A Troubled Heart

Pandora's request was answered. She received a storage ring from Punk, sent through a tiny miniature portal. The ring contained a great many gold coins, roughly equivalent to two or three years of tax revenue for the Hatak Imperial Nation.

To Punk, those coins did not even amount to pocket change. After all, the Hatak Imperial Nation was supposed to hand over thirty percent of its annual taxes to Punk as "tribute." Over the past few centuries, the caster had been occupied with the Interference Mechanism and Stewed Fragrant Mushroom Cluster potion experiments, leaving him with no time to refine that pile of gold into fine gold. As a result... the heaps of gold coins in Punk's warehouse were nearly overflowing it.

Without dragon blood and with no fondness for glittering coins, Punk did not care in the slightest about giving Pandora a pile of them—he could simply consider it cleaning out his warehouse. Besides, speeding up Ganatica's progress as a "hero" would let him deal the Scott Imperial Nation a vicious blow. That was far more worthwhile than spending the effort to refine a pile of gold into fine gold.

Thus, Pandora's plea for aid was a complete success.

At first, the girl had only asked for an amount of gold equal to two months of tax revenue from the Hatak Imperial Nation. She had not expected Punk to generously stuff an entire storage ring full of gold coins. Although Punk warned Pandora not to risk exposing herself by contacting the magic tower again over such "trivial matters," she was already more than satisfied to receive such a large sum.

This way, Ganatica should not have to sigh in worry anymore. He has already exhausted himself running around for those poor people's livelihoods...

That had been the girl's initial