Moon Blossom ended up reuniting without ever actually eliminating the fourth monster-tamer platoon. Neither the Blue Team nor the Red Team sought it out.
"And here I thought that you guys would go and defeat the last platoon too." Asura shrugged dramatically.
"Hey, there wasn't anythin' I could do about that. Sorry, but Iina and Marx were runnin' on empty."
"You...blamed it on me...?"
"On me too. I hate commanders who do that."
Both Ina and Marx grimaced at Jyrki's excuse. Neither of them had even fully depleted their magical energy.
"I'm not angry or anything," Asura said.
"Th-Then we'll go look for 'em..." Jyrki's face tightened, but Asura held up her hand to interrupt him.
"I'm sure they've already retreated. Can't you tell by the state of the battlefield that they're not around anymore? I can think of a few reasons as to why they'd pull back, but it doesn't matter."
It was more than likely because they'd noticed their allies dropping like flies.
"I...really misjudged the situation. We shoulda continued to fight even if it ended with Iina and Marx passin' out."
"I already told you that I'm not mad," Asura insisted. "This was just a commissioned job, remember? We weren't required to rout the enemy forces."
"Oh, yeah!" Jyrki's expression brightened with relief. "Yeah, you're right!"
"By the way, who's that silver-haired fellow there? At the very least, explain why you've dragged him here with you."
Marx looked down at his right hand, currently tightly wrapped around the left ankle of a silver-haired boy. "Apparently, he's a hero candidate named Punti."
"He said he wanted to meet you, Boss, so we brought him here," Jyrki added.
"But he's...an enemy soldier. So if you're okay with it...I'll bully him to death."
"Don't do that," Lumia said, smiling at Iina. "The battle's over. If you kill him now, it'll be nothing more than murder."
"I should've...killed him earlier..." Iina whispered sullenly and Lumia looked away, pretending that she didn't hear a word.
"Why did he want to meet me? If he wants to join Moon Blossom, then he's more than welcome." Asura's face lit up, practically sparkling with joy. "My dream is to create a big mercenary group that'll make its mark on the history books, so the more the merrier."
"Ah, no, he specifically said he had no interest in joining," Marx corrected. "I don't think he'll ever become a mercenary."
"It kinda felt like he wanted to fight you, Boss."
"Then toss him out." Asura pouted, puffing out her cheeks. "I have no use for him. There's no need for us to kill him, nor are we obligated to hand him over to the Arnian army. Our service period has ended. Just leave him there."
"Understood." With that, Marx released Punti's ankle.
"That reminds me, who's that brat there?" Jyrki asked.
"Is he someone I can bully?"
"He's probably a villager who couldn't escape in time, so the vice captain took him under her wing," Marx hypothesized.
Asura chuckled and puffed out her chest proudly. "His name is Reko. He's our new teammate."
She placed her right hand on Reko's head while her left hung loosely at her side. Once they returned to the castle town, she planned on having Lumia treat it with her healing magic, which could take care of any injury or disease. However, extremely serious injuries took a long time to treat, and there was a chance that the patient would die before it took effect.
"Pleased to meet you," Reko said calmly. He had brown hair and a youthful face. Though he wasn't particularly ugly, it didn't seem he had the potential to mature into a handsome man either.
"Yeah, nice to meetcha," Jyrki replied with a light wave. "Our new teammate, huh? A teammate... Wait, teammate?! That brat there is gonna join us?!"
"I can't kill a teammate..." Iina lamented. "How boring..."
"Boss, I can't approve of you lying to such a young child," Marx said with a shake of his head. "Have you explained what kind of group Moon Blossom is? More importantly, have you explained what kind of person you are?"
"Marx, there's no need to explain anything because Reko's already seen Lumia and me fight. That should be enough, no?"
"If he's made his decision after seeing that, then I have nothing more to say." Marx shrugged, backing down immediately.
"Well, it's not as if I plan on throwing him into the fray right away. To start him on the basic training regime, we're going to have to focus on teaching him how to actually fight first. You guys will help me out with that."
As soon as the words 'basic training regime' left Asura's mouth, Jyrki, Iina, and Marx all pulled a face.
"H-Hey, Reko, right? I'm Jyrki, the hottest guy in Moon Blossom. Nice to meet you and welcome to hell."
"How unfortunate for you that you survived... I'm Iina, Moon Blossom's mascot... Welcome to hell."
"It's too late to turn back, so don't regret your choice. My name is Marx, and I'm a man who finds romance in magic. By the way, Moon Blossom doesn't have a mascot. Welcome to hell."
***
Asura and the others booked the same bar from the night before and dined there. Though they didn't spend as much as they had yesterday, they made sure to only order extravagant dishes.
"You can keep eating. Just listen," Asura said. "Our payment for this mission is a hundred and fifty thousand dora, though I haven't gone to get the money yet."
Her left arm had been set and hung in a sling. She'd asked only for the most basic of first aid from the Arnian paramedics and the limb still throbbed with pain. The sooner she could get it fixed up with Lumia's healing magic, the better.
"Sooooo, how much do we each get?"
Iina held up her hands to count before she realized something. "Um... I don't...have enough fingers..." Unfortunately, humans weren't born with fifteen fingers.
Asura sighed at their sorry display. "I'm going to have to work with you two on your fundamentals one day. I was so focused on your combat training that I completely forgot to work on your brains."
"If you split up that money between five people, then you each get thirty thousand dora. Why can't you figure that out? Are you stupid?" Reko asked, tilting his head to the side quizzically.
"Huh?! What'd you say, you snotty-nosed brat?! I'll kill you!"
"If you keep this up...I'll put sand in your boots..."
"Huh. Lately, I've been discovering a lot of sand in my boots, but I guess that was your doing, Iina? May I punch you later?"
"Hey, this conversation is going nowhere, so can you all shut up?" Asura threatened. "If you can't keep your mouths shut, I'll shove a stick up your assholes and poke around."
At Asura's threat, the three mercenaries immediately fell silent. All of them had been poked in the ass more than enough times during Asura's torture resistance training. "Now then, let's get to business. I was wondering if it would be all right to ask you three and Lumia to split eighty thousand of the payment among yourselves?"
"Boss, are you trying to say that you plan on using seventy thousand dora to purchase Salume?" Marx asked. As expected, Marx could do math in his head and could read between the lines. It was a given though, considering his past position. An idiot couldn't become a knight, after all.
"Yeah, that's exactly it, Marx. Of course, it all depends on if you guys are okay with it."
"I'm fine with it," Jyrki said. "I'm interested in your dream of, uh, addin' people to Moon Blossom and makin' a big mercenary group that'll make its mark in the history books. I mean, that sounds pretty sweet."
"Doesn't it?" Asura smiled. "War is my goal in and of itself, but I figured it would be nice for us to have something to work towards as a group. It's not anything concrete right now, but we can hash out the details in the future."
"Hmm... Boss, you really...like war, huh? As for Salume...I don't care..."
"War's fun, that's why. Whether something is fun or not is all that motivates me."
"I'm against it," Marx piped up. "Ah, let me rephrase that. I'm for making Moon Blossom bigger, but not if it means recruiting a girl who seems so put-together."
"Don't worry about it," Asura replied with a light shrug. "If Salume doesn't want to join, then she won't have to."
Marx nodded. "If the decision ultimately falls on her shoulders, then I have nothing more to say."
"Fantastic. Lumia, how about you?"
"I'm in," Lumia said. "I think it'd be nice for Reko to have a training partner at his level. It's difficult to get through the basic training regime alone, but having someone to lean on will make it more bearable."
At Lumia's explanation, Jyrki, Iina, and Marx all nodded deeply. When Asura created Moon Blossom and gathered her team, she'd made the four of them go through the basic training regime together.
"All right. In that case, I'll go buy Salume after I get the money tomorrow. You can all have that day off. Go have fun shopping or something. Oh, but, Reko, you'll be coming with me."
"Yes, Boss." Reko nodded his head obediently.
"Now then, it seems like all of you stopped eating during our talk. Let's finish up here and return to our inn—"
But before Asura could finish talking, the door to the bar slammed open with a violent bang.
"Excuse me!"
A horde of men entered the establishment. At the very front of the crowd was a fat, grinning man who looked to be in his forties. His clothes were all of the highest quality, and he was decorated from head to toe with colorful jewelry. Three members of the Arnian military police trailed after him, and even farther behind them were three men who looked like your typical hooligans. One of them, who sported a mohawk, held a chain in his hand that was tied to a familiar girl.
"Salume..." Asura whispered.
Salume stood naked next to the hooligan with a mohawk. The only thing on her body was a collar, from which the chain extended. As if that wasn't unsettling enough, Salume's body was covered in bruises.
"I have a business proposition for the fine ladies and gentlemen of Moon Blossom," the fat man said, the wide smile never leaving his face. "My name is Uno Hassinen and I'm a merchant. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"My name is Asura Lyona, the leader of Moon Blossom. What kind of business do you wish to discuss?"
Well, I can already figure it out, more or less, Asura thought to herself.
Uno snapped the fingers of his right hand. The hooligan with a mohawk roughly yanked Salume forward until she was standing at the fat man's side. "I heard that the leader was a little lady, but I never thought the rumors were true," he said.
"Enough. Just tell me what you want."
Uno chuckled low in his throat. "It's about this girl here, see. I purchased her for seventy thousand dora and was letting my men have some fun with her today. But a little birdie told me that the folks at Moon Blossom wanted to buy her for a hundred and fifty thousand dora."
"Jyrki, sit down. That's an order. Iina, don't touch your dagger. Marx, calm down. It looks like the military police with Uno are the real deal."
Asura could tell that the members of Moon Blossom had grown angry as soon as they saw the shape Salume was in. And thanks to Uno mentioning that his men had had "some fun with her," that anger had morphed into a murderous rage. Even Lumia's eyes glittered with the promise of death. If Asura lost control here, then the bar would turn into a bloodbath.
Not that Asura particularly minded that scenario, of course.
"What sharp eyes you have, Little Miss Leader. Ha ha, you're absolutely correct. These gentlemen are indeed real members of the military police." A wide smile remained plastered to Uno's chubby face. "If any of you lay a finger on me, then you won't be able to freely walk through the streets of Arnia tomorrow. You'd be criminals, after all."
"I'm surprised you knew that our payment would be a hundred and fifty thousand dora, as well as the fact that we planned on purchasing Salume. Where did you get this information?"
Asura hardly needed to ask this either. She'd only just mentioned the hundred and fifty thousand. Considering when Uno and his goons arrived on the scene, it was likely either the bar owner or the young waiter. She could even figure out that Uno's men had likely been on standby near the back door of the bar. As soon as they'd heard the intel they needed, they'd all swarmed in from the front door.
"Humph, you're more a scalper than a merchant," Asura scoffed under her breath. "And the worst kind of scalper too."
"Oh, and by the waaaay, would you like to hear what'll happen to this girl if Moon Blossom chooses not to buy her?"
"There's no need for that. A hundred and fifty thousand dora, was it?"
"Yes. I must inform you that I do not partake in haggling of any kind. I apologize for the inconvenience."
"Hmm. Let me tell you a bit about myself," Asura said calmly. "I was the leader of a mercenary group in my past life as well. There was a time when we were hired by a rebel army in a region known as the Middle East."
Uno looked completely lost at Asura's sudden change of topic. But she continued without a care. "They were so appreciative of the work we did that they led us to a certain building. The region they ruled over was on the peaceful side, even if it was an artificial peace. So I was pretty surprised when I entered the building to see it full of young girls that they'd captured and turned into sex slaves."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Shut up and listen. It's about to get interesting." Asura laughed softly. "I don't know who started it, but it went from being an orgy into a bloodbath. Ha ha, they must've been pretty pissed off at the sight of those girls. We ended up killing everyone in the rebel army. Isn't that a hoot? Our professional reputation took a hit and it took us forever to build up client trust again, but it felt amazing."
In truth, Asura knew who'd fired the first shot, but the end result was so funny that she'd never bothered to scold them.
"You know, we're the type of people who'll jump in and go with the flow if someone else starts something. That's just the way we are. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Hm? Do you get the point of my story, fatso?"
Uno knew exactly what Asura was insinuating: that she had no plans of stopping the members of her group if they lost control.
"If you lay a finger on me, then—"
"Then we'll be criminals, right? Oh yes, I'm more than aware of that. On my end, I'd prefer to work in Arnia for a while longer, so this isn't an ideal situation for me. So then, seeing how nice I am, I'll offer you idiots with no idea who you've been threatening a wonderful chance to escape from this mess."
"I have real members of the military police, plus my bodyguards, on my side, you know?" Uno spluttered. "I don't care if you're a mercenary group. If you think you can act all tough around me, then I'm going to have to teach you a—"
"Shaddup, you pig," Jyrki snorted. "Our leader hasn't finished talking yet. I'll kill you."
"Kill them all... Kill them all... Kill them all..." Iina chanted in a soft voice.
The members of Moon Blossom were brimming with motivation. If they were dealing with scumbags, then Lumia wouldn't bother to stop them.
"None of you know how to have a civil conversation," Uno snarled, his expression darkening with fury.
"There, there, just calm down. You should at least let me tell you what kind of chance I'm giving you."
Asura slipped her right hand into the pocket of her pants underneath her robes. Then, she took out a single-dora coin and flicked it into the air with her thumb. It flew in an arch, spinning around and around, until it landed in front of Uno.
"I'll buy Salume with that. Now, pick it up. Once you do, leave Salume here and get out of my sight. Luck has truly smiled upon you all tonight, since you managed to buy your lives with a single dora. Rather than counting sheep in bed tonight, count your blessings. It's not every day that I decide to be so nice."