Of course, I couldn’t just kill the guys. There was a chance their affiliation with the guild was real. Not everyone who joined a guild would necessarily be a good person. I could go report them to the guild, but I honestly didn’t really know what their policy was. For all I knew, what they did really was acceptable, as much as I didn’t believe it.

That meant that if it became an argument between me and them, they might be able to succeed through plausible deniability. They’d say something like I misunderstood them, and then they’d have evidence where I didn’t. At best, it’d be my word against theirs. At worst, they run to the guild and complain and they in turn act rashly before finding out the truth. Apologies were all good and fine, but I’d rather not be inconvenienced in the first place.

So, they tried to threaten me with taking Carmine away, expecting that to be scary for me. In some ways, it was like what happened between myself and Lydia. However, back then, I had the feeling that Figuro was doing his best and I genuinely did have strong feelings for Lydia. When it came to Carmine, the threat didn’t impassion me at all, despite their hope.

So, when they gave me a means of not paying, I decided to see what would happen. Naturally, I knew that they wouldn’t be able to take Carmine’s slave status away from me thanks to the curse. That required a bit more money than they had. I was seeing how much they knew, and that turned out to not be very much.

If they did take her and try to sell her, they’d find a roadblock. By the time they realized they’d been duped, I would already have consulted with the Loan Guild and reported their actions. It was a delaying tactic, but it didn’t turn out the way I expected. I thought they may actually take Carmine. She’d be gone for a few days, but she was a Paladin so I doubted she’d be hurt. Instead, the prospect of not getting any money and also being stuck with Carmine was more than they could handle.

“It’s okay… I’m not that attached to the slave, you can have her.” I told the little man.

“You…” He truly looked anguished. “Sir… we… we… we can’t take her!”

“Oh?” I finally stopped and looked back. “Then how will you square your debt away?”

“Geh… you…” He wiped the angry look off his face and tried to put on an ingratiating smile. “I can see you’re a man of wealth. How about we come up with some kind of agreement?”

“No thanks, take her away.”

“Master is so cruel…” Carmine cries.

“I’m not your Master anymore, please greet your new Masters…”

What did a man of wealth mean? Was he saying I’m stingy? The frown on my face that time was genuine.

“I don’t want her!” The man finally broke down. “J-just keep her!”

“Nope, she’s your problem!”

“You don’t get it! She’s blacklisted all across town! No one will buy her in Aberis! There is no way we can sell her at a profit! We won’t be able to sell her at all!

“Then you probably shouldn’t have loaned her money…” I shrugged.

Fear shot through his eyes as he glanced at the crying Paladin and realization shot through him. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t going to get paid anything. Rather, he was also going to be stuck with her. That was somehow worse!

“P-please, take her with you!” He begged.

“Nope. Do we need to take this before the guild to resolve it?”

His eyes flashed with even more panic. “N-no! It’s just… I can’t take her with me! Is there anything we can do so you take her with you today?”

I make a show of scratching my chin thoughtfully. “I suppose there is something I would take in exchange for her.”

“Wh-what is that?”

“I need about a hundred gold?”

“A hundred gold? That’s a ridiculous amount!”

“What are you saying? This girl here has nearly a 1000 gold debt on her. 100 gold is a 90% off sale! I’ll tell you what, because you guys seem nice, how about I sell it to you for 99 gold and 99 silver.”

“It’s 10 silver per gold… isn’t he charging him more?” Lydia whispers to Miki.

“Shhhh!” She shoots back.

“Going once… twice…”

“W-we’ll take it!” The short man cries out.