I Had a Great Time

Now that Aleister had acquired a certain degree of knowledge about elves, she could easily confirm that this kind of transaction really could be approved by the Market Supervisors.

Because essentially, it meant providing the materials oneself and asking a ritualist to help set up the ritual. Since one worried that the other party might use one's precious ritual materials without completing the ritual, one collected a deposit...

But in reality, the ritualist was using the deposit to purchase the "right to set up the ritual" and practice.

This had indeed exploited a loophole in the Theocracy's existing rules.

As befitted an elf's dignity, even if they figured it out, they would not fly into a rage and deny that it counted... At most, they would simply patch the loophole and forbid this form of "deposit-based transaction" from appearing again.

Aleister conveyed all this from the bottom of her heart to Iver on the other side—but Iver had already quieted down and was no longer responding.

She could only feel the silent warmth coming from that side, like closing one's eyes and embracing the sun.

...Forget it. He had probably already fallen asleep.

Aleister shook her head somewhat regretfully.

She would go check on him again that night.

"What happened after that?"

She opened her eyes and pressed Paul for an answer. "How did your work proceed?"

"I think..."

Dimit rallied his spirits.

"Shut up." Aleister crisply interrupted him, then turned to Paul. "You tell me."

"You must have already guessed... We poured the High Concentration Preservative Fluid from the specimen barrels, along with the Slave Corpses preserved inside, into the sea."

Paul answered respectfully.

"I did guess that." Aleister nodded. "But even if it was concentrated... How much preservative would you have to bring to contaminate marine life despite