Bandit Troubles

Two days till the tournament, and they needed to make a bunch of money and also win first place. Things were not off to a good start but they still had some time to make this work. The moment the next day started, the four of them left their inn and went on a quest spree. They split up into teams of two since they figured that it would be the most effective this way. Iris and Sirks were on the first team, leaving Kies and Wompa to be on the other team. Iris really wanted to be paired with Kies but he was very against the idea and so this was how it ended up.

To make things "fun," Iris thought it would be a good idea to have a contest with each other to see who would complete the most requests. Since it didn't hurt to have a little competition, Kies agreed to it. In fact, it could even make things better since it would encourage them to finish requests faster.

Their first request was to take care of a couple of thieves in the city. It wasn't the easiest one since the city was huge but the reward was really tempting. As for the other two, Kies had no idea what request they took first but it didn't concern him since they needed to focus on their own things.

"Should we get started? Kies asked Wompa. They were currently having breakfast at a table and he saw that Wompa just finished her meal. Wompa nodded and the two of them got up and left. They headed straight to the commissioner's house and knocked on the door. It opened and a very short man came out.

"Need something?" he asked the two in a gruff voice.

"We took your request," Kies pulled out the sheet of paper and showed it to the man.

"What!? You two are mercenaries? Aren't you two too young for that? You don't look any older than my daughter!"

"It's true." To prove it, Kies reached into his pocket and pulled out his mercenary identification. He made sure to put his thumb over the registration date so that the man didn't know that they only just became mercenaries yesterday.

"..."

The man stared at Kies and Wompa in disbelief. "I- What-" The man didn't know what to say and it took him a minute to finally say something to Kies and Wompa. "Go back," he told them.

"Why?"

"Cause I don't want you two getting killed! Did you read my request before taking it!?"

"Yes." It was written very clearly and in simple terms so that anyone would be able to read and understand it. He wanted to catch a couple of thieves. "You want us to find and catch some thieves, no?" Kies asked the man for confirmation. "This is what you wrote, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. But these are criminals you know! They kill! Let me say it again! They are not afraid of killing you! These are not some piety thieves who only know how to steal and are scared of fighting back if cornered. These are war-hardened criminals," the man explained to Kies and Wompa.

"I don't see what the problem is," Kies told the man. He expected the thieves to be something like this. What other kinds of thieves were there? They are in Otane after all. Everyone here knows how to fight and will fight to survive.

"You... How old are you?" the man asked Kies.

"I'm... in my twenties," Kies told the man. He is in his late twenties or maybe even over thirty at this point to be exact but he doubted that the man would believe him and it was easier to just say that he was in his twenties. It was still young, but it was also old enough that people would listen to him.

"Twenties? And what about you?" he turned to Wompa.

"Twenties too," Kies answered the man. It was a lie. He didn't know how old Wompa is but he knew for a fact that she was younger than Iris which made her at most seventeen. It was not a good idea to tell the man that so he lied and told him that she was twenty as well. Wompa shot Kies a glance but didn't say anything.

"So both of you are in your twenties? Are you telling me the truth?"

"Yes," Kies said with a straight face.

The man's eyes switched between Kies and Wompa for a moment before scratching his head and saying, "F*ck! I really can't tell anymore with you young people. If I didn't know better, I would say that you both don't look a day older than sixteen. But I guess you're one of those lucky people that stay young no matter your age."

"I guess you can say that."

"Ugh, whatever. I guess you two can come in then," the man stood to the side and let the two into his house. Kies entered first followed by Wompa and then the man himself. He closed the door behind them and then slid past the two so that he could be at the front. He led them to a small living room and had the two sit down. "Wait here for a second. I need to get my things."

Kies and Wompa politely sat down and watched as the man left the room and went upstairs to get something. They heard some rummaging and the man came back down a minute later with some sheets of paper in his hands. He plopped it down on the table in front of Kies and Wompa and then sat down as well. He waved for Kies and Wompa to take a look at them.

Kies grabbed one of the papers and took a look at it. It had a picture of a scruffy-looking man and some words written underneath it. "Is this..."

"Yes, this is your target, or should I say your targets," the man pointed down at the table to show that there was more than one.

"How many of them are there?" Kies asked, too lazy to count them himself.

"There are ten. Exactly ten that I know of. There could be more but these are all the ones that I have info on."

"Isn't this a bit too many?" Kies asked. The request he put up made it sound like there was only a handful of them. Ten was a little bit much. This was something for a group of five or more mercenaries. It wasn't something that they can take on with just the two of them... if they were normal people that is. This mission sounded somewhat difficult but Kies had confidence that they could do this.

"Yes, it is," the short man agreed. "I put this out hoping for a mercenary group to accept. I didn't expect someone like you two to accept it."

"You did? But the reward is-"

"Yes, I know. You're going to tell me that it's just slightly above one person's pay right? Well, I don't have much money. This is all I can pay you. This is your last chance to back out from this. As you might know, two against ten isn't exactly a good idea."

"Yes, but we still have to do this."

"Suit yourself. Just don't say that I didn't warn you." The man went through the papers and picked one out and handed it to Kies.

"What is this?" Kies took a look at it and it seemed to be a map of the city with a bunch of

"All the locations where their base might be."

"What? But there are like... twenty different locations," Kies estimated the number of red circles on the map." This would take an entire week to check. Some of the locations were on the other side of the city.

"Yep. But don't worry. You don't need to search them all. Just the ones without cross-outs on them," he told them. Kies checked the map again and saw that most of them had tiny X's on them. "You only have three locations to check." The man showed them where the three locations are on the map. Together, they formed a triangle on the map and were very close to each other as well. It would only take them an hour to search all three spots.

"Wait, does that mean that you searched all the other places?" Kies asked, seeing how they have all been crossed out already.

"Yes. Well, not me, but rather my daughter checked them."

"Your daughter?"

"Yes. She's a guard and is in charge of the team responsible for taking care of these thieves."

"So is she the one who put up this request?"

"No, that would be me."

"Huh?"

"Some members of her team got injured dealing with these thieves and she refused to call off the mission, so I decided to hire some people to help her," the man explained.

"So we're replacements for your daughter's team?"

"Correct."

Just as he said that they heard the door open. "Hey pops, I'm back!" a voice shouted from the other room.

"Speak of the devil. She's here." The man turned in the direction of the voice and shouted, "I'm here! We have guests!"

"Oh, we do!?"

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