A Promising Plan

In the reception hall, after the two foxkin, Salite and Sanita, left, only Roland and the other two remained.

At that moment, the three wore different expressions. Reff looked resistant, while Leslie's expression was uncertain. As for Roland, he rubbed his chin with an unfocused gaze, lost in thought.

Clearly, the three of them had different views regarding the conditions Sanita had offered.

"My lord, I oppose this."

Roland was pulled from his thoughts by Reff's interruption, but he was not annoyed.

"Then tell me what you think."

"My lord, Sanita made it sound wonderful—tenfold smuggling profits and pledging their allegiance—but I don't think any of it is reliable."

"With the two great empires involved, it will be extremely difficult for us to expand the scale of our smuggling. Even if we barely manage it, we can only double it at most. Any further, and the Human Alliance will certainly react."

"Even with double the smuggling volume, the profits would only increase by a few million gold coins at most. Yet our risks would multiply several times over, and we would have to spend vast resources helping Salite break through to Legendary. The losses would far outweigh the gains."

"Furthermore, foxkin are cunning and clever. If they can betray the Beastkin Empire today, they can betray you tomorrow. We should keep a certain distance from such a race."

Roland nodded slightly, his expression unchanged.

Of Reff's two reasons for opposing it, the latter was too far-fetched. The foxkin's reputation was not actually that bad. Otherwise, Roland and Leslie would not have dared to smuggle with the Hidden Valley Clan back then, given their strength.

However, Reff was right about the first point. If the smuggling volume could not be increased, then everything else was meaningless. Could Roland really pay out