to prioritize the others and her clan, so it made sense that she would behave like that.

“Anyway, don’t worry about anything for now. By the way, here is your payment for the job.”

Hei passed some bags with coins for each one of them. Ten ruby coins… at that point in time, it looked like any job was more profitable for Zelos, but only when he was doing farm work could he make as much progress as he wanted. In those ten days of the mission, his parameters improved two times, while the same thing could have happened three times doing farm work.

“Rest easy for a while, at least until I have some other special mission to you all. Dismissed.”

Everyone saluted, and then they left the house, leaving Heirina and Edea there. Zelos wondered what he should do now. He had eaten a bunch of snacks along the way, so he didn’t need to eat some extra meals. It was time to make his money work for him.

“I am planning to invest some of the money that I had saved, do you guys have some ideas as to where I should invest it?”

Irlan and Kaitrine raised their eyebrows when they heard that. They never thought that Zelos would ask them that kind of thing. It was a weird topic to break the silence with. Moreover, was a ten-year-old boy interested in that? Irlan decided to confirm that.

“... How old are you again, Zelos?”

“I am eleven years old.”

“Right… I can't say that I have much experience with that. My mother is handling the money that my father left for us… I guess I should worry about that eventually… perhaps sooner than I had considered.”

“My parents are still around, so they deal with that kind of thing… your eyes now are kind of pissing me off.”

“My apologies.”

In the end, those two lived in very different conditions than Zelos, so it was only fair that they wouldn’t know. Without thinking, he ended up showing in his face that it couldn’t be helped since they were kids. That was a bit contemptuous when he was younger than them.

“I guess I will talk with the old man farmer. Maybe he wants to expand his shed and needs some money for it.”

“Wouldn’t that increase your workload?”

“What about it?”

“... You are something else.”

Irlan was speechless… Zelos truly didn’t know the meaning of the word relaxing. Before long, they split up and then followed their ways. It was midafternoon, so he still could do some work at the farm. The old man was kind of slow when it came to handling the hard work recently, after all.

In the end, the old man farmer couldn’t help but cry tears of happiness when Zelos arrived… he truly began to enjoy too much just doing the management work. In a way, Zelos had ruined him. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t look like he could pay a single person to do as much work as Zelos.

The old man went to hug Zelos and welcome him back, but he avoided the attack and soon went to work. There was too much manure to be moved from the shed, after all. Still, he finished that two hours later.

“I was planning to invest some money here, but it looks like the farming business isn’t that profitable.”

“Considering how much you eat, I thought that you didn’t have any money left. How does your body work exactly? Anyway, this farm is quite profitable. We basically gain one sapphire coin every two days.”

“Are you talking about the calves?”

“That is right.”

Now and then, Zelos had to help with that, too… he had noticed that occasionally the old cows would leave and give room to those, so it made sense. However, there was a lot of work put in during the growth period of those, so it wasn’t that convenient.

“Although it doesn’t look like it, I have a lot of money saved up. I just didn’t want to put non trustable people here working with me, but maybe we can double the size of the farm now since you can do this much.”

Zelos wondered if that guy was that stupid… still, unless the town had that much need for cow meat and other products, increasing the size of the farm was unnecessary. As far as he could tell, all the milk of the city came from that farm. There were other sources of meat, though.

“I was also thinking that expanding the business would be too much work, but with you here, perhaps the hassle can be avoided.”

“You mean, it can be passed down to me, right?”

“Let’s see, I should have enough money to expand the size of the farm by two times, but that will be useless without extra cows. If you have enough coins, you can buy them directly from me and raise them here. You will essentially make your money produce milk that will be sold to the town while it will also grow more valuable with the passage of time.”