Profession, Merchant Volume 6 Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Chapter 4 – Venussa, IV

While all this was going on, I hid in the shadows of the landing area, staring at the saber I carried for self-defense.

There are better weapons in the carriage, but this is all I have at the moment, much to my regret.

On the other hand, the idea of spending my money on a good weapon for myself is more than foolish for a merchant, considering that frontal combat is not my specialty at all.

So as long as it’s a good sword, that should be enough for me.

I took one look at the screaming female warrior and raised my sword. Then I concentrated, then I charged bravely like a hero – not really. Instead, I threw the saber in her direction.

It rolled to the warrior’s right hand, the only one that was free.

“……!!”

But she quickly noticed the sword and grabbed it. With the mohawk guy busy staring at her ass, this was an easy task, but the old martial artist, who was busy locking her in a joint lock, immediately noticed the anomaly and quickly warned his mohawk partner.

“Oi, be careful! She’s got a weapon… gaaah!”

And that was the end of the old martial artist’s cry, for the female warrior’s saber had struck the old man in the armpit.

It was not very fast, as the spell suppressed half of the power she needed. Even so, the old man was unable to deal with it, for she had sliced right through the gap between his protectors and into his flesh.

This is a feat that can only be achieved by grasping the position of the opponent’s body from the joint lock without looking and memorizing the position of the protector – all at once.

As the old man fell and his joint lock was released, the female warrior twisted her body and aimed her saber at the mohawk guy’s cock.

“Come at me, and I’ll cut it off.”

The mohawk guy’s face turned pale, and he raised his hands.

“I have not struck a vital point, so this old man’s wound is not fatal. But he will still die if you don’t get him to the hospital quickly.”

As I thought, even if she didn’t have a decent weapon, she was still absurdly strong. I mean, she’s already this strong with a substandard weapon. How much will she be when she gets her hands on a powerful sword?

In the end, the mohawk guy ran off with the old man. The two of them were also an exceptionally skilled duo, but this will probably be the end of their careers as bouncers.

Seeing this, the female warrior turned to the slave trader with silver-rimmed glasses.

“Now, free the slaves you captured.” She said triumphantly.

“That can’t be… those guys… and I was told they were the most skilled bouncers and bodyguards in all of Prolesia…”

The slave trader with the silver-rimmed glasses, who had basically lost his entire base, collapsed on the spot. This is bad for him because if this goes on and the slaves are freed, the silver-rimmed glasses guy will go out of business, and he will be enslaved instead. Yes, you heard me right. He would be enslaved, just like his goods.

The reason for this is that slave traders would not usually pay their bills and dues until they had made money from the sale of the slaves themselves. So if a slave could not be sold, the bills and dues for their care would not be paid, and a terrible deficit would result. This is why these kinds of businesses, though the most profitable, are far too difficult to manage, for any failure is already a great loss.

As for becoming a slave, well, in the world of merchants and traveling salesmen, there is only one reason — bankruptcy.

Being a traveling merchant means being involved in overseas trade. This means that you travel around the world to barter and make money – which also means that you can easily run into debt if your business fails. Because of this risk, investors and moneylenders who deal with these people have to adapt and become unforgiving when it comes to collecting unpaid debts.

As far as I know, the people who invest in and lend money to people like us are overseas people who are skilled at tracking, and Demons. This means that once he misses a payment, the life of this guy with silver-rimmed glasses would quickly take a turn for the worse.

Of course, this was the situation I was aiming for, well, somewhat, when I allowed the female warrior to let loose – all so that I could cook the silver-rimmed-glasses slave trader any way I wanted when he fell.

“Hello, silver-rimmed. Long time no see.”

I stepped out of the shadows and spoke to the silver-rimmed glasses guy.

“ Y-you are… what are you doing here?”

Naturally, the silver-rimmed glasses punk stared at me suspiciously.

“Don’t look at me like that. I just noticed that the surroundings have been noisy lately, so my curious mind urged me to take a look. By the way, Silver Rimmed, I see your bouncers took a hit and are on their way to the hospital. Are you all right?”

“Shut up. I don’t need you to worry about me. And don’t call me silver-rimmed.”

“Hey, that’s a bad thing to say, especially to someone who’s trying to help you. By the way, how would you like to take this opportunity to become my subcontractor?”

Don’t be ridiculous. Who’s going to be your–”

“Well, you see, I’ve been thinking about taking care of that debt you’ve got right now. What do you say, silver-rimmed?”

“What?”

In this situation, I dangled a tasty treat that this slave trader had no choice but to bite.

“Yes, I’ll buy your whole business wholesale so that you don’t end up in the red and become a slave. In return, you will be my subcontractor. And as my subcontractor, you’ll do the transport I’ve been outsourcing at your asking price.”

“That’s it?”

“By the way, this wholesale also includes the ownership of the slaves here.”

“Are you crazy? Why should I agree with you? Besides, the only reason I am in this situation now is because this woman insists on the outrageous idea of freeing my slaves. Otherwise, I could have put them on the market and paid the debt as usual.”

Hearing this, I turned to the female warrior.

“You want to free the slaves, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“But if you just say ‘Here, you are free now’ and let the slaves go, they will die sooner or later, you know? They have no place to live in these water-filled streets, no work to make money, and no food to eat. I can easily see some of them turning to crime just to survive.”

The female warrior lowers her eyebrows as if this had just occurred to her.

Really, this stupid woman.

“So the best decision is to leave them to me. But don’t worry. I won’t do anything bad to them.”

“I don’t really trust you, but if you say so, I’ll leave them to you. I can’t support them after this anyway.”

Oh, come on, you still can’t trust me, after all the adventures we’ve had together?

Well, at least she agreed.

“By the way, this sword is yours, isn’t it? Here. Thank you.”

“Hm? Ah, yes. But since your weapon was broken earlier, you need a new one, right? Since it’s not that expensive, I’ll lend it to you for now.”

After all, you’ve gained me a lot this time.

But of course, the only one who would not keep quiet in this situation was the guy with the silver-rimmed glasses.

“Wait, you’re the one who threw the sword? I knew you two were in on it! I’ll make you pay for this, I swear!”

And, of course, since he was the one on the losing side here, the silver-rimmed glasses guy was bound to get angry.

But that didn’t matter anymore.

“What are you talking about? My sword just slipped out of my hands. Besides, don’t you care what happens to your debt if you’re such a jerk to me? If I were you, I would behave”.

Well, the truth is that the female warrior did all the work, not me. And she can do even more work now that this punk has no more bodyguards.

“Guh…”

“Hey, hey, don’t look at me like that. That makes it look like I’m extorting you. I am not, aren’t I? I’m even helping you.”

It was a nasty thing to say, even for me.

Last Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter