Steve was still indebted to the system, in a very literal sense. He owed fifteen points to it, and as far as he understood, there was no easy way to pay her back. He either had to wait to be handed super-specific tasks from the system's side, or he could go out and kill things in exchange for points. He was told that the latter was the easiest way to get his hands on a lot of points, but he didn't feel good about randomly killing things with his own hands, he felt weird about that even in these barbaric lands!
At best, he could have other people do the killing for him, but that didn't really get him any points, because the system was clear that he personally had to do the killing. The latter was cruel, but it was how things worked.
The system did give him a few new tasks throughout the week, however, three of them to be exact, and he was excited about them, but it wasn't easy to complete them. They were very specific tasks, and were related to the issues at hand.
She offered, [If you manage to hire ten people in total, regardless of what their services are, you will get rewarded with 100 system points. Though expensive gold-wise, this still may be the easiest task for you, and it'll get you out of debt, point-wise.]
Furthermore, she offered. [Now regarding Dandy Andy, there's a couple of ways you can go around this issue, you have two options. You can either kill him, or spare him. If you manage to kill Dandy Andy, you will receive a reward of 1,200 system points, but if you spare him, you'll receive 1,800 hundred points! Either reward is great for you, because either option is quite difficult to achieve, and or live with.]
"Spare Dandy Andy for a few extra points?" He asked, "That sounds pretty stupid. Why would I spare a guy who would actively try to kill me, especially after I strip him off of all of his gold?"
[It is up to you,] She said, [I wish you good luck, and I hope the country of Firestone doesn't break your spirits anytime soon!]
Steve didn't know how to feel about these options, but they were good options nonetheless. With that amount of points, he was certain that he'd buy a fair amount of upgrades from the system easily, and with such upgrades implemented into his person, he may not need as many bodyguards in the future, because he'd be a true force to be reckoned with himself! It was worth the headache to think everything over.
…
About two days later, Steve convinced his hired wizard to share some of his arcane secrets! Well, they weren't exactly secrets, it was just that Steve was so new to this world, that he didn't even know about the basic fundamentals of magic, he was clueless.
Alik the mage taught him a couple of things. He didn't teach him any new abilities, but rather, he just helped Steve upgrade the power that he already had, particularly, the flaming fingers magical ability!
There was an easy way to upgrade it, from level one to level two to be exact, as there was a book about it, but Alik taught him a couple of shortcuts too, being the prodigy that he was. The book was very accessible, it was sometimes sold in the average shop, and it covered a lot of things about the types of destructive magic!
Alik taught him that if one channeled their mana on to their palm, without releasing it to use the flaming fingers ability for example, then that mana would be poured on the ability anyway, in a sense that it would seek to improve it. The mana would harden the ability, it would upgrade it. He tried this a few times, and managed to upgrade the flaming fingers ability into what the book considered level two!
"I can't wait to try this on some dumb bastard," He thought, though so far he had only tried using this upgraded power against the stone wall.
From the looks of it, it was really effective. Upon impact, the flaming fingers accelerated into this small, foot-wide fireball, it was intense, and if he was to slap someone like this, then he may surely melt their face off! This power had become very useful over the course of a day, and he couldn't be happier about it, because he was ready to face his enemies even if he had to face them by himself!
Anyway, considering how useful it was, Steve decided to hold onto this book for a while, because even though the rest of its contents were really perplexing guides, the knowledge was still free for him to absorb at any given time! He couldn't solely depend on the system for magic-oriented upgrades, or new powers, because that may stunt any kind of progress that he could make. He had to make use of both things!
…
Right the next day, Steve hired two more women, because of the overall motives that he had built up. They were the sneaky type, petite, so he figured that he could use them to infiltrate the enemy without risking much of anything. They were quite good with their daggers, so they'd be useful in battle as well. Each of these sneaky women demanded a single, small gold bar a month, so it wasn't that they were too expensive either, they were worth the hire!
"Hah," He sighed, "If I hire one more, then I'll finally get a bunch of system points. It's becoming harder and harder to get points, so I hope that the few points that I'll get will give me something interesting."
Anyway, throughout these past couple of days, the rest of the scouts found a sort of inventory that belonged to the enemy, which wasn't as heavily guarded. It wasn't a treasury to be exact, no, but it was an armory, and although it wasn't worth as much in gold, it was still worth the hassle, because it would leave Dandy Andy's entire crew without any backup weapons! If Steve somehow captured or 'erased' this armory, then the enemy would be put into a state of panic, where they would beam through the city looking for more weapons to buy, they'd be a bit less organized!
This was a good way to disorient them, and since they counted only six guards in this armory, any sorts of attacks against them would be easy to achieve. Steve just had to pick the best one, he had to think it over, shortly, before potentially more guards showed up there!
"If we stole all of their weapons, we'd make quite a few gold bars, but that would be the hardest thing to do." Steve thought to himself, "My men would have to kill all of those six guards, and then carry all of their weapons out and through the city. I might get the whole neighborhood alarmed. It's not that easy to sell tens of swords either."
Although the 'authorities' in this part of the city were less active, he couldn't risk catching their attention. If he did, then he'd have to spend a lot of gold to corrupt them, or kill them in order to silence them! Either way, the situation would escalate beyond what was favorable, so he really had to think it through.
"Maybe I could corrupt the armory's guards…" He plotted.
Steve was in a deep, contemplative state no doubt, so deep in fact, that he was simply oblivious of his surroundings! Arleesa, the same woman that had kidnapped him a while ago, was looking at Steve through an Inn's window right now, and he was none the wiser, he didn't see her whatsoever!