The amber light of the late afternoon floods through the tall, arched glass windows of the Forlorn Guild, stretching long, dust-mottled geometric shadows across the polished timber floors. The sun hangs low, a heavy golden coin suspended in a pale violet sky, washing the grand hall in a warm, deceptively peaceful glow.
Behind the high mahogany reception counter, the two female receptionists lean close over their ledgers, their feather quills resting idly in their inkwells. The sharp, clinking sound of glasses and distant, raucous laughter drifts over from the adjoining tavern section, acting as a rhythmic background track to their quiet, domestic gossip.
"He was just so completely naive about the world," the primary receptionist says, her fingers idly smoothing the ruffled edge of her linen collar as she looks at her colleague. "He spent his entire youth buried under heavy ledger books and academic scrolls. He focused exclusively on his structural accounting studies, so of course, he had absolutely no experience with girls. No girlfriend, no courtships, nothing."
The other receptionist, a slightly younger woman with her hair pulled back into a neat braid, leans her chin on her palm, her eyes wide with curiosity. "And the merchant's daughter simply noticed?"
"Exactly! The girl saw a perfect opportunity and moved in like a professional hunter," the first one continues, letting out a soft, amused chuckle that ripples through the quiet space behind the desk. "She knew exactly how passive he was. She proposed marriage right then and there, and now my poor younger brother is her legal husband, her primary business accountant, and her personal servant all wrapped into one tidy package. She handles the executive decisions, and he manages the calculations."
The younger receptionist shifts her weight, a small, gentle smile gracing her lips as she adjusts a stack of registration forms. "Well, as long as they are truly happy together in the end, I think you should support them. A structured life isn't the worst fate."
Then, her smile fades into a faint, expressive pout. She looks out toward the main entrance, her fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the mahogany surface. She lets out a long, heavy, and deeply dramatic sigh.
"Though, if I'm being entirely honest, I absolutely cannot stand passive men," she sighs, her voice tinged with a sharp note of personal distaste. "A man without momentum is just a piece of furniture that breathes."
Before her colleague can reply, the heavy front doors of the guild are kicked open with a violent, resounding SLAM that causes the iron chandeliers overhead to sway.
Comtois charges into the grand hall like a localized hurricane, his boots skidding across the timber floor, kicking up a small cloud of road dust. He is completely disheveled, his armor dented and smeared with dark, dried fluids, but his face is lit up with a wild, manic energy. In his arms, he proudly heaves the bloody, severed remains of his prize: the enormous, hammerhead-like skull of the Wyvern, its massive leathery wings folded awkwardly under his elbows, and its thick, curved claws dragging along the floorboards, leaving a dark, wet trail behind him.
He slams the grotesque trophies directly onto the pristine counter with a heavy, echoing THUD, nearly knocking over a jar of blue ink.
The two receptionists immediately stop their conversation, their eyes widening as they lean forward to systematically examine the damp flesh. They pull up the official bounty sheets, cross-referencing the physical dimensions of the skull and the specific, jagged texture of the wing membrane with the written testimonies brought in by the panicked villagers earlier that afternoon. Every single geometric parameter matches the description perfectly.
The younger receptionist lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, dipping her quill to sign the bottom of the contract.
"The structural requirements have been verified," she announces, her voice returning to its official, professional cadence. "The village threat is neutralized. Comtois, your hunting task is officially declared complete."
She reaches into the iron lockbox beneath her desk, counts out a heavy stack of coin, and slides them across the counter.
"Fifty silver coins," she says, her tone precise.
Comtois looks at the gleaming pile of silver, his eyes reflecting the metallic sheen. He lets out a loud, ecstatic yell and begins jumping for joy right there in the middle of the hall, his boots slamming against the wood as he pumps his fists into the air like a madman.
"Yes! The ale is paid for! The world is beautiful! I am a golden god of wealth!"
The primary receptionist, the very same one who had argued fiercely with him that morning, watches his celebratory dance with a look of intense, unadulterated annoyance. Her face contorts into a bitter scowl, her lips turning down at the corners as she glares at his ecstatic movements.
"I absolutely hate the fact that he is so incredibly good at this!" she snaps to her colleague, her voice dripping with a mixture of professional respect and deep, personal irritation. "He's a chaotic disaster, but his completion rate is infuriatingly flawless."
Comtois catches her words, stopping mid-hop. He turns toward her, a supremely smug, insufferable chuckle rolling out of his throat. He sweeps his arms out in a theatrical bow, then suddenly drops his weight entirely, hitting the floor flat on his back. With a smooth, rapid motion, he rolls over multiple times across the polished timber, sliding effortlessly under the lower gap of the exit door frame and out onto the porch.
"This time I actually used the structural parameters of the door!" Comtois shouts back from the dirt road outside, his voice full of a playful, mocking triumph.
The receptionist glares at the empty doorway for three seconds, her knuckles turning white against her ledger, before she slowly lets out a long breath and drops her shoulders, completely giving up on enforcing any semblance of dignity around him.
Comtois doesn't stay in the street. He springs back to his feet and sprints down the intersecting road, his armor clattering loudly as he heads toward the edge of the marketplace where Aldo stands next to a heavy, two-wheeled cargo cart.
"Look at this, Aldo! Look at the physical manifestation of pure capital!" Comtois roars, skidding to a halt and thrusting the heavy leather pouch of fifty silver coins right into the commander's face. "Fifty silvers, cash in hand! I am an elite economic entity!"
Aldo doesn't blink. He stands perfectly still in the fading afternoon light, his massive, monolithic frame casting a long shadow across the dirt road. He holds a neat, grids-lined statistics sheet covered in tiny, clinical notations. He doesn't look at Comtois's bag of silver; instead, his calm, dark eyes remain fixed on the columns of data before him.
"Congratulations," Aldo says, his voice flat, level, and entirely devoid of any matching excitement.
Comtois lowers his pouch, his brow furrowing as his eyes drift to the cargo cart, which is completely empty except for a few clean wooden crates. He tilts his head, a sudden look of intense curiosity shaping his features.
"Hey, speaking of the beast," Comtois asks, leaning against the wooden wheel of the cart, "how much total profit did you actually manage to extract from selling the rest of that massive Wyvern carcass? The bones, the scales, the meat—what did the market give you?"
Aldo taps the edge of the parchment paper with his thumb, his face completely expressionless as he reads the final summation line from his calculations.
"Thirty-four gold coins and seventy-eight silver coins," Aldo states bluntly.
Comtois's jaw instantly drops to an impossible degree. His eyes widen until they look like two large silver saucers, his breath catching in his throat as his mind tries to process the astronomical figure. A gold coin was worth an incredible premium compared to his meager silver bounty.
"Thirty-four... gold?!" Comtois stammers, his voice cracking with a mix of shock and profound financial jealousy. "How the hell did you pull that off?! The guild wouldn't even pay a full gold piece for a standard raw carcass! Did you cast a hypnotic spell on the local merchants? What kind of dark magic is this?!"
Aldo looks up from the paper, his gaze cool, analytical, and entirely matter-of-fact as he fixes his eyes on Comtois's bewildered face.
"I don't sell the whole carcass to one single buyer," Aldo explains bluntly. "That is a highly inefficient distribution of raw materials. To maximize profit margins and exploit specific market demands, I systematically quarter the beast and separate its components based on industrial utility."
Comtois shakes his head rapidly, his hands waving in front of his face as if trying to clear a thick fog. "Quarter the beast? Separate components? Speak common language, Aldo! I don't understand the mathematics of this at all!"
Aldo sighs softly, a faint plume of mist forming in the cooling air, and turns the statistics sheet toward him, pointing his finger down the list of completed transactions.
"First, consider the Wyvern's massive, hammerhead-like tail," Aldo says, his voice cutting through the ambient street. "Selling it as raw bone is a waste. Instead, I contracted a highly skilled local weapons craftsman this morning. I had him hollow out the heavy bone club at the tip, reinforce the internal core with high-tensile steel bands, and sell the finished product as a pre-built, terrifying custom war-mace that is structurally engineered to still hold and leak alchemical fire during heavy combat applications."
Comtois blinks, his jaw still slack. He turns his head slightly to look down the crowded market lane, and his breath catches. Not thirty feet away, a heavily armored adventurer veteran is walking out of a premium smithy, proudly holding a massive, terrifying bone mace that matches Aldo's description to the exact millimeter, a faint trace of green alchemical oil glistening along its serrated edges.
"See?" Aldo continues, his voice completely flat as he pulls Comtois's attention back to the parchment. "High value, immediate sale. Next, I asked a reliable Chinese merchant in the trade district to quietly contact a specific group of high-tier assassins operating in the northern provinces. I sold them the Raw Venom Sacs directly from the throat. Because the poison is highly concentrated and pure, I sold them at an extreme premium to ensure a massive profit margin before the material could degrade."
He shifts his finger down to the next row of figures.
"For the meat, I adopted a multi-tiered logistical strategy," Aldo explains calmly. "I had a professional guild chef prepare the flesh, allowing him to keep exactly thirty percent of the yield to sell in his private tavern dining rooms as an exotic luxury dish, while I retained seventy percent of the pristine cuts for myself. Then, I contracted a licensed alchemical mage to process the remaining, lower-quality meat into a concentrated, highly stable dry powder to sell directly to the Professional Central Army as an emergency high-calorie ration pack."
Comtois stares at him, completely frozen as the sheer scale of the operation begins to dawn on his mind.
"The wing-spurs, which are naturally evolved for breaking dense stone and climbing rugged mountain rocks," Aldo enumerates, his finger moving steadily down the list, "I packaged and shipped directly to a western province that possesses a very strong, intensive mining industry; their engineers will copy the geometry for tunnel excavation tools. As for the sharp horns and the remaining claws, I had the forge melt down iron around them or carve the ivory into specialized, armor-piercing daggers, which were then sold directly to the PCA logistics officers at a fixed military contract rate. Now, let me ask you a question, Comtois: what exactly did you do with your share of the scales?"
Comtois blinks, shifting his small pouch of silver from hand to hand as he swallows hard. "I... well, I just sold them straight back to the primary Guild counter during my standard check-in. They took the whole batch for a flat administrative fee."
Aldo shakes his head slightly, a faint look of mild disappointment crossing his features.
"A terrible waste of resources," Aldo notes coldly. "I systematically bypassed the guild completely and sold my entire portion of the scales directly to Smith, the independent master armorer down the lane."
"Why the hell would you go through all that extra trouble?!" Comtois asks, his voice rising in frustration. "The guild pays immediately! Why deal with a private forge?"
"To prevent the administrative middlemen from getting fat on our labor," Aldo replies instantly, his eyes narrowing with a sharp, calculating focus. "The guild buys cheap and sells high to the state. By selling directly to Smith, I captured the full value. Smith prefers Wyvern scales over traditional iron because the material creates an incredibly lightweight, completely fire-proof, and highly wind-resistant specialized armor specifically designed for dragon-riders, royal griffin-guards, or high-speed military scouts who require maximum mobility without sacrificing structural defense."
Comtois takes a slow step back, staring at Aldo as if he were looking at a completely different species. He points a trembling finger at the commander's stoic face, his expression turning into a mix of moral outrage and absolute awe.
"You are absolutely unbelievable, Aldo!" Comtois accuses loudly, his voice echoing off the wooden crates. "You are greedy, scheming, and utterly calculated, exactly like a ruthless, textbook capitalist! And the craziest part is that you were literally born and raised as a Vietnamese citizen living in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam! How does a guy from a socialist country end up with an internal engine like this?"
He throws his hands up in the air, pacing back and forth across the dirt road.
"The moment you get dropped into an isekai fantasy world, your deeply hidden, primal capitalist nature just instantly kicks in!" Comtois yells, shaking his head. "You didn't even hesitate!"
Aldo folds the statistics sheet with a neat, precise crease, completely unbothered by the outburst. He slots the paper securely into his inner coat pocket.
"I support the free market, of course," Aldo replies calmly, his voice a steady rock against Comtois's dramatic waves. "It is a highly efficient mechanism. It brings clear, measurable profit, and it organizes labor based on actual utility rather than arbitrary state directives."
"That is absolutely not something a regular teenager born in a communist nation would say the second they get dropped into a fantasy world!" Comtois fires back, leaning in until his nose is inches from Aldo's chin. "You sound like an executive from Wall Street!"
Aldo tilts his head down slightly, his dark eyes looking directly into Comtois's frantic gaze, his voice dropping into a lower, more serious tone.
"Let me ask you something, Comtois," Aldo says quietly. "Do you genuinely like parental control? Do you enjoy having an authority figure constantly watching over your shoulder, drawing the boundaries of your personal life?"
Comtois blinks, caught off guard by the sudden shift in subject. "Well... no, obviously not. Nobody likes being babysat by their parents."
"Exactly," Aldo nods, his face remaining perfectly deadpan. "I don't like it either. And by that same exact logical extension, I absolutely do not like the state apparatus shifting its heavy eyes down to scrutinize our private, everyday transactions too much. Freedom of exchange is a natural extension of personal autonomy."
Comtois lets out a short, stunned laugh, his brow furrowing as he processes the political philosophy pouring out of his young commander.
"My god, you're a full-blown Libertarian, aren't you?" Comtois says, a smirk spreading across his face. "A radical anti-tax regular!"
"Not entirely..." Aldo corrects him immediately. "Only in a strictly economic sense. I recognize the structural necessity of a military chain of command and central defense parameters, but the market itself should remain fluid and unregulated."
Comtois scoffs, turning his attention back to the empty cart. He frowns deeply, remembering the sheer volume of material they had processed out in the clover field.
"Fine, you economic maniac," Comtois says, crossing his arms. "But what about the rest of it? What the hell are you going to do with that massive, disgusting pile of bones and internal organs you kept? You can't sell those to the army or the weapon smiths."
"I have already calculated their utility," Aldo states cleanly. "I plan to gather the entirety of the Wyvern's internal organs—the heart fragments, the liver, the stomach lining—and systematically process them into high-density food for the 204th Company to eat along with the choice cuts of meat we preserved."
Comtois makes a face, his stomach turning slightly at the thought of eating monster entrails. "Why would you eat that garbage? You have plenty of grain back at the Farmland."
"Because it is an essential resource allocation," Aldo explains, his voice completely serious. "Wyvern meat is highly nutritious on a cellular level; consuming it regularly strengthens your muscle fibers and makes your physical frame remarkably strong over a short duration. Furthermore, the internal organs contain active biological magic that will help your body build a permanent, natural resistance to extreme heat and alchemical fire. It is a long-term defensive investment."
Comtois tilts his head, his analytical mind tracking the missing pieces of the carcass. "Okay, that explains the organs. But what about the skeletal system? Are you using those massive, heavy bones as high-grade fertilizer for the clover fields?"
Aldo nods his head once, a sharp, minimal movement. "Yes. The marrow is rich in calcium and trace magical elements that will accelerate the crop growth by twelve percent over the next cycle."
"Are you planning on selling any of the processed fertilizer to the neighboring villages?" Comtois asks, his eyes narrowing as he tries to spot another hidden profit scheme.
Aldo shakes his head sideways. "No. The agricultural output must remain fully centralized within our own parameters for now. We do not export our primary production advantages."
Comtois lets out a long breath, sitting down on the edge of a clean wooden crate, his fingers tracing the grain of the wood. "Okay, fair enough. But I've got to tell you, Aldo—Wyvern meat and monster offal are absolutely notorious for being completely disgusting. The textbooks say the flesh is incredibly tough, stringy, and tastes like old sulfur and wet mud. It's not very tasty at all. Your men are going to mutiny if you force them to chew on that garbage."
Aldo's expression remains unyielding, but his voice shifts slightly, introducing a rare note of culinary detail into his clinical speech.
"That is precisely why I will not serve it raw or unseasoned," Aldo states calmly. "I will chop the meat and organs up into small, precise cubes, clean them thoroughly with fresh well water three times to remove the excess bile, and then add a heavy blend of local spices, rich dairy butter, wild basil, and specific magical herbs from the forest to make the meat and offal significantly more flavorful."
He steps closer to the cart, his hands demonstrating the motion in the air.
"I'll spread a thick layer of fresh butter over the cuts during the roasting process to break down the tough fibers," Aldo explains, his voice steady. "Or, if the men prefer a longer shelf life, you can dry-cure the thin strips with coarse salt and smoke them over a low hickory fire for forty-eight hours until it turns into a dense, rich jerky."
As Aldo speaks, describing the rich combination of melted butter, fragrant basil, and savory, smoke-cured monster meat, Comtois's throat suddenly tightens. His mouth instantly begins to water heavily, a vivid, highly sensory image of the rich, steaming stew filling his mind. He swallows hard, his stomach letting out a loud, traitorous rumble that echoes in the quiet afternoon air.
"Oh, man..." Comtois says, his eyes wide as he licks his lips. "That actually sounds incredible. I want to eat some of that right now! I want that fire-resistance buff for my next hunt, Aldo! You've got to let me in on the feast!"
Aldo looks down at him, his gaze cool and measured.
"Sure... but, consuming a mere fifty grams of the material in a single hour isn't nearly enough to alter your biological parameters," Aldo notes clinically. "It takes a significant amount of consistent time for the human body to digest and fully process the magical properties. But do not worry; I will give you a large, regular portion of the stores. Your entire 205th Company will be included in the dietary rotation. After all, you were the one who tracked and inflicted the primary wounds on the beast. The distribution is mathematically fair."
Comtois lets out a sigh of relief, leaning back against the crate as the sun finally dips beneath the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of indigo and crimson. He looks over at the towering commander, a sudden thought striking his mind.
"Hey, Aldo," Comtois asks curiously, "have you ever looked at the records around here? Has anyone else in this entire frontier guild ever processed a monster hunt like this before? Bypassing the middleman, quartering the meat, manufacturing weapons out of the tail—has any regular adventurer ever done that?"
Comtois shakes his head, a wry, amused chuckle escaping his lips. "Yeah, exactly. They're very simple people around here, Aldo. They just kill the beast, bring the whole messy carcass back to the front desk, and give everything to the Guild for a flat, lazy fee. They don't have an ounce of economic ambition. They're definitely not hyper-capitalist monsters like you."
Aldo sets his boots firmly against the dirt road, his arms crossing over his chest as he looks down at the young hunter.
"Let me ask you plainly, Comtois," Aldo says, his tone completely serious. "Do you truly like the mechanics of the free market?"
Comtois doesn't hesitate for a single second. He jumps up from his wooden crate with an explosive, excited bounce, a wide, greedy grin plastering across his face as he shakes his leather pouch of silver coins right in Aldo's face, the metal pieces clinking together in a beautiful, rapid-fire rhythm.
"Yes! Yes! Absolutely!" Comtois shouts excitedly, his eyes shining with an unstable, joyous light. "I love the free market! I love money! Money is the ultimate score counter of existence!"
"Good," Aldo replies, his face remaining an unmoving wall of stone. "Now that the resource allocation is complete, let us get dressed and properly prepared for the upcoming Gala in Thromium. The regional parameters are changing. Officer Watkins will be picking us up with the military transport early tomorrow morning."
Comtois stops shaking his pouch, his eyes blinking as he looks around the empty market road. The realization of their impending departure finally registers in his mind, and his brow furrows as he notices the absence of two familiar figures.
"Wait a minute," Comtois says, looking left and right through the deepening twilight. "Where the hell are Hano and Onaga? Weren't they supposed to be helping you clear the transport logs?"
Aldo adjusts the collar of his heavy coat, his voice remaining flat.
"I had them bring a massive haul of raw timber from our Farmland to plant and cultivate in the outer sectors," Aldo states cleanly. "And I sent a few more people from our company along with them to provide intensive structural repair and defensive reinforcement services for the exact same village you just saved. The villagers are terrified of another Wyvern attack, so they are highly motivated to buy our services at a premium."
Comtois's jaw instantly drops to the floor for the second time that afternoon. He stares at Aldo in absolute, horrified awe as the sheer, breathtaking scale of this opportunistic business model hits his brain.
"You... you sent a construction crew to the village I just fought in?!" Comtois stammers, his voice a high-pitched squeak of pure disbelief. "You're literally capitalizing on the property damage caused by the monster I hunted?! You expanded our market footprint into a disaster zone before the blood even dried?!"
Before Aldo can open his mouth to explain the economic logic, a sharp, heavy hand reaches out from the shadows behind them.
The primary receptionist from the guild steps forward into the light of the street lamps, her face a mask of absolute, professional disgust as she forcefully pushes Comtois aside with her elbow. She points a rigid finger right at Aldo's nose, her eyes flashing with a cold, judgmental light.
"I knew it!" the receptionist snaps loudly, her voice cutting through the evening air. "I stood by that window and watched you organize those wagons! You are nothing but a calculating, cold-blooded, and completely ruthless opportunist, Aldo! You exploit the panic of poor villagers just to pad your own corporate ledger!"
Aldo's face suddenly changes. In an incredibly rare, completely unprecedented structural anomaly, his lips twist downward into a distinct, defensive pout, his features tightening with a flash of genuine, youthful irritation.
"No, that is an incorrect assessment of the data," Aldo pouts, his voice rising as he defends his philosophy. "That is not exploitation at all. That is a completely consensual, mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services. It is the very definition of a healthy, thriving free market. They receive structural safety, and we receive capital. It is perfectly balanced."
Comtois covers his ears with both hands, taking a massive step back down the road as he lets out a loud, exhausted groan that echoes off the stone walls of the guild.
"Oh my god, Aldo, shut up!" Comtois roars, his face contorted in sheer misery. "Stop buzzing about the free market immediately! If I hear you say the words 'consensual exchange' one more time tonight, I am going to throw myself right back into that muddy drainage ditch!"
Aldo slowly smooths his features back into his classic, unreadable mask of stone, his pout vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. He turns his back to the town, his eyes fixed on the northern horizon where the cold stars of Thromium are just beginning to pierce the dark velvet sky, his mind already calculating the economic variables of the grand gala waiting for them on the morrow.