Chapter 23: Buying a Horse

The next morning, the first thing Wayne did when he opened his eyes was to open the quest system to check if the previous contract was completed.

The result was quite good. The system seemed quite humane in this regard. Although he handed over the follow-up of the quest to Geralt, Misha's missing person quest was already shown as completed.

He gained 45 experience points and an Expert-level treasure chest.

The rewards for Expert-level quests were generous; this was almost equivalent to the experience reward of 15 Common-level quests. He estimated that after this ruin exploration quest was completed, his Witcher level could be upgraded to level 6, and his strength would be improved slightly again.

Of course, Expert-level quests all had considerable difficulty.

For example, this missing person quest: if Wayne and Geralt had acted on their own and wanted to use tough means to take those two young men away, they would have had to clash with these more than a hundred non-humans, and a big battle would have been inevitable.

Instead of solving this matter by completing the contract for the elves like now.

This attempt also gave Wayne an interesting idea: did his quest system only care about the quest result, or did he have to participate and complete it himself?

Could he recruit a few apprentices and then let the apprentices work for him to complete quests, allowing him to reap the benefits? Of course, Wayne was currently just a novice Witcher who had just started, having neither connections nor wealth, so it was too early to talk about these things.

But when he had enough influence and strength in the future, he would definitely explore this aspect, develop the convenience of the system, and accelerate the speed at which he became stronger.

After dressing again, Wayne separated 800 Ducats from the money bag containing over 1,500 Ducats he had obtained last night, put them into another money bag, and hung it on his belt.

But the money bag was still too heavy and quite conspicuous, pulling his belt crooked directly, looking a bit strange.

He put on his coat, covered the money bag inside the large coat, bent down, and pushed open the tent curtain to look out. In the dim underground ruins, there were already figures of residents active in the camp opposite.

The slender Toruviel was sitting by the campfire, holding a square whetstone, sharpening an exquisite one-handed sword.

After last night's chat, the relationship between the two was no longer as strange as before.

Wayne was not socially anxious and had been quite popular during his student days. Although he couldn't be called a social butterfly, normal communication was not a problem at all.

With a smile on his face, he took the initiative to sit opposite Toruviel, met the female elf's eyes, and said directly: "Toruviel, I have a small favor, can you help me?"

The female elf's hand that was sharpening the blade paused. She looked up into Wayne's eyes and said: "What matter needs help, Wayne? If you don't speak clearly, I cannot promise rashly."

Wayne didn't stand on ceremony with her either and asked directly: "It's just a small matter."

"Do you have any extra horses here? I hope to buy one."

Toruviel pondered for two seconds, nodded, and said: "There are a few quite good horses. They were snatched from Kaedwen soldiers and are currently being grazed in the forest outside the cavern."

"If you really want one, I can let you have one."

"But right now, we are being hunted by Kaedwen soldiers, and coins are not of much use to us."

"Just treat it as part of the remuneration for exploring the ruins this time and offset it for you."

Wayne was surprised upon hearing this. According to what he learned from Geralt, a good horse for traveling was worth about 800 Ducats. In this era, it was considered a relatively precious thing. It seemed that Toruviel valued the ruin clearing contract this time quite highly, and the remuneration she was willing to pay was much more generous than those villagers.

However, he was not a man who liked to take advantage of others in terms of material things. Compared to getting a horse for free, he preferred to get the spoils in the elven ruins.

Wayne reached out and took down the huge money bag hanging on his belt, threw it in front of Toruviel with a bang, and said in a persuasive tone: "No, Toruviel, you need money more than you imagine."

"There are 800 Ducats here in total, which should be the market price for horses in human towns."

"As for the role of money, Toruviel, you underestimate them too much."

"Haven't you discovered it? In human society, money is almost omnipotent."

"It can allow you to buy supplies needed for survival in the city, allow you to buy weapons and equipment needed for combat, and allow you to bribe those city guards to rescue non-human kin in prison."

"As long as your wealth is powerful enough, you can even hire a mercenary legion to help you defeat the armies of other kingdoms on the frontal battlefield."

"Just like the Kingdom of Kovir back then, it was precisely because they possessed huge wealth that many kingdoms that wanted to conquer it returned in failure."

Toruviel listened without fully understanding. She looked at the huge money bag on the ground, considered for a few seconds, and still raised a question, saying:

"But those human merchants, city guards, or mercenary legions are simply not trustworthy."

"They might not only cheat us out of our coins but might even sell our whereabouts to the nobles."

"Many of our non-human kin here were sold out by their neighbors and friends."

"Humans are not worth trusting."

Regarding this problem, Wayne felt that Toruviel just had a narrow vision or an insufficiently open line of thinking. He reached out and took the whetstone from the elf's hand, drew the steel sword on his back, and sharpened it carefully by the campfire, saying:

"There are actually many methods for this situation, whether it is transporting them from countries that do not hate non-humans, finding a merchant worth trusting to help you prepare supplies, or simply controlling a puppet through threats and inducements, all are good methods."

"Moreover, aren't there sorcerers among the elves? You can entrust them to make a magic item that can cover up elven characteristics, and you can disguise yourselves as humans to sneak into towns to do things."

"There are many ways to accomplish a thing; it just depends on whether you have thought of it."

Looking at Toruviel's eyes, which had become a bit shiny, Wayne laughed and said: "During the time of clearing these ruins, I will be here. If you have any problems you can't decide on, I can help you refer to them."

The female elf leader smiled back at Wayne, stood up, pointed to the location of the cavern exit, and said: "Thank you, Wayne. During this time, I will ask you for advice a lot."

"I have accepted your money. Let's go outside together to see those horses. You can pick any one you want."

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 24 =====