Mercenary Empire

After six hours of walking down the road to Natsu City, we finally made it. It was now the 10:36 in the morning. The skies were clear with the sun shining bright but dark clouds could be seen in the distance.

The trip to the city was calm and nothing eventful happened. All we saw were passerby and merchants that were traveling somewhere to sell their merchandise.

Throughout the journey, I got closer to Lina as well and got to know her a little better. While I didn't get to learn a lot about her family, what I learned was that she she had a pretty vibrant personality and was someone who can't stand and do nothing. Not to forget that she is a pretty knowledgeable person.

Compared to my first encounter with her where I thought she was just a normal civilian looking to be a hero I now see her as a close comrade in arms that I survived together with in a life or death situation.

"So this is Natsu City," Lina said in awe as she looked around after we entered through the city gates. It seems that she has never seen a city like this. Natsu City was a part of the Warband Organization. It was a B-Rank Nation with a good amount of influence around the continent. It first started out as a small town where mercenaries would meet but soon after they banded together, they created the Warband Organization and expanded out ever since.

We mercenaries love the Warband Organization cause like them, we too were mercenaries and adding to the fact that they would always sell us equipment at half price rather full. So most mercenaries would go to a city or shop under the Warband Organization and buy from them to restock.

"Have you never seen a city like this before?" I asked her.

"No I haven't seen a city like this before. Compared to the ones I've seen, this one is a lot more smaller. But seeing a city this small but yet bustling with people is amazing."

Natsu City was one of the most popular trading area since they would sometimes sell lost technology at the auction or something that was really valuable like the lost technology once every two months and it seems that the day has come.

"I believe that the reason why there're so many people moving about streets today is because of an auction the Warband Organization every two months where they would either sell something really valuable or selling lost technology." I tell her about the upcoming auction.

"Why would they want to sell lost technology?" Lina gave me weird look on her face asking why someone would sell something so precious.

"From what I hear is that the would only sell defective lost technology that they see as the least valuable. The Warband Organization wouldn't find a use for defective products but the lower level nations could."

"Oh, I see," Lina nodded in agreement as she understands that selling a defective product with no use to the Warband Organization was reasonable.

"Lets go rent a room for the both of us first then we can go restock our supplies." I told Lina and started walking towards the inn.

She nodded and started walking beside me.

"How much are you selling for?"

"25 pieces of silver."

"20 pieces."

"23 pieces of silver, that's the lowest I'm gonna go."

"Deal, 23 silver it is."

As we walked through the bust streets of Natsu City I could see people everywhere buying things at the markets and haggling for a lower price.

"Welcome to Natsu Inn!" When we entered the inn the Woman at the desk welcomed us with a warm smile on her face. I walked over to the woman at the desk and asked her a room for Lina and I.

"Hello, Can I rent for rooms please,"

"Ok, two rooms. How long will you be renting the room out for?"

"One day," I needed to get back to my team as soon as possible so I couldn't afford to stay here for any longer.

"Your name please"

"Do-min-ic, ok Dominic, your two rooms will be 220 and 221 on the second floor which you can go up to by elevator right over there. "

She wrote down my name on her book that was on the desk and pointed to the elevator that was on my right. Now that we have a resting place for the day, the only thing I have to do is to restock.

"Hey Lina, you want to come with me to the Firearms Bazaar to restock on our ammo supply, we could even buy you a weapon as well." I asked Lina

"Do I get to choose the gun?" She looked at me and replied.

"As long as it not costly." I'm worried now that I won't have enough coins to pay for the ammo I need. Hearing me agree to an extent she smiled and followed me out the inn and walked towards the Firearms Bazaar.

After the escape we had, I checked the supplies. I still had one more magazine left before I ran out. It could be seen that I spent a lot of bullets to slow down our pursuers at that time. If it weren't for Lina knowing how to use the cloaking device, we would've perished.

Entering the Firearms Bazaar, I could Immediately see guns everywhere locked under bullet proof glass alongside sorts of assortments like grenades, optics, scopes, silencers, and more.

"Come on lets go by me a gun," Lina called out to me and pointed out to a gun merchant.

"The person we're gonna be buying is going to be from a friend." I told her and kept on walking towards a VIP entrance with a guard in front prepared to stop any trespassers.

"Oh, who's your friend?" Lina asked me with a curious seeing that we were walking towards the VIP entrance.

"ID,"

I stopped before the guard as he asked me for an ID.

"Here" I said as I handed him my ID. He took my ID and let us in after making sure that the ID was authentic. When we entered the VIP section, even though it was smaller the than the main room the gear and weapons they were selling were tiers higher and the room was more luxurious.

"Dom, welcome!"

A man wearing a tux with black dress pants came up to me with a smile and greeted.

"Eric, it's been awhile I've seen you" I greeted him back as I laughed. We shook hands and hugged as since its been a fairly long time since we've seen each other. Eric Horman was 22 while I was 17 years old. We met when I was still under the tutelage of the old man when he wanted to talk to his old friend who was Eric's father when I was 12.

The old man didn't leave till I turned 16, so I met Eric a good amount before he left and was able to build a strong relationship with him. Eric was in charge of the VIP area but at the same time he was the governor and commander of the Natsu City Military.

"So Dom, what did you come to Natsu City for? I'm sure that it isn't to me an old friend like me" Eric asked me.

"Yeah your right sorry about that, I'm pretty busy right now and I need to meet up with my team so I can't stay here for any longer than a day." I told Eric with a guilty smile on my face. I really don't want my team to think I was captured or anything. And knowing them, they would probably attempt to rescue me. I don't them to bring them in harms way thinking that I was captured.

"I understand, being a mercenary is a hard life where your confronting death everyday. As long as I know that you aren't dead I'm happy." Eric was an understanding person, so he wouldn't get mad over something so trivial like not visiting him.

"So what do need from me? Weapons,ammo,armor, grenades, you name it we got it." Eric said.

"Well we need a new gun for Lina here" I told Eric as I pointed to Lina.

Eric looked at Lina and squinted his eyes a little as if he wanted to get a clear picture before he lifted his hand asking for a handshake before saying

"I'm sorry for not greeting you earlier Miss Lina, it's been awhile I saw Dom so I really happy and didn't see you, my bad."

"It's ok, I would be like you if I saw someone I haven't met in so long and cared a lot." Lina said as smiled and lifted her hand to shake Eric's hand.

"That's good that you understand." Eric retracted his hand from the shake and asked what Lina wanted as her weapon.

"What sort of weapon do you like?" Eric's face turned to his business face which had a serious demeanor on.

"I would to have an AR (assault Rifle) that can shoot tracing rounds and has a built in thermal scope that can see through everything" Lina said with a straight face.

My jaw dropped hearing her asking for a with those attributes. Tracing rounds were only used for covert missions when someone needs to assassinate someone. Tracing rounds rarely missed as well, reason why they are loved by snipers. But even though they're loved by everyone, a single round costs about 10 gold pieces! I Only have 15 gold pieces which I have saved my entire life!

Before Lina could speak anymore I jumped in.

"Lina I won't have enough money for the gun you're buying."

Hearing what I said Lina asked me,

"How much do you have?"

"I only have 15 gold pieces"

"Tsk, how poor," she looked at me with pity as she said those final words.

I was poor?!?! Normal would kill for 15 gold pieces. Well I can guess that Lina isn't normal. I rolled as I didn't want to argue with Lina so then I turned to Eric and asked.

"What AR can you sell her that she'll like for 10 pieces of gold or less?"

After 30 minutes of browsing through the weapons that were 10 pieces of gold or less Lina finally found a gun that she liked. The gun she picked was the Overlord. It had a magazine size of 40 bullets which could be expended in 3 seconds. So it could be seen that it fires pretty fast. It could fire type 2 armor piercing rounds as well.

The price of the Overlord was 9 gold pieces and after restocking all the supplies we needed and buying more rations and water. The totaled price was 12 gold pieces. 15 gold pieces that was saved up from when I was 8 years old till this very day and 12 pieces of gold was spent in a single moment. My heart was bleeding. Will I keep on spending like this until she leaves? I didn't even want to think further into it.

"So I get that's it huh." Eric assumed seeing that our business transaction was done.

"Actually before I leave the city tomorrow, I have very important information I have to tell you."

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Any readers that saw that the name was Alex but now Eric it was because Natsu who is the author of Devil, Be Nice wanted me to use the name of Eric rather than Alex.

Another thing was that I was really overjoyed to see that people gave me PS even though even though I didn't upload that. Those 2 PS stones made me pretty happy! So thank you!