—The battle was over.
Without any time to savor the afterglow of victory, we had to get busy, stripping gear from enemy corpses.
According to Uncle Athos, the equipment from enemies we, the Barbar Mercenary Party, had defeated belonged to us by right.
『Possession of spoils goes to the one who felled the foe』
Was the rule.
I staggered over to the body of the enemy cavalry commander I had taken down and began rummaging through it.
At first, I felt some resistance to the idea of looting gear from a corpse…
(This! An iron sword! And this is an iron knife! Nice!)
The enemy commander had been wearing iron equipment.
If I could get my hands on iron weapons, I might be able to beat the monsters near the rock salt deposits by the Blumund tribe’s village.
If we drove the monsters out of the salt-rich area, the Blumund tribe could claim the rock salt for ourselves.
I pressed my hands together before the bearded commander’s corpse.
(Thanks for the iron gear. I’ll put it to good use. Rest in peace.)
Ecstatic, I stripped him of everything he had.
Iron sword
Iron knife
Iron spear (just the head)
High-quality clothing
Silver and copper coins
A solid haul.
(Mercenary work is pretty great!)
Of course, that’s assuming you win. But now I understood why the Blumund tribe made a living as mercenaries. It was profitable.
While I was happily collecting loot from the enemy commander, Rosso, the chieftain of the Great Lizard Tribe, was nearby.
In his right hand was a bronze sword, and in his left, a small iron one. He seemed deep in thought.
Eventually, he tossed the iron one aside.
I couldn’t help blurting out.
「Ah!」
「Eh? What? You got a problem? I killed this guy! This sword’s mine, you hear? I’m not giving it to you, Gaia!」
Rosso had completely misunderstood and now hugged the bronze sword in his right hand like it was a prized possession.
Apparently, he couldn’t tell the difference between iron and bronze.
「The one you just threw away is the better sword. That was the iron one.」
「Iron…?」
Rosso tilted his head, clearly not understanding what I meant.
「The one in your right hand is bronze. The one you tossed was iron, and iron is tougher than bronze.」
「What? Don’t lie! This one’s bigger!」
Size isn’t the issue, it’s the material. But…
Rosso clearly wasn’t getting it.
「All right! Let’s do it!」
Rosso picked up the discarded iron sword with his left hand and slammed it against the bronze one in his right.
A sharp metallic clang rang through the air.
The bronze sword chipped badly.
「Ah!」
Rosso stared at the iron sword in disbelief.
「See? Told you iron weapons are sturdier.」
「You’re right! Damn, that’s awesome!」
「We can’t carry back everything. Focus on gathering iron gear. Iron gear’s expensive if you try to buy it. You’ll get more value that way, right?」
「Yeah! That makes sense! All right, I’ll have my guys search for more!」
Rosso was ecstatic.
He gave orders to the Great Lizard warriors to start collecting iron weapons and armor.
Word of this exchange quickly spread among the other tribes in the Barbar Mercenary Party, and soon the entire force was combing the battlefield for iron equipment.
Good.
That meant a power boost for the Barbar Mercenary Party!
The only miscalculation was that so many of them couldn’t tell iron from bronze. They all ended up bringing huge piles of weapons and armor to me.
And so I was swamped with sorting through all the recovered gear.