I was tending to Veilleuse-01, gently passing my arm over his coat. "Sorry, Veilleuse-01. I didn't mean to do that. I know it must have been cold and scary, but it was for your safety."

  The stallion, freed from the icy wall I had erected to protect him from the Stonegales, was still restless. I was trying to calm him down when I sensed someone approaching from behind.

  "You really saved us earlier, Miss," said the man who had defeated the large Stonegale.

  Pretending I hadn't noticed his approach, I turned around and replied, "It was nothing."

  He was a man in his late twenties, if not early thirties, with chestnut hair and a week-old beard. Though he looked no better dressed than the peons masquerading as warriors, I could tell this man was a true Verdenkind of the warrior class.

  He cast a glance at the pool of blood a few meters away, where the half-body flying into the air had landed.

  "We were not lucky with that encounter," he sighed regretfully. "It happened out of nowhere."

  I simply nodded, offering no sympathy.

  Without much of a discussion, I could tell exactly what these people were and what had eventually led to this situation.

  The man cleared his throat, bringing himself back together. "I'm Dannick, by the way, but my guys call me Dan. So you can just call me that."

  I continued to stroke Veilleuse-01's coat, pretending not to notice the expectation in Dan's voice. "I'm just a wandering magician," I simply replied.

  Dan stood there for a moment, as if expecting me to say more. When I didn't, he once again cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, Miss Magician, thank you again for earlier. We owe you our lives."

  I turned to face him, keeping my expression neutral.

  I internally screamed, but I couldn’t say that, so I simply responded with, "You're welcome," I said flatly, wanting to be done with this already.

  Dan's face softened slightly. "We were escorting a merchant caravan when those creatures attacked. We even lost two of my men." He glanced at the blood-stained ground again, his eyes darkening with sorrow.

  I nodded, understanding the gravity of their loss but not particularly moved by it.

  At first, I planned on asking nothing but ultimately, curiosity got the better of me. "I'd like to ask something. You are Handlers, aren't you?"

  The man promptly nodded. "We are."

  "I see. Then, have you done this track before?"

  "Yes, six times," Dan responded, in his voice both pride and shame.

  Why pride? It wasn't hard to guess because it was six times already. Why shame? Because it was only six times, an amount that was too low for a Handler unless one was an unconventional Handler.

  In this world, where monsters roam the wilderness, a profession emerged out of necessity. This profession was born from the dire need for skilled manpower to ensure safe passage and facilitate trade between cities, towns, and other settlements, often separated by monster-infested or bandit-ridden territories. Those who took up this mantle did so as part of a collective understanding, even though the profession lacked centralization. They called themselves "Handlers."

  Because of the lack of a unified structure the price, rules, and conditions under which Handlers operated varied from one city or town to another, depending on local Handlers and their specific agreements. However, a few constants can be expected, as certain expectations and norms have developed within this line of work. Handlers were typically not ordinary individuals; this was not a job for peons. Instead, it was one of those professions dominated by "Verdenkind." So, the moment he admitted being a "Handler," in fact, the one leading them, I couldn't help but understand the shame he felt.

  I understood all too well what they were trying to pull off, but it wasn't my job to judge them for that. I just wished they hadn't made me waste my time like they did.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Well, to be fair, it was I who stepped forward to squander my time like I did, but still...

  "I see," I said, nodding as I prepared Veilleuse-01. I was just about to climb onto his back when Dan asked, "Wait, you're leaving already?"

  "Yes," I replied dryly.

  The man looked hesitant at my response, rubbing the back of his neck. "Say, you're headed for Hexlow, aren't you? We are too. Maybe we can offer you some company on the road?"

  I shook my head. "I like to travel alone. Besides, I'm in a hurry. I want to get to the city as fast as possible."

  Seeming really desperate, he said, "The city is close already. From the way it is, if we get together, we'd get there by the end of the evening," he said reassuringly, not dropping the subject.

  I didn't answer that. I just cast a glance at the others, busy gathering the spilled merchandise back into the only still usable carriage and tending to the remaining horses.

  "Besides, you've seen those monsters earlier. These are supposed to be safe routes, but if it wasn’t today, there could be other monsters on the road. It'll be safer to stick together. At very least until we’re out of these woods."

  Hearing these words, "safer to stick together," I couldn't help but wonder for whom exactly it was going to be safer. Clearly, it wasn’t going to be me. Between me and their group, while I arguably didn't really inspire safety, it would be safer to be with me than with them. Considering the amount of effort it took them to deal with the large Stonegale, I doubted they were above level 10. That Stonegale was far smaller than the ThunderFlamme I fought when I was level 11 going up to level 12, and for those creatures, what level brings about is a size adjustment.

  I made no comment that could earn me animosity, so instead, I glanced ahead.

  Following my gaze, our eyes fell upon an argument that had ensued between one of the sword-wielding handlers and the peons, whom I could safely assume were their clients. The source of the argument was space.

  The Stonegale attack had cost them both carriages and horses, leaving them with only two of the four they had started with. They were now left to salvage what could be salvaged. Needless to say, it wasn't enough carriages. Fortunately, not all the horses were lost. There were more horses than carriages, so at least three horses were free, allowing them to carry some merchandise. It still wasn't enough, but it allowed them to salvage more.

  The problem arose when the handlers wanted to use one of the horses to carry the corpses of their comrades, which they understandably refused to leave behind. This was not understandable, or at the very least not acceptable, to the clients, causing the argument.

  Retracting our gaze from the scene, I looked at Dan, who sighed before adding in a desperate voice, "I'll talk to them, get this over with. It will take us less than an hour, no, forty minutes to wrap everything up, then we’ll be on the road. We’ll be in Wexlow by the end of the evening."

  "I’m really in a hurry," I repeated.

  He seemed about to give up when suddenly, and in complete desperation, he added, "I’ll pay."

  "How much?"

  He looked taken aback by how quickly I responded to that proposition. It took him a moment to come up with a price before he eventually said, "27 ?."

  Cleor (?) was the common currency used by the Seven Kingdoms of the Land of Men. To put it into perspective, 27 Cleor was a substantial amount; 3 ? was about what a common family could expect to earn in a month. Having once lived in poverty, the family I spawned into often didn't reach the 1 ? a month milestone, living off Minors instead.

  Minors (?) were a subcurrency used for smaller transactions. A single Cleor was worth 100 Minors, and Minors were typically used to buy everyday items such as food, household goods, and personal trinkets. This way, the Cleor remained reserved for larger, more significant expenditures, while Minors handled day-to-day trade and commerce. For example, a loaf of bread might cost around 5 Minors, and a decent meal at a tavern could set one back 20 Minors. Those are of course if my memory serves me right, because for some reason inflation is also still a thing in this god-accursed world.

  So that’s to say that 27 Cleor was no small amount, at least from the perspective of those poor past me. For the present me however, having amassed quite a fortune by doing the world a big service by reducing the number of bandits roaming this earth, it was barely a twentieth of what I had.

  Dan seemed to have understood that, as seeing my silence, he hesitantly bargained, "How about 30? I know it must not be a lot to someone like you, but that’s the highest I can offer. That’s a third of what we’ve been offered."

  Wanting to confirm his words, I activated a skill I had so far used only once for the purpose of finding out how much a person had on them. My Identification skill allowed me to see the propriety of anything so long as it wasn't a living being. With this skill nothing could be hidden from me, especially not money.

  "Listen, I would’ve loved to pay you more, but that’s all I can give. We have dead on our hands, their families, and…" he yapped, seemingly trying to appeal to my sympathy. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t very effective. If there was something that was going to make me accept that offer, it was the money, and he had about 20 more than the 30 he wanted to give me on him.

  "So… what do you think?"

  In the grand scheme of things, 30 ? may seem inconsequential, if not outright negligible. However, if one shifts their perspective from the grand scheme to the immediate, from the vast expanse of time to the finite moments, those 30 ? take on a different significance. Consider my present situation: escorting them to the city, a task I should be able to complete by day's end. In this narrow window of time, those 30 ? suddenly carried substantial weight.

  "I would’ve really loved it if you went a little higher, but looking at you, I doubt you will. So… 40 minutes was it, right?"

  Understanding that I had just accepted, a smile appeared on his face. "40 minutes, no more no less," he declared, rushing to resolve the ongoing conflict between their clients and his fellow Handlers.