The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated

Afterwards, Leili dragged the unhappy looking Vivian upstairs.

They probably had a lot of stuff to talk about, right?

The people within the guild seemed to also have let out a sigh of relief after Leili had left, and the atmosphere returned to its previous lively state.

Diere, Lumia, and Melika stayed behind though, and they came before Shien who was looking in the direction that Leili and Vivian left in the whole time.

"Let's go."

Diere spoke calmly, and along with Lumia and Melika, left the guild.

Shien drew back his gaze and followed Diere and group as they left the hall of the guild.

When the whole group had left the guild and reached outside, Shien was called out to by someone.

"Um…"

Lumia spoke up to Shien with a timid attitude.

"Hm?"

Shine looked toward Lumia.

With Shien's attention on her, Lumia immediately shrank into herself. She seemed to scared to speak to Shien.

However, in the end, Lumia did end up gathering up her courage.

"This… This is for you!"

Lumia held something in her hands, shut her eyes tightly, and pushed it towards Shien.

With that timid and embarrassed look, Shien almost thought that this cute beastman girl was trying to confess to him via a love letter.

Unfortunately, what Lumia handed over to Shien wasn't a love letter, but a money pouch.

"This is?"

Shien didn't really understand.

"U-Um…"

Lumia stuttered over herself, but she couldn't say anything clearly, which could make anyone looking at the scene impatient.

It was Melika at the side who couldn't bear watching anymore, and after a slight hesitation, spoke up in Lumia's place.

"This is what guildmaster Leili handed over to us in secret," Melika spoke quietly, "I think, it should be what the guildmaster was planning on giving you."

"So that's how it is." Shien paused for half a moment, looked at that money pouch, and then had a realization, "So on the surface she removed possible criticism against us before everyone, but in reality, that guildmaster never seriously planned on having me take only a single gold from the reward, huh?"

That's the reason that Shien could think of.

And yet, he guessed wrong.

"That's not your share of the reward." Diere spoke in the same calm manner as always, "Based on that guildmaster's style, this is probably the support money she's giving you."

"Support money?" Shien didn't understand those words.

To the confused Shien, Melika once more spoke up to explain.

"Actually, guildmaster Leili had always been supporting newcomers." Melika spoke like so, "Because newcomers would often encounter problems due to outside circumstances. Like not being able to save up enough money for an initial set of equipment, or getting injured but not having money to buy magic potions to heal themselves. There are even some who ended up getting in over their heads during their adventurers and end up loosing their lives. Thus, after guildmaster Lieli rose to her rank, she had often sent in proposals to the capital's adventurer's guild for plans to support newcomers and help them break through their early period difficulties."

Diere had said it too: Leili was the same as Vivian, they're both very caring of newcomers.

For her then, just how does she care for newcomers? Shien had finally seen a glimpse of that.

Only…

"That proposal had never passed." Melika said regretfully, "Because, in that case, some people would end up becoming adventurers just for this newcomer's support, and when they get their hands on the money, they'd give up adventuring or purposefully fail their month's testing period. Rather than spending the money on adventuring, they'd save it to spend on themselves. It that happened, the guild would definitely end up taking a great deal of damages."

Therefore, such a thing isn't all that realistic, and there's no way it would pass.

Even if the one they support aren't probationary adventurers who just started their tests, but ones real newbies who just passed, just the support money by itself would be enough for the guild to end up spending a huge amount.

After all, the only condition for being an adventurer is to reach level 10. There are an enormous number of people in this world who can satisfy that requirement. Even if only one in a hundred could actually pass the adventurer's exam and become a proper adventurer, it would become a major burden on the guild to give all those people support money.

Thus, this matter could only be left undone.

"But guildmaster Leili still used her own ways to support newcomer. So long it's someone that the guildmaster has determined to have enough potential to become a great adventurer, the guildmaster will give out monetary support as a private individual." Melika said so to Shien, "This isn't really a secret among adventurers, so this should be the support money from the guildmaster."

Hearing that, it wasn't unexpected for Shien to be surprised.

"That guildmaster is actually doing stuff like that?"

Shien never would have imagined.

It was rather Diere who followed up.

"The real motivation of that guildmaster when she came down to the main hall was to see you." Diere calmly spoke, "Otherwise, even if she's the guildmaster and the lone daughter of high nobility, she still wouldn't interfere in someone else's party and mess with their internal reward splitting."

In the end, how to split the rewards is a matter for the adventurers of the party themselves.

Leili's motivation was for the sake of Shien and Vivian, but interfering in someone else's internal party matters, no matter how you put it, isn't very acceptable.

Shien did feel that he shouldn't have gotten so much of the reward, so he didn't particularly mind. However, if it was someone else, they'd probably be quite unhappy with that, right?

Never mind everything else, Vivian was showing a super unhappy expression even until the end, so she's probably interrogating Leili even now.

However, in reality, Leili didn't show up for the sake of stopping Vivian's division of the rewards.

"Even if the guildmaster understood Vivian quite well, she probably wouldn't have though that big sis Vivian would have publicly done the reward splitting in the main hall, right?"

Melika reminded them.

True enough.

When it comes to splitting the reward, it's not like it has to be done publicly in the main hall.

Vivian could very well left with the reward in hand along with the party, and then split it all in private. In that case, no one would know just how much Shien got, so naturally they wouldn't have any issues with it either.

Therefore…

"That lady guildmaster wasn't here at all for the sake of keeping me from getting too much of the reward and to prevent criticism. Rather, she was there to see if I needed support or not. However, she ended up happening to see Vivian give out the money in public, and she felt that there's a problem, so she ended up interfering?"

Shien understood now.

"It should be something like that." Diere nodded, "Also, from your actions and Vivian's own attitude, that guildmaster made the judgment that you're worth supporting, so she sneakily handed the money to Lumia for her to hand you."

"Y-yes!" Lumia stuttered out nervously, "P-please accept it!"

With those words, Lumia lowered her head and, once more acting like she's handing out a love letter, presented the money pouch to Shien with a blush.

Shien laughed slightly, and in the end he took the bag, opened it up, and took a look at the money inside.

That look ended up seriously giving Shien a scare.

"That much?"

The bag wil filled with gold coins. There were at least 100 inside.

"It should also include the portion that she took form you just now."

Diere told Shien the reason.

"Even so, that's way too much."

Shien wrinkled his brow.

A hundred gold. That's equivalent to 1 million coppers, which can be compared to several million in his previous life.

"Even if it's support, is it really alright giving a newbie that much money?"

Also, Shien had already decided on not taking to much of the rewards. If what's inside also included the amount that was taken, then Shien doesn't really want to accept it.

To that, Diere just spoke a single sentence.

"Just consider this the guildmaster's expectations for you, and then pay her back at a later time."

Those words made Shine fall to silence.

"Alright." Shien was quiet for a moment before replying, "I'll remember this favor."

Leili Latrard.

She's an interesting woman as expected.