Hero or Villain, Both
Chapter 90: Chief (1)

Chapter 90: Chief (1)

When we arrived back in town, there was a group of people that were there waiting for us.

These were people that I had hired from the town to help us handle these criminals.

The ones that put up these bounties were the rulers of the large cities that had been offended by these people, which was why they put up these bounties in the first place.

The bounties that I had done before were ones that were quite close, so I didn’t need to actually send them to the places where I could claim the bounties.

But now that I was taking these higher tier bounties, it took a while to actually claim the money from those that were offering the bounties.

After all, it was different from in the game where the money just appeared.

To get this money, the ones that the bounties were on had to be delivered to the ones that issued the bounties. As such, I started hiring the people of the town to help me deliver the people in the bounties to the ones that posted them.

I might not have trusted them previously, but it had changed once I had brought Shaka in.

Seeing that I had even brought someone like Shaka in, the people of the town had started to turn to me for protection. Once they started turning to me for protection, it was only natural that they would come to rely on me.

At the same time, it meant that I could start trusting them to work for me since they were attaching themselves to me.

There were a few times where they ran off with the bounty, but most of them came back with the money in the end.

I wasn’t as strapped for money since as part of the protection deal, the townspeople actually paid money to me. At the same time, with the increased bounty amount in these higher tier bounties, I was earning far more than before.

I was no longer the poor person that I had been when I first came to the town.

Once they took care of the criminals, there was nothing left for me to do, so I headed to the same bar as usual.

Because it was the bar that I frequented, it had also become the gathering place for the people of the town.

"Conan!"

Everyone called out the moment that I came in.

I couldn’t help shaking my head with a faint smile when I heard this, but I still waved at them before heading to the counter.

Waiting for me at the counter was Vanessa who already had a mug of alcohol ready for me. It wasn’t that she had prepared this as soon as she saw me, it was that she already had it waiting for me when I came in.

It was clear that she had paid off some of the people waiting to take the criminals to inform her of my arrival.

But it wasn’t as if this was a bad thing.

"Where’s mine?" Mia said as soon as she went over to the bar.

Vanessa glared at her when she heard this.

The relationship between the two of them was still as bad as before, but at least it seemed that they had learned to tolerate each other.

Instead of giving anything to Mia, she went over to Leaf who had climbed onto one of the high chairs. Vanessa couldn’t help revealing a smile as she watched Leaf climb on since she wasn’t tall enough for the high chairs, so she had to actually climb up onto them.

Once she was on, Vanessa took out a mug for her, but this wasn’t alcohol.

"Fruit juice!" Leaf said in a happy voice before saying, "Thank you, Big Sister Veronica."

Unlike with Mia, Vanessa had a good relationship with Leaf.

She had been one of the few people that Leaf had opened up to at first, but it wasn’t as if she had done this with pure intentions.

She had seen the way that Leaf hung to Conan and she wasn’t happy to see this even if the other side was just a little girl. So she had approached Leaf to see if she could pull her away from him.

But in the end, it was Leaf who had won Vanessa over rather than Vanessa winning Leaf over

Now the two of them acted like real sisters rather than Vanessa trying to trick a child.

I couldn’t help shaking my head with a smile seeing this, but it certainly was better than having them fight all the time.

These three really had matured during this time.

After chugging the mug in front of me, I asked, "Are there any other bounties available?"

Vanessa took the mug without a word and started filling it again before saying, "Do you think that there are bounties that lucrative all the time? I’ll keep an eye out for them, but there aren’t any bounties that suit you that we’ve received so far."

I gave an understanding nod in response.

It was only natural since these higher grade bounties were different from the low grade bounties. They had a much higher difficulty and a much higher price, so it wasn’t as if there were that many that were issued at the same time.

With how effective I had been in taking care of them, it would be a surprise if there were that many of them left.

With the money that I’ve been making, it wasn’t as if I was in a rush to take more bounties.

The only reason that I had asked was because I wanted to see if there would be anything that came in.

As I was thinking about how to spend my free time, Vanessa put down the filled mug before saying in a hesitant voice, "Actually, there’s something that I want to discuss with you."

I couldn’t help raising a brow when I heard this, but I gave a nod to show that I was listening while picking up the mug to take a drink.

But when I heard what she said, I couldn’t help doing a spittake.

"Do you want to become the chief of this village?"