"I am Graham, of the Graham Trading Company. We deal primarily in gemstones. I heard the head of the 'Fierce Gem Gang' had been taken down, so I came right away."
"Nice to meet you. My name is Alan. I was indeed the one who brought in the bounty for the 'Fierce Gem Gang,' but you certainly have fast information."
"In our line of work, speed is everything. I'm also well-acquainted with the master of the Merchants' Guild. We'd very much like to get to know promising individuals first, you see."
Hmm.
Aren't they overestimating me a bit?
"Well then, time is money, as they say. If you have any of the gems on this list, I'd like to purchase them."
I went through the list one by one, matching each item against the gems in my magic bag. In the end, 30 of them belonged to the Graham Trading Company.
Their total value: 3,000 gold coins.
"Oh my, to have all of them... How about 1,000 gold coins?"
That's about 33% of their value.
I mean, that's fine by me, but as a handling fee, isn't that highway robbery?
"No, no, if you tried to recover these on your own, it would cost far more than that. Especially since our opponents this time were a band of thieves specializing in stealing gemstones. No matter how much we guarded against them, they'd pilfer things before we even noticed."
"There were three people with the [Assassin] skill and an inside man, so that makes sense."
That's why I got ambushed three times when I raided their hideout.
I could see them coming, though.
Besides, they lacked experience.
They probably never bothered to improve their precision since their skills were strong enough to get by with just activating them.
"To think you subdued them all by yourself — truly remarkable. And the inside man needs to be investigated immediately. If we asked the church to use [Lie Detection], that would handle it, but that service comes at quite a steep price as well..."
The church again.
I'm not saying using skills to make money is wrong or anything.
"Could it be that the church actually keeps people like that locked up?"
"I can't say this too loudly, but they do recruit those kinds of skill holders from the outside, and if you refuse to join… well, it's an open secret, you might say."
"Then how about I take a look on your behalf?"
"My, what a versatile individual you are. I'd love to take you up on that offer, but how much would it run?"
"Well, since this would be my first job for you, let's call it a first-time customer special — free of charge."
"That would be a tremendous help for us, but, um…"
"Oh, you're wondering if there's a catch, right? There isn't, really. If I had to give a reason, it'd be that I just don't like the church all that much. It's not like my looking into it would cost the church anything, though."
"I see. Then I'll humbly accept your kind offer."
And so, starting the next day, I infiltrated Graham Trading Company as a customer and checked every single employee with [Divine Eye], which revealed that two of them were spies for the bandit group.
I reported them to Mr. Graham, cross-referenced their records for the days in question, and handed them over to the guards.
Since Graham Trading Company had been victimized on days when those two were always on shift, it had been easy enough to narrow things down.
"They were such hardworking people, too — I never would have guessed…"
"They also had the [False Identity] skill. What's more, that particular skill can even conceal the very existence of the [False Identity] skill itself — it's practically tailor-made for criminal use. I don't think anyone could be faulted for not seeing through it."
I consoled Mr. Graham in the head office's private room, but, well — there was only so much that could be done.
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Skills: [Reverse], [Divine Eye], [Sword God], [Gentleman Thief], [Dark Magic], [Rock-Iron Magic], [Holy Magic]
Rank: Bronze
Thank you always for reading!