Silence stretched.
Bosu's hand lingered on his face for a moment longer before dropping to the desk. He didn't sigh. Didn't curse. Just nodded once, small and contained, as if acknowledging a bad line item in a ledger.
"…All right," he said quietly.
He straightened, posture shifting almost imperceptibly. Not cold. Not distant. Just professional.
"Let us just count the items you brought then."
Riven didn't answer immediately.
He hadn't expected a lot of care. But even so he'd have wished for a bit more of a reaction.
But then again.
He wasn't even sure if Yue Lin and Bosu knew each other besides their short collaboration as business partners.
Riven looked at the gathered poison sacs on the counter.
There were 22 total.
Wiping out the whole scorpion den had been very beneficial.
If he still had the ones they had gathered before the trials, it'd be even more, but Yue Lin's pouch had gotten lost at some unknown point during the trial.
Riven looked into his spatial ring again.
The poison sacs wasn't the only loot he'd gained from the scorpions.
Five lesser feral cores—thin, pale, their wind-aspected energy circling inside, lay in one corner of the ring
Next to them was one greater feral core, heavier than the rest, pressure folded tight within.
Unlike the stags golden cores, he hadn't used these yet.
With the increasingly low gains from the cores, he had a feeling that he'd get close to no improvements even if he used them at this point in time.
Still.
He wasn't ready to give them up yet.
It wouldn't hurt to find a quiet place in a bit to test them out.
He closed the ring without retrieving anything and shifted his attention back to the counter.
Bosu had finished his initial count by then, fingers hovering just above the last poison sac. He tapped the desk once, thoughtful.
"Twenty-two," he said. "That's… did you kill the whole lair or what?"
Riven nodded. "Yes."
For a moment, Bosu just stared at him.
When he'd sent them out, four sacs would've been a success. Six would've been impressive. Anything beyond that would've been luck.
Twenty-two wasn't luck.
"…I was already planning how to spin it if you came back with half that," Bosu muttered, rubbing his chin. His eyes flicked over Riven again, slower this time. Measuring. "You've improved."
Riven didn't respond.
Bosu exhaled softly and let the moment pass, the way merchants learned to do when faced with inconvenient truths. Then his posture shifted, attention snapping back to the counter—not as a friend, but as a broker.
"The guild pays eight points per venom sac for Gale Scorpions," he said, already doing the math. "Twenty-two sacs puts the mission's total at one hundred seventy-six points."
He paused.
"In that case," he said, "you don't need to turn all of these in."
Riven waited.
"Thirteen venom sacs," Bosu continued, "gets you to one hundred and four points. Enough to qualify for promotion without wasting resources."
He tapped the remaining sacs. "The other nine don't do much for your rank. Past that point, you need to clear missions of a higher difficulty to earn points."
Riven's gaze flicked to the second pile.
"And monetarily," Bosu went on, tone casual, "the guild pays two halfmoon coins per sac. It's not a lot."
He waved a hand dismissively. "But that's not where the real value is."
Bosu met Riven's eyes again, sharper now.
"You wiped out the lair. That means supply just collapsed. Poison sacs from Gale Scorpions are about to get rarer—especially ones this intact." He paused. "I can move these privately."
"How much?" Riven asked.
"Nine spirit stones," Bosu said without hesitation. "For the nine sacs."
Riven blinked once.
That was more than he could ever have wished for.
He didn't bother hiding how quickly he agreed. "Done."
For a brief moment, the thought crossed his mind—What if I sold more? He didn't really care about a guild promotion that much.
But Bosu raised a finger, as if reading his mind.
"Don't," he said mildly.
Riven stopped.
"I won't take more," Bosu continued. "Not because I can't sell them, but because I don't want to." He gestured vaguely toward the city beyond the shop. "Your mercenary rank matters more than squeezing every last stone out of this batch."
He separated the piles cleanly—thirteen sacs set aside for the guild, nine drawn toward himself.
"Higher rank means better missions," Bosu said. "Better missions mean stronger beasts. Stronger beasts mean materials that actually scale with your growth."
He glanced at Riven. "You don't want to be farming lesser ferals forever."
Riven exhaled slowly, the last trace of temptation fading.
"…Fair," he said.
Bosu smiled faintly—not his usual grin, but something satisfied. "Good."
He made a quick notation in his ledger, then reached beneath the desk and placed a small pouch on the counter. The faint clink inside told Riven everything he needed to know.
Bosu closed the ledger and looked up again. "Go turn the mission in. Make it official."
Riven nodded. "I will."
He turned toward the curtain.
"Ah—" Bosu added, almost as an afterthought. "One more thing."
Riven paused, hand resting against the fabric.
Bosu looked him over once, from head to toe, eyes lingering on the plain training set. His mouth twitched. "You should get some better clothes."
Riven frowned slightly. "These are fine."
"They're fine," Bosu agreed. "They're also cheap. People trust appearances more than they admit. Especially in cities."
Riven huffed quietly through his nose.
I just bought them.
But he didn't argue.
He knew Bosu wasn't wrong. The clothes were temporary—something to blend in, nothing more. With a spatial ring now, there was no reason not to stock up properly. Durable sets. Replacements. Something he wouldn't have to think about every time blood got involved.
"I'll handle it after the guild," Riven said.
"Good," Bosu replied.
Riven pushed the curtain aside and stepped out.
The bell chimed softly behind him.
Bosu didn't go back to his magnifying glass right away.
His gaze lingered on the empty space beyond the curtain—on where two figures had left before, not one. The desk felt a little larger than it had earlier. A little emptier.
After a moment, he reached for the ledger again.
Business didn't stop.
Even when people did.
>>>
Public Tree No. 1 was just as busy as he remembered.
Pink leaves drifted lazily through the air, catching light as they fell between layered walkways. The Mercenary Guild entrance remained unchanged—dark reinforced wood grown into the trunk, engraved rules catching lantern-glow, wind chimes murmuring softly as people passed beneath them.
Riven stepped inside alone.
The interior noise dulled immediately. Cooler air. Faint incense. The steady rhythm of an institution that did not care who you were, only what you brought.
He approached the central counter.
A woman in grey robes looked up as he stopped before her. Her hair was tied neatly back, expression composed, eyes sharp but tired. She held her brush at a precise angle, posture rigid in a way that suggested long hours and little patience for inefficiency.
"Mission turn-in?" she asked.
Riven nodded.
He recognized her.
Same voice. Same clipped cadence. Same faint crease between her brows, like paperwork was something to be survived rather than enjoyed.
Two months ago, he'd stood here with Yue Lin at his side.
Now he was alone.
"Gale Scorpion Monster Subjugation." He mentioned the missions contents before setting his bronze badge on the counter
Slowly he began placing the venom sacs down, one after another, pretending to take them from his pouch.
The first hit the wood with a dull thump.
Then the second.
By the fourth, the woman's brush slowed.
By the seventh, she stopped writing altogether.
Her eyes lifted—not to his face, but to the neatly arranged line of sacs. She counted once, then again, slower this time. Her brows drew together, that faint crease deepening.
"…Gale Scorpion venom," she said, almost to herself.
She glanced at the slate, then back at the counter.
This mission had been posted for weeks.
Most mercenaries came back with one sac. Two, if they were lucky. Gale Scorpions were strong and most annoyingly, when pressured, they burned through their poison fast—rendering the sacs brittle and useless.
Unless you completely crushed them in strength, it was impossible to get so many poison sacs.
Her gaze flicked up to Riven- Measuring.
She said nothing, only resumed counting, more carefully this time.
"Quantity: thirteen," she said.
The brush moved again.
"Eight points and two halfmoon coins per sac."
She finished the calculation and tilted the slate toward herself.
"…Bronze Rank. Zero prior points."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"One hundred and four points and 26 halfmoon coins awarded."
She slid the coins across the counter.
Then tapped the edge of the slate once, businesslike.
"You're now eligible for a promotion exam," she continued.
Her tone remained neutral, but there was a trace of something else beneath it—curiosity, perhaps.
"Would you like to take it?"