The two pouches that came out from Bu-rin’s arms were two in total. When I opened the pouches, the money inside was split evenly.

So, you kept some money aside to eat only half of it, huh?

As I glared at Bu-rin, he cleared his throat and turned his gaze away.

I’d deal with Bu-rin later, but for now, I began to tally the money for accuracy.

The other outcasts, in their first round of outcast life, suspected the intermediary was ripping them off, but with no concrete evidence, they could only express their discomfort, unable to press the issue. As a result, the intermediaries could simply lay low and ride it out.

However, I, Ho Cheon-an, had played the intermediary role a few times myself. So I had a rough idea of what standard rates for such requests should be and how costs might unfold in various situations.

This Martial World reflects the era of the martial arts society, and in this time, carrying extra money pouches is actually “normal.” If you conduct honest business, you’re branded as a fool, and recounting experiences of being taken advantage of is seen as a merchant’s virtue.

In this age, where money made from selling your conscience is flaunted as skill, speaking of contracts and credit with modern-day sensibility would be utterly meaningless.

“Hey, Black Cat. Come sit next to me.”

I don’t know what kind of fragrance it was, but when Black Cat sat next to me, a refreshing scent spread all around. Is it that her heavenly beauty has a pleasant scent ingrained in her body?

In this Outcast Inn, filled mostly with men, Black Cat’s occasional scent was a refreshing revelation.

Perhaps Bu-rin noticed this too; his nose twitched, and his face turned bright red.

Even though his face was hard to see, just by the ambiance, voice, fragrance, and shape, it was hard not to conclude that Black Cat was a breathtaking beauty.

But then again, even if that masked face was ugly, if the voice is sweet, the scent alluring, and the figure attractive, isn’t she a breathtaking beauty regardless of her face? Right? Or wrong?

Looking at Black Cat brought clarity to my confused thoughts as I noticed Bu-rin’s flushed face.

Seeing that guy with a stocky, intimidating figure like a goblin king, shying away and blushing was quite detrimental to my eye health.

He’s already an eyesore, but now he’s grinning broadly? Really, I just want to hit him.

Since I can’t punch him, I’ll just smack some facts into him.

“We took on a mid-tier request yesterday. For a mid-tier request, would this be about what we earn?”

I peeled off a chunk of silver and pushed it to one side.

“And yesterday, I lost my sword and ran away, right? For a typical request, the reward would come in at the level of the resale value of that sword, plus a few more coins.”

“A sword familiar to a martial artist should carry quite a bit of value, right?”

“Then you shouldn’t have dropped it. You make your choices, so don’t blame others. That’s your responsibility.”

“Ah…”

“So, if we consider that I treated my sword’s regular valuation, it would be about this much.”

I pushed another chunk of silver forward.

“But if the client had any sense, they’d probably add enough extra money to cover my sword as a good item. If they received that much support yesterday, they should cough up at least that much. So actually, the value of my sword in the money is this much?”

Adding another chunk of silver to the count for the sword’s value.

“And ha… thinking about it makes me more annoyed. Anyway, that guy, Gang Jun, has been blatantly disrespectful to the conventions of the righteous faction, not just basic common sense in martial etiquette. He’s totally ignored his fellow outcast business partner, so I ought to demand a penalty.”

I shoved all the remaining silver forward.

“But tell me, where did the extra payment from this client, who supposedly was satisfied, go? Did it vanish into thin air? Or is it a unique sight only visible to sages?”

“Oh, is there such a unique sight? What’s its name?”

“Black Cat, catch on already.”

I shot her a glare, and Black Cat closed her mouth.

Bu-rin’s complexion was looking very poor already.

“So where did the money for the gratuities go?”

“Hey, do you know how long we’ve been working together? This is very unpleasant!”

As I mentioned earlier, the prerequisite for being an intermediary is that no matter which sect members come in, it’s not strange at all, implying they come from a respectable background. This could also be called riding on one’s bloodline.

Intermediaries should be merchants, but frankly, they’re of lower skill than real merchants.

In this advantageous scenario, with no real competition, these intermediaries collude among themselves, and it’s no different from thievery.

“Have you ever thought about how you classify money in that way? No matter how much Taegyeong Sect was satisfied…”

“Did you do your part properly?”

“Absolutely!”

“Hwang Gold Clan Bu-rin, let me ask you one last time. Did you do your job well as an intermediary?”

Bu-rin’s expression turned completely serious.

I had a laid-back attitude towards intermediaries. It was mostly due to the fact that if intermediaries harbored any grudges and omitted request information, I’d be the one suffering.

It was also because, regardless of how much they were pocketing, digging into those profits required a certain amount of effort.

Intermediaries pretending to take a cut while secretly hiding extra money is just like negotiating with merchants, who insist they are selling at a loss and won’t budge on prices.

And more than anything, whether or not I had money, it always ended up sucked into gambling, so I wasn’t too sensitive about fees. I had to invest almost all of it into gambling anyway.

But now, things had changed.

To elevate from Iryu to a true contender required knowing exactly what sort of mess could happen, and to prepare for it, stacking money was paramount.

People liken money to bullets.

It’s absolutely true. The more money, the better, because each bullet of money could cost me my life.

In a situation where I could no longer gauge how much money I’d need going forward, I had to ensure I didn’t lose any of my share.

Bu-rin wouldn’t take my words lightly.

Intermediaries are the ones who know best how far my skills can reach.

I had resolved the requests that had given them headaches with remarkable skill.

“Bu-rin, do you know what Gang Jun from the Taegyeong Sect did to me at Gyeongsu Market?”

“Isn’t that something in your territory? Don’t try to pin this on me! I received all the money I was owed from Taegyeong Sect!”

As voices were raised, the gazes of other outcasts began to converge on us stealthily.

I realized, that guy is frustratingly clueless, bullying anyone around. That’s the conclusion I drew about Bu-rin.

Taking cuts from the intermediary fees is fine. Bu-rin’s got to survive too. If he’s hiding money, I can just reclaim it.

But this time, I couldn’t let it slide.

This request was truly absurdly chaotic.

Bu-rin’s requests had often been a mess. The only reason there hadn’t been an accident thus far was that I had been well aware of the situation when receiving requests through these foolish intermediaries.

But now, the situation had changed. I had to keep pushing out requests while having no time to monitor the happenings in Sacheon, let alone returning to the naive clients of the past.

The reason I was taken in by that guy, Gang Jun, from Taegyeong Sect yesterday was also because I hadn’t been keeping tabs on Sacheon’s movements at all. Ever since the Yeo Il-ye incident, I’d been too busy just trying to survive, and for five whole days, I was holed up at the Outcast Inn because of Black Cat.

[Recently, there are rumors that the Taegyeong Sect is growing its influence, and their sect members are quite troublesome.]

If I had been living a normal outcast life, I would have heard rumors like that by now. Although I wasn’t aware, the outcasts at the Inn, enchanted by my enlightenment and Black Cat’s beauty, had been losing their minds, which likely meant the quality of rumors circulating inside the Inn dropped significantly.

But is this normal?

Intermediaries are supposed to assess the risks of each request and the quality of clients so they can choose the right jobs or provide accurate information to warn them about the risks.

That would have been the norm, and it’s the right of any outcast, a service the intermediaries ought to provide.

As I delve into other matters, I’d inevitably have to neglect monitoring outcast affairs, so I had no choice but to whip these complacent intermediaries back into shape.

In the end, it was Bu-rin’s responsibility for letting ridiculous trolls float out unchallenged. While he’s happily chasing after the silver purse he got, I’m standing here thinking this is just absurd.

Only by putting these guys in check can I hope to elevate to the next stage with Black Cat.

For now, let’s properly sort out this Hwang Bu-rin situation first.