Making The Devils Cry

Mission 4: Payment

Standing in front of Saussy Village was a young man in his early twenties with shaggy brown hair. He looked out towards the distance with a look of worry, tapping his foot impatiently.

"I wonder what could be taking them so long," he wondered aloud. "Surely those boars aren't as powerful as that magical beast they fought."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Snapping him out of his worried stupor, the young man heard screaming coming from farther away. As it got closer, the brunette saw that the source of the yelling was Asta, as he and Yuno were racing against one another to see who could make it to the village first.

Over Asta's shoulder, he carried the dead bodies of four incredibly huge boars while using his spectral arm to carry six more corpses. Meanwhile, Yuno was using his Wind Magic to hold up ten additional boar corpses in the air.

Once they made it to the village, Asta and Yuno stopped in front of the young man, as he looked at the pair of brothers in confusion.

"So... who got here first?," Asta wheezed, panting heavily as he looked towards the young man expectantly.

"Uh, I think you two tied," the young man answered, while Asta and Yuno looked disappointed by the results of their race.

"Ah, come on! I was so sure I was going to beat you this time!," Asta whined to Yuno who didn't look all that impressed with him.

"Not in a million years," Yuno replied stoically, lowering the boars he was carrying to the ground with his magic.

Asta looked annoyed by Yuno's taunt, muttering a simple "Whatever" before lowering the boars he had in his spectral hand to the ground and shrugging the remaining boars off his shoulders.

"Anyway, sorry we took so long," the ashen-blonde musclehead apologized to the young man. "Those boars were a lot bigger and stronger than we'd thought they'd be."

"We told you that you didn't have to hunt them for us anymore," the young brunette replied, referring to himself and his fellow villagers. "We would have gladly given you two your payment after defending our village from that beast."

"No way!," Asta quickly denied, shooting down the idea. "It would've been wrong to take that money without even doing what we were hired to do!"

Yuno nodded his head in agreement, causing the young man to smile at the two teenagers appreciatively.

"You've got good hearts, boys. You've more than earned this."

The young brunette then took two small bags of yul from his pocket and handed one bag to Asta and Yuno. Asta holds his bag in his hand and looks at it with stars in his eyes while Yuno looks at his bag with a smile of satisfaction on his face.

"I wish we could give you guys more, but we could only afford to give you what Seihi had promised," the young man explained apologetically.

"Are you kidding!? This is perfect!," Asta assured, looking through his bag happily. "I've got about 1,000 yul in here! That's enough for a whole bag of tatoes!"

"I'm going to buy some meat with my share," Yuno revealed, not too keen on the idea of using all of their money to buy tatoes.

"Great idea, Yuno!," Asta told his brother excitedly. "We can have a steak and tato dinner to celebrate finishing our first job! Doesn't that sound awesome!?"

As Yuno smiled and nodded in response, the young brunette from Saussy Village couldn't help but smile warmly at the sight of the brothers.

"Oh I almost forgot to ask," Asta began, snapping out of his excitement at the prospect of eating meat and tatoes. "Were you able to break through the ice yet?"