Savage Ascension: Starting with God-Tier Plunder Ability-Chapter 42: They’re People Killers

The eight gang members’ siblings, parents, and even uncles tangled together, all talking at once.

Only after the situation calmed down did productive discussion begin. A good hour must have passed.

"Eight silver coins is bullshit! Even if we dragged them in for attempted robbery, the reward wouldn’t even be ten copper coins, would it?" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"Have you tried catching someone? Torch Fortress is a dangerous place. They’re short on everything, so criminals die there every day."

"That’s just rumors!"

"I saw it! When I went once, they were hauling out corpses."

As they told bad stories about Torch Fortress, conspiracy theories spread for no reason. Since they handed down judgments there that made people into criminal serfs or slaves, there were lots of sinister rumors. Most were conspiracies and nonsense, but there were too many information barriers to sort out the truth.

It would take tons of evidence to strip away the lies. In this world with so little information, that was an impossible dream.

"We need to negotiate with them. Eight silver coins is too much money."

"Even four silver coins is a lot."

"Trading goods would be better. I’m against handing over currency."

They were negative about the ransom they’d have to pay. It was too expensive. For guys who hadn’t even gone through their apprentice years and were already eighteen, eight silver coins was too much. In a small mountain village, it was big money.

"They’re holding the other seven, so we have to pay the ransom, don’t we?"

The youngest member of the youth association spoke up.

"So we should just get fleeced with our eyes wide open? They’ll build a stronghold over that mountain and keep raiding us!"

"If we all swarm them, they won’t be able to demand ransom!"

"Right! There are over forty of us!"

Since it was a small village, the youth association only had forty men. Still, it was more than Black Mountain Village.

Tap! Tap!

Village Chief Mountings sat at the head and tapped the round table with his cane.

"You crazy fools. Didn’t you hear what the kid said? Mercenaries. Mercenaries!"

Swoosh!

The cane swung around and poked one of the youth association men.

"You, want to fight guys who eat, sleep, and breathe swordplay for a living, year after year? Huh? Huh?"

Poke! Poke!

"Ah, agh! Elder, sir."

"Elder my ass, are you all throwing your lives away! Even machismo has limits!"

"Then should we just hand over eight silver coins? Without doing anything? Mountain Master!"

"Mountain Master, my frozen ass, when I can’t even go up the mountain..."

The chief retorted that way but didn’t nod at the question. He knew it too. Wasn’t that why he’d gotten angry and hit Ken with his cane?

Eight silver coins was enough money to solve major village problems. They hadn’t saved it for nothing. It was collected little by little every year from the villagers communally.

"Let me tell you what’ll happen. Listen up."

As he placed his cane on the round table, his wrinkled hands followed. The threadlike scars from climbing mountains for so long looked almost like wrinkles themselves. Countless wounds from brushing past leaves. Medals from his youth spent searching for valuable things in the rain.

"If we swarm them like bees, they’ll kill our villagers and run. Is it easy to chase people through mountains in the dark? It’d be hard to catch even one of them. And even if we do catch them, that’s not the end."

He bared his yellowed teeth. He looked around, glaring at the men in the youth association.

"They’ll resist fiercely. Someone getting crippled happens in an instant. I’ve seen three people die to just one mercenary. They’re good at dogfights."

Gulp.

He swallowed and opened his mouth again.

"There’ll be deaths, of course, and lots of wounded. Some might become crippled. You heard Ken, right? That Regin’s wrist got cut off. They’re guys with no fear about attacking people."

"..."

Village Chief Mountings said that, then leaned back and sighed.

"Getting angry doesn’t change anything. Living in the mountains, you learn that getting mad isn’t always right. What happens if you rush down a mountain slope?"

"You slip and get seriously hurt."

"Fighting mercenaries is foolish. They’re people killers. They might run away and come back! You could be ambushed and get your throat slit while going to set traps in the mountains..."

A chill spread. Like an old man should, he knew a lot, heard a lot, and spoke well. That’s why he could still be alive even in old age. The reason Mountings, who wasn’t rich, could survive without getting sick even in his old age was simple.

He’d grasped many things besides money, which is why he could keep living even though he was old. Old people who couldn’t do that went to the graveyard—that was this world’s logic. If you hadn’t built anything up yourself, you either starved to death or lived miserably until disease killed you—that was most old people’s fate.

Especially in Mushroom Mountain Village, nestled in the mountains, it was worse. Other places could eat plentifully with just decent farmland. But Mushroom Mountain Village was different.

They had to live in harmony with nature’s power, so they had to be more brutal. It wasn’t quite like old, sick wolves getting cast out from the pack, but elderly people who couldn’t provide labor to the village gradually died from not eating enough and getting sick.

Ken’s gang, who could at least chop firewood, could be forced to work.

Village Chief Mountings’s experience seemed natural given his age, but not everyone became mature just by aging.

He’d molded himself with those wrinkled hands covered in threadlike scars from leaf cuts.

They didn’t call him Mountain Master Mountings for nothing. That’s why this small village chief’s thoughts were different from others. His abilities were too good to remain just a village chief.

"If we hand over eight silver coins as is, the mercenaries will finish their business peacefully. But our pride will hit rock bottom."

Everyone nodded. Their bodies moved to Mountings’s words. You could tell how much help the chief had given them.

"If we throw away our pride, the mercenaries will happily brag at the tavern. Nice drinking material. It’ll feel like drinking beer with ice floating in it in summer."

"Damn it."

Curses erupted here and there. Vulgar profanity ran rampant.

"So I think it’d be better to at least change how it looks. Remember back then? That hunter named Geric came and tried to extort us."

"Real damn drifter. He looked skilled though."

Mountings nodded.

"Now is the same as then. With a little massaging, the situation will change dramatically like it did then."

The old man stood up. The youth association followed the old man.