A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"The business dealings – did they conclude alright?"

Nila's excitement returned as she nodded enthusiastically. "Yup! After seeing you fight the other day, I knew I couldn't keep letting my fear hold me back. I've been worried for ages about what people would say about a girl like me hunting – but finally I've made the first step, and it seems like I'll be making so much money!"

Beam grinned, sharing her joy. "You're well on the way to building up that hunting business that you wanted."

But Nila shook her head. "Nope. I still have a long way to go. I know that looking at Greeves – even though he's absolutely the worst, I still can't deny that he's way out of my league. If I'm going to have my own hunting business, I need to not just be the best hunter, but I need to be the best merchant too. That's the only way I'm going to make it to the top."

Beam felt a little uncomfortable hearing Greeves get praised, given his knowledge of his dark dealings, but he avoided saying anything about it. "I'm sure you'll get there. Your hunting is already high level."

"It's still not there yet. I need to get stronger… Though I'm not really sure what it means to be a strong hunter. After you let me hunt with you, I started to sort of figure it out. But I don't want to be a monster slayer, I didn't enjoy that like I did hunting. I don't really know how the highest peak in hunting is different from being really good at slaying monsters, though," Nila said.

"Sounds like a puzzle," Beam agreed.

"Mhm, but I'm going to keep trying to figure it out, and I'll become the best hunter in the entire province, just you wait and see!" Nila said with a big smile. Beam grinned along with her.

"I'll try and keep it with you," he said, "I've got to get much stronger too."

Nila puffed out her cheeks. "No fair. You've got to give me a little time to catch up – you're so far away at the moment!"

"No can do," Beam laughed. "I'm still way behind where I should be."

"Mmm… Thank you though," Nila said quietly.

"What for?"

"For everything. For today. I know what you were trying to do, intimidating the people I'm working with so they'll think twice about going backstabbing me… and whilst I don't think it was necessary, thank you anyway. It felt nice, y'know, to have someone there backing me up. I thought I'd have to do it all alone," Nila said.

"Naw, I only came in at the last minute. You did it all yourself up until then. And it'll be all you after this too," Beam said.

"I know, but still, thank you. You gave me the courage to finally go ahead and do it, and you helped me get the money I needed to get started. Without the rewards from hunting the spiders and goblins I'd never have been able to get this far. It was a huge help," Nila said.

"And now, by the looks of things, you'll be sorted for money for a while. 4 whole silver for a deer. That's crazy, right? And that's light work for you too – you could hunt a few deer every day if you wanted to."

"Heheh, I'm getting rich!" She grinned mischievously. "If you ever need a lend of some money, just let me know! Nila Felder the money lender! But deer usually sell for a bit more. Upwards of 6 or 7 silver, because of all the meat on them, the organs and the fur too. They're super useful and they're not so easy to hunt."

Beam laughed with her. "You've got a couple of weeks left before winter properly sets in too. It seems like you'll be able to make a lot of money before the winter."

"Yup. It's a big turnaround. From not having enough money to get us through the winter, to the silvers from monster hunting, and now having just crazy amounts. Honestly, I'm not going to know what to do with it. Mm. I think I'll get Stephanie and David some new clothes first.

They're growing like crazy. And then I'll get a present for mother… And then I'll make sure we've got lots of nice tasty food to enjoy," she said.

"Probably be a good idea to get whatever you need in soon – word from Greeves. There's an army on its way. Some Yarmdon raiders made it across the mountain. You had best keep safe while you're hunting," Beam said.

Nila's eyes widened in terror as she suddenly froze. "Yarmdon raiders!? Are we going to be alright? What if they attack before the army gets here?"

"They were spotted 20 miles east of here… But I found a scrap of their flag near the perimeter of the village – probably carried by the wind. It's possible that they'll make it here before the army, but we should be fine even so. They've split into groups of 6, with only fifty men in a group. Surely the village can defend itself against a mere fifty," Beam said.

But Nila shook her head. "I doubt it… If they made it across the mountains, they're no doubt strong. Plus, Yarmdon raiders are strong regardless. They're giants, right? And we don't have any real fighters aside from you and Judas. We've only got maybe a hundred men of fighting age, but it's not like we've ever had to fight here.

The village is far enough away from everything that no army ever makes it this far."

"Heh… So we're in more trouble than I thought," Beam mused.

Nila nodded gravely. "How long do you think it'll take for that army to arrive? And how many are there?"

"A few days, I'd suppose. Greeves said a hundred men," Beam said.

"Only a hundred?" Nila frowned in disappointment. "But there are 300 Yarmdon raiders, aren't there? You said they're split into groups, but what if some of these groups join back up to attack?"

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