Calm Before the Storm(2)

The feeling was more than refreshing, almost nostalgic.

Memories of all the painful days rushed through my mind as I looked at his irritated expression.

[Hmm, strange. Even though you’ve made a name for yourself, I didn’t think you were significant enough for that GM bastard to take notice.]

[If you don’t answer, I’ll kill that red cat.]

[You suddenly got really nice, huh?]

Starting from the days when he didn’t even know I was Lee Han-soo.

[Sorry, but I really can’t give you back the kitty-cat.]

[Did living as a barbarian all this time make you deaf?]

[Don’t you dare act like you’re the only sane one here. It’s disgusting.]

All those moments flashed through my mind like a panorama, and a strange, indescribable thrill ran through my entire body.

“To think I’d actually get an apology out of this bastard…”

Sure, the apology wasn’t sincere. But how often does anyone apologize sincerely?

For me, this was more than enough. Sincere or not didn’t matter.

“So… we’re done here, right?”

Baek-ho glanced at me like a puppy who’s done something wrong and asked. Well, to be honest, I had already made up my mind.

Rather than being pushed around by him again and again, I believed it was better to take a firm stance—even if it meant risking losses.

Even so, cornering Lee Baek-ho to his limit would only make things worse.

“Really, what did I do so wrong? I just wanted to ask a few questions…”

Because in a fight like this, there is no winner. Only someone left to suffer alone in hell.

Still, he backed down first today…

Pushing him any further out of greed wasn’t the smart choice. There was only one thing left for me to do.

“And really, this whole thing started because of you, Baron. If you hadn’t been doing shady shit with that old man and come out late—”

“Enough of that nonsense.”

When Baek-ho started his usual blame game, I cut him off firmly.

“Whether we end this here or not depends on the ‘repayment’ you said you’d give. I’ll decide after seeing what that is.”

In short, don’t even think about wriggling out of this cheaply. Pay as much compensation as it takes to satisfy me.

“How much do you want? Ah, you accept payment in goods, right? I don’t carry much cash on me.”

Lee Baek-ho let out a deep sigh as he spoke, but I didn’t give any answer. After all, it’s the losing side that should make the first offer.

“……”

As I kept my mouth shut and just stared at him, Lee Baek-ho cautiously made his first proposal.

“…How about 200 million Stones per person?”

Even now, he was trying to save money.

“Three hundred million per person.” I replied sharply just to shut down his hopes. Baek-ho let out a long sigh and nodded. “Alright. Three hundred million stones.”

“Ah, you and that old man are 700 million Stones each.”

I pointed towards the Ruin Scholar and spoke. Lee Baek-ho flared up as if the idea were absurd.

“…What? No, why on earth?”

Is he asking because he really doesn’t know the reason?

“The fact that we’re not killing him here is an enormous concession on our part.”

“……”

“If you’re short on money, just give up on those two instead. Don’t even think about compromising on this part.”

When I made it clear I wasn’t backing down, he had nothing left to say. Instead, he glanced at Erwin once and then gave a weak nod.

“Fine. I’ll pay, okay? 2 billion Stones.”

“Then the matter is settled.”

“Old Man! I’ll pay half, you pay the other half! You can manage that much, right?”

“What rights would a member under a leader who is a loser have? Do as you please.”

“Argh, do you think I’m doing this because I want to?”

As their leader, Baek-ho had no intention of taking responsibility for the situation.
His exchange with the Fallen Scholar was pathetic enough, but the true ugliness came right after.

“Oh, right. And you two — pay for your own heads, okay?”

“…W–what do you mean by that? Baek-ho?”

Aures, who had thrown his body in harm’s way and even sacrificed an arm under Baek-ho’s command, asked in a voice filled with betrayal.

But Baek-ho’s shamelessness was unmatched.

“What, should I pay for you? You’re adults, aren’t you? Handle your own lives.”

“…….”

“Hmm? And maybe try using your heads for once. If I wanted to abandon you all and run away, I could.”

“…….”

Even I was speechless at the insane logic he spouted.

I couldn’t imagine how Jayna or Aures must have felt having a leader like that.

Though, judging by their reactions, maybe this wasn’t new.

“…Whatever. Might as well ask for realistic things. I’ll pay my own share. And I’d rather die than owe that bastard anything.”

“…T–then I will pay for myself as well.”

Both of them agreed without resisting much.

And once everything was settled, I collected the payment with Versyl and the GM helping out.

“No, how is an Ogre Leather Armor only 20 million Stones! If I put it up for quick sale on the exchange, it would sell for at least 40 million!”

“We’ve appraised it including the exchange commission fee, the hassle cost of waiting for it to sell, etc.”

“What? Are you kidding? How much is this ‘hassle cost’!”

Bersil and the GM lowballed the value of the items offered as part of the settlement, and whenever Lee Baekho protested, they immediately called for me.

“Uh… Captain?”

“Good thing you’re here, Baron,” Baekho grumbled. “You also know this makes no sense, right? How can ogre leather armor—”

“If you’re not satisfied with our pricing, you can sell it yourself later. For today, pay in cash.”

“……”

“If you don’t have the ability to pay in cash, then just stay quiet.”

“Ah, so that’s why you only bumped it up by one hundred million stones when I offered two hundred million…”

 

Only then did Baek-ho understand why I hadn’t pushed the price higher, even when he complained. And once he accepted that us taking these items was already included in the cost, he didn’t utter another word.

‘…It’s quite a haul, though.’

Once the settlement accounting was finished and we tallied the final amount:

‘7 billion Stones in cash.’

Surprisingly, there was a lot of cash. When Baek-ho realized we weren’t paying full price for the items, he scraped together every bit of money he could find.

‘4 million Stones worth of monster byproducts.’

Although we calculated the byproduct to be worth 4 billion, if we slowly sell them off at market price, we could potentially make up to double that profit.

Of course, our real profit came from something else.

‘9 million Stones worth of equipment.’

Unlike the monster drops, we couldn’t lower the prices on these pieces of equipment. Still, certain pieces of equipment were so precious that they couldn’t even be bought with money.

No. 696, Imperial Bow of Raindres.

Erwin could finally use something decent after returning the Sacred Tree Bow to the fairies.

‘No. 989 — Orb of Circulation.’

This greatly increases resource recovery speed when the user wasn’t in critical condition. Our mage, Versil, can probably use this.

Honestly, this item shows its highest efficiency when equipped by a Priest, but our clan doesn’t have one yet. We can hand it over later once we recruit one.

‘No. 1001 Alonso’s Travel Bag.’

To be honest, this was the most unexpected reward. Even though its number was lower than the earlier equipment, it was actually rarer in its own way.

“A bag? It’s small enough to hang from a belt. Is it some kind of sub-space pouch?”

“No. It’s a talisman-type item.”

Despite looking like a bag, Alonso’s Travel Bag is a talisman. In the game’s English version, however, it was categorised as a ‘Charm’.

“A talisman… like No. 9999 ‘Beginner’s Luck’?”

“Yes.”

 

In our clan, only Aynar owns a talisman type item,
It raised the chance of getting an essence when defeating a monster for the first time, but it was a bound item, so she couldn’t change it out.

Unlike No. 1001 Alonso’s Bag.

“So what’s the effect? Honestly, I have no idea what it could even do…”

Amelia answered Versyl’s question instead of me.

“I believe it increases the chance of not being attacked by monsters and allows you to obtain additional magic stones when a monster dies within a certain radius.”

Surprisingly, she was a walking encyclopedia when it came to items like this—like a kid rattling off complicated dinosaur names without hesitation.

It feels just like that.

However, as an expert in [Dungeon & Stone], let me add a bit to the explanation…

‘It’s not so much that it lowers the chance of being attacked, but rather lowers your threat value.

Meaning, as a tank, I can never equip it. Also, the reduction is percentage-based.

Something like a 40% drop in threat value, I think.

Either way, we gained an item that was useful for any team. Ignoring its threat level function, it allowed us to gather additional mana stones while clearing monsters in the labyrinth.

‘It’s like our magic stone income has permanently increased by 1.5 times.’

I’ll decide who to give this to later, but for now, it’s probably best to give it to Auyen, since he’s the weakest in the clan.

“Okay, so that’s everything, right? Today’s mess is handled, so let’s not bring it up later, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Ha… How did it even come to this… Then we’ll be going now?”

“Wait, where do you think you’re going?”

I hurriedly stopped them as they tried to leave right after the settlement was finalized. Lee Baekho made a face asking what the problem was.

“Why? Haven’t we taken care of everything?”

“I can still ask, right?”

“I don’t know. The original plan was to fix that teleportation circle and return to the city…But what can we do? Even if we go back now, there’s nothing we can do.”

The underlying message was that if he tried to stick to the original plan, that old man would show up and get rid of him. But it didn’t matter, so I let it slide.

“So where are you planning to go?”

“Anywhere. It’s not like we can walk around smiling happily with you, Baron.”

Hm.

Honestly, I had considered keeping them around.

[The evil spirit from another world—after losing three of his allies, will realize the path he must take…]

If I turned them into actual companions, maybe I could use them as sacrifices.

But…

“So don’t bother trying to keep us. No matter what you say, we’re not traveling with you.”

 

There was no chance that a prideful guy like him would team up with me after being humiliated.

Alright, let’s just end this cleanly.

I didn’t really think it would work out anyway. It’s not like I would ever truly consider these guys ‘allies’ in any situation… Besides, if I started thinking of them as actual allies…the entire plan would lose its purpose anyway.

“Cough! Cough! Ptooey! Well then, we’ll be off.”

Baek-ho spat on the ground like someone trying to shake off bad luck, then led his so-called allies away.

“They’re gone…”

Once the tension drained from my body, my allies came over.

“Mister, are you okay……?”

“You… you look quite exhausted……”

I sprawled out on the ground with my arms spread, watching my allies’ worried faces gather around me.

“Bjorn Jandel.”

Through that circle of faces, I saw Amelia. And she looked… a little angry.

“Explain. How you ended up out here, why you couldn’t come back, and why you were fighting those bastards.”

Well, of course she’d be curious. After all, I disappeared for months without a word.

“That is—”

Just as I was about to force myself up and start explaining—

“There’s a lot I want to ask, but you look tired.”

With a faint smirk, Amelia eased my shoulder back to the ground. Rest for now. We’ll listen once you’ve recovered.”

At her words, something inside me relaxed, and my eyes slowly drifted shut. It felt like I could fall asleep at any moment.

But my mind was still a mess.

Badump—!

I’d narrowly escaped disaster thanks to my allies coming outside the walls. We’d even turned things around and squeezed a lot of gains out of Lee Baek-ho.

But even so—

In the end, we still ran into each other…

Can this really be considered a good thing?

The fact that I could reunite with allies I hadn’t expected to see again for months…

[The evil spirit from another world—after losing three of his allies, will realize the path he must take…]

Can I really write all of this off as coincidence?

 

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