Chapter 15 – Loot and Research

The man that was supposed to be keeping his family informed about Roland was now dead. His cold body was lying motionless on the green grass that was now tainted with his blood and chunks of meat. Sahildr his party member had landed a devastating blow to the man’s cranium, making it splatter everywhere like a ripe watermelon. The party was now reorganizing, wounds were being bandaged and the man’s belongings were being examined while Roland explained his identity.

“So, should we call you Sir Roland from now on?”

Roland furrowed his eyebrows at the remark that Rebecca gave him, he had explained most of it. That he was a bastard son of a baron and that he was here to make some money and make it on his own. He told them that this person was probably hired by his parent to keep watch over him but for some reason he lost his marbles. He didn’t reveal his theory about him being hired by someone else though, he kept that for himself. He didn’t want to worry his three companions as he didn’t think he would be staying in this city for much longer after this.

“Hey, it was only a joke~ No need to look at me like that.”

Rebecca and the rest were taking the information quite well, he thought they would be more surprised or maybe even angry. He reckoned that most commoners wouldn’t like being involved in the dealings of nobles, those aristocratic types didn’t have good reputations with the common folk.

“Mighty Lord Roland, the slayer of small goblins!”

Sahildr shouted out from the side while she leaned back against a tree, she did a little rough bow.

He gave out a sigh while trying not to look at the idiot and then he took the man’s rapier. He examined it and noticed that it was indeed an enchanted weapon that had some runes engraved into it. It looked slightly more intricate than the weapon Sahildr used and this was probably how the man managed to explode all those pierced trees.

‘I think I won’t need to buy that knife anymore…’

“Well, at least Roland doesn’t have a stick up his ass like most of those noble bastards have. Never get involved with those posh cunts is what my mom always said.”

The large woman spoke up while laughing, the moment she did, she could feel Rebecca’s elbow in her stomach.

“Ah, Roland is different…”

“It’s fine, you’re probably right, that’s why I’m trying not to get involved with them either.”

He had to agree that the nobles in this world were a peculiar bunch. They cared about things like reputation quite a bit and also considered anyone that wasn’t of noble birth not on their level. Still, they had a lot of money and prestige so some would even kill if it opened the gates to noblehood.

“By the way… how did you even find me?”

Roland asked while looking at the red-haired archer, not really sure how they made this rescue happen. He had run towards the city gates but even then, it would take them some time to reach him. They must have left sooner, so this meant that they probably knew where he was.

“Oh? We asked the lady in the inn about you, she told us where you went.”

“Reyna noticed some guy always watching you, clearly an amateur couldn’t hide his presence at all. But you seemed to know that so we never asked. “

“So, Sahildr then forced us to come here as she was really worr…blarhg…”

Before Rebecca could continue speaking she found herself in a chokehold from behind. The tall girl had wrapped one of her muscular arms around her party member and was now choking her out.

“… it was a coincidence…”

The tall woman pulled Rebecca away while Roland looked at the two, one of his eyebrows raised.

“Uh… anyway…should we bury the body…or?”

Roland asked while looking at Reyna who was already undressing the man. The girl worked fast, she was also the one that always skinned the beasts and gathered up the loot. The man had some higher quality gear on him and also a spatial bag, his sturdy gambeson armor would probably fetch a nice price.

“This side of the forest doesn’t really have any monsters, so we can’t count on them to clean up.”

Becky said while looking at the man’s spatial bad, she had wrestled herself away to safety and was now looking at the loot with sparkles in her eyes.

“Why do we need to bury him? Just leave the bastard to rot.”

Was the opinion of their tank that was now trying to clean the gore bits from her enchanted hammer.

“Won’t someone question us if they find the body? We did kill a man here.”

Roland asked while slightly confused, were the girls not worried about going to prison. The man did attack them, but would the authorities see it that way? He was also someone contracted by a noble so it wasn’t odd if they took that side.

“Question us? Who would do that?”

Rebecca asked not really sure about the problem here.

“Oh right, I forgot where I was for a moment… you’re right… the guards won’t really care about an unidentified dead body in a forest that much…”

He remembered the type of world he was living in. There was no police force that would come knocking on his door unless the person dead was someone high up, no one would care. His father would probably have to make some inquiries and pay out of his own pocket to even start an investigation.

There was also the problem of this being the territory of another noble house. Would they even allow a lower-ranked Baron to snoop around and ask questions?

‘Even if they do… by the time anything gets done it will be weeks or months… not like they can get any evidence after so much time passes…’

“I think we should still bury him, just to be sure…”

Roland didn’t think that any serious inquiry about this would take place but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Well, if you really want to get rid of the body then there are better options, Reyna bag him.”

Roland raised his brow at Rebecca’s statement, then just looked in bewilderment as the wolf girl stuffed the man’s dead body into the spatial bag. He somehow fit inside, apparently, if something was dead it could be placed inside. The enchantment that the bag had wouldn’t allow living beings to be stuck into it, but dead bodies were fine.

“We can just drop him off in the dungeon, either the monsters will eat the body or the dungeon will.”

The dungeons were a peculiar thing, some theorized that they were living beings controlled by the dungeon core. Any killed living being, be it monster or human would be slowly absorbed into the dungeon. Somehow the dungeon would receive nourishment from it and this would allow it to produce more monsters for the adventurers to hunt.

“Uh… is that okay?”

Roland scratched his head, the girls weren’t at all distraught by what had happened. He had thought that killing a person would be seen as a more serious thing. He wasn’t the one that delivered the finishing blow and he understood that the man was someone that tried to kill him. Still, the whole thing didn’t sit well with him. He would have to let go of his reservations as this would probably be the best way of handling it unless he wanted more trouble.

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“Why wouldn’t it? Not like anyone will come looking for that guy, he was the one that tried to kill you not the other way around.”

Rebecca was making a lot of sense, not like he did anything wrong. He gave his party leader a nod.

“Then it’s decided, now let us split the loot!”