“You…” As I was glaring at her angrily, the three men walked over to us.
The men looked intimidating, but they weren’t acting aggressively yet. As for me, I was already sweating at the thought of spending 3000 gold coins. It had only been weeks! Clearly, her condition was spiraling out of control!
“I can’t help it!’ Carmine cried as she looked at the sour look on my face. “Being trapped with sister brought it out of me! It’s really Master’s fault for forcing me to live with her even though he knew how I felt!”
“Errr…” I couldn’t really argue with that.
It didn’t really matter. What was done was done. Now, we had this 3000-gold debt that we had to take care of.
“Should we just kill them?” I whispered quietly under my breath.
The girls with animal ears naturally heard me. Lydia touched her sword as if to say that I should just give the order. As for Miki, she grabbed my arm and shook her head.
“The Loan Guild may not be as widespread and well known as the Slaver’s Guild, but they provide the slavers with a large portion of their slaves. They are about the 5th largest organization in Aberis, only being beaten out by the Adventurer’s Guild, the slavers, the church, and the royal family.” Miki explained.
“Even the loan sharks have a guild?” I felt like crying.
“They take their debt very seriously. They’re not above burning down buildings or taking out kneecaps. Even if someone is stronger than them, they wouldn’t dare cross the Loan Guild. Their actions are considered barbaric by some, but they are effective for a reason.”
I could only nod with a numb feeling in my mind. In short, I couldn’t afford to offend these people. Even if they couldn’t threaten my life, they could burn down my mansion or in some other ways cause me trouble. I might argue that giving loans to a slave in the first place was a bad move, but in Aberis, slaves were allowed to use money and represent their Masters. If you had to do everything yourself, it defeated the purpose of using a slave. The responsibility falls on the master to properly control their slaves. Thus, in the Loan Guilds eyes, I was responsible for the ridiculous debt she acquired.
“How much of the 3000 gold do you have left?” I demanded.
“It was only a 1000 gold loan, the rest is interest, Master…”
“What the hell is with that interest rate?”
“They said I was a liability having already failed to pay off a debt and needing to be sold off to slavery once already!”
“They were right!” I yelled and then sighed. “Okay… how much of the 1000 gold coins have you kept?”
She shook her head, now actually crying. “It wasn’t my fault! The Capitol city is expensive! Just my storage ring cost 50 gold. My armor and weapons have several magical enchantments, that cost 500 gold to have it made, fitted, and then enchanted.”
“Made from scratch! Why?”
“Please, Master, you wouldn’t expect me to put on armor someone else wore and wasn’t fitted perfectly to me? Right?” Carmine sniffed at the thought and then continued, “Plus, the guy who carried it back to the mansion wanted a few gold coins…”
“Wait, why did you need someone to carry it back if you had the storage ring?”
“Doesn’t Master know it’s bad luck to store new armor in a storage ring before you wear it for the first time?”
My hand slapped my face. I felt like I wanted to strangle someone. It was about that time that the three men finally made it to where we were standing and arguing in the street.
“So, where’s my money.” The short man said.