Chapter 151: The Colorful Stone Forest

Only after the room had been reduced to just himself and Veer did Graeme slowly speak.

“All right, Mr. Veer. Now that there are only the two of us, can you be honest with me? What exactly do you want from us?”

His gaze moved slowly over Veer. Though unhurried, it was meticulous, inch by inch, until at last it came to rest on Veer’s eyes and met his stare. Perhaps Graeme truly had no ulterior motive, but when that sharp gaze swept over him, Veer felt as though his body had been scraped from head to toe by blades. The sensation was deeply uncomfortable.

Graeme made no deliberate display of his strength before Veer. He did not perform any pointless gesture, such as releasing his powerful aura to suppress him or seize control of his body. Instead, he merely looked at Veer in silence, without the slightest hint of coercion. Yet those keen eyes gave Veer the impression of a vicious magical beast poised to strike, tightening every nerve in his body for no apparent reason.

In an instant, the atmosphere in the room grew heavy. Veer continued to gaze impassively at the view outside the window. After a while, he turned his head and gave Graeme a faint smile.

“Why ask that, Mr. Graeme? There is one thing I can assure you of: I am not a bad person. And look—in this place, I am the weakest of them all. Given my circumstances, what do you think I could possibly do?”

As he spoke, Veer spread his arms, using the gesture to support his words. Graeme merely shook his head.

“You say you are not a bad person. I can accept that. But I can also be certain of this: you are not someone who does meaningless things. I do not care what is going through your mind. I only want to know your true purpose. What do you stand to gain by helping Moon Slaughter? What is your ultimate objective?”

“That is a very typical mercenary way of thinking.”

Veer rose from his chair as he spoke.

“Accept the employer’s assignment, understand the contents of the task, and never concern yourself with what the employer actually intends to accomplish. The mercenary only needs to complete the job…”

“We are a mercenary group. That is precisely how mercenaries think!”

Graeme frowned slightly. Perhaps he had not yet realized that, at that moment, the positions of active and passive had quietly changed.

“But Moon Slaughter has already been marked by every major power in Mercenary City. Perhaps by those three S-rank mercenary groups? Perhaps by the Mercenary Guild? Or perhaps by the official forces of Como City? Oh, that’s right—by now, Moon Slaughter may even have been expelled from the Mercenary Guild!”

With each sentence, Veer took another step forward. By the time he finished speaking, he was standing before Graeme’s window, leaning over and looking down at him. A faint smile remained on his face throughout.

To be honest, Graeme was already beginning to feel angry. But after carefully recalling Veer’s words, that furious anger gradually faded. He looked at Veer and asked through clenched teeth, “What exactly do you want?”

“Oh, no. No, that is not what I want. It is what you want. Graeme, you must first determine what it is you truly desire!”

Veer was like a demon. Wearing a faint smile, he advanced step by step into the depths of Graeme’s heart, digging out his most genuine and desperate longing.

“I want my mercenary group! I want my mercenary group to enter Mercenary City openly and without fear! I want us to grow stronger until we can trample those so-called S-rank groups beneath our feet!”

Graeme shouted through clenched teeth. His eyes fixed fiercely upon Veer as he spoke each word with deliberate emphasis.

“If you can help me accomplish that, then show me something concrete and convince me. If you cannot, then get out!”

……………………………..

After leaving Graeme’s room, Veer suddenly felt that negotiating was truly exhausting. At least, it was when dealing with someone like Graeme.

Still…

Veer drew a deep breath, then lifted his head and smiled.

“At last, I’ve taken another step forward.”

That evening, Graeme gathered everyone in his room and began assigning tasks.

“Rodin, you and Pepero need to make a trip west. Here is a list of what we need. Buy the quantities specified and bring them back. As for anything that cannot be purchased, you will have to gather some local people and collect it from the forest.”

Graeme handed a notebook to Rodin. Rodin carefully flipped through several pages before looking up.

“Why is it all magical and medicinal plants? And this amount is going to cost a fortune, chief!”

“These things will naturally be useful once we have them. As for the money, you will have to ask Veer for it. He is our employer now, after all!”

The moment Graeme finished speaking, everyone’s eyes locked onto Veer.

Rosdy and Pepero wore strange expressions. They had no idea what had passed between Veer and Graeme in the room to bring about such a development. Rodin, however, was more concerned with practical matters. His only question was whether Veer actually had that much money. The quantities of plants listed in the notebook were astonishingly large.

“To be honest, I am not sure how much these things sell for in this region,” Veer said. “But ordinarily, they should not be too expensive, should they?”

Veer scratched his head, reached into his robes, and pulled out a large, bulging sack, which he handed to Rodin.

Good heavens! How had he managed to pull something that large from inside his robes?

The sack was several sizes larger than a porcupine’s head, and everyone stared at it in shock. But when Rodin took it from Veer and opened it, even this normally composed man cried out in astonishment.

The entire sack was filled with gold!

“My word! If this were melted down into coins, there would have to be at least thirty thousand!”

At Rodin’s exclamation, the others immediately craned their necks to look. Amid a chorus of startled cries, their expressions toward Veer gradually shifted from confusion to something far stranger—and considerably more suspicious.

“I say…”

Faced with everyone’s looks, Veer could only smile bitterly and appeal to Graeme for help. The man merely smiled before continuing.

“All right, that is the assignment for Rodin and Pepero. Next, Rosdy, your task is to take Veer to the Variegated Stone Forest.”