Chapter 2-33 : Epilogue of Arc 2
It’s been a week since Yok Baal left this village, and I’m finally done dealing with the aftermath.
Now, I’m enjoying afternoon tea with Lorea-chan, Iris-san and Kate-san.
By the way, Master sent me the tea along with cookies made by Maria-san. Lorea-chan and the others are really happy with the cookies.
「Ahh~ We can finally relax now.」(Sarasa)
「You’re right~ But Sarasa-san…」(Lorea)
「Hm?」(Sarasa)
「Are you okay? You’ve been very busy lately. First, you saved this village from the Hellfire Grizzlies’ attack, and then you had to deal with an evil merchant.」(Lorea)
「I’m okay, don’t worry, but… Hahh… I wish I could do my job as an alchemist here a bit more casually.」(Sarasa)
When I sighed, Iris-san took another piece of the cookies, put it in her mouth and smiled at me.
「But I think you did a great job dealing with that merchant.」(Iris)
「Well, it’s because the three of you encouraged me to confront him.」(Sarasa)
「True, but you don’t regret it, right?」(Iris)
「Not at all, of course. Besides, I made quite a profit from it.」(Sarasa)
「”Quite a lot”, huh? Store Owner-san, you mean a “huuuge profit”, right?」(Kate)
Kate-san smirked at me as she said that. She’s really sharp.
Actually, there are two ways to sell Ice Fang Bats’ fangs.
The first one is, of course, selling them as raw alchemy materials. You don’t have to do anything with the fangs in this case.
The second one is turning them into magic stones. However, this method is not very efficient.
In order to turn Ice Fang Bats’ fangs into magic stones, you need to melt them to remove their “cooling” feature first. It’s like when you melt ice in order to make water. Of course, the process costs you money, effort and time.
That’s why selling the fangs as they are is probably the best way, but the problem is you can’t sell Ice Fang Bats’ fangs if no one wants to buy them. Everyone needs magic stones to make artifacts but not everyone needs Ice Fang Bats’ fangs. Therefore, even though turning the fangs into magic stones costs you money, at least the demand for magic stones is higher than the demand for Ice Fang Bats’ fangs.
Luckily for me, I have a reliable master.
After I told Master what happened, she agreed to help me sell all the Ice Fang Bats’ fangs that I bought super cheaply from Yok Baal. She told me that there was a city a bit far away from the royal capital that needed a lot of Ice Fang Bats’ fangs. I bet the weather in that city is very hot.
I accepted Master’s kind offer and sent her the Ice Fang Bats’ fangs along with the frozen fruits we got from the cave the other day, and a few days later, Mater sent me a huge amount of money in return. In addition, she also sent me several bottles of expensive alcohol and Maria-san’s cookies.
I gave the alcohol to Andre-san and the others, who came this morning, in exchange for their frozen fruits. They looked so excited at that time. They immediately went home after receiving the alcohol in a hurry. It seemed like they couldn’t wait to drink it.
「Heeー Sarasa-san, so you are quite wealthy right now.」(Lorea)
「Well… I can’t deny it.」(Sarasa)
Honestly, I was surprised when I saw the amount of money Master sent me. I had never seen that large amount of money before.
「Not only did you deal with that merchant, but you also made quite a fortune out of it. You’re truly a scary person…」(Iris)
「Umm… Is that a compliment?」(Sarasa)
「So, what are you gonna do with that money?」(Kate)
「Because I’m an alchemist, I’m going to buy various materials with that money, but actually, I’ve already spent most of the money on other things.」(Sarasa)
「Eh? What did you spend it for?」(Kate)
「First, I lent some to Diral-san. You see, there’s currently construction work going on right next to Diral-san’s inn, right? They’re going to enlarge the inn.」(Sarasa)
「Ah, so that’s why Geberg ojii-san and his men are currently working on Diral-san’s inn.」(Lorea)
「Wait a minute… So all the funds came from your wallet!?」(Iris)
「Yeah, but Diral-san said she would pay me back little by little. It’s for the sake of the veteran Collectors who helped me with this matter.」(Sarasa)
「I see… Come to think of it, Diral-san’s inn is too small to hold all the Collectors who are currently staying in this village.」(Iris)
The rooms in the inn were all full, and there seemed to be quite a lot of Collectors who were in trouble because they couldn’t even enter the dining hall.
Actually, I was planning to pay for the construction cost completely, but Diral-san insisted on telling me that she would pay back my money even though it would take a long time.
Therefore, I decided to just lend the money without interest. I told Diral-san to return the money little by little whenever she made a profit from the newly built building.
「Other than that, I spent the money to help the alchemists who were suffering because of Yok Baal.」(Sarasa)
It was difficult for me to do it alone, so Leonora-san helped me with this since she also made a lot of profit from this matter.
In the end, Yok Baal didn’t get killed by the criminal group thanks to Leonora-san. Honestly, I’m not happy with that, but we need him to locate those alchemists.
Before Yok Baal came to see the criminal groups that he had debt with, Leonora-san bought all Yok Baal’s bonds in order to free the alchemists, who suffered because of him, from their debts.
Because of that, Yok Baal no longer has money or assets left, but at least he didn’t get killed.
By the way, when Leonora-san and Filione-san came back from the negotiation, Leonora-san looked somewhat dissatisfied. She seemed to seriously want Yok Baal dead…
「I see… That means, you don’t have that much money in this store anymore, right? That’s a relief…」(Lorea)
For some reason, Lorea-chan sighed in relief.
「Lorea-chan, you don’t like it if I have a lot of money?」(Sarasa)
「Ah, I’m sorry, that’s not what I mean… It’s just… Handling a lot of money in this store makes me nervous…」(Lorea)
「Ahaha. Lorea-chan, you don’t need to think so exaggeratedly about money.」(Sarasa)
「I know, but I can’t help it!」(Lorea)
「Don’t worry. I’m sure you will eventually get used to it.」(Sarasa)
「I hope so…」(Lorea)
「But Store Owner-san, you’re too kind. It’s not that I don’t feel sorry for those alchemists, but I don’t think you need to help them with your own money.」(Kate)
「Well, I’m a novice alchemist just like them, so I can’t help but feel sympathy for them.」(Sarasa)
I was a bit shocked when I found out that the number of alchemists who were tricked by Yok Baal was way more than I expected, but even so, I couldn’t just ignore them all.
「But even though they are still novices, they are older than you, right?」(Kate)
「Yeah, most of them are older than meーno, I think they are even older than you and Iris-san. After all, they already have a store.」(Sarasa)
I, who opened a store right after graduating, am an exception.
Normally, it takes several years for you to train and save money before you can open a store.
「I spent a lot of money to save them, but I don’t regret it. In fact, now I have a lot of connections because of it, and the best part is that they are all “people who are indebted to me”. Fufufu~」(Sarasa)
「Aa! Sarasa-san is smirking like a villain again!」(Lorea)
「Don’t worry, Lorea. That’s not an evil smirk.」(Iris)
「She’s right. It’s Store Owner-san we’re talking about. I don’t think she is thinking of doing bad things to those alchemists, right?」(Kate)
Iris-san and Kate-san smiled bitterly at me for some reason.
「I’m not Yok Baal, okay? I’m just thinking of asking them for help when I’m in trouble like this time.」(Sarasa)
「I see. But do you really need their help? You have a reliable master, right?」(Iris)
「Yeah, but I think it’s best if I know a lot of people I can rely on besides my master and Leonora-san.」(Sarasa)
「Ah, I can’t argue with that. But, are they good people?」(Iris)
「Yes, they are. Leonora-san and I have freed them from debt with Yok Baal, but they still want to pay our money back. Of course, they can take as much time as they need to pay off the debt.」(Sarasa)
「I see. Certainly, they are good people.」(Iris)
「By the way, how much interest will you charge them?」(Kate)
「Leonora-san and I haven’t thought about it for now, but of course we won’t charge them a crazy amount like Yok Baal did. Honestly, I’m fine if they don’t want to pay my money back though.」(Sarasa)
「Fufu. Sarasa-san, you’re kind as usual.」(Lorea)
Lorea-chan’s dazzling smile made me a bit embarrassed.
I looked sideways and sipped my tea to hide my face.
now this was wonderfully handled. first they actually ACKNOWLEDGED the fact that Yok Baal would be a problem being left alive but they also counter that by using NOT A MORAL HIGHGROUND argument but instead an LOGICAL argument that he still had use being alive. this is what i want more of not all these bullcrap moral highground arguments equating killing a murderer or bandit to being on the same level as them. because more often than not, the one they are killing is made out to be the WORST of scum possible with no redeeming features whatsoever. so NOT killing them will just cause cause MORE suffering and death as they continue on their merry way doing god knows what to more innocent people. sigh i am just so tired of that trope that i feel SO overjoyed at some actual THOUGHT being put into the character’s actions rather than just pandering to morals that make no sense in the context of the situation. my apologies for the small rant but i really enjoyed this chapter.
There are a lot of good logical reasons to avoid killing people. They can sometimes be complex and difficult to explain so people often fall back on morality as a sort of abstraction of that logic, either because they don’t have time to lay out the case against killing or they haven’t fully thought through the issue themselves.
Just a few reasons:
– You may sometimes kill innocents due to mistaken identity or framing.
– Killing inevitably punishes innocent people by bringing grief and misery to the friends and family of the person you killed.
– Those people may seek revenge or spark social unrest causing more problems in the long term.
– No one person can be a reliable judge of who deserves to be killed.
– People sometimes do bad things only because they don’t think they have any choice. E.g. there are certain authoritarian governments in the world that love to coerce people by threatening their families. Cold-bloodedly killing an unwilling participant in a crime probably makes you a murderer.
– Killing “bad people” erodes the social taboo against violence leading to higher rates of murder.
It’s not unreasonable for fantasy characters to take a moral stand against killing when the ethical problems and consequences are so wide-ranging and murky.
But don’t forget the reverse side of the scales.
1- When the punishment is seen as lesser than the crime, it becomes “profitable” to trade time for someone’s life, so you’ll get a spike in murders.
2- When people see the unevenness between the punishment and the crime, accusations of the system punishing the innocent and protecting the guilty come about. This in turn feeds into distrust of the government and pushes the country closer to unrest and revolution since “they can’t trust the government”.
3- Murderers tend to be recividists, it means that even after they have done time, very often they’ll get out and murder again. Very often, killers have a prior record and multiple murders under their belt. This means that they really don’t fear the law at all.
As for your last point, I disagree. Killing bad people does not encourage murder, it encourages mob violence which ironically is rarer than murders so overall, society actually benefits from less deaths due to the lower frequency of mob violence.
Bah. The comments about killing these scum are total nonsense. Kill them! It’s the LOGICAL thing to do. Otherwise they will harm even more innocent people. In China or over here, if you do anything funny like this, you’re in big trouble. Especially in China, because China doesn’t tolerate people who harm the public. Which is correct and logical. You need to kill the weeds properly before they can grow and spread. Anyone who thinks otherwise is buying into all those nonsensical ideologies that only serve to make crime and injustice spread and propagate throughout the world.