Chapter 106: Mercenaries

As Fredrick 'felt' Davin's party going below the mountain, he thought...

'Maybe I can use this'

But shook his head in the next instant.

'No, I've taken more than enough. Just enough mana stones and mana crystals remain to lead the Empire on a wild goose chase, then they'll find Ilyon...and the rest will be history'

Fredrick glanced at the remaining mana stones that numbered only in the tens, before shaking off his greed.

In the first place, Ezra could have easily made Fredrick go stealthily, plunder the whole mountain for all it was worth, then vanish with nobody being none the wiser.

Yet he didn't do so. Why? Because chaos had to bloom for his future plans to go unobstructed.

This was the aim of the entire scheme, to cause chaos!

People would butt in others businesses when they had nothing to do.

To prevent that, Ezra had to give them something to occupy their time.

And what better way to cause chaos, as well as attract idle hands, than to start a war?!

But Ezra wasn't satisfied with just that. As a reincarnator, he couldn't be.

He wanted to reap all the benefits, while leaving others tumbling in the dark.

That was why all that had happened was only the first part of his grand scheme.

At this moment, this part could be said to be complete. At least Fredrick definitely thought so.

'Besides, we still have another place to get to'

So, it is time to begin the second part!

But first, he had to solve the problem at hand.

'How do I get out here without being noticed?'

Fredrick's thoughts whirred as he tried to find a solution.

Of course, he didn't stand idle, far from it.

The moment he arrived inside the mountain, he had the boys pack up and sucked every one of them into the ring.

Furthermore, to erase traces of mining and pickaxes, he broke the walls, leaving irregular markings that obscured what had happened.

Sure, the Empire would send people to investigate, and considering the gravity of the matter, it would likely be grandmasters.

But he wasn't scared, because no one knew that he had advanced to the master rank in the first place. And secondly, he was a known swordsman. Why would anyone expect him to use his fists?

So, that was that.

While his mind thought of a solution, his hands were plucking out mana crystals even faster than he took the mana stones.

Mana crystals formed on the cave's exterior. To remove them, you just pluck them off the cave's walls, which was what Fredrick was doing while monitoring things with his earth sense.

At the same time, just three minutes after Davin and his guilders entered the mountain, the White Iron guilders had gathered together in front of the huge gap.

Sunny turned to those behind him and asked...

"Are you all ready?"

Davin had said ten minutes, but they would be fools to listen to such nonsense.

They were using the same twenty-five minutes, it was not separate. In fact, they wouldn't have gotten such a privilege if it wasn't for the unique situation they found themselves in.

Also, he wasn't the boss of any of them. What right did he have to command them?

But since they all knew the cost of a battle was not worth it, they backed off.

Sunny knew Davin's party would already have gone deeper.

'Because that's what I would do'

It was easy reasoning when you figured that most valuable things are almost always located at the end.

If so, to avoid conflict inside the mountain, especially since they were all tight on time...

'We'll simply take the stuff at the entrance'

They would simply take the things Davin hadn't bothered to pick.

So, the White Iron guilders banded together, with the critically wounded left out, and entered the same gap, but not before leaving a message for the mercenary group behind them.

"We're occupying this space. Any of you that steps within ten feet of here will have his head cut off"

The mercenaries clenched their fists, because honestly, they expected something like this to happen.

Personal power and connections were topmost priority.

Why then would some decide to go solo?

Well, a lot of reasons exist, like "going solo was more efficient" or "they would be tied down".

But most such excuses were lies. Or rather, most of those who said them were lying.

In truth, it was because most of them were too weak.

The majority of those who became mercenaries were commoners who had dreams.

But Orion was unforgiving, so most of them would find themselves with bronze mana techniques to begin their journey.

Only...such products were mostly defective, giving rise to people who were always lacking compared to those in the same power stage.

It would take five to eight such people to kill a single beast of the same rank, which was a very tiring task, bordering on becoming a nightmare.

It was also why being a mercenary became one of the most dangerous jobs in Orion, if not the most dangerous.

What would happen when a person whose whole life has been hell finds an item that would allow him to soar among his peers?

The answer was easy, they would do their utmost best to take it.

That, along with the fact that mercenaries had the highest death rates every year...

It was no mystery why being a mercenary was such a dangerous occupation.

In such an occupation, trust was a word unheard of.

These were just some of the reasons why the mercenaries could only clench their fists and gnash their teeth at being provoked.

There was no guarantee that the other mercenaries would not stab them in the back at a moment's notice, even if they all had something to gain.

No, it was even more likely if they all had something to gain. After all, thinning competition meant more bounty for those that remained.

With that thought, the mercenary group disbanded and they stood away from each other.

It was at this moment that a mercenary noticed something that others had neglected.

"What's that over there?"