One-armed.
One-eyed.
Odd-eyed.
Barbarian.
If you called for a mercenary group and this combination showed up, what would be your first thought?
Most people would have trouble managing their expressions. That's exactly how the village chief of Kurib Village looked right now.
His expression management was completely shot. He even stood on his tiptoes and looked around to see if there were any more people following behind.
But there was nobody else coming.
The Aslan Mercenary Group was just these five.
They knew it too.
Especially Aslan, their leader, knew it all too well.
That their first impression wasn't exactly stellar.
For a mercenary group, their numbers were small, and their appearance wasn't particularly impressive either. Though they were dressed pretty neatly for mercenaries.
Still, you couldn't help but look at them with skepticism because there wasn't a single normal person among them.
One-armed and one-eyed.
It wasn't hard to tell them apart. And what about the woman? In the Empire, hardly anyone looked favorably on someone with odd eyes.
Actually, it'd be more accurate to say nobody did.
In the Empire, having odd eyes was like a symbol of impurity and bad luck.
Hell, even descendants of countries that had been conquered and destroyed by the Empire avoided people with odd eyes.
Plus, the guy who stepped forward as their leader looked like nothing more than a kid who'd just barely outgrown being a boy.
And that wasn't all.
His only equipment was a single sword, and he wasn't even wearing any light armor. He was pretty tall, but no matter how you looked at it, he didn't seem cut out for mercenary work. He was too skinny to be swinging a sword around.
But aren't there more things in this world that you can't judge by first impressions than things you can?
There are assassins who always smile, and saints with scary faces, right?
So the village chief decided not to jump to conclusions.
Maybe these were just the advance team. Or maybe one of them was a former knight. And maybe there was really some unavoidable reason why only five of them showed up.
'I can tell exactly what he's thinking.'
Barely suppressing the corner of his mouth that was starting to curl up, he stared directly at the village chief.
Aslan was confident he could convince the chief.
So he was about to speak up.
To explain that first impressions weren't everything.
But before he could even start explaining, the village chief's voice was already sharp and ready.
The chief had decided to at least try talking, but he couldn't help being pissed off.
"Are you kidding me right now?"
"It's not a joke... though I guess it might look that way."
"The letter clearly said mercenary group, didn't it?"
"We are the Aslan Mercenary Group."
"Usually you don't call five people a 'group.'"
"We figured we'd grow, so we went ahead and used the name."
"This is fraud...!"
"Fraud only applies when there's financial damage. I don't remember getting any advance payment. Did you give us any?"
"Ha, fine, let's say it's not fraud. But this doesn't seem right. What are you going to do with just five people?"
"What's wrong with it? The numbers?"
"That's part of it, sure. But one-armed, one-eyed, a barbarian, and some girl? Plus that woman is..."
"Let's not go there."
"Fine by me. I don't want to talk about that either."
When Aslan gave him a sharp look, the chief shut his mouth. But that only kept him quiet for a moment.
"And are you even a mercenary? No matter how I look at it, you'd be better suited as an... no, as an actor..."
"Unfortunately, I'm not an actor but the leader of a mercenary group."
"Saying you're the leader makes it even harder to believe."
"I know. I look way too normal for a mercenary."
"And you're young too. How old are you?"
"Old enough."
"I don't know if you read the request properly... but the bandits we need to deal with aren't three—there are over thirty of them. I may just be someone who farms and makes a living in this village, but this isn't right.
Even I know that a few can't beat many.
At minimum, you should've brought at least half their numbers, right? Hell, at least a third!"
"You're definitely right about the head count not matching up."
"I want to make it clear that I'm not reacting this way because your group composition is weird."
"Yes. I won't misunderstand that either. But since we're here, there's a process to follow, right? Let's start by confirming the request details.
Advance payment: two gold coins. Three more after the job's done. Total of five gold coins for the request. The job is to eliminate the Stern Bandit Group operating near the village. Is that right?"
"That's right."
"You made the request half a year ago."
"I did."
"But no mercenary group has accepted the request this whole time."
"That's right too."
"Do you know why?"
"How would I know? The mercenary world..."
"The reason is simple. It's because there's no money in it."
"I heard five gold coins was a fair amount for a bandit elimination request?"
"That's for requests near the Empire. Out here in the middle of nowhere, it's a different story. It took ten days just to get here from Clarion. Actually, we started from Airs, but anyway, that's not the important part...
We got delayed even more because we couldn't ride horses over the rough mountain paths. So think about it. If we brought the numbers you mentioned, would there be anything left over? Or not?"
"There might not be anything left..."
"There wouldn't be. That's why we came."
"..."
It felt like he'd succeeded in erasing the bad first impression. The village chief's expression looked better than before. You could say he was showing signs of being willing to talk.
Still, he couldn't let his guard down.
It was like the chief had just barely sat down at the negotiating table.
"Right. You must've had a hard time coming all this way. But I think it'd be better to cancel the request. I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest by messing around half-heartedly. Stern is a real nasty piece of work. If he finds out we hired a mercenary group, some villagers are going to die. And the first one to go will be me!"
The village chief shouted, even making a throat-slitting gesture.
"You're pretty impatient. You should hear the whole story. And we're scared for our lives too. If things go wrong, wouldn't our heads get chopped off before yours, chief?"
"?"
When Aslan smoothly countered, the chief looked slightly surprised. He didn't miss that opportunity and quickly continued.
"I'm saying we didn't come here to die either."
"This conversation feels like it's going in circles. Didn't you just say with your own mouth that the numbers don't match up?"
"I said the numbers don't match up. I didn't say we couldn't handle it."
"Are you a former knight by any chance?"
"No."
"Oh! Then a wizard?"
"Not that either."
"Then... are you a veteran? Have you done jobs with this crew often?"
"To be honest, this would be our first request as mercenaries."
"This little shit! No... ha..."
The village chief's face turned red. A curse almost slipped out before going back in.
Still, Aslan didn't mind. If he wasn't confident he could handle it, he wouldn't have come all the way to this remote place.
"But we're from Airs."
"What?"
"I said we're Airs gladiator slaves."
"What's so great about mercenaries who used to be gladiators... Don't lots of people do that?"
"I said gladiator slaves, not gladiators. Gladiator slaves!"
"Gladiator slaves?"
"Yes. We're mercenaries who used to be gladiator slaves."
Then a different thought crossed the village chief's face. While there were many mercenaries who used to be gladiators, he'd never heard of mercenaries who used to be gladiator slaves.
"You mean slave gladiators who bought their freedom with their skills?"
"That's right."
The village chief's expression became complicated when he heard that. Of course it would. The chances of a gladiator slave living long enough to buy their freedom were extremely low.
The people who had beaten those extremely low odds were standing right in front of him.
When it seemed like the chief needed time to think, Aslan didn't rush him any further and stepped back slightly, turning to look at his group members.
For a mercenary group, they definitely looked pathetic.
But Aslan was confident.
Like he said, they were people who had crawled up from the very bottom.
Hadn't the village chief's attitude changed a lot just from hearing they were former gladiator slaves? That's how much weight the word "slave" carried in this world.
Aslan kept persuading the village chief, emphasizing that they were former gladiator slaves.
First request.
Small payment.
Like he'd said, even if they completed the request successfully, it was a case where there wouldn't be much profit. Even so, Aslan was determined to take on this request.
It was exactly the right kind of job for the Aslan Mercenary Group.
Bandit elimination.
Looking at the area overall, a lot became clear. Kurib Village wasn't very big. There weren't many neighboring villages either.
But the Stern Bandit Group operated by moving around this whole area.
That meant you could deduce that the Stern Bandit Group wasn't very large.
If they got too big, a place like Kurib Village wouldn't be enough to satisfy them.
Bandit groups didn't just run themselves. There were costs that came with the number of people.
So Aslan looked at the size of Kurib Village and deduced the scale of the Stern Bandit Group. And even their skill level.
Aslan added more explanations about the mercenary group to the village chief. The chief was already half-convinced by Aslan's smooth talking.
Aslan added even more explanation. He brought up past stories and gave concrete details about the mercenary group.
He briefly explained how they went from being gladiator slaves to free people.
Then he quietly looked again at his group members who were standing by.
He hadn't known them for very long.
But sometimes incidents are more important for building relationships than time spent together.
That's how it was with them.
"Let me introduce them properly. Starting with... Isaac. First, let me show you his mark."
He introduced his group members. The village chief was already leaning toward accepting.
Aslan was confident they could take the request and deal with the Stern Bandit Group.
As he introduced his members, memories of his time with them started coming back.
Memories of the day he first came to this world.