"Wh-what the hell do you mean?!"
"How are we supposed to earn the bills?!"
Of course, his announcement wasn't met with an angry response.
"Yeah. You can't. That's why as long as you will help my kids with hauling everything over – and making sure to not kill any more monsters just in case – I am willing to graciously spare a few bills for your loot."
"...huh...?"
Viria declared picking the bloody bag back up and throwing it over his shoulder, as the other prisoners stared at him dumbstruck.
"Let's make one thing clear – what I want is one black bill, fifteen yellow ones. If the materials out there are worth more, you are free to share the rest amongst yourself however you like. If the worth of the materials is less than that, I want fifteen yellow ones, four green ones, and four blue ones at minimum."
Viria's words didn't even sound like a proper offer, it was more like an order with added reward than anything else.
"Who do you think you are?!"
Which did not sit well with most of the prisoners prepared to venture out and hunt some monsters themselves.
"You guys seem to not realize how many dead monsters must there be for a threat of a floor boss changing location to appear. I have seen the number of materials out there. Even with the boss's requirement, we should earn well over a week's worth of bills in a day's worth of work."
That was the time when Lithsar came in clutch and joined the conversation.
While Viria was an unknown bloodstained guy who basically no one knew, Lithsar was quite well known - one way or another – and had a stellar reputation amongst the community of the hunting prisoners.
"What are we waiting for? The kids should be back, we can't make them do all the work!"
The same men that were so against following Viria's command suddenly changed their stance completely and started swarming the first gate pulling up their sleeves.
"Did I do a good job, boss?"
Lithsar inched closer to Viria and asked all fidgety.
"I think I get the reason why you ended up in prison."
"..."
The young man looked at her coldly and shook his head in disbelief, making the young woman lowered her head with an upset expression.
"Thank you for the help though. Some of the bills I requested are meant for you. Good job."
"Boss~!"
Viria sighed and nodded his head at Lithsar before leaving and making her perk up and exclaim with an almost obscene amount of enthusiasm.
"Remember to keep your distance and we will be able to work together with no incidents like the one before."
The young man added without looking back to spare himself the sight of the gold-haired woman wiggling with excitement over the domineering tone of his voice.
"...I wonder if there still is a green bill from the previous reward... the blue one too probably, this is already dried up and ruined... the kids are already on the job, so I should meet them, right?"
Viria muttered to himself examining his bloodstained hands and clothes.
He sighed, he was going through the new sets of clothes at an alarming rate. Hopefully, there was no penalty for that waiting for him.
Even a limit on the number of clothes that a prisoner could purchase would be a problem.
Honestly, the young man was only speaking out loud because he wanted to distract himself from the urge to run straight back to his shack and cultivated with all the monster cores in his possession – with his soul atribute in the middle grade the speed and quality of his cultivation should increase by leaps and bounds! At that point, it would not be weird for just the monster cores in his possession to be enough to push him into the high-low levels of cultivation!
The mere thought of that was making Viria feel tingly – a realm that he was not even allowed to dream of, wasn't that just the most arous... exciting thing that could happen?
As the young man was hurrying back, to leave the monster spawning ground and began cultivation training with all the mana stones that he managed to get, he encounter a situation he did not account for...
"...uuuu..."
"...don't cry, Tir. We... we... uuu..."
"No! Don't cry...! Crying will not help anything! Even if... even if... uuuu..."
The gate of the second barrier opened and the trio of kids that were helping Viria out with selling the monsters that he killed entered.
...and they were all crying as they walked and sobbed to each other...
"If you don't want to move the carcasses or just want a day off, just say. There's no need to cry."
"Mister?!"
Viria furrowed his brows and since he already was going that way, he approached the crestfallen younglings and said in a slightly worried voice, causing the resolute girl to straighten her back and look at him in fear.
"Yeah, it's me, so don't give me that face. What is going on?"
The young man made sure that at least his face is as clean and gore-free as possible and nodded at the clearly worried girl.
"...mister... we're sorry... please... don't get angry..."
"Tir...!"
The child with the long bangs cried out pitifully, moving her hands as if she wanted to grab onto Viria, causing the resolute girl to let out a sharp gasp.
"..."
The young man furrowed his brows and straightened his back, looking at all three with suspicion.
He certainly didn't like the setup.
He already figured out that Tir was easy to tear up, but since not only the scardy-cat one but even Kirri had reddened eyes something serious must have happened.
And Tir being all apologetic and fearful of Viria must have meant that whatever happened must have been connected to him.
"...mister... the bills... everything that you left with us had been stol... disappeared from our house..."
Under Viria's glare, Kirri lost almost all of her spunk and fidgetted nervously, lowering her head apologetically before whispering.
"...is that so...?"
Although he felt slightly relieved that it was something connected with the prison dungeon's first-floor money, Viria did not feel good about being robbed.