Chapter 80: 46.1

Chapter 46-1: Negotiations (1)

By the time Larwood and Kaiba returned to the shore, they were already extremely unsteady on their feet and could only walk while leaning on each other for support. Chase had been lying on the beach this entire time, so he wasn't able to see the battle taking place over the sea very clearly. However, the smiles on Kaiba and Larwood's faces were enough to tell him that Talan was definitely well and truly dead.

Out of the four of them, Erwin's injuries were the lightest, and he returned to the battlefield in the east first.

"Sherry, send some people to carry Larwood and the others here from the shore," Erwin instructed.

The tense look on Sherry's face was replaced by a relieved expression at the sight of Erwin's safe return, and he selected a few strong mercenaries to be sent to Larwood and the others.

After that, Erwin snapped his fingers toward the airship up above, then called out, "Christine, didn't you say you want to make these people pay for what they did to you? Now's the time to come down here."

Upon hearing what Erwin had to say, Lanyon immediately realized that they weren't just going to let these Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries off the hook. Thus, he grabbed hold of Christine and descended with her from the airship.

At this point, Luphen had also returned to the shore with only half his face remaining, and he immediately rushed over to Erwin upon seeing the confrontation taking place on the battlefield.

"Hold on now, let'th not get ahead of ourthelves here," he hurriedly said. "I already arrived at an agreement with your commander, tho why are you doing thith now?"

After that, Luphen made his way over to Erwin's side, then said in a quiet voice, "Your commander already agreed to let my merthenary legion go at the prithe of 30,000 Loonieht. Oh, and you can take all of the thpoilth from that merthenary legion that wath jutht wiped out ath well."

Erwin was quite surprised to see that even though Luphen was missing half his face, it wasn't affecting his speech in the slightest.

"I see, so you're offering us 30,000 Loonies." Erwin nodded in response, then beckoned toward the little girl beside Lanyon. "Come over here, Chrstine. He's asking me to let them go in exchange for 30,000 Loonies. What do you think of that?"

"He doesn't have any Loonies to give you! All of his Loonies were taken from us!" Christine said in a furious voice as she pointed an accusatory finger at Luphen.

Luphen's heart immediately sank at the sight of Christine. He wasn't aware that she had been rescued, and he knew that her presence was definitely going to make the situation a lot more complicated. With that in mind, a concerned look appeared on his face.

Someone from the Heavenly Star mercenary legion had noticed the wound on Luphen's face, and they brought a medicine box over to him. Luphen pulled out a large piece of gauze from the medicine box before pressing it onto his own cheek, wincing from the pain in the process. After the wound on his face was bandaged, he sat down onto the medicine box to see what Erwin and Christine were going to do next.

"What a joke! Do you not know how thith world workth. little girl? Tho what if we took thothe Loonieth from you? We took the Loonieth, tho the money ith ourth now," Luphen said in a shameless manner, but there wasn't really anything incorrect about what he was saying. "If you don't have the power to keep your money, then you can only blame yourthelf when your money getth taken. Thith airship uthed to be yourth, but I took it, tho it became mine. Now that they've taken the airship, it belongth to them now. Thith ith the nature of the law of thurvival of the fittetht."

Luphen couldn't help but be impressed by his own watertight logic. He felt like an orator giving a lecture on the laws of the world.

"You... You're just a shameless thief!" Christine said in an indignant voice. Perhaps she had the natural knack for being a good businesswoman in the future, but she was still too lacking in life experience to be able to deal with people like Luphen.

"You're right, survival of the fittest has always been a prevailing law of nature," Erwin agreed with a nod, following which a cold look appeared on his face. "In that case, let's not waste any time with words. Seeing as power is the decisive factor in everything, we should decide this with a battle."

"Sounds good to me!" Sherry immediately replied as he drew his sword and pointed it directly at the already exhausted mercenaries of the Heavenly Star mercenary legion. All of the martial artists behind him quickly adopted a suitable formation, preparing to engage the Heavenly Star mercenary legion in battle.

Lanyon immediately returned to the airship in the sky upon seeing this, preparing to instruct the magicians and archers on the airship to attack when required.

Christine was very frightened by this sudden escalation, and she hurriedly ducked behind Erwin for protection.

Given the current state of the Heavenly Star mercenary legion, this was the outcome that Luphen feared the most. It seemed that Erwin had no patience for words and was more than ready to start a fight. Luphen had thought that these Effer Kingdom mercenaries only wanted money, so he was waiting for Erwin to ask for a higher price, following which a process of negotiation would begin. Thus, the reason why he had put on such a high and mighty display was to try and intimidate Erwin into asking for a lower price than he otherwise would've.

However, to Luphen's complete surprise and bewilderment, Erwin didn't seem to be interested in negotiations at all. In fact, he seemed eager to find a reason to escalate the conflict. This had always been Erwin's style, and he knew that Luphen was completely at their mercy anyway, so there was very minimal risk involved here.

"If we win, then we get everything. In that case, what's the point in negotiating with you?" Erwin asked.

Larwood had been carried onto the battlefield a short while ago, and after hearing what Christine had to say, it became clear to him what type of person Luphen was. Prior to this, he was wondering why Luphen was so casual with his money, offering 10,000 Loonies from the get-go and even willing to accept a price of 30,000 Loonies. As it turned out, this wasn't even his money, so of course he wasn't as reluctant to part with it.

Larwood knew that when dealing with people like Luphen, intimidation tactics had to be used, so he allowed Erwin to do as he pleased.

Luphen was sitting on the medicine box in a cocky posture, but upon hearing what Erwin had to say, he was so frightened that he immediately sprang to his feet again. He was a seasoned commander who had led this mercenary legion for many years, and he knew better than anyone that his men were no longer fit for battle. If they were forced into battle against the Four Winds mercenary legion in their current state, defeat was almost a certain outcome.

Even if he managed to somehow escape with his life, his career as a mercenary legion commander would be as good as over. After all, reputation was something that was extremely important for all mercenary legion commanders. If he were to lose all of his men here and have his entire mercenary legion wiped out, no one would dare to follow him in the future.

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Just as Luphen was struggling to arrive at a decision, Larwood made his way over to Erwin. A glimmer of hope arose in Luphen's heart at the sight of Larwood, and he put on a fawning smile as he approached Larwood, then said, "My friend, didn't we already arrive at an agreement earlier? Pleathe thpeak to this magician friend of yourth. Why rethort to violenthe if bloodshed can be avoided?"

"Hmph, back when we were negotiating our agreement, you didn't tell me that you stole the airship and all your money from someone else," Larwood said with a cold expression. "You're using someone else's money to save your own life. How shameless can you be?"

Luphen's fawning smile immediately gave way to a hateful expression upon hearing this. "You Effer Kingdom pigth have no integrity!"

"Call us pigs one more time and I'll slice off the other side of your face as well!" Erwin said in a cold voice. Deep down, he truly despised Luphen, and he wanted to wipe out this entire mercenary legion. However, the fact that Larwood was getting involved meant that he clearly had a different stance on the matter. Through his actions, he was telling Erwin to avoid a battle unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

Christine poked her head out from behind Erwin and took a furtive glance at the cold look on his face.

"We've all sustained pretty severe injuries from our battle against Talan, so we can all sit out this battle. Let's see if my men are the ones who'll come out on top, or if your men still have the stamina to overcome my men." Larwood was making his thoughts very clear here. The commanders of both mercenary legions had suffered severe injuries, but the Four Winds mercenary legion was still fully fit and raring to go. Through this comparison, Larwood was warning Luphen to carefully contemplate his next move.

"Fine, I can give back all of the money I took from the girl," Luphen finally conceded, and even though his expression was extremely reluctant, he knew that this had to be done.

"How much did he steal from you in total?" Erwin asked as he turned to look at Christine.

"He took five chests of silver coins, which amounts to a total of 55,000 Loonies, one chest of precious jewels and gemstones, which is worth 12,000 Loonies, and our entire stock of cargo on the airship, which is valued at over 30,000 Loonies," Christine immediately replied.

Erwin couldn't help but draw a sharp breath upon hearing this, clearly not expecting to hear such large numbers, and everyone else's reaction was much the same.

"So if we add that all up, you took close to 100,000 Loonies from her," Erwin said as he turned back to face Luphen.

"Ptui! You can jutht go making up numberth as you pleathe! You might ath well tell him that I thtole 1,000,000 Loonieth from you!" Luphen said in a furious voice, almost opening up the wound on his cheek further in his urgency to protest.

"I have an accounts book here with detailed records of every single transaction, as well as records of how much money we have on hand," Christine said in an implacable voice, pulling out an accounts book from her breast pocket as she spoke. The accounts book had a sheepskin cover and was around three inches in size, and Christine handed it over to Erwin.

Erwin opened the accounts book and quickly skimmed over the entries recorded in it, then passed it to Larwood.

Luphen immediately deflated like a balloon upon seeing this, and he said, "It doethn't matter even if you have an accountth book. Even if I give you all of our remaining Loonieth, we don't have that much money."

"How many Loonies do you have left right now?" Erwin asked as he turned to look at Luphen.

"Leth than 50,000," Luphen replied. "All of the thtock hath already been thold, and all of the preciouth jewelth and gemthtones have been pawned. At the moment, we only have around 45,000 Loonieth left."

"You expect me to believe you?" Erwin's eyes narrowed slightly as he raised his hand, and Sherry and the rest of the Four Winds mercenary legion immediately began to prepare for battle again.

"But you have to believe me, I'm telling the truth..." Luphen said as he turned to Larwood with an imploring expression. In his eyes, Larwood seemed to be more open to negotiation than Erwin was.

"What do you think?" Erwin asked in a quiet voice as he turned to Larwood. "To be honest, I want to wipe out all of these Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries here?"

"We can definitely do that, but we're going to lose at least about 100 men in the process," Larwood replied in hushed tones. "Take a look at Haggardy. Does it look like a place where we can recruit mercenaries from? Think about it: if there are already Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries here, then Xeto in the northwest has to have either been conquered or surrounded. In that case, where are we going to recruit new mercenaries to replenish our troops? If we lose 100 men here, what are we going to do if we run into several Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries once we reach Xeto? We're already quite a small mercenary legion, we can't afford to suffer any losses."

After hearing what Larwood had to say, Erwin realized that his idea was lacking in foresight. In contrast with Larwood, he was still too self-centered and wasn't thinking for the benefit of the entire mercenary legion.

"Alright, hand over all of your remaining Loonies and get your men to leave their armor and weapons behind. After that, we'll let you go," Larwood said. 

"What? You want uth to hand over our armor and weaponth? That'th not poththible! I would rather die than do thomething tho shameful," Larwood replied in a determined voice.

"You'd rather die? Fine, then you can die here," Larwood said in a cold voice. "Do you think I can't tell that you're lying about only having 45,000 Loonies left? Don't confuse my kindness with weakness. There's a limit to my patience, and I suggest you don't test it any further. Either leave your armor and weapons behind and piss off, or prepare for battle. Do you understand?"

Luphen was naturally only bluffing. He didn't dare to even entertain the possibility of a battle, and Larwood was taking full advantage of this fact.

Earlier, Larwood had already noticed that the Heavenly Star mercenary legion was very well equipped. It was clear that a lot of the money they had stolen from Christine and her father had been used to purchase equipment for the mercenaries. The Loonies couldn't be taken as they had already been spent on equipment, but the equipment was certainly something that could be taken.

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