Once It Leaves Your Hands, Getting It Back Is Hard

Once money left your hands, getting it back was difficult.

For instance, if you fell victim to a scam, you could kiss it goodbye.

That was why fraud prevention campaigns always hammered the same point: think before you hand over the money.

Logos might put on airs of success, but at the end of the day, he was just a drifter.

A truly successful man didn't uproot himself on a whim, and if he did, he wouldn't set up shop in a place like this.

An unlicensed lender operating in an area that was about to be cleaned up.

Obviously, he'd be noticed.

From Yohane's perspective, Logos was nothing more than a small-time boss who'd gotten lucky.

And fundamentally, he was far too careless to be handling large sums of money.

Before coming here, he'd most likely been a low-level collector working for someone else.

Drawing on that experience, a lot of things made sense.

With no competition in sight, he'd managed to amass a fortune.

But that was where he'd stopped thinking.

Money was a tricky thing to handle.

Earning it was, surprisingly, the easy part.

The problem was that earning alone didn't solve anything.

Once earned, it had to be protected, saved for necessities, and spent to safeguard oneself. After all that, one had to think about growing it further.

That was precisely what made it interesting… though unfortunately, few outside the merchant class ever understood that.

For most people, getting through the day was enough.

By that logic, Logos simply lacked the power to protect what he had.

As Yohane mulled this over, Logos reached for his collar with his right arm.

A thick arm. In a fistfight, Yohane would be beaten senseless in no time.

If he were here alone, that is.

Azu's kick swatted Logos's hand away.

"Don't touch him with your filthy hands."

"You little…!"

From Logos's perspective, a girl barely taller than his own slave had just kicked his hand away. It was apparently enough to make him lose what remained of his composure.

"You think I haven't done my homework? I know you own a shop. I'll kill you right here and now, and I'll take the money from there instead."

A clear-cut threat. Most people would crumble in fear when a hulking man like Logos glared them down.

"What a pain. You were finished the moment you handed me the money. That contract you had me sign. It looked official enough, but you don't even know this country's financial regulations, do you?"

The contracts he'd been made to sign each time held no legal standing whatsoever, given that the lender was unlicensed.

Even if Logos tried to take it to court, he'd only get himself arrested.

A proper contract might have had some value as leverage.

But the contracts Yohane had seen, regrettably, didn't even meet the bare minimum of formal requirements.

Filing something like that with the authorities would only make things worse for the filer.

It might have worked as an intimidation tactic on someone who didn't know any better, or someone who couldn't read, but it wouldn't work on Yohane.

He'd been certain of his victory from the moment he saw that first contract.

The only remaining question was whether Logos would keep lending larger sums.

If he'd gotten cold feet partway through and refused, Yohane's losses would have been locked in.

A contract was a lifeline for a merchant.

And the same held true for a criminal.

Fools couldn't cut it as criminals.

Logos rang the bell on the dented desk with force.

Armed men came pouring into the room.

Logos's bodyguards.

"What happened, sir?"

"Kill this man! Do whatever you want with the women. I'll sell them later."

"Sounds good to me."

Yohane sighed.

"The most boring possible ending. Can't even negotiate, huh."

Yohane had been willing to talk things out if Logos had kept his head. A peaceful resolution was always preferable.

Logos should have understood that he was in the wrong here.

When violence was your only means of collection, it became meaningless the moment you faced someone it didn't work on.

Return half, call it even, no hard feelings.

He would have been willing to compromise that far.

Logos had surely made more than enough already.

With what remained, he could have gone somewhere else and started over comfortably enough.

But Logos apparently couldn't stomach losing a single gold coin.

And that was his undoing.

"Self-defense. Do it."

"Sure thing."

"It always comes to this, doesn't it."

"Understood."

Azu and the others drew their weapons.

The bodyguards tensed for a moment, but evidently dismissed the threat, thinking them just three women, and quickly reverted to leering sneers.

Like their employer, they apparently weren't doing much thinking either.

They couldn't use Alexia's magic indoors, but Yohane's party was still strong.

When Alexia swung her battle axe, men went flying. When Elza brought her mace down, bones cracked.

Azu struck the approaching men with the flat of her blade.

She seemed to have some qualms about killing.

That was fine. If she could incapacitate them, it didn't matter.

Well, she wasn't killing anyone, but she was doing a thorough job of roughing them up.

The last man standing charged at Azu, only to be struck from above. His head punched through the floor.

He was twitching, so he was alive. Probably.

"What is this strength?! Aren't they just slaves?!"

"… Letting my slaves work as adventurers is a hobby of mine."

"That's insane. Why would you make them stronger? How do you plan to control slaves that powerful?"

"Control, huh. What a petty mind."

Yohane was starting to think that buying slaves was ultimately cheaper than hiring people.

Just as he'd expected, they were bringing in solid income as a secondary revenue stream.

He'd briefly worried about what would happen if they turned on him, but there seemed to be no sign of that, so he'd put the concern to rest.

At this point, he wasn't even treating them like slaves anymore.

Give people food, clothing, and shelter, and they generally didn't have much to complain about.

He was sharing a decent cut of the earnings with them, too. They wouldn't rebel, right? He glanced over at the three of them.

The three, having no idea why they were being scrutinized, looked back with puzzled expressions.

Seemed fine. If they'd been planning something, they would have acted long before now.

"Now then. Time to do the lord's proxy a little favor."

"W-Wait. Let's talk this over."

"Too late, you moron. Knock him out."

Azu closed the distance in a flash, jumped, and drove a kick into Logos's face.

The massive body sailed through the air and crashed down onto the desk, smashing it to pieces.

"Keep an eye on things for a bit. I'm going to talk to Jacob."

"Please make it quick, okay?"

Elza said this while poking one of the twitching men.

Being a priestess, she was keeping an eye out to make sure no one died unnecessarily.