Chapter 3 Ranch is going to play with contracts

Chapter 3: Ranchi is a Contractor
Even though the golden color of dusk had long since completely disappeared, the night scenery of the city-state illuminated by lights still revealed itself to be no less beautiful than before.

Beside the old buildings on both sides, pedestrians were dressed in various types of clothing, with leisurely smiles floating on their faces.

Hundreds of meters away from the city gates, in the corner of the residential area.

Apart from the torches placed on the walls by the guards and the lights coming out of the residents’ windows, there was no other light.

After Ranch’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he slowly approached his destination.

He could see something curled up under the wall on the corner – a lot of curled up creatures, actually.

Fragile looking ones shivering from the cold.

Ranch continued to walk towards the place, and he could hear the voices of those beings.

“Meow~Meow~”

Stopping and crouching down, he opened the lunch box in his hand.

The scent was starting to fill the air just from that alone.

And as Ranch dropped the cooked chicken inside onto the ground not far away, gradually kittens began to approach him.

At this moment.

He didn’t even seem to notice that not far across the street, there was another figure sitting against the wall, and she looked like a homeless person from the slums.

This street corner wasn’t exactly a nice place though, isolated and with only a few feral cats.

But there were no other homeless and few guards.

Talia hated humans, so this place in turn made her more comfortable.

No one would have thought that such a young girl dressed as a vagabond would be a former demon princess.

Time passed like this.

The surrounding kittens were almost all attracted to Ranch.

Ranchi then watched the cats eat with a happy face.

He had learned from the housekeeper that Talia had been sleeping on the streets here for the past two days.

So Rancic had asked the mansion’s chef to prepare a sufficient amount of special spiced chicken for him before dinner, which the cats could eat, and which tasted even better to humans.

Then a little later, on purpose, he found his way here to pretend to feed the cat.

“……”

Though throughout those few minutes, Ranch never glanced at Talia.

But Talia had already noticed this human who had intruded into her “territory” early on.

If he had just stayed here honestly, Talia might have treated him as if he were air.

But that damned human, why would he use such high-grade meat to feed wildcats?
Thinking back to her years of living on the streets, Talia could only come to the conclusion that even the cats ate better than she did.

Finally, she couldn’t help but look over to Ranch’s side.

But due to her dignity, she couldn’t seem to utter any words of reprimand for a moment.

Only death stared at Ranchi.

But still, Ranchi was as if he hadn’t noticed her for half a day.

“Can you go feed the cat somewhere else?”

She opened her mouth, coldly.

Ranch looked up in a slight daze, blankly looking in the direction the words had come from, and after seeming to roughly understand the situation, responded bashfully:

“I come to this place more often than you do.”

As if asserting his sovereignty, he stated the fact that “he often feeds the cats here”.

Talia sniffed, if anything, and gave a cold snort, no longer paying attention to him.

Because this human really wasn’t lying.

Ranchi didn’t say anything more either.

What he had just said was indeed the truth.

He, as the original inhabitant of this town, had come to this place even more diligently than Talia.

And since Talia had only just come to this town a short while ago, naturally she wouldn’t have seen if Ranch had come here to feed the cats in the first few days.

But Talia was stubborn.

She both hated Ranch and was reluctant to voluntarily walk away and give up the position she had been in for two days.

Anyone who backed down at this point would look like she had lost.

So she sat in the corner and tried to get herself to sleep while fighting off her hunger.

And so it was for a little while.

“Can you do me a favor?”

Ranch’s cold voice rang out between the quiet streets.

Talia looked up slightly in Ranch’s direction to make sure he was talking to himself.

“What?”

Talia hadn’t wanted to ignore him.

But according to the rules of the human kingdom, since someone had asked for her help, it was only right to assume that she would be paid for it.

She was in great need of all kinds of payment right now.

“Help me feed the cats and don’t let the big cats bully the little ones. I’m sleepy and want to go home and sleep.”

Ranch finished by holding up the box in his hand and adding.
“The extra is yours.”

“……”

Talia was silent.

If it wasn’t a handout, but a trade, she could consider it.

But for demons, following the rules of the deal was an extraordinarily important thing.

It was even a matter of their dignity.

The more noble a demon was, the more they would rather die than break the rules of the deal.

Even if this human didn’t know she was a demon.

But as a demon royal family, even if she really starved herself to death alive, she would never go against the rules of the deal and covet more than half of a kitten’s food.

She counted the number of cats in her mind, making sure that she should still end up with a small amount of chicken.

“Deal.”

Talia saw no problem with accepting the deal.

Though she didn’t quite understand what pleasure humans could derive from such an act as feeding a cat.

Ranch covered the lunch box tentatively and placed it on the floor, stood up and moved his back a bit, and left at a leisurely pace.

……

The next morning, a wealthy merchant’s mansion in this town.

It was another day of self-discipline, waking up early, and after breakfast Ranch left the house.

The plants in the courtyard seemed to have been dipped in a dense color by the rising sun, and there were canaries chirping in the surrounding trees.

Ranchi couldn’t help but feel happy as he walked through the yard.

However, he just walked out of the yard door and stopped in his tracks.

For he saw that Talia was sitting across the street as if she was squatting on him.

But he didn’t panic at all.

It was unlikely that Talia would investigate the bad things he’d done so quickly.

In the distance, Talia reached Ranch at a quick pace, while behind Ranch, the guards standing at the entrance to the mansion were suddenly on alert.

Ranchi raised his hand to signal the guards not to be nervous.

It was useless to be nervous, if she wanted to go on a killing spree, no one here could stop her.

“Box.”

She just lifted her hand and handed Ranch the lunch box that had held the chicken last night.

The reason she’d sought to get to Ranch so quickly was because a casual inquiry in this town about the “black-haired, green-pupiled teenager” would have told her about the not-so-reputable nobleman.

However, she always felt that the rich boy that the humans in the town talked about didn’t seem to match up with the boy she had seen with her own eyes.

He seemed a bit stupid and lazy, but at least he didn’t seem like a bad-tempered human. “You can sell it, I have no intention of getting it back.”

Ranch looked at her quizzically.

The family could get at least half a pound for their fancy flatware if they took it and sold it.

“That’s outside the deal.”

Talia said with a grimace.

Ranch nodded at that and reached for the box.

This Demon Princess must have put in a lot of effort to disguise herself as a human, enforcing the rules and regulations of human society extraordinarily strictly.

Before Ranchi could say anything else, Talia turned around without pause and left indifferently.

“Didn’t you eat much?”

Ranchi asked, looking at Talia, who turned and left him with only the back of her dark gray cloak.

“I did honor the contents of our deal.”

Talia said without looking back.

“So.”

Ranch said, looking down, looking at the box as if to himself.

The demon seemed to emphasize that this was a “deal”, not a “favor”.

She was too proud to allow anyone to give her a handout, and she didn’t want to repay any favors, knowing full well that it was the free ones that were the most expensive.

So her own little plan to give Talia a favor was shattered.

Even the box that could have been a “favor trap” was returned in the first place.

Ranchi sighed and handed the box to the guards.

As expected, it wasn’t that easy to cancel out the “hatred” with Talia by “giving her a favor”.

However…

At the moment, this was all within his expectations.

Ranch signaled the guards following him not to be on guard, he was going to go speak to the young lady alone.

The guard didn’t dare to say anything and followed Ranchi’s instructions to guard the entrance of the mansion.

Ranchi then jogged and followed Talia.

Talia turned her head sideways and looked at this human who had come to her side again, her expression becoming a bit puzzled.

She didn’t understand what this guy, whose status seemed to be not low yet weak, wanted to do.

“I would like to propose another deal with you, and I guarantee its fairness on my family’s reputation.”

Ranch spoke respectfully and courteously.

Talia’s golden eyes stared at Ranch as if she was trying to probe into the pupils of his eyes.

It wasn’t a lie.

She had the magic to be able to determine the truth of the other’s words.

And having had a trading experience.

It didn’t seem like this rich human was too bad, and should be able to give the payment she needed right now.

“Tell me about it.”

Talia stopped and responded.

“The next thing about the deal, I hope you don’t ask me why.”

Ranch’s expression became somewhat serious.

Talia nodded.

She didn’t need to probe anything more, as no one could fool her with lies.

“There’s a guy in this town trying to kill me. So I’d like to entrust you to keep an eye out for any suspicious people around my house, as well as help me remove the danger and protect me, and I’ll pay you accordingly.”

Ranch blushed a little, not hiding the worry in his eyes as he looked directly at Talia.

“Not a difficult task.”

Talia listened to Rancic’s offer, convinced that he was telling the truth, and
“Your family should be rich and powerful in this town, even the mansion shouldn’t be short of people who can keep you safe.”

She thought for a moment, then looked to the not-so-weak guards in the distance and questioned Rancic about her offer.

“Because an assassin could be right next to me, and I can’t absolutely trust anyone around me, so I need as much as possible as well as reliable insurance.”

Rancic looked like he was extraordinarily favoring Talia.

His eyes didn’t hide his admiration for Talia for her honesty in returning the box and for not being prejudiced against him at all because of who he was, his position, or the rumors.

“So you think I’m more reliable than those guards you have around you?”

Talia seemed to acquiesce to the fact that she was not weak.

She understood that Ranch had the eye of some shrewd merchants.

“Relatively speaking, yes.”

Rancic nodded.

“Hiring me is expensive.”

Talia simply said.

She had been there to determine the truth of this human’s every word.

But he hadn’t told her a lie so far.

Out of all the humans she had met so far, that was rare.

According to her judgment, he should belong to the kind of human who was honest, decent and kind, and was a good person to trade with.

“Three pounds a day, and this agreement will be in effect for as long as you remain in the city.”

Ranch had taken a check with the words “Wilford Chamber of Commerce” and a pen out of his pocket.

It seemed that one and a half pounds of gold were too much trouble for him to keep on his person.

Thirty pounds was enough for an average family in the borderlands of South Ventina in the Kingdom of Houghton for a year.

Talia visibly froze.

It wasn’t just that she was subdued by Ranch’s rich brotherhood.

For her, who hadn’t encountered currency in pounds for a long time and was still a black man in the kingdom, this was a deal that was hard to refuse.

However, she had absolute confidence in her own strength.

So this was not a favor, but a deal.

The most crucial thing was that the initiative to terminate the deal was also hers, and it would not affect her freedom.

“…… deal.”

Talia whispered.

“Then I’ll be in trouble.”

Ranch handed both the checkbook and pen directly to Talia, causing her to freeze again.

Talia looked down at the check in her hand in thought.

Meaning, let me fill in the numbers on it myself every day and then take it and cash it?

A rich and generous human indeed.

And with many other qualities such as kindness and honesty.

However, this kind of human was often the one that didn’t get along with their demon race the most.

……

At this moment, Ranchi turned back and was walking towards the other side of the street.

The corners of his mouth twitched, and he was already on the verge of stifling his laughter.

Talia didn’t know yet that the person who tried to kill Ranchi was none other than herself.

At that time, even if Talia found out the truth that it was Ranchi who had hunted down her Enchanted Demon, she wouldn’t be able to do anything to Ranchi.

Because she had to follow this one rule-

“As long as she was in this city, she had to protect Ranchi and then get 3 pounds of money per day.”
(End of chapter)