Can Someone (Anyone!) Please Turn Off the Auto-Skill Setting?! - Chapter 5
“That’s… it’s Chuck, they say. Chuck stole the money and ran away!”
The elder cried out in pain as the vice-like grip on him tightened.
He promised that if they gave him a little more time, he would definitely find Chuck.
The leader of the Ferrons frowned and threw the elder to the ground.
“Find this Chuck and the money before the Hero’s Festival. If not, I’ll crush your head in place of his.”
Only after the elder swore several times that he would do it did the Ferrons finally leave. Once it was safe, small creatures that had been hiding in the pillars, shelves, and gaps in the floor began to emerge one by one.
“Elder! You said to leave it to you, that you’d give those Ferron scum a stern talking-to. What happened?”
“Cowardly elder!”
“I thought there was an earthquake because the elder’s legs were shaking so much.”
The elder glared at those criticizing him, but then he was startled.
Chuck, whom he thought was absent and whose name he had used, was watching him with a disappointed look.
“Ch-Chuck…”
“I would never abandon my wife and daughter and run away.”
“Th-Then what could I do? I saw the teeth of the Ferron tribe right in front of my nose. I could even feel that bastard’s disgusting breath!”
The elder trembled, saying that his legs still couldn’t regain their strength. Chuck looked at him with disdain and asked,
“So what are you going to do now?”
Even though he had bought some time by using Chuck’s name, it was only for a moment. There was only a week left until the Hero’s Festival they mentioned.
“In a month of risking our lives, we barely managed to gather 100,000 gold. But the Ferron scum are demanding 1,000,000 gold!”
How on earth could they gather 900,000 gold in just one week?
They had planned to negotiate, asking for more time or a reduction in the amount since it was impossible to comply. But the elder, who had been so confident, ended up trembling before the Ferrons, unable even to bring up the topic of negotiation.
“There’s nothing good about risking our lives to pay this money. We’re hungry, and all our money gets taken by those Ferron scum!”
“Maybe we should all just hide.”
“They’ve got such keen noses! No matter where we hide, they’ll sniff us out.”
The little creatures, sunk in despair, lamented.
“Oh, if we’re going to be eaten by those scum anyway, I want to die drowning in a pot full of soup!”
Chuck, after surveying the despondent group, cleared his throat. All eyes turned to him.
“I have a suggestion…”
“If you’re going to suggest using the hero to punish the Ferron scum, don’t even bother mentioning it.”
The elder, who had been silent with nothing to say, interrupted Chuck.
“The hero is the sworn enemy of the demons. Begging for our lives from an enemy is utterly disgraceful!”
“And groveling before those Ferron scum isn’t disgraceful?”
When Chuck retorted, the elder was momentarily speechless.
“…Even if we endure the disgrace and beg, do you think the hero would spare us, being demons?”
The elder shook his head with conviction. For the hero, all demons, whether Ferron or the little creatures, were targets for extermination. The only difference was who would be exterminated first.
Chuck, however, did not back down from his opinion.
“We need to make a human who could become our ally into a hero.”
“Hah! In a country where selling even an apple to demons is a serious crime, what human would ever become our ally?”
The elder, in disbelief, stared at Chuck, who simply smiled. He began to reveal where he had been that morning and the astonishing experience he had had.
“I went out to the street early in the morning, to find a human wicked enough to become our ally.”
Barely thirty minutes after he had stepped onto the street, that woman appeared. She found the bait Chuck had set up, looked around cautiously, and then stealthily approached.
“She took a coin with my name engraved on both sides, rubbed off the name, and pocketed it!”
The little creatures, including the elder, gasped. Though such a thing was not surprising to demons, this was a human.
Humans, who would even flog a petty thief fifty times as punishment for defying divine teachings!
The fact that she shamelessly pocketed someone else’s coin meant she feared neither the flogging nor God.
“We’re in a situation where we need to grab even the slightest straw. Let’s catch that human!”
***
Some people turn crises into opportunities, while others turn opportunities into crises. Nancy thought she was entirely the latter.
【 Nancy’s Current Balance: 4,720 Gold 】
Seeing the numbers on the screen, she was so shocked she nearly fell backward and cracked her head open.
She had wondered why the pork hadn’t arrived even though it had been quite a while since she ordered it. Watching the pork pile up in the warehouse, she realized it.
With that quantity, it was no wonder it was taking so long.
“Still, 3000 units? There must have been some mistake.”
Unable to accept reality, she mumbled as she checked the order form. Whether read front to back or back to front, the number 3000 was clearly written on the form.
It wasn’t an error or a mistake from the supplier. It was something she had ordered.
