Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Negotiation

It had taken them no time at all to find the shacks of the leprechauns. There were no defenses around the makeshift village. The five were walking slowly, passing the welcoming arch before the village that read:

Fool's Gold Village.

 Population: 269.

"Those are quite a bit of leprechauns," Leander mused. This stank of misplacement.

"Probably refugees after a dungeon core took over their forest or whatever," Jean agreed. Many creatures were misplaced recently. Some took contracts with the dungeon cores which moved in their homes, but others were either deemed too weak or had their pride.

"Halt! Who goes there," the five looked down to see a small humanoid creature, dressed in green with a top hat, pointing a sharpened stick at them.

"We are the owners of these lands. We come to hear out your intentions," Dorian replied calmly. The leprechaun paled and lowered his spear.

"Oh, you need to go and meet up with the chief. We had no idea that the forest belonged to anyone. Our scouts told us that people lived in the farm house, yes, but no one came into the forest before," the little man turned around and walked in the direction of a big tree.

The surrounding village had cheaply built shacks, but it was clean. The shacks looked good enough to keep rain out of them, and children were playing happily in the streets.

"They are peaceful. Do we really need to kick them out?" Morris muttered. Low enough so that only his partners could hear him.

"They have griffins. What if they decide to expand to the farm and Atha is alone?" Jean asked. Yes, in an ideal world, peaceful mobs could well be left to live and let live. But their world was not ideal.

"The farm and forest are part of my dungeon. I can make them enter a contract with me. Then, they would need to protect Atha, rather than be a threat to him," Armaros suggested and his partners nodded. Yes, that all sounded better than them committing a genocide because of the possibility of the leprechauns turning violent.

"Follow me up," their guide said, then got in a tiny lift and pulled a rope. His lift began to move up.

The five began to climb up, with Leander being last in case he fell. There was a platform, like a hunting ledge, built in the middle of the tree's crown. They got on it and noticed that it was sturdy enough.

"Welcome. I hear our presence bothers you?" The beard on the leprechaun that spoke was impressive. It reached his toes and looked like freshly fallen snow.

"Hello, leprechaun chief. We are the owners of these lands. Your presence disturbs our two friends. The Naga Atha and the goblin Bog. We don't really want for you to leave. Rather, we offer you a dungeon contract," Dorian spoke as respectfully as he could. To avoid the carnage that hurt pride could bring about.

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"A dungeon contract? With him?" The chief pointed at Armaros, who waved.

"I will treat you well. Let you work in the fields and get food for your effort. We have ten acres next to the farm. And you are small and adorable, like hamsters. Hamsters don't eat a lot," the brows of the chief furrowed as Jean ran his hand over his face.

"What our resident dungeon core wants to say, is, that you can't expect to feed yourself from the forest alone. We can give you three acres to work for yourselves. In exchange, you will work the other seven for us and guard the farm and forest," Jean spoke, and the chief began to pace.

"A slave contract, that is what it is! We, the Quickfoot tribe, did not accept the other dungeon's proposal. Why shouldn't we sick in our griffins on you all?" The five shared a look and frowned.

"We are a C rank party," only because of Leander's rank. But, after the next battle evaluation, they might be B. "Most of us are B rank and more. You won't stand a chance. If you don't take the contract, move to another place. We won't suffer squatters."

The chief turned to glare at Dorian, not liking the tank's words.

"We have the right to a peaceful life," the aged being screamed, and the five blinked. "We are weak, yes. But that doesn't mean we don't have rights! Even if no one recognizes them, they are the same as your own!"

"Life isn't fair," Morris cut the leprechaun's rant just as he was about to speak further. "Take our offer or leave."

"With winter just around the corner, we can't leave," the chief looked at them pleadingly, but they were unmoved. "Fine. We will let you chain us. But we won't let you dictate our lives fully."

"And we don't want to do that, anyway," Armaros assured him. He was excited. This would be his first contract since Pumpkin the hamster trusted him to guard him from those nasty children who paid attention to him, only to be mean.

Poor Pumpkin. What was he doing now? Sitting in a cramped cage and thinking about what good time he had in the sewers, being a hero and protecting Huergaz from slimes.

The chief extended his small hand, and Armaros took out his dagger. He prickled the leprechaun's finger as gently as he could, and then licked the blood clean off the dagger.

Armaros felt the mana in him extend to the small being, and he smiled. Having things contracted to a dungeon core was like eating chocolate. It gave a pleasant, happy feeling.

"Sent some people with us, so we can introduce them to Atha, and they can set up a perimeter. We will hire some construction experts to build you defenses around the village, and watch towers and walls around the farm," Dorian informed the chief, who was staring at his hand mournfully.

"I will go down in the history of the Quickfoot tribe as the chief who knelt. What a joke, I can't even kneel anymore, and yet..." the five adventurers left the chief behind. They didn't understand the drama. Armaros would surely let the leprechauns go, if they asked him to.

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