The next day, the Lord had to face the Hound Mercenary Captain and his men who visited him. 

Of course, the Lord didn’t greet them by himself. 

Behind the Lord, who sat opposite the Mercenary Captain, were several Seers along with the Overseer, who could be said to be the Captain of the Seers.

‘Looking at their faces, it seems they’ve realised that this isn’t a common subjugation mission,’ 

Orc subjugation was one matter but an Orc Sorcerer was a matter of its own. Thus, the Lord, Chester, who hid his slyness, began to talk. 

“What brought you here today? If it’s about the subjugation, then I believe you should have already started,” 

When he glanced at the Hound Mercenaries, their expressions were desolate. 

“I have paid half the money in advance as well, that’s the problem?” 

When The Lord spoke with such shamelessness, the Mercenary Captain became angry, but he knew he had to solve this problem with words. 

“While we were working, we came across something unexpected,” 

“Unexpected?” The Lord scratched his chin, tilting his head curiously, 

“What is it then?” 

“There was something you didn’t tell us about,” 

“Won’t you talk clearly?” 

The Lord, raised his palms and shrugged, glancing to the Seers around him as though he was dumbfounded, 

“Was there anything I didn’t mention?” 

The Seers, who were of course, on the Lord’s side, did not intend to say any nonsense, instead they answered, 

“Was there such a thing? We are unaware of this,” 

The Lord, who nodded and looked back at the Hound Mercenaries for their reaction, then asked the Captain, 

“Did you find that there were more Orcs than you initially anticipated?” 

“That wasn’t the case, the number of Orcs doesn’t matter to us,” 

“Really? Siron,” 

The Lord called for one of the Seers. 

Overseer; Siron Mark. He was the Captain of all the Seers and the person incharge of all of the security of the territory. 

“Yes, my lord,” 

“Is there anything you didn’t tell me about?” 

“There was no such thing my Lord, I tend to include every detail of the estate onto my reports to the Lord,” 

The Overseer drew attention to the Mercenary Captain. 

“If it is the reputation of the Hound Mercenaries, then they should be enough to handle any number of Orcs, I’m sure there wouldn’t have been any problems.”

He continued, 

“The Hound Mercenaries wouldn’t have come all the way here just because of the number of Orcs, so it’s surprising to me as well – I don’t know why they would have come searching for you,my lord,” 

The Mercenary Captain, Carl, was starting to become uncomfortable with them taking off and talking on their own, but tried to calm down because there would be nothing good about becoming estranged with Lord at this stage. 

“There was an Orc Sorcerer, we confirmed this ourselves,” 

“Orc Sorcerer?” 

As if they had only just understood why they had come to see him, the Lord and his men began to pour out their reactions as the Mercenary Captain wanted. 

“The Orcs have a sorcerer – if it’s a Sorcerer, wouldn’t that be like a Mage among the orcs?” 

“Yes, that’s right. If it’s a mage, it’s definitely…. A problem,” 

The Mercenary Captain schooled his expression into something more gentle even in the face of such disgustingly obvious acting and directly said to the Lord, 

“So I came back to you because the Unit Price for the job is not right,” 

“The unit price doesn’t match the job?” 

“Yes, of course, the job we took was a simple Orc Subjugation and there was no mention of an Orc Sorcerer in the job we were hired for,”

“Hmm…”

The Lord was in a position where he was aware that without a  mage, to subjugate an orc tribe that had an orc sorcerer was unreasonable. However the reason  he had called the Hound Mercenaries specifically was because he thought they would still be able to handle the work appropriately somehow.

If they had originally put out the job and asked for an orc subjugation with the orc sorcerer included, then of course they could have brought in the appropriate forces but the amount they would have demanded in terms of pay would have been considerably high. 

“Well, this has become a rather flustering situation, we would have never thought that there would be an orc sorcerer there – right?” 

“Yes, my lord, I had no idea that there would be sorcerers among the group that I thought were simply orcs,” 

“Yes as you can see, we had no idea about this,” 

Carl replied with crumpled look, 

“Yes well, it’s good that you’ve found out about it even know,” 

“Well, is there nothing you can do without your own power?” The Lord asked, 

He was truly shameless. As if he didn’t know. 

“There’s an Orc Sorcerer, so we can’t do it with our own power alone. As you know, Sorcerers can’t be touched with normal weapons as I think we will need to bring in a mage to fight against the orcs. And the additional costs of hiring the mage must be covered by the Lord,” 

That was when the Lord’s expression changed, 

“And if I said no?” 

“Then we will take as there was no request for subjugation this time,”

“Hm, in that case there might be an issue due to the penalty that comes with cancelling the contract,” 

This time, it was the mercenary captain’s expression that became brutal. 

“Territory Lord, are you planning on going to war against us? If you keep asking for things outside of common sense, we will have no choice but to retaliate accordingly,” 

The lord burst into laughter. 

“Hahaha, I was just kidding. Why are you staring at someone so murderously over a joke? If the wrong person saw it, they would think our relationship was very bad – isn’t that so? Carl?”

“We are people who don’t really like jokes,” 

For a moment, the smile disappeared from the Lord’s face,

“That’s enough, I’ll stop joking and as you said, I’ll pay for the additional cost of hiring a wizard. So don’t worry too much and complete the given mission well. These days, it’s chaotic in the land because of the orcs – the headache they give me might kill me,” 

While it was true that he was annoyed, but as long as the Lord paid for the extra cost of hiring a mage instead, Carl didn’t have any reason to argue with him anymore. 

‘Looking at him accepting it, it seems he had expected this much. Well, it’s true that if we went through the normal method then the overall cost would have been much more,’

“Then that’s alright,” Carl nodded, 

A pen and a promissory note that the Lord seemed to have prepared in advance were taken out and placed on the table. 

“Alright, how much do you need, there must have been an amount that you had in mind?” 

Looking at the scrap of paper he took out, Carl frowned again, 

“My lord, you’re not thinking of paying with that are you?” 

The lord, who had been writing, paused his pen and looked up at Carl, 

“Is there a problem? I don’t have the coins right now, so I’ll write you a promissory note instead,” 

“Mages are paid in advance. And we too prefer visible gold coins to the scraps of a paper that the Lord gives,” 

The lord, who tried to settle the matter with the promissory note, had a bitter expression on his face. 

“It’s not like I’m going to be ruined anytime soon and I have a steady income so what seems to be the problem? With this promissory note, you can get gold coins from me anytime once I write it for you,”