"Hey, there is still some time left. It would be best if you left that sword behind. It was not meant for you to take, so you could be cursed because you lifted it. Do you want to be cursed?"

Keith looked at the paladin who was walking beside him and also advising him at the same time.

Like the rest of the party that hired Keith, he was super worried about the sword and was looking for something to happen to it.

Luckily, nothing happened, and the party began to lose some of its paranoia. But that did not mean that everyone was suddenly onboard with the sword being brought with them.

"It will be fine! And this sword did want to come with me. Look at how well-behaved it is when I hold it. It is not even shocking me or anything.

This sword would have reacted more if it did not want to be touched, right?"

Keith asked, now fully convinced that he was in the right. The party he was with could only sigh as they looked at him swinging this sword around.

The rock the sword was embedded in barely missed the paladin, but the man was too used to it at this point to care.

The party decided to put up with Keith just until the next town where they would dump his ass. They could not afford to have someone like Keith, who was most likely to become a liability, with them and feel safe.

As soon as they reached the town, they went to the Guildhall to register their mission as a success and get the payment they had been promised.

But as they walked toward the guild, Keith noticed someone sitting in front of their building with a sullen expression.

The older male looked like he had lost all hope and even cried silently.

Seeing him, Keith could not help but feel sympathetic. He stopped to look at the crying man as his party continued to walk in front of him.

After about a minute of walking, the party noticed that the loud man was no longer following behind them, and they quickly turned around to look.

"Hey, Keith, what are you-"

"You go on ahead of me and report to the guild. I will stay here and have a small talk with that man. He looks like he needs my help."

Keith headed toward the sad man without even hearing his party out.

The party wanted to call Keith first, but then they recalled that they wanted to kick Keith out and that this was the perfect opportunity.

So, no one complained, and they quickly left…

Keith needed to notice how focused he was on helping this man and finding out what was wrong with him.

People usually only sat like this if something was majorly wrong with them.

"Hey, are you alright? Your expression tells me that you need help. Don't worry! I am here to help you out."

Keith boasted as he held his sword and put it on the ground.

The second the stone hit the ground, a loud noise was heard, and the crying man finally looked up with a hopeful look on his face.

But the second he saw a vicious face looking back at him, the man looked disappointed again.

"You are a barbarian? How can you help me get more jobs? Just leave and let me feel sorry for myself and all my friends who lost a golden opportunity.

If not for that cunning fox sending a kid here instead of coming to negotiate a deal themselves, we wouldn't be in this mess."

The Union worker explained, but his words confused Keith.

Not wanting to know only half the story, Keith sat beside the man and decided to hear him out.

"You can tell me what happened. If I can help you, I will do whatever you want. You have nothing to lose if you take my help, right?"

Keith asked in a smiling voice as he pointed toward himself.

His confidence was one thing that lured the Labor Union worker to talk to him and tell him what happened.

"Fine, I will tell you my story. But you better not laugh at what happened, alright?"

The worker asked and told Keith how they had been offered a dream job, but the one who came to introduce them had been a kid.

Since a kid came to them, they chose to be cautious and not take it. They also had their dignity to consider.

As a result, not only did these guys lose their chances to work, but they also invited a major labor force known as dark elves into the city.

It made their work even scarcer, and now they were all facing the danger of starving.

"What's even worse is dark elves are considered slaves in most places. The reason their labor is so cheap must be because the owner of that business bought them as slaves as well.

Ugh, it makes my heart hurt just thinking about it all. I wish there were something we could do about it. But since the business belongs to someone in the Duke Lockhart's faction…"

The Union worker did not finish speaking, but his actions were enough to tell Keith what happened.

Hearing all this made Keith's blood boil.

He was someone who believed in freedom and opportunities. He hated to see slavery since he had been a slave once as well.

So, he decided to risk it all and save these slaves.

He parted from his party as soon as possible and decided to confront this wicked 'business outright' exploiting these dark elves and free them.

When he arrived there, he could see that the Dark Elves were not present, but the fact that most of the shop's items were made with the help of Dark Elves was well known.

That was why Keith decided to target the shop instead of going anywhere else.

As long as this shop closed, those slaves would have no reason to be kept around and would be freed.