Chapter Fifty-Three: Clean Up

FIFTY-THREE

Roan trudged back through the gates, gasping as his shoulders ached and burned from the weight of the dead lion. The mob guardians hardly looked at him as he staggered toward the bounty board. He let the lion slide from his shoulder to thump to the ground. A knee buckled and the unexpected shift in weight sent the other knee out as he slammed to the ground, leaning against the post of the bounty board.

“Do you have bounties to turn in?” the tricorn wearing mob asked. Roan looked up at it and nodded, panting as he pulled the bloody backpack off and set it in front of him.

“Yeah.” Roan gasped out as he opened the pack and started pulling out the rumpled bounties and started matching them with flowers and rocks he’d found around the area. Roan was drenched in sweat, blood, and dirt as he built out a pile of bounties.

It was at that moment that everyone started to pile through the gates. Darren led the way with Taoya right behind him, a wounded man slung over the man’s shoulder like he was a bag of flour.

“I leave you alone for an hour or two and you look like this?” Taoya said, shaking his head slowly as. Roan flipped him the bird and continued to lay out his bounties, uncaring of the eyes on him. Darren quickly read over the board, a frown starting to cover his face.

“See you got a headstart,” Darren said finally as Roan laid out the last of the bounties. It was about an hour and a half worth of work, not counting lugging the giant cat with him, and he was doing the math as fast as he could. The mob was faster though.

“Bounties accepted!” It clapped once and a stream of mobs appeared coming from the sides. They bent down to pick up the remnants of his hunt and bundled them up, disappearing into the heart of the village.

“With the injection of fresh supplies, our artisans will now be able to create more wares and offer discounts. The more materials brought in, the more our artisans will be able to make,” the bounty rewarding mob said.

“Multiple specimens were of poor quality and lowered your maximum amount possible. Rewards generating now,” the mob said. Roan frowned as he thought of the partially crushed flowers and poorly harvested bark and mushrooms he’d found. The entire forest was practically boiling with life, if one only knew what to look for.

“Enough gawking, let’s get these people to bed,” Moira snapped from somewhere in the press of bodies and that was enough to get people moving. Darren eyed him warily as he walked away, but in moments Roan was left alone with the glowing results of his fast bounty hunt.

BOUNTIES TURNED IN: 11

FUNDS TRANSFERED: 7,700 CREDITS

CURRENT BALANCE: 36,016 CREDITS

Each bounty had a max score of one-thousand credits. His poor harvesting ability had cost him thirty-three hundred credits. It was irritating, but at the moment Roan had too many other things he needed to do or buy.

He got up and searched the board, noticing that the bounties he’d claimed had already reappeared, and tried to find something to earn him points for the cub. There was a bounty, but it was just for monster extermination and only had a two-hundred credit reward.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Are all goblinoids considered monsters?” Roan asked the mob.

“No. Though there is an extermination bounty on all goblinoids. Return a pair of ears for a single bounty of fifty credits.”