"Good morning, Arin. How did you sleep? Hopefully, well," asked Bennie as he saw his grandson step through the front door of the apartment complex. The building stood three stories high and occupied one corner of the Sonnenberg compound, which itself covered an entire city block. Arin had spent the night there because the family had decided that everyone involved in transporting the money should remain inside the compound until morning. Considering what they expected to happen on the road, nobody was complaining about the arrangement.
"I slept well, Grandpa. The beds here are surprisingly comfortable," Arin replied as he walked toward the dining area. He grabbed a bowl of yogurt, added a generous amount of mixed fruit, and began stirring it together with his spoon. "How about you?" he asked between bites, looking at Bennie. The old man simply smiled, apparently far too accustomed to sleeping wherever business required him to be.
"I slept fine, and the money has already been loaded," Bennie answered. He paused for a moment before continuing, his expression becoming considerably more serious. "I suppose you already know this, but we are almost certain that someone is going to attempt to rob you on the way back." Arin slowly lowered his spoon as he realized that his grandfather was not joking.
"The people responsible have been connected to several groups that disappeared along that road, but there has never been enough evidence to prosecute anyone," Bennie continued. He spoke casually, almost as though he were discussing a minor inconvenience rather than an armed ambush. "That is why we told the police department that we did not need an escort; otherwise, they would have offered one." He then smiled brightly, as if he had just remembered something important.
"Oh, and be a dear and inform the recruits who are going with you that they are expected to fight if an attack happens," Bennie added. "They are some of the best recruits the family has, so we decided that it was time they saw some real blood." With that, he walked away with a cheerful smile that was completely inappropriate for the conversation they had just finished. Arin remained standing there with his mouth hanging open, wondering how his grandfather could say something like that so casually.
"Wait, so you mean we have the honor of telling the recruits that they are probably going to be attacked and that they are expected to kill human beings?" Bertho asked ten minutes later. His mouth was hanging open almost as widely as Arin's had been, and his expression made it obvious that he had not expected their morning briefing to go in this direction. "Because if that is what Grandpa meant, then I suddenly understand why he walked away smiling." Arin sighed deeply as he looked at him.
"Yes, sadly, Bertho, that is exactly what he meant," Arin replied. He noticed Bertho was still holding his spoon dangerously close to his face and pointed toward it. "Now watch out, or you are going to lose your yogurt." Bertho quickly lowered the spoon, though his expression remained troubled.
Arin could understand his reaction because he still remembered his first time killing another human being five years earlier. It had not been something he could simply shrug off afterward, no matter how necessary the act had been. Fighting goblins had gradually made violence easier to endure, but there was still an important difference between killing a monster and killing a person. Even after everything he had experienced, Arin doubted that killing another human being was something anyone should ever become completely comfortable with.
"Do we even have enough therapists?" Bill asked with concern. The question immediately changed the mood because everyone understood what was behind it. Over the previous three years, the number of therapists and psychiatrists entering the workforce had increased enormously, but humanity was still nowhere near having enough of them. After all, billions of people had returned from active war zones, and countless others had suffered terrible injuries, deaths, or experiences that would remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Governments around the world had therefore pushed heavily to expand psychological services. They wanted to prevent the survivors of the wars from carrying untreated trauma into civilian society and causing problems that could have been avoided. Some countries had even guaranteed salaries for therapists once their patient numbers began to decline, since they feared that the profession would collapse if funding disappeared. The expectation was that the demand would remain high for five to ten years before the next major trial period forced governments to reconsider their plans.
"That is a good question, but it is not something we can solve while standing beside a wagon full of silver," Arin said. He looked toward the courtyard, where the recruits were beginning to gather around the heavily loaded wagon. "For now, we need to focus on getting everyone home alive." His tone was calm, but the thought of what might happen on the road weighed heavily on him.
The wagon itself looked almost absurdly ordinary considering what it carried. Beneath several layers of protective material sat thousands upon thousands of silver coins, representing the profits from the Sonnenberg family's bow shop. The money was normally stored safely inside the family's compound, where a hundred recruits and numerous defensive measures made theft extremely difficult. Moving it through the wilderness, however, created an entirely different problem.
The Sonnenbergs had originally purchased much of the land surrounding the city for almost nothing. At the time, the riverbank and nearby swampland were considered undesirable, and the government had been actively encouraging people to develop the region. The family had recognized the potential before everyone else did and purchased enormous sections of land while prices were still extremely low. That early investment had eventually allowed them to shape much of the city's development.
Their goal had never simply been to control property prices. The Sonnenbergs wanted to turn the settlement into an important connection point between the Netherlands and Germany, particularly because the river and harbor offered excellent opportunities for trade. Owning large portions of the land meant they could keep rents reasonable while ensuring that development happened according to a long-term plan. It was also why people around the family's businesses tended to be cautious without necessarily being afraid.
The scale of their property became obvious whenever someone looked at the city from above. The Sonnenberg compound occupied an entire city block, surrounded by three layers of trees and thick bushes. The arrangement had been designed with the family's rangers in mind, because they were exceptionally skilled at hiding within natural environments. From outside, the compound looked far more like a patch of forest than a wealthy family's headquarters.
At the center of the property stood the main Sonnenberg store, where nearly everything produced by the family was sold. The remaining buildings curved around it in a large horseshoe formation, giving the entire compound an unusual but highly practical layout. Beneath the store was a reinforced vault, made possible by the fact that the entire property had been built on a small hill. From the upper sections of the store, the family could see the city and harbor, while anyone looking toward the compound from outside saw little more than trees.
The Sonnenbergs had deliberately planted the forest around their buildings to make everything blend together. Their houses, workshops, storage buildings, and defensive positions were hidden among the vegetation rather than standing openly in the middle of the property. It was an arrangement that provided privacy, security, and a considerable tactical advantage. Anyone approaching the compound without knowing where to look could easily walk past it without realizing that an entire family estate was hidden behind the trees.
That security was one of the reasons the family could safely store enormous amounts of money inside the compound. The European Central Bank had also begun taking advantage of that security, with its local branch relying on the Sonnenbergs to protect some of its reserves. The bank simply did not have enough trained personnel to establish the same level of security around every facility it operated. With robberies becoming increasingly common again, numbers and manpower had suddenly become important in ways that the old world had largely forgotten.
Unfortunately, moving money between locations created an opportunity for criminals. The police knew that several suspicious groups had disappeared after operating in the area, but there was never enough evidence to connect them to specific crimes. The Sonnenbergs had therefore been left with a difficult choice: accept a police escort and reveal exactly when valuable shipments were moving, or rely on their own people. Given the family's resources and the quality of their recruits, they had chosen the second option.
"Right, while I have you all here," Arin finally said as he climbed onto the top of the wagon. He looked down at the gathered recruits and immediately regretted agreeing to speak. The others had somehow managed to disappear when Bennie gave the order, leaving Arin to deliver the unpleasant news. "Grandpa wants me to explain something before we leave."
Several recruits looked up at him expectantly, completely unaware of what was coming. Arin took a deep breath and tried to find the least alarming way to explain that they were almost certainly going to be attacked. Unfortunately, there was no pleasant way to phrase it. He glanced toward Bertho, Bill, and Tom, who were standing nearby, and silently cursed the three of them for leaving him with the job.