After settling down I had some short conversations with the village's residents.
I asked about various things, and they answered positively. I only asked them about their daily life though. All of them expressed how happy they were that they are living around people of the same line of job that they fully and truly trust. Except for the fact that their life is not the best, they all had satisfied expressions on their faces. They were holding back the information that they fed me though, that one was obvious.
As for me and the elf. We settled down with walls and roofs made of earth magic by me next to the road in front of the entrance. Though we call it the entrance, it's just the road leading to the village.
Noon the day after, I am now sitting face to face with the strongest party in the village consisting of silver-ranked hunters. They were about to go hunting when I reached out to them.
"Then? What do you want with us and our village? I find it hard to believe that a noble child such as yourself came here to go sightseeing. More so, knowing that our village is practically a slum," Blake, the party's leader said. He is a tall, tanned guy with long curly hair that reached down to his shoulders. He could probably scare a child or two with just his gaze and that huge two-meter-long heavy sword. Quite the scary appearance he has, this guy.
(He probably thought of me as a third daughter of a noble or something. Well, I did approach him with a manner fitting for a noble while wearing an expensive traveling dress. It wouldn't be strange if they all thought of me as such.)
"Right, since I too don't like beating around too much, I'll get straight to the point. I want all of you hunters here to work for me," I said with a straight face.
"Hmph. We don't have time for cunning nobles like you. Let us go, you guys. We still have plenty to hunt to reach our quota for today's share of food," Garga the dwarf said. He has a metal tower shield hanging sideways behind his back and a mace, so I knew instantly that he is the party's tank.
"Right, we must not let Merry wait," added Corle the party's alchemist and mage. He got me intrigued when I met with them because I could sense mana from his coat. If there is a way, I want to learn how to apply magic effects to items. Also, he's only a foot taller than me.
"Now now, why don't you take a look at this first? As hunters, you should be able to recognize this," I said as I presented a contract paper before they could stand and go on.
"That's… isn't that a contract parchment? Hand that over for a moment," Nar said before nabbing the contract off of my hand, a merchant turned hunter, apparently. He's the party's scout.
"Do you know what that is, Nar?" Garga asked.
"Yeah, it's a type of paper that is used for businesses. We used one too when we registered as hunters, you airhead. These papers have a special magic circle inscribed on them that makes the contractor and the contractee unable to go against the details once signed. Slave contracts use the same material but with a different magic circle," Nar explained.
(Right. It costed me the whole income I made when I was still registering in the Commerce guild. I bought a high quality without knowing. A failure as a merchant, I am.)
"The contents are?" Blake asked Nar with an obvious suspicion on me.
"It says that by helping us construct the village and secure a stable source of income we are to form a mercenary group and give her 3% of our monthly income," Nar said.
"This is nonsense. What if we agreed to this and you were able to help us build our village and we didn't give you your deserved share through other people? There is that loophole you know, considering we are all high-ranked hunters, we could turn our backs on you and everyone will not bat an eye. Plus you are quite young, chances are no one will believe you even if you are to tell on us to your parents," Blake said.
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"Mmhm. That is indeed a problem, however, I purposely left such a loophole in the hope to gain your and your people's trust. In order for the one seeking trust to gain them, they themselves must give their trust first, yes?" I said with an empowered voice and stare straight into his eyes.
"Nonsense, let's just go," Garga suggested. In which the rest agreed with-
"No. We are taking this, guys. BUT, we are only signing this after you have shown actual results. Understood?" Blake said to which I…
"Yes, absolutely. Here please sign these to complete our negotiations!" quickly handed another contract that contains just what he wanted. To develop the village enough to feed them all through just trading, when confirmed, the chosen head will sign the previous contract.
Blake saw no problems with the content and quickly signed them.
"Alright with that said and done, this elf here will keep those contracts safe until I am done. Take them for now, Lory. I'll go make my preparations. I'll need at least three days to complete," I said before running off. I heard a cheerful "sure" from Lory shortly after.
**Blake's POV**
"Are you sure that was, fine? Blake," Nar asked me.
"I too honestly don't feel sure about that contract, but when that girl said those words, I felt like we could trust her. Also, such contracts have another flaw to them. That is when the contractor is deceased, the contracts are all nullified. We have that as insurance. Even if I feel bad for her, a child, I still prefer choosing my comrades over her, without a doubt." I said.
"You're right, there's that…" Nar replied.
"I just hope it doesn't come to that…" I muttered under my breath for no one to hear.
"Alright, we are done with our preparation! Let's get going," Garga said, a great friend and comrade of mine.
"Yeah, let's go hunting!" I replied.
(I definitely won't let that happen again. Definitely!) With those thoughts as encouragement, we went on our usual hunting.
*****