Hero or Villain, Both
Chapter 89: Quick learner

Chapter 89: Quick learner

"When I say jump, you jump. Or do you want me to teach you how to jump properly?"

Seeing her say this to the bounty that we just caught, I couldn’t help revealing a faint bitter smile.

Since taking her in, I had seen a complete transformation of Mia.

I already knew that she was a strong willed person, but this was something else.

It was as if she had turned into a completely different person.

Though the one that she was doing this to wasn’t really a good person to begin with. It wasn’t as if there was a reason for me to feel any pity for these people since they were nothing more than thugs.

But I couldn’t help saying, "I think that there’s no need to go that far."

Mia narrowed her eyes as she turned back to look at me before saying, "Showing mercy to these people isn’t considered mercy, it’s just causing trouble for others. After all, it isn’t as if they would have ever spared anyone."

I didn’t deny this since I had read the bounty notice when Vanessa handed it to me.

Still...

"It’s better if we bring them back alive. They’ll pay extra since they enjoy executing them."

Mia didn’t seem like she wanted to let them go that easily, but she gave a nod of agreement in the end and put her dagger down. Though that didn’t stop her from glaring at the bandits as if she wanted to tear them apart with her hands.

Though she was beautiful, she was also terrifying when she was like this and the bandits couldn’t help turning away from her gaze.

"Big Brother Conan, what should I do with these people?"

I turned around with a smile hearing this and opened my arms to catch Leaf since I had already heard her running over.

Leaf was a completely different story from Mia where she became much more open with people.

The best part of it all was that her smile had returned to her face instead of her hiding herself away all the time.

Mia also couldn’t help relaxing her expression a bit when she saw Leaf like this, but then that stern look quickly reappeared as she glared at the bandits.

But even though Leaf looked like a cheerful young girl, there was still something special about her. She was a high elf through and through and her bloodline really showed itself in how quickly she learned magic.

I only gave her a few tips based on what I considered my ’mercenary’ experience, but really it was stuff that I obtained from Aragon and Faust. The information that they had about magic really was on a completely different level.

And it was because of this that I didn’t expect Leaf to master it in just a few weeks.

But she demonstrated that she was a true genius with how she was able to summon a Medium Grade Spirit as well.

This was even without the baptism from the Tree of Life.

"Perhaps, she might even have a higher bloodline than just a high elf." That was what I thought when I saw how quickly she mastered everything that I taught her.

As for how she was using it...

After picking up Leaf, I couldn’t help looking up at the trees around us.

There were figures that were wrapped up in vines that were being held up all around us. These were bandits that had tried to run when I defeated their boss, but they didn’t expect to run into a trap like this.

The vines showed no mercy as they wrapped them all up like they were caterpillars in cocoons.

Only these bandits wouldn’t be blooming into butterflies.

The other one that I had to praise was Mia.

Though I hadn’t been expecting anything, I had to admit that she was a genius that was just like Leaf.

She had soaked in all of the combat knowledge that I taught her when we sparred like a sponge and she used it all to develop her own style.

She had shown the power of that style when we fought against these bandits.

While I had charged right in to attack the boss, she had hidden in the shadows to stab the bandits behind the back without any hesitation. It was as if she wanted to end each of their lives with a single stab with how she did it.

At the same time, there wasn’t a single person that had been able to discover her.

With this style, Mia would have been perfectly suited for being an assassin.

The two of them were very quick learners and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was broken because of my Shared Stats Skill, then it would have been likely that the two of them would have even surpassed me.

It was surprising and a bit confusing that they had been caught by Shaka in the first place.

As I was thinking about all of this, Leaf suddenly asked, "Did I do a good job, Big Brother Conan?"

I pulled back a bit so I could look at her before saying with a smile and a pat on the head, "You did a great job. Thanks to you, we caught all of the bad people."

A wide smile appeared on her face when she heard this.

On the side, Mia stopped glaring at the bandits and moved over to where I was to ask, "What about me? Did I do good as well?"

This was completely different from how she had acted previously.

But I was used to this since this was how she acted when we were alone.

Shaking my head with a faint smile, I patted her on the head as well before saying, "Good job."

A wide smile appeared on Mia’s face as well when she heard this.

While this wasn’t how I had expected things to develop when I first came to this wilderness, it wasn’t as if this was a bad thing.

But what I never expected was that it would be disrupted soon.