-HAHAHA I saw how you tried to drink those spirits, don’t you know that only dwarves can drink such pure alcohol! The alcohol we drink is made through diluting the spirits with water first, HAHAHA.

Avrid said, laughing loudly as he recounted the act of Avian trying to drink the pure spirits while the men beside him treated his broken arm and bruised body in silence while glancing at Avian who had essential saved all of them by killing Bennet at the very end.

The fight was over, as soon as Bennet died, the bandits immediately surrendered with some dropping their weapons while others fleeing for their lives as they were being chased by the mercenaries to be brought back.

Avian merely listened to Avrid with a wryly smile before looking around him and watching how the bandits who had surrendered were being tied up and emptied for all of their possessions.

The dead were being buried and the people who didn’t participate in the fight and were instead hiding inside their carriages such as merchants and travelers were slowly inspecting their losses and the current situation, the alcohol merchant especially cried a river of blood as almost a half of his spirits were used in this fight, Avrid earlier tried to assure him that his losses would be recouped by the bandits, but he still didn’t stop crying as he collapsed onto the ground without an energy.

A lot of lives had been lost in this fight, the mercenaries especially suffered a lot as 1/3 of them were killed while a lot of travelers lives were lost too especially the men.

The bandits that had attacked them would pay for all of this, be it through their belongings or through their bodies, slavery after all was accepted in this country, those deemed as bandits, thieves or otherwise criminals would all be sold as slaves in the kingdom, those who couldn’t pay their debts, had lesser sapience, were enemies of the state or war prisoners were also turned into slaves.

The slave market in this world was very prevalent, so prevalent in fact that it was one of the biggest markets in this kingdom that held it up, undoubtedly this also caused there to be a lot of illegal forms of slavery that the kingdom was also aware of, but looked the other way for the wealth it brought, like these bandits who intended on taking the women and children to sell as slaves in some dark and shady city.

Avian’s opinion on all this was obviously not negative, he in fact was thrilled about it, even though he came from and was born in a society where slavery had been abolished and considered totally immoral, as a businessman he found the idea of slavery to be a perfect system of stratification and way to gather wealth.

Of course such views would never be seen in a positive light in his previous world, but in this world, it was not only accepted but the norm, Avian even considered entering the slave trade at one point, but after researching it and finding out its requirements plus how established it was giving no space for more competition, he decided to give up.

Of course this didn’t mean he had totally given up on it, but rather put it off for now, once he got to Alimdal Avian would need to buy a slave for personal use, slaves were after all some very cheap source of manual labor, compared to an employee he didn’t need to pay a slave a salary and only needed to care for them sufficiently enough to make them feel satisfied, of course this also meant that Avian would need to earn enough money to care for not only himself but also his slaves, though those things were all still left to the foreseeable future.

For now, there some other things he wanted, most importantly ask Avrid what Bennet was doing to his sword and what the bloody aura was, the reason it was so important to Avian was because up until now Avian had never once found a reference towards his biological power, any new info could significantly help Avian in his understand of his [Hemomancer] blessing which is why he immediately asked Avrid about it.

Avrid hearing the question, momentarily stopped laughing as he wondered why Avian would want to know something like this, but he answered nonetheless since it was Avian who had saved them all.

-The bloody aura Bennet was emitting from his sword is called [Aura], it is not an ability particular to any blessing as any person in this world can learn how to use it once they thoroughly mastered a type of martial art, it can be anything between fists, swords and bows, but once they do they will able to emit a powerful energy and imbue it into objects to make them more durable, sharper or faster. On the other hand, a person can also unlock their [Aura] through getting their blessing to rank 3, but that sometimes depends on the blessing itself as most production blessings don’t unlock their [Aura] until rank 4. [Aura] is separate from [Magic] and recovers much faster as you only need to eat and rest properly to recover it within hours, it is also limited to what it can do compared to [Magic], but in return it is extremely good at what it does, people who can use [Aura] can slash through [Magic] with a [Aura] covered blade, defend against [Magic] by covering their body with [Aura] and some are even rumored to be able to walk on water or on walls by focusing their [Aura] on their feet, legend say the most powerful [Aura] masters can step on air itself, but this is all I heard from my seniors in the mercenary guild back when I was young so they may have had been messing with me HAHAHA.

-I see…

Avrid laughed, finally giving Avian a much better understand of what biological power or [Aura] was as he remembered reading about it briefly before slowly starting to ponder about his own blessing and how he essentially started by being able to know how to use biological power from the get go, hearing it like this Avian started to think that the [Hemomancer] blessing was actually quite a fraudulent blessing since it immediately gained one of the most powerful features a combatant could have right from the start, but at the same time he didn’t know if not being able to use magic power was a good thing, he didn’t really need to worry about this since he had the [Monster Tamer] blessing that was a normal blessing which used magic power, but he still couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if he only had the [Hemomancer] blessing and how it would affect him, in the end he decided to throw the question away as it didn’t affect him either way. before thinking about something else.

While he was doing that, Avrid momentarily stopped laughing as he seemed to remembered something, pulling out decently sized pouch he suddenly threw it at Avian as it flew mid-air making a metallic rustling sound.

-Hey, kid catch!

Avian not thinking much, deftly caught the pouch and slightly opened it to see it was full of silver and gold coins, while he didn’t know how much there was inside he could guess from the weight and a surface glance that there must have been over 50 small gold pieces and another 20 or so big silver pieces.

It was the sort of wealth an average family of 3 could use to live for 5 years without doing any work out in their village, any average person seeing such amount of money would likely have been shocked and wide-eyed, but Avian didn’t even bat an eye as he had seen loads of money as a businessman making him numb to it, he simply put it in his breast pocket pretending to store it there when in actuality he stored it into his space-ring discreetly from any prying eyes, Avian knew why he was receiving so much money and didn’t say anything about it simply accepting it silently.

Avrid noted the lack of reaction Avian had when he looked into the pouch that was full of money that and average person would salivated for upon seeing, he immediately figured out that Avian wasn’t someone average if this amount of money didn’t faze him, everything he had done so far proved this fact as well, his powerful combat skills, quick thinking and mysterious abilities plus his civilized demeanor that was close to being noble and merchant like, Avrid immediately assumed that Avian was likely some young master from a powerful noble family of sorts that was send away to experience the world by himself.

And the reason Avrid gave this hefty sum of money was not only to test him, but also to pay him back as without Avian, Avrid knew they would be all screwed by now.

Avrid wasn’t someone who didn’t know how to pay back a debt, especially since he was a mercenary who needed to have a good reputation if they wanted to get clients, parting with this much money was painful, but the amount they would get for completing the job and bringing in the bandits plus taking the things they had in their hideout was more than enough to pay for families of the deceased mercenaries and also pay the alcohol merchant.

The only regret he had right now was the fact that he likely wouldn’t be able to convince Avian to join his mercenary group, but really he felt he was lucky enough to survive as he thanked his lucky stars that Avian was here when he was needed.

-When will we continue moving forward?

Avian asked, looking at the sky as it was halfway up and about come down again indicating that the day was ending.

-Since a lot happened, we at least need a day’s rest to continue going forward, if you don’t mind me asking, where are you going?

Avrid asked, genuinely curious as to where Avian was planning on going, Avian himself didn’t particularly mind revealing this information as he plainly said.

-I am going to Alimdal.

-Alimdal, the frontier huh, I can see why a talented youth like you would go to somewhere like that, as they say seize the opportunity, there isn’t not much opportunity here after all.

-That’s what I am thinking.

Avian agreed, ending the conversation pretty much as Avrid needed to rest while Avian wanted to reflect on the battle and his first real usage of [Blood Reinforcement], but just as he was about to get and leave, Markus suddenly appeared running as he directly came to Avian panting while putting his hands onto knees before raising his head.

-Lukas! Sorry for bothering you, but there is some old man in a butler outfit called Marco who is asking for you, he is heavily injured, our field doctor said that he can’t do much for him anymore and that his time is limited, upon knowing this he immediately asked for you, I just wanted to let you know.

-I see, thank you for letting me know, I will go and see him.

Avian said, momentarily wondering why Marco would call for him, him dying right now wasn’t out of Avian’s expectation, in fact back when he rescued Cornelia and Marco he could have immediately went to Marco to try stabilize his injuries instead of immediately going back to the main battlefield, but he didn’t, reason being that he chose getting rid of Bennet to be more important than saving the life of Marco who he didn’t even know whether or not he could save, right now Avian wasn’t even obligated to go and see Marco, but he still did as Avian decided to at least listen to the words of a dying old man who he was partially responsible to have let die.

He also wondered, what Cornelia would do once Marco who was her guardian would disappear.

For some reason Avian could feel an opportunity waft towards him as he quickly ran back to the carriage he came from.

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