A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 143
Chapter 143
One week later.
Central Branch of the Reward Office.
Beep-
Beep-
Beep……
In the office, where silence had fallen, a red light blinked at regular intervals.
It was the light that came out each time Office employees Ornel and Remi operated the analyzer.
Once the review of all the cores was finished, Remi began stuffing the cores into sacks with hollow eyes.
Ornel, having set down the analyzer, raised his head.
Across from him, a knight with a calm atmosphere, no, a mercenary, was looking at him.
Ornel asked,
“Y-you brought one sack of cores obtained from a small magic stone yesterday too, didn’t you……?”
“Yes, that is right.”
“And the day before yesterday you besieged a medium magic stone.”
“Yes.”
“And the day before that, two small ones……”
“That was probably the case.”
Ornel lost the will to speak and shut his mouth.
“Ah, put the reward money over here.”
Meanwhile, beside them, another member of Agabert was loading the reward money onto a cart.
Watching that sight, Ornel barely opened his lips again.
“Just how are you doing it……?”
Enzo, who had been counting the sacks of gold coins, lifted his head.
Raul, beside him, also asked back with a faint smile.
“What do you mean?”
“The besieging! How are you doing it so fast?!”
Twenty years working at the Central Branch.
Ornel had met countless mercenaries over that time.
And most of them were people with a fair amount of renown in the mercenary industry.
After all, only people on that level came and went in the imperial capital, joined forces with the holy knights, and besieged magic stones.
But,
‘Even the famous Grim Reaper and Trevaga never brought in cores at this speed!’
With his spinning head, Ornel recalled the past week.
Agabert had come to the reward office without missing even a single day.
That was to register the fact of conquest and exchange monster cores for reward money.
“Are you perhaps bringing the byproducts of magic stones you had conquered in advance little by little?”
Raul burst into laughter.
“Even if it were not us, the analyzer would tell you that, Director.”
When he looked toward the analyzer, Remi answered in a flat voice.
“……The coordinates are different. Today’s are from Gargonta Flooded Forest, and yesterday’s are from Selburn Glade Grasslands.”
Ornel’s lips fell farther open.
“Th-that’s exactly why it’s stranger! Gargonta Flooded Forest is in the north of the empire, and Selburn Glade is in the south……!”
“Well, that’s true.”
“It takes a month just to travel between those two places! But you’re saying you went to each of those places today and yesterday……?”
As though trying to gather himself, Ornel shook his head hard.
Then he swallowed dryly and pressed Enzo.
“I understand! You must be layering several teleportation circles, right? But does that work with teleportation circles? If you burn through dozens of teleportation circles just to besiege one magic stone, then doesn’t that become a loss instead? No, wait. Is it not teleportation circles……?”
Teleportation circles were not things that let one get close to a magic stone unconditionally just by using several of them.
For safety reasons, people ordinarily activated them while leaving a walking distance of at least two hours and at most about a day.
“Then just how……”
As the confusion in Ornel’s eyes deepened more and more, Enzo joked around.
“What does it matter how we besieged them. What matters is that we besieged them. Thanks to that, the magic stones threatening the good imperial citizens are decreasing every day, aren’t they?”
He smiled amiably and loaded the sacks of gold onto the cart.
Then, tapping Raul on the shoulder, he said,
“Let’s go, hyung.”
The two stood from their seats, bowed to Ornel and Remi, and withdrew.
“Then, we’ll see you tomorrow.”
The office door shut with a bang.
Ornel let out a sound and collapsed into his chair.
“Has the Necromancer King…… gone mad?”
Magic stones were scattered sporadically all over the continent.
So ordinarily, just going to besiege one took several weeks, and coming back took several more weeks.
And was that all?
Whether holy knights or mercenaries, they were people, so after fighting hard battles against monsters, it was common for them to take several days of rest.
‘But to besiege magic stones without resting? And how in the world did they cover those far distances so quickly……’
During the past week, Ornel had met almost every member of Agabert except the Necromancer King.
On the third day, he had even met the middle-aged female housekeeper who said she worked at that house.
‘Oh dear, all our company members are so busy. So I came in their place.’
That housekeeper was not even a mercenary, yet she took the reward money away while bringing along one young boy.
He was worried a robber might attack them on the way back and steal the reward money.
“Director, this.”
At that moment Remi came over carrying papers related to Agabert.
They were documents stating that after today’s cores were registered, there had once again been a change in the rankings.
“Ninth place?”
To overtake three high-ranking mercenary companies in one week.
Stamping the documents, Ornel muttered like a man out of his mind.
“They’ve gone mad, yes. They’ve definitely gone mad……”
He recalled the Necromancer King, who had brought in a tremendous amount of cores and been smiling loosely as though it were child’s play.
Since that first meeting.
In Ornel’s mind, the Necromancer King had come to be recognized as fear itself.
“A monster even worse than Tesetan. It’s giving me goosebumps.”
“What gives me goosebumps is this amount of work.”
He was so busy recalling the appearance of the Necromancer King that she did not even properly hear what Remi said.
Meanwhile, Remi took the stamped Agabert papers and moved elsewhere.
To the middle of the office.
Toward the place where wooden boards were installed across the entire wall.
On the wooden boards were posted the statuses of mercenary companies with a high volume of activity.
As Remi fixed Agabert’s papers at the far right, she found something and shut her mouth.
On the Trevaga papers posted at the middle of the board, recently updated content was displayed briefly.
[Trevaga – Status Report.
Conquest activities in the North Continent remain vigorous.
As a result, considerable profit has been secured from the Duchy of Escaro, and His Majesty the Emperor is viewing this positively.
Postscript: There was an unfortunate conflict between several Trevaga members and the Order. At present, all are safe……]
Remi left the front of the wooden board with a sickened face.
“……It’s not only Agabert. Mercenaries, all of them are mad……”
* * *
Meanwhile.
Tie was sitting on a dining-room chair waiting for Raul and Enzo.
As he swung his legs back and forth, Veil, sitting beside him, asked,
“Kid. Are you going tonight too?”
Tie shook her head.
“No? Today is a day off!”
Veil immediately put on a surprised expression.
“You were pestering us like that to go besiege things every day. What wind blew today?”
Instead of answering, Tie gestured toward her side.
In front of Ppuppu, who was up on the dining table, Marbas lay collapsed, his wood grain shriveled over the past few days.
[Kuhk, I cannot do any more……! Just for today, I must store up my strength!]
Tie shrugged.
“Marru says strengthening two teleportation circles every day is too hard. So Tie told her to rest today and tomorrow. Because Tie is a kind boss!”
A satisfied expression spread over Veil’s face.
“Yeah, you do have to rest sometimes.”
For the past week, the company members had besieged magic stones without missing a single day.
In the case of small ones, they were besieged smoothly even without Tie stepping in, and even medium ones were not that difficult.
Now that Agabert had so much money it could rot.
That was because just being equipped with proper weapons and gear had greatly increased the company members’ fighting power.
“Blackie, you did a big thing.”
But more impressive than any gear whatsoever was Lucarion’s barrier.
Ppuppu’s fog also helped, perhaps because it played the role of momentarily obscuring the monsters’ vision.
“Compared to the time we were starving and going on missions, my body feels unbelievably light, you know? People really do need good nutrition.”
At Veil’s words, Basto was just letting out a small laugh.
Ding-dong!
The bell at the entrance hanging in the dining room rang out brightly.
Tie jumped down from the chair.
“Raul and Brother Enzo must be here!”
Tie went to the entrance in quick little steps with the company members.
And he flung the door wide open.
“Brother Raul, Enzo……! Huh?”
But standing in front of the door were not the Waveril twins.
“Excuse us! The sea route got blocked, so we were a little late……! We came to take our Selina home!”
There stood the neighbors from the house across the street.
The Belmore couple, with faces that looked as though they might burst into tears at any moment.