The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

"You've worked hard~ Lapis-chan, you caught a really good boy, you know."

Judie, the Demon King of the West, said cheerfully with a big smile on her face.

They were in a dining room in some corner of the Demon King's castle. It was almost nighttime, and the maids had been endlessly laying out what must be dinner on the table in front of Judie. The table was so huge that it made you wonder how many people it was supposed to serve.

"The tracking magic I used on the helmet was deactivated, so its original magical properties have probably vanished or broken. Even if it wasn't, from what I've heard from Loren, it's apparently no longer in a condition to work properly."

Judie swirled the glass of wine a maid had poured for her, apparently in a good mood. In front of her was Lapis, who was slumping over the table, and Loren, who was slumping back into his chair. Both of them looked completely exhausted. They had been brought here before they even had time to take off their equipments, and their clothes were covered in dust, but Judie didn't seem to mind at all.

At the crater, while running away from Magna, Loren's party fled through a secret passage to the nest of the Ancient Dragon Emery thanks to the help of a baby dragon. Upon arriving, they returned the whelp to Emery, who was upset that one of her children had disappeared, and explained the situation.

Emery had been angry at the baby dragon for disappearing without permission, but after Loren's intercession that they might not have been able to come back to this place if it had not come, she relented. They weren't sure if it was another way for Emery to vent her anger or not, but she flew out to go beat up Manga's party, who were probably somewhere near the crater. Loren hadn't seen it, so he didn't know what kind of battle unfolded near the mountain summit.

Anyway, they decided that the first priority was to rest their bodies, so they began discussing their next steps while resting inside the dragon's nest. Before coming to this mountain, Loren had thought that they should go back to the Demon King's castle once the commission was completed to give Lapis some time with her parents and other acquaintances, but he didn't even give it a thought now. Instead, he suggested evacuating to the Demon King's castle rather than going back into the human realm until the situation calmed down because it would be quite safe in this Demon King's territory. Lapis agreed, albeit reluctantly while Gula, perhaps unable to forget what the maids had done to her, objected until the end. In the end, they agreed that it would be better to leave after confirming their safety to some extent, rather than being pursued by Magna's party while traveling.

When all that was left was to descend the mountain and return to the Demon King's castle, Emery returned from the mountain's summit and somewhat regretfully informed them that she had lost sight of a group that looked like Magna's party, even though she had chased them around the mountain. It seemed that Magna and Noel didn't want to mess with anAncient Dragon, so they just ran away.

"The man is a bother. He defended against my <<Breath>>."

Emery had said in frustration, and Loren's and Lapis' jaws had dropped in surprise. The dragon might have toned down her <<Breath>> in consideration of their surroundings, but the fact that a human was able to defend against it was something neither Loren nor Lapis wanted to believe. It was probably the power of Magna's equipments; they could now imagine how powerful that armor set was and Lapis was very curious about where it had come from.

"How powerful are those items? Well, but they can be melted in the crater here, although we only tried with the helmet."

Loren wondered why such a powerful item would melt after being thrown into a crater, and Emery answered:

"Those kinds of equipment are usually only effective when worn. If no one was wearing it, it wouldn't have the proper effect."

Following this conversation, Loren's party were allowed to spend the night in Emery's nest again. Then, after being crushed by the baby dragons that didn't want to part with them, they descended the vertical hole leading to the nest by hanging on to Emery's legs just like they had done when they first came here. After saying goodbye to Emery, they descended down the mountain, being very careful not to run into Magna and the others.

They then jumped into the carriage that they had used when we first arrived, which was hidden at the foot of the mountain, and from there they drove as far into the city as they could. When Lapis hid the carriage, she had prepared food and water for the horses so that they would not starve, even if it took her some more time. Thanks to that, the horses did not seem to be weakened, and the trip was smooth, though a bit strenuous.

As a result, they traversed the distance in one day instead of one day and one night of rest, rushed directly to the Demon King's castle and asked the Demon King for temporary protection.

"We made an enemy. I must have lost my mind, making an enemy of a guy I don't think I can win against."

"That sounds tough…"

"Just someone else's problem to you huh, motherfucker."

"Loren, what bad language."

The Demon King said; she didn't seem to really care. Loren looked around wearily, then poked at Lapis' shoulder, who was sitting next to him and looked as tire as he was.

"What is it, Loren?"

"There's no sign of Gula. Did she run away because she thinks we'll tell her off for not killing that Dark Elf?"

In the middle of the battle with Magna, the one who tried to stop Lapis from running towards Loren was a Dark Elf named Noel, and the one who was to deal with Noel was Gula. No matter how powerful or rare a Dark Elf was, Loren didn't believe she could stand a chance fighting Gula alone. He wondered if Gula had gone easy on her, or if she was blinded by the rarity of her race and didn't want to do her in. But Lapis disagreed.

"That Dark Elf, it'll be very difficult to take her down."

"Even for you, Lapis?"

"I'm not sure what you're expecting from a priest like me, Loren."

Lapis declared something so blatantly questionable with such boldness that Loren looked at her in disbelief. But she continued in a very serious tone:

"That Dark Elf probably has some kind of contract with that Magna guy. Dark Elves are originally a bit more powerful than Elves, but it seems that she has some other modification added on top."

"What the hell is that?"

"A master-servant contract, or a contract of servitude and such. The type where someone makes some kind of contract with someone else, and as long as the contract is fulfilled, they receive various benefits from each other."

"I think the practice has already been lost in the human realm. If it was passed down, it would be used all the time. Humans."

Judie added. As a human himself, her remark made Loren's ears burn, but he could understand that if such a useful technique had been handed down, it would have been used more openly.

"A swordsman clad in black, who knows magic that was supposed to be lost. It's kind of intriguing, isn't it?"

"I never want to see him again."

"Mother has strange tastes. It's not the first time."

There seemed to be a certain amount of battle-crazed thinking going on in Jude's mind. She seemed quite intrigued by Magna, but to Loren and Lapidus, he was the kind of person they would never want to meet again. They just couldn't understand why Judie would be interested in such a person.

Wondering if that was what made a Demon King a Demon King, Loren came back to his original question:

"So, where has Gula disappeared to?"

"Probably… the maids' quarter or the longue."

"Ah…. Well, I hope she won't die."

The curiosity of the maids had not yet waned. Judie spoke with a smile on his face as Loren prayed for the repose of Gura's soul, who had been taken away by her maids' curiosity.

"You deserve a lot of credit for your work this time. You've managed to do such a rough job for a human being, Loren. You have a promising future."

"Am I supposed to be grateful for that evaluation?"

"You've done a great service! Don't be so bitter."

"Shut up. Instead of such kinds of praise, give me money, money."

The reward has already been handed over to them beforehand in the form of his greatsword. Loren said that just for the sake of saying, but for some reason, Judie's expression darkened. The sudden change made him wonder what had happened. He leaned forward as Judie told him in a somber voice:

"I've got some bad news for you, Loren."

"I don't want to hear it, but I'm sure it's not something one can avoid hearing."

"You engaged the Ancient Dragon on that mountain, right? Did you see one hell of a stray bullet when you were there?"

And Loren remembered. One of Emery's <<Breath>> had gone too far and caused damage where it landed, and she had asked Judie to mediate for that. When he recalled where it had landed, his face twitched.

"Now that you mention it, she said it hit somewhere near the Great Demon King's castle."

"That's right. That one shot blew away a whole corner of the castle. It made Great Demon King-sama furious. Great Demon King-sama wants both the dragon and you, Loren, to compensate."

"Why me?!"

Loren slammed the table, thinking it was unreasonable, and Judie began to explain with a troubled look:

"Great Demon King-sama said that both sides are to blame. It's true that the dragon's <<Breath>> was the direct cause, but the one who made her breathe is also to blame."

"That happened while we were working on your commission, didn't it?"

"Yes. But I didn't ask you to fight the dragon."

Judie calmly said, and Loren had no words to reply. It was true that the request was only to throw the helmet into the crater; there were no instructions regarding the process. In such cases, Loren's party, who received the request, would certainly be responsible for the process. The Great Demon King's argument was not unreasonable.

"I think the client is also responsible, so I responded to Great Demon King-sama's request for compensation myself. Are you going to claim more cash from me on top of that?"

"No, that's…"

"By the way, the amount I paid to Great Demon King-sama. I'm not going to ask you to pay back all of it or when you're going to pay it back, but are you going to shirk your debt?"

As Judie stared him down, Loren shook his head as he felt the sweat running down his forehead and back. It was a bit vague, but Loren couldn't say he had nothing to do about the damage occured while he was carrying out the work he was asked to do, even with all his experience as a mercenary. But he also couldn't guess whether the compensation Judie made to the Great Demon King was something he could really afford.

"I can tell you how much if you want to know. Do you want to hear it?"

"I… don't."

"I am grateful that you are working with my Lapis-chan, you know? That's why, as I said before, I won't demand full or immediate repayment. It's fine as long as you return a reasonable amount when you can afford it."

Judie said with a genuinely happy smile, and Loren slumped back into the chair again, speechless. At this point, he did not know how far Judie would go to claim compensation from him, but he was not the kind of person who could shirk his debts. Looking up at the ceiling. he wondered why his debts just kept increasing as he worked.

"Also, Great Demon King-sama seems to have taken a bit of an interest in you. You'll probably be summoned sooner or later. By the way, if you are to be married into our family, going to be my son-in-law, your debt can be written off as dowry, so please think about it."

"I don't want to think about it… I want to go back to Kapha."

"Oh well. I also think you should go back there once. You need to find Lapis-chan's legs and eyes, and you're not very experienced yet. I'll take care of the arrangements there for you, so you can take it easy for a while."

The only thought that occupied his mind was how did this happen, but Loren wanted to stop thinking and rest for now. The thought would return to him later anyway, but being able to escape from it for a short while was still nice. Looking over, Loren saw that Lapis was still slumping on the table. She glanced at him for a moment, and for some reason, smiled a happy smile. Was it relief that they had somehow managed to complete their commission peacefully this time, or was it just a reaction to the fact that Loren was now burdened with a debt that was an order of magnitude greater than anything he had ever had before, one that he would not be able to pay it back anytime soon?

Without knowing the reason behind Lapis' smile, Loren looked up at the ceiling again with the corners of his mouth turned down, and let out a long breath.