Chapter Thirty-Two: Commission Secured

Page (1/3)

Click.

Melina’s little shoes stepped into a pool of blood. The sticky sensation made her frown in displeasure. She had not needed to fight in the first place… She sighed, yet her conviction that she could never lose remained unshaken. She swung her right hand downward.

Clack.

Ten shell casings fell to the ground in perfect unison.

Melina’s tiny face twitched. For the thousandth time, she wondered whether she had been too hasty in deciding to create the magic spell “Radiance of the Morning Star.” Spending nearly ten thousand gold lei to make a life-saving spell—and not even one intended for her own use—was that not just a little reckless?

Standard musket ammunition was cheap. Ten rounds for one copper lei made it the king of cost-effectiveness.

One silver lei could buy a hundred rounds.

One gold lei could buy a thousand.

An ordinary musketeer could never use them all. Muskets were weapons that pursued accuracy rather than a high rate of fire.

Melina, however, consumed ammunition at ten times the rate of a normal musketeer. Ten times the expense was terrifying no matter what one was spending it on. For instance, if a train ticket cost two yuan, Melina’s ticket would cost twenty. Two yuan was cheap enough, but paying twenty every time would still make anyone wince.

At present, every time Melina fired, it was equivalent to burning one copper lei.

Heartache was unavoidable.

Melina decided that she really ought to rebuild her finances. It was not as though she could not ask Senior Sonia for spending money, but that would always feel a little strange. Over the past few days, Melina had originally planned to make lavish use of her senior’s savings, ordering whatever she pleased and indulging herself to the fullest. Then she discovered something utterly terrifying…

Sonia and Maria, the two seniors, actually split the bill whenever they ate in Hamlet!

It was horrifying.

Melina cared deeply about her dignity. If both seniors paid their own shares, then she had to do the same! And the price of that pride was an extra two silver lei every day whenever she ordered takeout. Sometimes she even had to pay a full gold lei for a single meal.

Good heavens! Three gold lei for one meal—was that really the sort of spending one found on the Weeping Peninsula?

Unfortunately, as the poorest girl in the women’s dormitory, Melly had no idea what the seniors considered a normal level of expenditure.

While she was calculating her “economy”…

The two Howling Wind Dragons could hold back no longer. They crept closer from either side.

Dragons were intelligent creatures, so they naturally understood that a girl who could seize a dragon by the throat and lift it as easily as one might pinch a thermometer was not someone to provoke. But Yellow Dragons cared about their dignity too. That was an authentic racial trait. In the sly little minds of the Yellow Dragons, a theory of three victories had already taken shape.

They had more dragons on their side. Even if one died, it would still be four against one! That was victory number one.

Their opponent was small, and looked like a young banshee! That was victory number two.

Victory number three… They could not come up with one. Charge, brothers! Yip-yap-yow!

Perhaps the two Howling Wind Dragons were thinking, “Four against one—surely we cannot run without even fighting.” The two more cunning dragons that had already fled were probably thinking, “Pride makes a fool suffer.”

Melina felt a foul wind strike her face. When she came to her senses, she saw that the Howling Wind Dragons had begun exhaling hallucinogenic mist. She was about to dodge backward, but halfway through the movement, she changed it into a “dodge” forward instead.

In that brief instant, she understood one thing—and failed to understand another.

What she understood was this: killing first-level dragons was like killing chickens. The fact that they still dared to fight her head-on meant that this was a rare opportunity.

What she could not understand was this: why were her enemies not fleeing? Why did they actually dare to attack her?

Closing the distance, Melina unleashed the World-Peace Elbow she had learned from Maria. Using the natural weapon of a banshee, she struck upward and shattered the Howling Wind Dragon’s jaw.

She flipped onto its back, knocked it to the ground with two hard punches, then pressed close and fired several shots into its head, effortlessly killing it in an instant.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

Seeing that the situation had turned bad, the other dragon fled backward while its brother perished. Its chicken-like wings beat so furiously they nearly fanned themselves into flames.

But it was already too late.

Although Melina had dispatched the two Howling Wind Dragons with methods resembling a neck-breaking choke from a martial-arts master and a peace elbow from a famous basketball player, she had ultimately preserved the dignity of her main profession, the Shooter, by solving the problem with firearms.

She valued her identity as a Shooter so highly that she could naturally be considered a ranged unit as well. And the consequences of turning one’s back on a ranged unit were obvious.

Bang, bang.

Two consecutive shots pierced the dragon’s spine and entered its heart from behind. The Howling Wind Dragon collapsed dead.

At the same time, the sound of slapping rang out.

Melina slapped herself twice, her regret so deep that her very guts seemed to turn green.

The shooting technique she had learned at the academy was designed around firing two rounds in succession to finish off a target. But using that technique now had cost her dearly! Ten guns firing together meant twenty bullets were gone—an extra one-fifth of today’s takeout budget! Even with a cook in the house now, the converted meal cost made the loss even more painful!

Worse still, Melina had set her parameters rather high, causing every shot to lock onto the head. The Howling Wind Dragon’s most fragile—and most valuable—material was the dragon horn on its head. All three of the remaining dragons had had their horns blasted into useless fragments.

A catastrophic loss.

By her estimate, she had earned roughly one silver and five copper lei. That was assuming the locals were willing to buy Howling Wind Dragon meat…

The feathers of this species were genuine feathers, but extraordinarily ugly and worthless for handicrafts. As for the magical factors in their bodies… Melina had extracted nothing except the Yellow Dragon factor.

Fortunately, Melina’s weapon itself counted as an economic operation.

Other banshees had to purchase electricity to power their weapons.

Melina, on the other hand, generated her own power.

Calculated that way, the finances were acceptable.

Adding in the commission fee, Melina had finally earned enough to cover 0.0001 percent of the upgrade cost for Musket Level Four. Maria and Sonia had been paying for the first three levels. Melina had originally wanted to preserve her dignity, but after looking at the bill, she could only collapse on the spot and cry, “I saved the world, and you still want to charge me enhancement fees?”

After straightening her clothes and burying the bodies, Melina went out to call for Georgia. She was inexperienced at this sort of work and somewhat embarrassed by it.

The earthy smell of the soil swallowed the stench of blood. Melina looked at the little mound of earth.

Dust to dust, earth to earth. The Howling Wind Dragon corpses would become a hundred times more nourishment for the local crops, making the cherry trees bloom more… Wait, wrong setting. They would help the local crops grow better. Dragon corpses were natural fertilizer, eliminating the need to rack one’s brains collecting manure.

Once the cleanup was complete, Melina walked out and called for Georgia.

The little town mayor came over, bundled in clothes that looked almost like winter wear. She walked with carefully restrained excitement, suppressing the urge to hop and skip. Like a girl pretending to be mature, she forced herself into a ladylike pace—but after one or two steps, she abandoned the act and hurried forward.

“Did you drive away those dragons?”

“Yes. Your commission has been completed. Your voice and will have been upheld…” Melina covered her face with the canopy of her umbrella. “…Please settle the remaining payment.”

This had not been an official commission, but something closer to a private job.

Not every place had an Explorers’ Guild. Urgent commissions for minor incidents caused by ecological changes were generally settled privately. As long as both sides had sufficient tacit understanding, there was no need to involve the market.

In other words, if the client refused to pay, the only legal options were to accept one’s bad luck and never take another commission from them.

The town mayor had no intention of withholding payment.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wallet shaped like a Clockwork Cat. Its fluffy appearance was extremely popular with little girls, and it also possessed a certain space-expansion effect—a secret of the Clockwork Cats.

Only Clockwork Cats could make such soft, fluffy wallets with expanded interiors. It was said that they used the technology of their relatives, a wondrous species known as Cat Lanterns.

“…Two gold lei.”

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

Georgia’s purse contained gold lei, along with several gemstones and lei notes. In terms of quantity, she was certainly not poor. For a town mayor, however, she was by no means wealthy.

With some reluctance, she counted out two glittering gold lei and placed them in Melina’s outstretched palm.

Melina confirmed their weight, felt their warmth, and savored the accumulation of value within their golden radiance…

Beautiful.

Gold lei!

In her heart, Melina imitated Sonia and made a sound like water coming to a boil. She withdrew her hand without changing expression. While Georgia lowered her head to put away her wallet, Melina swiftly swallowed the gold lei into her stomach.

Banshees were broadly divided into seven subspecies corresponding to the seven deadly sins. Melina specialized in all seven, but primarily belonged to the Greed variety. She possessed the ability to store gold lei and gemstones in her stomach.

She was essentially a private portable bank, with a floating annual interest rate as high as 3.75 percent—and that was genuine. Thanks to the special structure of her Greed magical factor, Melina could “create gold lei” once enough time had passed.

“Town residents, go inside and begin arranging the lodgings at once. Gatherers, move out first. Arrange the… Hmm, arrange the…”

The town mayor tucked the loudspeaker under her arm and pulled a small notebook from within her thick clothing. She glanced at it.

“Set up the Mummy Dust Sigils! Place the torches in the trees—two at the entrance, four at the exit, and one in the very center. Then evenly sprinkle the powder prepared yesterday into the torches!”

The Mummy Dust Sigils were more accurately called Mummy Cat Spirit Sigils. Their effect was to summon six spectral mummy cats. They would patrol constantly, drive away weaker wolves, dogs, Thorny Hedgehogs, Sea Urchin Slimes, and other monsters capable of harming ordinary people, and even communicate with the Clockwork Cat Dumplings…

Wealthier towns would construct dedicated banshee facilities to achieve the same effect.

But Brightwater Town was poor. Making do with something like this was good enough.

That had been Melina’s suggestion to the town mayor.

Seeing that Georgia had implemented everything, Melina, as a qualified alchemist and occult scholar, still had to offer one final reminder and provide a little after-sales service.

“Remember to replenish the dust on the final day of every week. When the Red Dragon-Cat Star crosses the sky, add fifty percent more. When the White Dragon-Cat Star passes overhead, add thirty percent more. When the Black Dragon-Cat Star appears, double the amount. If no Dragon-Cat Star crosses the sky, replenish it normally.”

The town mayor took out her notebook and wrote down every word.

The Dragon-Cat Star was a special constellation. On weekend nights, one might appear in any given region. It symbolized the Dancer, Dominion, and Authority. Its secondary principles were the same as those of the Stag Star, but the Dragon-Cat Star was unique in that it changed color.

In its white-faced form, it represented Greed.

In its red-hot form, it represented Wrath.

In its black-cat form, it meant, “You’d better comfort me.”

It was an extremely troublesome star. In exchange, however, whenever this troublesome celestial body appeared, the creation of every sigil bearing the Cat affix became smoother. Special effects could occasionally be triggered, and wild crops had a certain chance of becoming Catified Plants—the primary ingredient in potions that enhanced evasion and movement, among the few such medicines that novice explorers could obtain in the early stages.

The Clockwork Cats also held a grand drinking festival on that day, making it a rare opportunity to pry gold lei out of those stingy cats.

“Your knowledge has benefited me tremendously. May I treat you to a meal as thanks? And… I hope I can learn more from you.”

Georgia happily closed her notebook, her large golden eyes sparkling.

“Of course, Senior Georgia.”

Melina hid her face beneath the umbrella canopy to keep Georgia from seeing the expensive-cat expression of disdain that said, “I really do not want to.”

But then she remembered that she would be getting a free meal, and her mood turned from cloudy to sunny in half a second.

Page (3/3)