In other words, time to apprehend the villain and turn him into my personal treasure vault! I’ve decided—I’ll make that lecherous slave trader my main dish! While making the town safer, I’ll extort him for all he’s worth! Keh heh... After all, according to Wallet B, that slave trader’s got quite a bit of hush money in his pocket too. Just how much of that dirty money does he have saved up? I can’t wait to find out!
And so, using the information I got from Wallet B, I strolled around to the other back alleys.
“Just a minute, missy. You got money? Why don’t you share some of that with us?”
“If you don’t, you might not live to see tomorrow, get my drift?”
“Let’s jump her! I wanna feel them titties!”
Wallets C, D, and E appeared!
“If it’s an allowance you want, go home crying to your mom, small dick.”
Karina used “Taunt”! The wallets are enraged!
The wallets attacked! They missed! Karina received 0 damage! Karina can now use “Self-Defense”!
“All right, you’re next. Say hello to infinite space!”
“N-No, I don’t wanna disappear! Help m—”
The wallets safe in my space of holding, I moved on to the next group.
“Whoa, she’s even more stacked than I heard! Come over here, li’l girl. Let’s have some fun.”
“It’ll be fun for us, anyway!”
Wallets F and G appeared!
“With that hair and those outfits? Don’t make me laugh. You actually think that looks cool? Lame-asses.”
Karina used “Taunt”! The wallets are enraged!
The wallets attacked! They missed! Karina received 0 damage! Karina can now use “Self-Defense”!
“Huh?! Where’d my friend go?!”
“Oh, don’t worry, you’re next!”
The wallets safe in my space of holding, I moved on to the next group.
“You again?! Bitch, you won’t get away from us like you did the other day! This time, you’re finished!”
“Today, we brought a net! Take this!”
Wallets H and I appeared! Preemptive strike—Wallets H and I used “Net”! But who cares?! Karina can now use “Self-Defense”! In the space they go!
Er, how many have I put in there now? It’s getting to where it’d be a pain to count them.
“There’s more? Seriously?” I groaned. While there were some variations here and there, for the most part the wallets had behaved the same way. It felt like taking down palette swaps of enemies in an RPG—in other words, it was getting a little dull.
When I got to the next location, however, things were shaken up a bit.
“Hey, you’re the girl who did the logging quests, right? You must’ve gotten quite a pretty penny from that job.”
“We senior adventurers have been doin’ this longer than you. Hand over half of your earnings and we’ll give you a good lesson.”
Oh, these are delinquent adventurers! That spices things up a little!
“You’re friends with that Blade character, right? Ditch him, and we’ll mentor you instead.”
“Come to our place. We’ll make you feel good in ways that meddling do-gooder never could.”
Hey now, don’t speak ill of my buddy Blade in front of me. “Hold up. I don’t like it when people talk about others behind their backs. If you’re gonna say it, say it to his face! Go up to him and then call him a pathetic, careless drunk who’s terrible with money!”
“Er, aren’t you talking about him behind his back right now?”
“Don’t try and take the high ground now, you miserable delinquents! As the lone moral and upstanding citizen here, obviously I’m the only one qualified to criticize him! You failures can shut your traps! Go and get your asses stabbed by a goblin or something!”
“Uh, I think she’s drunk.”
“Must be.”
Huh? But I’m completely sober! Uh-oh, the speech patterns of all these ruffians I’ve dealt with today must’ve rubbed off on me. Not good, I gotta be more careful. Karina’s no primate—she’s a civilized lady!
“By the way, what rank are you two, anyway? No, don’t tell me—Rank G, right? It’s obvious from how weak you look!”
“We’re Rank D, you cheeky bitch!”
“D, huh? If you got that far, throwing in the towel must’ve been all the more humiliating for you. Perhaps I should put you out of your misery and strangle you right here?”
I could see the veins bulge out of the failed adventurers’ heads. Good, my taunting was working. Really, though, you didn’t even make it to Rank C and you’re putting Blade down? Sounds like your personalities are the problem, then.
“Hey, let’s show her that a Rank E weakling like her ought to respect her superiors.”
“Sounds good. After all, in terms of ability, we’re closer to Rank B!”
“Pfft, don’t make me laugh! If you two-bit delinquents wanna call yourselves Rank B, then I’m Rank S! Ya puny little runts!”
“That’s it! You’re dead meat, girl!” they said in unison.
Finally! They threw punches at me, so the moment the punches connected, I trapped them in my space of holding! Aaand done! Fools, you only brought that on yourself. My self-defense couldn’t have been more justified.
Hmm... In the end, they weren’t much different from the others, were they? The flavor was different, but that was all, really. Even if you order a different flavor, ramen is still ramen. And handling the delinquents of this town felt much the same way. Sigh.
“I should probably call it a day, I guess.” By this point, I’d visited all the gang territories Wallet B had informed me of. And in the end, the total amount of money from the other wallets only added up to five silvers. Pathetic... I’d made more money in a single day of logging! If I’d known that was all they had, maybe I should’ve just let them be. Just kidding.
More importantly, what am I gonna do with all these guys in my space of holding? There were over fifteen of them, so even if I went to the guards and turned them in, I couldn’t just pretend to take them out of my backpack like other things I’d stored in infinite space. Man, if there were at least a female delinquent in the mix, I might have been a little more satisfied. Why do they all have to be men, dammit?! Now I can’t even use them to farm socks for the Goddess!
Plus, they were just a bunch of street muggers, so they probably didn’t have any bounties attached to them or anything. And even if I sold them to the slave trader, it wouldn’t matter; his money was going to be my money anyway when I was through with him.
“So that just leaves killing them...but that’d leave a bad taste in my mouth.” I didn’t know about their other victims, but they hadn’t really done anything to me to deserve death, at least. At the same time, interrogating each of them about what they’d done and doling out suitable punishments for those crimes sounded like way too much work. Besides, it wasn’t my job to scrutinize people for their faults.
“Oh, wait!” Suddenly, I hit upon an ingenious idea, and I headed to the guardroom after all. I was going to hand them over to the guards anyway—but of course, that alone wouldn’t be any fun. I decided I’d get them to confess their misdeeds on their own by threatening them just a tad: “If you do any more crime, the scary Goddess will come, and you’ll meet with a terrible fate. So turn yourself in if you know what’s good for you.” Then I’d leave the rest to the officials at the scene. I called this operation “Code name: Namahage!”
With this, I’d reduce the amount of work I had to do, I wouldn’t have to kill anyone who didn’t deserve it, and I’d contribute to upholding justice in this town! Three birds with one stone!
“Heh heh heh... I’m a genius! Now where would be good to threaten them? Yeah, over there should do.” I’ll use my teleportation to head to the ravaged wasteland where the Goddess once wreaked havoc—the ruins of the Kingdom of Alchemy. That way, even if I go a little too far in threatening them, at least I won’t hurt any innocent bystanders!
In the end, threatening them all took more time than I expected, and I didn’t even make it to the slave trader’s that day to withdraw my money. But that’s just between us.