Chapter 302.2: Expedition Part 2

"Don't turn it down too quickly. The rewards for this expedition are more than generous. Also, we won't be giving out any missions throughout the duration of the expedition so this will be your only option in a few months." Robin explained before handing over a piece of paper to Mira.

Mira frowned when she heard what Robin said, but when she took a look at the paper, she was surprised by what she saw.

The paper that Robin handed over mentioned the details of the expedition and the rewards for joining.

Apparently, the Mercenary Association is planning on diving into the largest chasm in the area and are planning to reach the bottom. The goal of the expedition is to scout the area, kill the majority of the beasts in the chasm, collect anything useful, and fight whatever's at the bottom if there is anything.

It seems the Mercenary Association estimated that the expedition should take anywhere between 1 to 3 months before they return.

As someone who has experienced diving into the chasms over the last half a year or so, Mira knew that this expedition would probably take upwards of 2 months. It seemed unlikely that they would finish any sooner than that. The chasms are incredibly dangerous and if they are planning on conquering the largest one, then it's only that much more dangerous.

With that thought in mind, she looked at the rewards for the expedition and was almost dumbfounded by what she saw.

'100,000 Contribution Points just for participating? And that's the bare minimum? You can turn in treasures, beast corpses, and plants for Contribution Points as well? Fuck, just killing beasts can earn you Contribution Points?! Also, any information on whatever treasures at the bottom can reward you with Points as well?? What the fuck?! Isn't this way too much? How the hell can they even supply so many Contribution Points to so many people?? What kind of expedition is it really?' Mira almost accepted it immediately just based on the rewards.

She's confident that she can kill and collect more beast corpses and treasures than any other mercenary so these rewards are nothing but a godsend to her. She might be able to earn double or triple what she earns in a month if she went on this expedition.

However, Mira wasn't so naive to believe that this expedition would be easy with how generous the rewards are. Just from the rewards alone, Mira could gather that the Mercenary Association fully expected probably at least 90% of the people who join the expedition to die.

Why else would they open a mission like this to the public without putting a cap on how many people can join?

'From the looks of it, the Mercenary Association just wants us to serve as cannon fodder for this mission while they reap all the rewards. Also, by saying they won't be giving out missions during the expedition, they are practically forcing the people of this city to join. How cunning. Well, since they're trying to scam me with this bullshit expedition, don't blame me for squeezing you dry. Hehe~' Mira chuckled inwardly which sent shivers down Robin's spine and made her look wearily at the little girl in front of her.

For some reason, her instincts were screaming at her, saying that letting Mira go on this expedition would be the worst possible thing she could do, but before she could say anything Mira opened her mouth.

"I guess I don't have much of a choice then, do I? Sure, I'll join this expedition of yours. It's in two months, right? Then I'll be back in two months after doing some more missions. Oh, I do have a question though. Are you guys still going to be here after the expedition is over?" Mira asked in a neutral voice, but her last question caused Robin's eyes to narrow and her expression turned serious.

The question Mira just asked could be considered an odd question to most people because why would the Mercenary Association just up and leave after an expedition? This place is extremely rich in resources and they could probably keep handing out missions for a few hundred more years at the minimum without any trouble.

However, Mira was different. She knew that these chasms are very weird and unique from Elenei. Using that information and some of the details from the expedition, Mira could guess that they must've found something at the bottom of the chasms and that something must either be strong, dangerous or have a large army. Hence the need for a bunch of cannon fodder.

That being the case, if the Mercenary Association finally got their hands on what they wanted from these chasms, why would they stay in this shitty city with nothing but a bunch of ruffians? If it were her, Mira would up and leave this place as soon as she got what she wanted. Actually, that was her plan from the very beginning.

This place is literally nothing without the Mercenary Association even if the chasms have an overabundant amount of resources. This is because most of those resources can't even be utilized since thousands of strong beasts already occupy them!

From that simple question, Mira was essentially saying that she already got the gist of what this expedition is about.

"No, we won't leave this city until most of the resources from the chasms have been extracted. That being said, we probably won't stay here much longer than a few years if the expedition goes well." Robin said professionally without revealing too much information.

Mira nodded and didn't say anything else. The answer to her question didn't matter too much. All she needed to know is if they were going to pack up immediately once they got what they wanted. If they were, then that would pose a bit of a problem to Mira because she'd probably need another month or two worth of missions after the expedition ends before she can buy all of the items she needs.

Still, depending on how well she does during the expedition, she might be able to redeem her Contribution points for everything she needs.

Right now, she's sitting at close to a million Contribution Points and if she works really hard over the next two months then she should have well over a million. That would only leave a few hundred thousand left which she might be able to get during the expedition. Even if she doesn't reach the necessary amount of Contribution Points from the expedition, it shouldn't take much longer until she eventually does.

Mira then grabbed a whole bunch of missions, got Robin to sign off on them, then left the building. She wanted to earn as many Contribution Points within the next two months as possible.

After Mira left, the whole City went into an uproar when Robin publicly announced the expedition. In just a few days, there wasn't a single person who didn't know about the upcoming expedition and everybody wanted a piece of the action.

Who wouldn't? That's 100,000 Contribution Points at the minimum! That's enough for most people in Quake CIty to live off of for years to come!

And just like the Mercenary Association wanted, thousands of people signed up to participate in the expedition. Sure, there were some people who were skeptical about the whole thing, but those people eventually signed up too. The rewards were just too generous for them to pass up.

However, there were a few people who saw Mira signing up for the expedition and decided to not participate in it. The people who have seen Mira in action knew just how brutal the little girl could be and wanted nothing to do with her.

For those people, the rewards didn't matter to them. Staying on an expedition with such a devil is the last thing they want to do. They might as well kill themselves now and save Mira the trouble of doing it herself!

Word started to spread that Mira was going to be on the expedition, but most people didn't care. Sure, they all knew just how brutal and ruthless the girl was, but that doesn't mean that she can just run amok on an expedition hosted by the Mercenary Association.

During this time, Robin also informed the Branch Head about Mira and how she was going to join the expedition, but the man didn't care. In fact, he seemed happy that they were going to have such a good seedling join the expedition.

The Branch Head has already examined Mira from a distance and although her aura was weird and her killing intent was immense, he didn't sense any danger from her. As a man who loves to fight, his instincts have always been sharp and he could tell if an opponent was dangerous to him or not just by his instincts. So far, he didn't feel that coming from Mira.

Sure, she felt abnormally strong for her cultivation, but that's it.

Robin kept trying to warn him that something didn't feel right about Mira and that they should watch out for her on the expedition, but he just dubbed whatever she was saying as nonsense.

To him, how could someone weaker than him disrupt their plans? Even if her stealth skills were top notch and she had plenty of life saving treasures, she'd need more than that to escape from him after disrupting their plans or stealing their loot. She'd need to be strong!

Oh how wrong he was. If only he had listened to Robin's advice...