Chapter 164: Heavy Losses

“Young Master Furen, please just come back with me!”

“No!”

“Please don’t make things difficult for me…”

“No!”

“Rest assured, I promise the young miss won’t do anything to you!”

“No! Not unless you knock me out right now and drag me away by force!”

“…”

Meanwhile, on the second floor of the general store.

After Lu Wei and Bai Ya had left, Gante was still trying to persuade Furen to go back with him.

But Furen wouldn’t budge, practically declaring that he would rather die than leave.

Clearly, even with “authorization,” Gante would never dare to actually knock him out and drag him away.

Not unless Freya herself did it.

The problem was, a carriage couldn’t reach the Dome Pillar.

And getting the young lady to trek through the forest on foot was even more out of the question.

And so, the general store had somehow become Furen’s perfect sanctuary.

“In any case, you’d best hurry back and convince her to return to Kalin Port! I’m not going back, no matter what!”

Confident that Freya wouldn’t enter the forest, Furen crossed his arms, his tone growing defiant.

He was even starting to sound petulant.

Gante was truly at a loss. In the end, all he could do was sigh in resignation.

“Sigh… Alright. You should get some rest. I’ll go stand guard outside.”

“It’s very safe here, no need for a guard! If you leave now, you can still get back to town before nightfall!”

“Er, we’re in a forest, after all. It’s better if I stay and protect you.”

He’d only just found him; if Furen ran off again, Gante couldn’t even imagine the consequences he would face.

So he quickly rejected Furen’s “suggestion,” turned, and headed down to the first floor of the general store.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

The pinewood stairs were sturdy. Rows of shelves stood in neat lines, but they weren’t particularly well-stocked.

Zovir and Theodore were out in the woods, looking for tonight’s dinner. After all, Theodore hadn’t brought any food with him this time, so they needed to find something to tide them over until the construction team arrived in the forest tomorrow.

That left only Anna watching the store.

“Hello, Mr. Gante.”

She greeted him politely the moment she saw him come downstairs.

This was just as Lu Wei had secretly instructed her before he left—

When Gante had opened his coin purse to pay earlier, Lu Wei had spotted at least five or six Gold Coins still inside.

So he had told Anna to be especially attentive and find a way to earn the rest of that money.

“Do you need anything else?”

Standing up, Anna tilted her head back to look at him and made her sales pitch. “There are a lot of bugs in the forest. I think you’d better buy some Insect Repellent Powder.”

“And if you have trouble sleeping, we also have Sleep Powder.”

“Er, that won’t be necessary for now…”

Gante shook his head, a strange look on his face, and quickly changed the subject.

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Anna, sir.”

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Hm? You’re already twelve?”

Gante was a little surprised. He suspected Anna was lying about her age.

After all, she was so small she looked no older than eight or nine.

Considering the Kingdom’s laws forbade the hiring of children under ten, he assumed that Crafty Merchant Lu Wei must have forced her to say it.

But in the next moment, Anna, who had been in this situation many times before, explained on her own.

“Sir, I really am twelve. I’m just smaller than other children my age because I used to be a slave.”

“A slave?” Gante was stunned.

“Yes. Zovir and I were both slaves.”

Anna nodded and pulled her collar aside just enough to reveal the slave’s brand below her collarbone, proving she wasn’t lying.

A look of pity immediately filled Gante’s eyes.

After all, the greatest trait of a Warrior is “bravery.”

And “bravery” often represents “justice.”

So it was no surprise that he reacted this way.

“And now…?”

“I’m not a slave anymore.”

Anna answered truthfully, her voice full of gratitude. “It was Mr. Lu Wei and Mr. Furen who saved us and gave us this job.”

“I see…”

His mouth falling slightly open, Gante glanced toward the stairs in surprise. He hadn’t expected Furen to have actually done something so meaningful.

Not just killing goblins and Kobolds in some Low Level Adventurer’s Land.

‘Sigh… If Young Master Furen weren’t a Magic Dullard, he might have become an excellent Warrior.’

Sighing to himself, Gante chatted with Anna for a few more moments before stepping out of the general store. He planned to familiarize himself with the surroundings of the Dome Pillar.

As an experienced Professional, this was a force of habit.

He hadn’t gotten far, however, when he spotted Furen’s pack.

When Furen had run back from the woods, he had thrown his pack on the ground to show his “I’m never going back” resolve.

Then, after Lu Wei and Bai Ya left, he had fled straight into the general store.

Which was why the pack was still lying there.

‘Young Master Furen is still so impulsive.’

Shaking his head, Gante walked over to the pack, intending to bring it inside for Furen.

The next second, however, he caught a distinct, foul, coppery scent.

He immediately identified it as the smell of dried monster blood.

‘Trophies? But why does it smell so strongly?’

Gante hesitated for a moment. Feeling a bit uneasy, he finally opened the pack.

And immediately saw the source of the smell—

a very large, waterproof canvas sack.

It was bulging, and even though the opening was tied shut, a powerful stench still emanated from it.

Based on Gante’s experience, the contents were surely monster parts meant to be turned in for a bounty.

Eyeballs, ears, tails, and the like.

But the sack was too large and heavy for that.

‘Don’t tell me it’s just chopped-up goblin meat.’

‘What’s the use of this stuff? Even livestock wouldn’t eat it…’

Lifting the sack, Gante undid the tie out of curiosity, assuming it was most likely filled with chunks of monster corpses.

Hm.

Strictly speaking, his guess wasn’t wrong.

It was just that these “chunks of corpse” didn’t come from a single monster.

But from 220 of them.

“…”

The noon sun was blazing and bright. His calloused hands suddenly froze.

The moment he opened the sack, Gante’s eyes flew wide in disbelief. His pupils contracted violently, his face a mask of unspeakable shock and bewilderment.

His brain frantically refused to process what his eyes were seeing. The entire world fell silent, leaving only the heavy THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of his own heart, which had nearly stopped from the shock, hammering in his chest.

“Th-this is impossible…”

“Absolutely impossible…”

…

…

“Holy shit! We forgot something!!”

At four in the afternoon, a sudden shout echoed through the dense woods not far from the Tree of Origin, sending countless birds scattering into the sky.

“Ah!”

Bai Ya jumped in fright. When she came to her senses, she scurried over to the petrified Lu Wei, nervously grabbing his sleeve.

“What’s wrong? What did we forget?”

“The bag of ears!”

Lu Wei clutched his head, groaning in anguish. “It’s in Furen’s pack! We forgot to take it with us when we left!”

“Oh, that…”

Bai Ya let out a long sigh of relief, patting her chest, still shaken.

“We did forget it, but it’s not that big of a deal, is it?”

“Not a big deal???”

Lu Wei’s eyes instantly bulged, his voice filled with disbelief and anguish.

“That’s over two hundred ears! And one from a bear goblin and two from Elite Goblins!”

“Do you know how much fucking money that is?!”