Luna pulled out her money pouch.
Inside were more than thirty Magic Crystal Coins and several dozen gold coins.
Toma shook his head again.
'Looks like Luna really is a sheltered girl who's barely traveled anywhere.'
'And she expects to buy information about a kingdom's princess with this little money?'
The people responsible had dared to kidnap the Princess.
That alone meant they weren't afraid of the Wos Kingdom.
If they weren't even afraid of an entire kingdom, how could information about them possibly be cheap?
'Looks like I'm going to have to handle the money problem myself.'
'System, can I exchange Exchange Points for money?'
[Yes. However, this is not recommended. The conversion rate is extremely inefficient. The System recommends exchanging for potions and selling them instead. This would provide significantly better value.]
'All right.'
If the System itself recommended doing it that way, Toma might as well listen.
It wasn't like the System would deliberately screw him over.
[The System is extremely pleased that Host thinks this way.]
'Fuck off.'
'I'd be grateful if you'd just stop reading my thoughts.'
[...]
Toma mentally raised his middle finger at the ridiculous System once again before ignoring it.
According to Luna, Derken had been a Fifth-Rank fighter.
Since Tohka could instantly kill him, she had to possess at least Sixth-Rank combat power.
Besides, Tohka could already fly.
However, Tohka's flight was almost instinctive to her.
Toma had no idea how that compared to the actual flight abilities of Sixth-Rank fighters in this world.
After thinking about it, Toma decided that he should prepare a few additional safeguards for Tohka in the future.
After all...
Safety first.
Looking cool second.
There was no such thing as being too careful.
What happened today had also taught Toma an important lesson.
Never underestimate anyone in this world.
Maybe people like these mercenaries would barely qualify as background characters in a novel.
But that didn't mean one of those insignificant background characters couldn't suddenly screw him over.
Just like what had happened earlier...
According to Luna, there were only a single-digit number of known Sixth-Rank fighters on the entire Western Continent.
And there was supposedly only one Seventh-Rank fighter.
Toma seriously doubted those numbers represented the full truth.
But at the very least, that was the situation publicly known to ordinary people.
As long as Toma remained careful, he doubted those hidden experts would randomly reveal themselves just to cause trouble for him.
"All right."
Toma looked toward Tohka.
"Tohka's finished eating too, so let's get going."
Then he turned toward Luna.
"Luna, lead us out of this forest first."
Toma stretched with obvious relief.
"Finally! We can get out of this damn forest!"
Tohka silently stood and followed beside Toma.
Truthfully, she hadn't understood a single thing Luna had spent all that time explaining.
But Toma understood it.
So as far as Tohka was concerned, everything was fine.
She only needed to listen to Toma.
Luna respectfully nodded.
"Yes. Please follow me. For someone who has only recently arrived in this world, it really would be easy to become lost in this forest."
With Luna leading the way, Toma and Tohka finally began their journey out of the forest.
Their next destination—
The Dark Capital, Shangri-La.