Thrown Out of the Hero Summons for a Worthless Haggling Skill, He Struck a Deal With the Dragon novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Sundown

Corisande Arvenne came back at sundown without the Guard and without a rope.

She came alone, in her blue coat, and sat down at the end of the counter as if she owned the stool.

Ryota had the sword wrapped in a flour sack under the counter.

Gautier was pretending to count bowls three feet away.

"Five gold," she said. "And I don't hang you."

Words appeared over the counter in plain Japanese.

Five gold for the sword.

Then the small line.

She wants to stay on the heroes' guard. If she goes back without the sword, she's off it.

"That's a terrible offer," Ryota said.

"It's a generous offer. You're a Copper who robbed the crown."

"I'm a Copper who was sold a sword in front of eighty people." He set a cup of barley tea in front of her. "What happens to you if you go back without it?"

She looked at the tea and didn't touch it.

"They take me off the heroes' guard."

"And that matters to you."

"The heroes' guard becomes the escort." She turned the cup a quarter turn. "The escort is the knights who walk the heroes to the door of the Cinder Peak on the Day of Ash. The heroes go in. The knights come home."

"All of them?"

"All but one, in three hundred years." Her gray eyes came up to his. "My father led the last escort, thirty years ago. He went in after them. I was one."

Ryota didn't say anything for a moment.

Gautier had stopped counting bowls.

"I've wanted that command since I could hold a sword," Corisande said. "I'm not losing it to a man with a dish towel."

"Twenty gold," Ryota said.

She laughed out loud, one short bark.

"For a sword you bought for a copper?"

"I bought it for a copper. You're buying it back for your whole life. That's a different price." He pointed at the ceiling, where a dark stain spread over the stairs. "And the roof over this hall leaks. Twenty gold fixes it."

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