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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: Latro's Treasures
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Armifera had spread out a spot on the floor despite having perfectly fine sofas and tables available.
The children huddled together beside her.
However, soft cushions had been prepared beneath the children's bottoms.
It was Dether, who had been watching just in case, hurrying to fetch them.
But Nibelria sat boldly right between the Mercenary King's legs.
"Look at this kid?"
Using the Mercenary King of the world as a chair?
Armifera let out a hollow laugh at her unabashed niece's behavior.
But what she was doing was just too cute and amusing, so she let it slide.
She quite liked the soft, warm body heat warming her lap, too.
'Who does this kid take after?'
Her brother and Selli sis weren't like this when they were young.
"...Me?"
"Yeah?"
"Never mind. Just saying Nini is cute."
"Nini knows that already."
"Ahaha!"
Armifera burst into laughter that perfectly resembled Muniel Dayamor's.
She began introducing her belongings.
"All of these were made in the Latro region."
Latro.
The barren rocky wasteland known as the one and only stronghold of free and ruthless mercenaries.
At its western edge stood sheer cliffs dizzyingly high. Climb over them in two straight days of ascent, and a vast basin formed by folds in the earth would appear.
That was Latro, the mercenaries' main base.
"The cliffs draw these round lines like crashing waves. Looking at them makes you realize just how small a world you've been living in."
Armifera took the small, round object Nibelria was holding and rubbed her thumb over something with a click.
A brilliant blue flame sparked to life.
"Wow!"
"It's fire!"
"Hot!"
Solles, Arep, and Nibelria cried out in turn.
"Cool, right? This is a semi-automatic flint made by the craftsmen of Latro. With this, you don't need matches."
Of course, it had the drawback of needing to be refilled with oil, but its big advantage was that even if it got wet in the rain, you could dry it and use it again.
"Actually, my mom developed this forty years ago."
"Grandma did?"
Nibelria, who had been staring blankly at the blue flame, looked up. She spotted a small scar on Armifera's chin.
"Yeah. The Saintess's Flame."
Armifera's golden eyes, reflecting the flame, curved kindly.
Solles secretly thought to himself that it looked just like her grandfather, who loved her grandmother so dearly.
"A bunch of mercenaries who fought in the war forty years ago are still hanging around Latro. They all received help from the Saintess and the Holy Knights."
Armifera had become the Mercenary King purely on her own skills.
But the old veterans, who had received favors from her parents, had played a big role in helping the young new Mercenary King secure her position quickly.
'In the end, I did get help from Mom and Dad.'
She had struggled to live on her own strength.
But in the end, it was her parents' blood and sweat from forty years ago that had saved her from the onslaught of dangers.
"You kids be good to your parents."
Armifera suddenly said to the children.
"Don't make them worry like I did."
"Nini already listens well! She's a good kid."
Nibelria even pulled out her paybook from her pocket to show that she was earning money by working herself.
"Whoa, way more grown-up than me!"
"Heehee!"
Armifera found her niece, who smiled just like her big brother, utterly lovable.
The children went back to admiring her items.
She had expected them to be full of dangerous things, but there weren't many like that, really.
The truly dangerous ones had been confiscated by Kaleo at the entrance.
"This is a pouch every mercenary has to carry."
Armifera showed them a round-strapped pouch made of black, worn cloth.
She opened the mouth to let them peer inside.
"It's empty?"
Nibelria, who had been wondering if she should snatch any candy or coins inside, pouted her lips.
"Stick your hand in."
After returning the pouch to its normal state, Armifera held it out to Nibelria with a mischievous smile.
Nibelria bravely thrust her hand inside.
Her blue eyes went wide.
"Huh?"
Something had grabbed her palm.
When she pulled it out, it was a very old and crude gold coin.
"Huh? What's this? Huh?"
The surprised Nibelria alternated between the coin and the now-empty pouch, then looked at Armifera with a face demanding an explanation.
Armifera gave her the answer with a delighted smile.
"This is the pride of Latro and the mercenaries—the 'Sub-Space Pouch'!"
"Sub-space?"
"What's that?"
It was a new term to Nibelria and Arep.
"Ah! So that's what it is!"
But Solles pretended to know, his eyes sparkling.
"Sub-space means a space different from the world we live in now."
"What're you talking about?"
Nibelria tilted her head.
Hmm, Solles pondered and explained in simpler terms.
"There's a house somewhere other than our home, right?"
"Yeah."
"But does Nini know who's living there or what's inside?"
"Uh-uh."
She shook her head slowly side to side.
Her imagination ran wild.
She hoped it was a wonderful house like the ones in fairy tales, with a kindly aunt laughing as she baked delicious bread.
But that didn't seem like something to say right now.
And Nibelria's judgment was correct.
"Right, no one knows. That's sub-space."
A bizarre space whose existence was certain, but which could not be observed.
Some said a mad wizard created it after years of research, or that it was a trace left when a great god sliced the world with his finger.
Or perhaps a remnant dimension left empty after magical beasts went extinct.
"This pouch is connected to sub-space."
The pouch's material was magical beast hide.
"But why is this the pride of mercenaries?"
Arep asked.
"Because only mercenaries use magical beast hide. Ordinary people find it ominous and avoid it. The temples strictly warn against using it."
But mercenaries were too rough, free, and poor to care about such things.
They sought materials that were tough enough to protect their bodies, yet light and efficient.
That naturally drew their eyes to the magical beast hides banned by the temples.
"Most inventions related to magical beasts were devised by Latro's mercenaries. The sub-space pouch is the prime example."
Latro's mercenaries were also the first to discover the sub-space phenomenon.
They made a pouch out of magical beast hide on a whim, and items just kept going in endlessly.
The mercenaries quickly monopolized magical beast hides. It wasn't hard. Hardly anyone else wanted them.
And so the sub-space pouch became the symbol of mercenaries.
It even became a way to prove one was a mercenary.
"Does Latro make a lot of money? With these pouches?"
Nibelria's eyes sparkled with interest.
But she didn't get the answer she hoped for.
"Magical beasts are gone now, so we can't sell the pouches anymore."
"Aww..."
The child drooped the corners of her mouth sympathetically.
"What 'aww'? It's a good thing."
Magical beasts killed all living things and turned fertile lands barren.
Humanity had sacrificed much over long ages to exterminate them.
It was finally a peaceful world.
"It's better that they're gone."
Armifera meant it sincerely.
In truth, mercenaries would decline soon, too.
Drifters had been able to band together under the mercenary banner only because magical beasts served as a central threat.
But now there were none.
As the Mercenary King, Armifera could see the declining reality of mercenaries all too clearly.
"Still, Auntie will give it a shot."
Armifera said, fiddling with Nibelria's chubby little hand.
"Once a woman draws a sword, she has to at least slice a throat or two!"
Right?
But the children didn't answer.
They just stared at her with shocked faces.
Solles and Arep even quietly pulled Nibelria out of Armifera's lap and hid her behind them.
"...Ah."
Realizing her slip too late, Armifera asked Dether.
"You'll keep this secret from Mom, right?"
"I think I have to tell her."
"Shoot..."
In the end, Armifera got an earful from Muniel.
"It's your freedom to do what you want. But being so reckless in front of the children isn't good."
And from Kaleo and Seletrina, too.
"Watch your words around the kids."
"Especially around Nini."
Since she had sinned, Armifera meekly accepted it.
'But Nini's language skills are already exceptional, though?'
Did she really think being careful herself would solve it?
Of course, she couldn't say that outright, so Armifera just said she understood.
"Oh, right."
Armifera remembered something she had forgotten.
"The gift arrived safely, yeah?"
At those words, Kaleo's eyebrow visibly twitched upward.
"...Huh?"
Armifera looked at her brother with a 'Did I ask something wrong?' expression.
Kaleo was a really cool big brother to Armifera.
He did interfere a bit much—enough that if any other guy showed even a little interest in her, he'd come back with blood on his hands—but still.
Anyway, that Kaleo was now staring at his little sister with displeasure.
But since it was his sister, he didn't glare outright.
"Fera."
"Yeah?"
"You knew that thing was the real Egg of the Evil Dragon Ater, right?"
"Huh?"
On the first day of spring.
To give her niece, who was turning four, something really cool as an aunt, she had gladly sent the Egg of the Evil Dragon Ater that had come up as a prize in the Mercenary King selection tournament.
In hopes that the dragon would protect her niece.
Though inwardly, she had chuckled to herself, 'As if it's a real dragon egg.'
In other words, it was a talisman gifted to pray for her niece's safety.
"Wasn't it just an expensive-looking rock?"
The devastated Kaleo buried his face in his hands.
