"Hey, kid! Absolutely not!"

Tie flinched at Bale’s shout.

Clutching the bracelet tightly, she blinked and asked,

"Why not...?"

"Even if being a mercenary means doing any job, letting a four year old do it is too much!"

Bale jumped in place, and Tie immediately drooped and fell silent.

But no matter how much she thought about it, she still could not understand why she could not erase the twins’ memories.

"But Tie must try the new power!"

She shouted this decisively, and Bale’s eyes widened even more.

"To test if it erases well or not, the best choice is the ruler’s sons! Then Tie will not have problems and everything will be solved!"

Basto quietly covered his forehead with his hand.

An unpleasant thought surfaced in his mind.

'...After all. It seems she has seen violence too often.'

He had already begun worrying during the fight on the ship.

Astie had seen far too many things a child should not see at such a young age.

Cutting down Magical Beasts was one thing, but that last scene with Kal must certainly have affected the child badly.

'That bastard is useless both in life and in death.'

Of course, Basto could not know that Tie herself had not thought about anything like that at all.

"Tie will still do it! They learned who Tie really is, so Tie must erase them!"

Tie snorted angrily and headed toward the door of the living room.

Bale hurried over and scooped her up in his arms.

"K kid, what happened to you? You were foolish but kind! What happened to you?!"

"Let go!"

"I will not! Absolutely not! I will not let you kill people at four years old—!"

After his heroic shout, silence fell over the room.

Then the mouth of the child, whose eyes had widened, slowly opened.

"W who is killing people...?"

Tie’s face had already turned pale with fear.

Bale froze for a moment, then blinked in confusion.

And hesitantly asked again,

"Kid... you just said you were going to erase someone."

Tie quickly pointed to the bracelet on her wrist.

"Tie wanted to erase the memory of the ruler’s sons. This is the Holy Relic of Oblivion. Tie found it in the Magic Stone..."

"What relic?"

At that moment Nordix stepped between them.

He walked right up to Tie and asked again in disbelief,

"What did you say, Astie? What relic did you find in «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» the Magic Stone?"

The rare expression on Nordix’s face made Tie stretch out her hand in confusion.

"Here... Holy Relic of Oblivion..."

Nordix’s eyes widened.

For several seconds he moved his lips silently, then turned his head toward Basto.

A short pause.

"Basto."

He said it almost in a whisper and added seriously,

"It seems... Astie found an artifact."

Tie sat quietly on the sofa and listened carefully to Nordix’s explanation.

"After the siege of a Magic Stone, the one who besieged it can receive two types of reward, Astie. Reward money and trophies."

"Tie knows! Mercenaries besiege Magic Stones and receive reward money!"

Ever since she arrived in this world, Tie had also tried to gather information.

She carefully listened to the conversations of the people around her and sometimes secretly found things out herself.

"If you report to the Reward Bureau that you besieged a Magic Stone, you can receive money!"

The Reward Bureau was a state institution located throughout the Empire.

More precisely, it paid mercenaries rewards for Magic Stones they had besieged.

Basto approvingly patted Tie on the head.

"Correct. There was one at the Gate too."

Tie nodded.

'Right, those people who work badly.'

At the Reward Bureau at the Gate, things were handled terribly.

They had registered the Magic Stone Basto besieged as if Kal had besieged it and even paid the reward to him.

'They did not even check properly. Strange people.'

If the grandmother from apartment 107 saw something like that, she would definitely shout that she paid taxes for nothing.

Fortunately, last night Basto recovered the stolen reward.

Since Kal had been devoured by a Magical Beast, Lecar became the leader of Des Hound.

For some reason Lecar was terribly afraid of Basto and paid back completely even the wages he had delayed before.

And when several treasure chests from the wrecked ship were added to that, Agavert’s financial situation instantly recovered.

'Now Tie is rich.'

Anyway.

"Then what are trophies?"

She already knew what reward money was. Now it was time to learn about trophies.

Nordix placed a bag on the table.

"This."

Tie peeked inside and opened her eyes wide.

The bag was full of Magical Beast cores that Agavert had collected all this time.

"A core is the most basic resource you can obtain by killing a Magical Beast. You know that the stronger the beast, the more valuable the core is, right?"

"Yes. They can be sold at the Reward Bureau!"

Cores were usually traded through the Reward Bureau.

They also served as proof when a mercenary confirmed the siege.

"The Magic Stone and the beasts it summons share similar energy. Therefore if you bring the core of a beast, the Bureau can determine which Magic Stone was besieged."

Tie nodded seriously, and Nordix added,

"By the way, we are collecting the cores because we plan to sell them all at once in the capital."

"To attract attention?"

"Yes."

Hmm, that made sense.

Selling cores little by little was one thing, but bringing an enormous pile at once looked far more impressive.

"Thanks to your abilities, Astie, Agavert’s reputation grows every day. If at such a moment we sell a massive number of Magic Stone cores at once, it will attract attention."

Tie swallowed.

She felt that she was getting one step closer to the title of the King of the Dead who hides her power.

"But sometimes."

At that moment Nordix lowered his voice.

"Sometimes the besiegers receive not Magical Beast cores, but a trophy."

His gaze stopped on the bracelet on Tie’s wrist.

"Something like the bracelet you are wearing. In other words an artifact."

"An artifact...?"

"Yes, an artifact."

Bale, who had been standing by the wall, stepped closer.

He sat down beside Tie and asked,

"Kid. Where did you get that? Did you come up with the name of the artifact yourself? And how did you know what it does?"

Tie looked a little embarrassed and hesitated before speaking.

"Well... the thing is..."

It seemed the time had come to talk about the spirit she met that morning.

"A spirit?"

Basto looked surprised. For him this was unusual.

Bale blinked in confusion as well.

"So... while you were sleeping, a spirit came to you?"

"Yes! With very long hair and eyes that were shining! A spirit princess!"

Basto, Bale, and Nordix exchanged glances.

"Maybe she means a ghost?"

"Seems likely."

Tie was a mage of dark magic.

Because of that she could see spirits that ordinary people could not notice.

Basto and Bale assumed the "spirit" she saw was simply a ghost.

But—

"No! A spirit princess! Not a subordinate, a spirit!"

Tie puffed out her cheeks and shook her head furiously.

"She is not like my subordinates on the sailing ship! My subordinates have black energy around them like this, but the princess was shining!"

"Shining?"

"Yes! And she had a name too. Seradin!"

Seradin...

Repeating that name, Nordix suddenly flinched and lifted his head.

He looked at Basto and Bale and said,

"Seradin is a local deity spoken about in legends around the Pearlcity region."