GILF Hunter

Chapter 396: 396 What if?

After the battle ended, Ian and the mercenaries took advantage of the Stingers’ confusion to withdraw from the forest.

Mercenaries from other sectors who received the signal to return also began emerging from the forest one by one.

‘Wounded this way!’

‘Move that over here!’

The temporary assembly point at the forest entrance was quite hectic with mercenaries returning right after the major battle.

Ian confirmed the return of each mercenary group there and checked the situation.

The leaders of the mercenary groups that participated in the battle gathered in one place.

‘Injuries?’

‘Two people.’

‘None on our side.’

Since they had entered the battle after securing advantageous terrain beforehand and it wasn’t a long-drawn-out fight, there was no major damage to the subjugation force.

After a brief check, Hamel finally approached Ian’s side.

Clea was fast asleep, cradled in Hamel’s arms.

Hamel stared at Ian with an expressionless face.

‘….’

‘Ah. It’s due to mana depletion. I know.’

Ian recalled the lightning magic seen during the battle. It was of a scale that was visible even from Ian’s distant position.

Magic of that degree requires a significant amount of mana. If she hadn’t prepared a means like a magic circle to reduce mana consumption, she likely used up most of her mana.

Hamel stared at Ian intently without any other reaction.

‘….’

‘Yes, it’s fine. I assume no one suffered major injuries?’

‘….’

At Ian’s question, Hamel answered with a nod and then left the spot.

Tanya, who was watching that scene from the side, asked Ian with a bewildered face.

‘…Leader, can you actually communicate with him?’

‘No, but it’s obvious what he’d say anyway. I just go by the vibe.’

There wasn’t much else to talk about, and Leader Hamel wasn’t the type to speak in a complicated manner.

Tanya wore an expression as if she were looking at someone strange, but it was a task that wasn’t actually that difficult once you tried it.

Checking that the mercenaries were ready to move while looking around, Ian spoke.

‘Alright. Let’s go back now. We need to inform the farm and the guild quickly.’

The subjugation force returned to the farm.

‘Leader Ian! Are you safe! I was worried!’

There was someone waiting for Ian at the farm.

Someone who had been watching the mercenary group return from inside the fence ran out quickly to greet Ian.

It was a person he had seen once this morning before leaving for the subjugation. It was the owner of this farm.

He supposedly rushed here this morning after hearing that the full-scale subjugation would begin today.

As the farm owner, he was bound to be anxious. If the subjugation were delayed, the harvest season would pass, and all these many materials could become unusable.

Asking for the results right away from someone who just returned from battle could be off-putting. Still, he had to know the outcome as soon as possible.

The farm owner, drawing on his experience, asked with a smile intended not to offend the other party as much as possible.

‘The subjugation, perhaps how did it…’

‘It was a success.’

‘Success! Thank you! I’ll make sure to supply to your shop first, Leader!’

Since it wasn’t exactly a secret, the fact that Louise’s Workshop was operated by the Ian Mercenary Group was a famous story that anyone who should know already knew.

The farm owner promised to send the harvested materials as a top priority, above any other place.

Ian thought Louise would be delighted to hear the news.

‘Then there’s no more worry about monsters appearing, right?’

‘Yes. They won’t come to the farm anymore. Oh, but there are still Stingers left in the forest, so make sure not to go near that area.’

‘As long as the farm runs properly, it doesn’t matter! Hey! Call the workers right now!’

The farm owner thanked him several times, then immediately turned around and shouted to his employees. It seemed he intended to start harvesting today.

In truth, even to Ian’s eyes, the condition of the herbs looked precarious. The farm owner’s money was melting away in real-time.

Everyone sat down on one side of the farm, finally feeling that it was over. It was the end of the subjugation request they had been suddenly swept into.

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The request was over, but most of the mercenaries stayed at the farm a little longer.

This was because the farm owner proposed short-term employment to the mercenaries who participated in the subjugation.

Even though they were told the monster subjugation was over, the workers were too anxious to take on the work.

Since they said they couldn’t do it even with extra pay, the farm owner eventually gathered people on the condition of hiring guards.

Even now, Stingers were occasionally seen taking flight from the forest, so it wasn’t impossible to understand that sentiment.

Since the possibility of those Stingers attacking the farm was almost zero, it was essentially a request where they just had to rest quietly.

The pay was quite decent for such a thing, so most of the mercenary groups from the subjugation force accepted the farm’s request.

They were planning to rest for a while after the fight anyway, so there was no reason to refuse if they could eat and play while receiving someone else’s money.

Then one day, after finishing several days of rest at the farm, Ian entered the forest again with the mercenaries.

Several mercenary groups, including the Hamel Mercenary Group, were with them.

Clea, who was walking behind Ian, spoke.

‘Thank you! I thought I might have to give up this time since I didn’t have the leisure to look for them… I was wondering if I should come back later.’

‘I didn’t expect much either, but Rin found quite a few while scouting.’

‘Rin! Thank you! I’ll be sure to send a gift later if something good comes out!’

‘Ah, yes…’

Rin, who received Clea’s thanks, nodded in bewilderment.

‘Now. Let’s scatter here. Everyone, send a signal if it’s dangerous.’

‘Eh, all the Stingers have scattered, so there shouldn’t be anything dangerous.’

‘Still, just in case.’

‘See you all later! Find lots of expensive stuff!’

After splitting into different directions from the other mercenary groups at the fork, Ian and the members arrived at the first destination after walking the forest path for a while.

A mound of dirt that looked like a grave. It was a structure of unknown identity that Rin had consistently located while out scouting.

Everyone had re-entered the forest to find these.

‘What on earth is this that everyone is acting like that?’

‘It’s a place where Stingers hoard treasures.’

‘Stingers… hoard treasures?’

‘Yeah. They gather and bury them in the ground like this, then take them back when needed.’

Come to think of it, the monster they saw in the labyrinth last time also had a habit of hoarding minerals dug up from the ground.

Since they had already experienced it, everyone easily understood Ian’s words and immediately began digging the ground.

‘But is it okay to distribute this like this? We’re the ones who found almost all of them.’

‘Anyway, the fact that Stingers hoard things like this is a pretty famous story, so everyone who should know already knows. They’ll all have come back to the forest to dig them up.’

Ian decided to sell these Stinger trophies via auction within the subjugation force and then divide the proceeds as settlement money.

There were mercenary groups that purchased these dirt mounds directly, and there were mercenary groups that just decided to receive a distribution of the auction funds.

It was a kind of gamble since they couldn’t know how expensive the things inside would be.

Of course, it was a common practice for the mercenary group in command to secretly take such trophies.

As Rin said, they could have come later and dug them up secretly.

But what good would come from monopolizing the reward like that, other than being called greedy behind their back?

Honestly, looking at Ian’s current earnings, these trophies weren’t an amount worth being that greedy over. It was more beneficial to use them as gifts like this to leave a good impression on other mercenary groups.

Especially as seen in Clea’s reaction, the trophies of rare monsters were gifts that were more effective for mages.

It would have taken much more money to buy gifts directly to earn this much goodwill.

Above all… if he had made such a gift offensive toward another group’s mercenary, he would have received a very suspicious look from Leader Hamel.

‘Ah! There’s something!’

The members who were carefully digging through the dirt mound discovered something below.

Lia carefully brushed away the dirt with her hand and lifted what was inside. It was a lump made of something like clumped dry paper.

Rin, who had been to the nest, thought it seemed like a material similar to the Stinger nest.

Examining the item in her hand, Lia felt as if there was something inside that rustling lump.

‘There’s something inside this… is it okay to open it?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

Lia carefully tore off the outer wrapping.

And then she screamed.

‘Kyaaa!’

What was inside was a shriveled, dried bug.

Lia, who had picked it up with her hand, let out a massive scream and slumped down.

‘W-what on earth is this?!’

‘Oh. It’s a Truffle Worm.’

Ian, picking up the bug Lia had dropped, tucked it into a leather pouch.

Ian explained in more detail what the identity of that pit was.

‘These are things they gather to feed when raising special ones like the Queen or guards, and they only gather rare food with lots of mana. So they sell for a very high price to mages or alchemists.’

Why didn’t he tell her that first…

Lia, who had fallen to the ground, crawled away to escape from the pit.

Rin suddenly remembered something that happened when she was searching for these earlier and checked her map.

‘By the way, Leader. The person who was with me when I went scouting found one of these. I think this is it.’

‘Ah. The one who’s getting married?’

‘…The rumor reached that far?’

Actually, there was almost no one in the subjugation force who didn’t know.

‘Well, good for him. His marriage fund will increase more.’

What the finder receives is generally about 10%. It would depend on what comes out of the dirt mound, but it would be quite a help for a marriage fund.

‘How much usually comes out?’

‘If it’s a total bust, you don’t even get 2 or 3 items, but if something expensive comes out…’

While Ian was speaking, Tanya, who was digging out other trophies one by one from the pit, shouted in surprise.

‘Kya!’

‘Why are you— Gasp!’

A golden light radiated from within the paper lump caught in Tanya’s hand.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!

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