Aftermath

After all the pirate prisoners had been taken to the basement, Paul discovered that a stranger was still standing beside Schroeder. Although the man's face was covered in unkempt stubble and his clothes were tattered, it was obvious at a glance that they were not garments an ordinary commoner could afford.

He asked, "Schroeder, who is this?"

"Oh, I forgot to mention it. He claims to be from the Foster Family of the southern Horn Bay Alliance. He came to the Northwest Bay to explore several months ago, but unfortunately, he was kidnapped by pirates."

The young man immediately stepped forward and performed a nobleman's greeting, his posture flawless.

"Lord Earl, I presume you are the lord of this place. Please allow me to introduce myself. My father is Marquis Foster, a member of the Horn Bay Alliance Council. I am his second son, Quiller Foster. On behalf of the Foster Family, I extend my highest respects to you and thank you for rescuing me from the pirates."

After hearing the young man's introduction, Paul managed to suppress his laughter and replied, "You're too polite! It was simply my duty as the lord of this land."

This Marquis Foster really knew how to name his children. Since he was such an important figure on the Horn Bay Alliance Council, he must be involved in trade, right? Yet he had actually named his son "Quiller," which sounded like "lost money" in Chinese. Although he knew it was merely a coincidence in pronunciation, he still couldn't help mocking it inwardly.

"Are you Quiller Foster?" After the young man announced his name, everyone from the Lichman Adventurer Group turned to look at him in unison.

"That would be me." The young man ran a hand through his hair and spoke with considerable self-admiration. These people were clearly commoners, so there was no need to be as courteous to them as he had been to the earl.

The Regiment Commander, Meru Heimer, flew into a rage. "Ah—do you have any idea how much effort we spent searching for you?"

Quiller Foster looked utterly bewildered, question marks seeming to fill his face. "Er... may I ask who you people are?"

"Ahhh! I can't take this anymore. What a spoiled young master! Your family hasn't received any word from you for two months and they're frantic. Lord Marquis commissioned our adventurer group to find you. After we came here, we learned that you had fallen into a pirate den. We nearly lost our lives rescuing you!"

"Er, I was too impulsive and caused my family to worry."

"Hey, hey! The important part of what I said was the last sentence!"

"Hmm? What did you say?"

"You're driving me mad! I don't care. When we accepted the commission, you only said we were looking for someone. You never said anything about fighting pirates. The payment must be doubled. No, it should be three times the original amount."

Quiller Foster snapped his fingers and said with his eyes closed, "Heh heh, that's nothing! I've always respected adventurers. The Foster Family will certainly fulfill your wishes."

His attitude could not have been more indifferent.

"You're not even going to ask what the original payment was?" Everyone in the hall, including Paul, instantly felt envy, jealousy, and resentment toward the rich.

As they spoke, the officers who had been hunting down the pirates that had escaped the net in Franklin Harbor arrived at the church one after another.

Quiller Foster and the members of the Lichman Adventurer Group were then sent off to rest, while the townspeople were dismissed and sent home. In a room beside the hall, officers from the battalion and company levels were gathered for a meeting.

Staff Officer Joyce was responsible for tallying the results of the battle. He stood and reported, "My lords, this battle was a resounding victory. The pirate gang known as the Shark Gang was wiped out. A total of 123 pirates were killed, while all the others, including the bandit chief Shark, were captured. We lost thirty-two men, and fifty-five were wounded to varying degrees."

The officers exchanged words and were highly satisfied with the results.

Paul asked, "Is there any news about the pirate gang whose leader is nicknamed 'Loach'?"

Joyce replied, "We didn't encounter any of their people during this battle. According to the prisoners' testimony, they seem to have fled back out to sea long ago."

Schroeder added, "When we pursued Shark, we also seized several chests of coins they had loaded onto their ship. By rough estimate, there were 2,000 gold coins, 6,000 silver coins, and tens of thousands of Copper Coins."

"Oh!" Everyone opened their mouths in astonishment. They had never expected piracy to be such a lucrative profession. Even a small pirate gang had plundered so much wealth.

Paul was even more delighted. With so much money, he could finally do some of the things he had wanted to do for a long time.

"We can use this money to cast more cannons."

"Recruit more soldiers."

"Produce more muskets."

"We also need to establish our own naval forces."

The officers voiced their opinions on how to use the money. Even Cecil kept winking at Paul, hinting that his intelligence work also needed more funding.

"But much of this money was stolen from the people living along the coast. Shouldn't we return it to them?"

Someone suddenly raised this question.

The room fell silent. The heated discussion came to an abrupt halt, and after the group exchanged uncertain looks, everyone turned toward the Earl.

Damn it! Why is everyone looking at me? Why are you all looking at me? Of course I want to return it to the common people, but I don't know whether you want to. If you also want to return it to them, then everyone will be happy. But if you don't, and I say I do, wouldn't that go against everyone's wishes? Would you throw me out the window?

The earl's thoughts were locked in a fierce battle. Ah! This is killing me. Could someone please be the first to state their position?

They stared at one another in silence for nearly a minute. In the end, the old knight Schroeder finally stepped forward.

"With our current methods, it would be difficult to accurately calculate every household's losses. Besides, the Shark Gang had operated at sea for many years, and some of the money was stolen from other territories. If we let the people come forward to claim it, we would give many dishonest individuals a chance to fish in troubled waters. For example, someone might not have been robbed at all, yet insist that pirates had stolen the only silver coin he possessed. How would we deal with that?"

Everyone came to their senses. The old knight was right. In the end, there might not be much money left, and they might even have to cover some of the shortfall themselves.

Cecil immediately said, "Exactly. Commoners are the worst—both sly and greedy. When I was in charge of forestry, the biggest headache was those wretches who were always trying to take advantage of every little thing."

Unexpectedly, the young earl flew into a rage upon hearing this. He slammed his palm on the table and glared furiously at the Intelligence Director, frightening him into covering his mouth at once, though he still had no idea what he had said wrong.

Schroeder continued, "Therefore, I suggest compensating the people who suffered losses through other means. For example, we could reduce some of their taxes, repair roads and bridges in the villages that were robbed, or send people to investigate secretly and provide a certain amount of money only to families that were genuinely robbed and whose livelihoods were threatened. Naturally, it would be given under another pretext. All of that would be better than letting people claim the money based solely on their own statements."

"What a good idea!"

"Lord Schroeder really sees far ahead!"

"I second it."

Everyone expressed their agreement with Schroeder's suggestion.

Paul also found it entirely reasonable. Seeing that everyone agreed, he settled the matter with a final decision. "Good! That's what we'll do."

After rereading the chapters I posted earlier last night, I felt that the writing was a bit poor, and there were also quite a few typos. Today, I went back and tried to fix them.

Also, I feel that calling the protagonist by his given name, "Paul," seems to flow better than calling him by his surname, "Greiman." I'll change that at the same time.