A Mercenary's War Chapter 73: Good Price

Good price

Translated by: kevin1782

Edited by: Isalee

Jin was somewhat awkward seeing Grolev and his family crying together in unison. He didn't know whether to leave or stay. Tribo, who was still standing at the door, peeked in. After a glance, he waved to Gao Yang and said, “Brother Yang, come out and chat, this scene isn't suitable for us to be in there, man.”

Gao Yang felt that Tribo’s words made a lot of sense; he hinted Jin Fang with his eyes and the three stood on the grass patch outside the house.

After introducing Jin to Hare, Gao Yang could only sigh after seeing Tribo's face which had changed into that of intense interest. “Hare, stop, don't speak. You can ask anything from him, but not now. You tell me first, how did you and Old Ruski get here so soon?”

Tribo could only suppress his extreme thirst for knowledge and grin guilefully, “Hehe, don't know right? Old Ruski’s a pro, them mercs all got these special ways, he found a, what's that, an International Defence Company and paid four thousand dollars. Then they sent us to Tunisia. We took a plane from Tunisia, left the borders, and came here. Total travel time was less than two days and the International Defence Company took care of everything from crossing the borders to taking a flight. They handled everything! Awesome right?”

Gao Yang couldn't help but exclaim in astonishment, “There’s such a company?”

Tribo gave the 'I-didn’t-know-that-you-don’t-know-crap’ expression and used an irksome voice to mention, “You don't say? Why don't you think of it this way. Most of the mercs have no identity, they obviously won't always stay in their own countries. So how would they go to other countries to fight wars? They'd definitely have to have a way, and this International Defence Company is specially designed to service mercs. Piece of cake when stowing away people.”

Gao Yang chuckled and replied, “Got it, such a company exists. Very well then, we'd be saving a lot of effort. I'm still worried about how we're gonna go Libya.”

Tribo was definitely curious. “What's up, Bro Yang? You finally went back to the homeland, how come you’re back here again? Because you wanted to send the two Old Female Ruskis here, is that it?”

Gao Yang was puzzled and stupefied. “Old Female Ruskis? What's that? I Ci-ao, even phrases like these can burst out from your mouth? I don't care. Or rather, I can bear with it if you called Grolev Old Maoist Ruski, but can you not call those two ladies Old Female Ruskis? Do you want a beating? Okay, to be honest, your Brother, me, got into big trouble in the mainland. Killed seven scums, and all of them with guns. There's no choice, but I gotta earn a living by being a merc. Right, when I returned to China, I used your name, so the police might have mistaken you as the murderer.”

Tribo wasn't bothered at all as he shook his head. “No worries, I wasn't intending on going back. I don't believe they can tell whether I really did it or not. There'd be definitely no problem.”

With the current friendship between Gao Yang and Tribo, neither of them took this thing seriously.

Gao Yang told him about Jin's situation too, and expressed that Jin was also going to become a mercenary. Tribo's eyes lit up immediately as he spoke to Jin, “Bro, you're Commando, and you're really badass, can you teach us?”

Jin was also very straightforward —notwithstanding that it was their first time meeting each other, they weren't awkward at all. He said loudly, “No problem, it could be said that Bro Yang saved my life, and furthermore you're his life-and-death brother. In addition, we'll definitely be comrades in the future, there's not much else to say. There's only what I know, no such thing as what I can or can’t teach.”

Just as Gao Yang and the other two were really hot into bantering, the door opened and out ran Grolev. He hugged Gao Yang and kissed him on both his cheeks a few times before he said whilst half choking with tears, “Gao, Natalia told me everything. Thank you, they'd be dead for sure without you. I'd be dead for sure without them, you saved our whole family. Thank you.”

Gao Yang really wasn't used to Grolev's method of showing gratitude. He struggled really hard to squeeze out from Grolev's embrace and wiped his face with all he had. “I say, don't be like that, I can't adapt to your way of showing gratitude. You said we all came out from Hell’s Gate after strolling in it for a round. Why tell me all that? Is that meaningful, huh?”

Grolev nodded heavily a few times and extended his hand to Jin. He shook very hard after holding his hand and said, “Thank you, thank you, you saved my wife and kid, that's akin to saving my life. I owe you a life, thank you.”

Jin couldn't understand Russian. He learned English in his unit before, but he wasn't really familiar with it. He couldn't really understand Grolev, and apart from saying, “You're welcome”, he looked at Gao Yang pleadingly.

After translating Grolev's words to Jin, Gao Yang said to Grolev, “Enough, no need to thank each other profusely, he's gonna become a merc like me. If there's nothing else, let's talk in the house.”

After the four returned to the living room and sat down, Grolev anxiously said, “Gao, I won't say no more about any extra words. I'll be more straightforward. We desperately need money for our current situation, and Libya's is a good place for rolling in the dough. I've been scouting, and Gaddafi's offering the price of three hundred dollars per day. Paid in cash by the day. This is the price if there is no war. It'll be a thousand a day if there is war. If there are dangerous missions it'll be counted separately. There's currently a war to fight every day, so we’d currently get a grand per day. Of course, that's the price for elite mercs, but we're definitely one of them.”

By now, Gao Yang already had knowledge of this: to a mercenary, a thousand dollars a day really wasn't low since mercenaries weren't as wealthy as he had thought. It could be said most of them were as poor as crackers. If they were rich, who'd fight so hard in this war?

If it really was like the novels where every mercenary had millions of USD as assets, that'd be totally impossible. Not considering the millions of USD, even if they had dozens or hundreds of thousands of bucks, there'd be very few who would still be willing to fight the war with their lives. Why not take that money to do something else with it — fighting water wasn't the only way to get money. At least 98%, or most of the mercenaries who become rich would quit this occupation.

In Africa, even if it was a hundred USD a day, it'd already attract huge clumps and clumps of mercenaries, and they would not be weak at all. Of course, those retirees from militarily strong countries would definitely cost more. If it were the Commando retiree from a militarily strong country, it'd be even higher. But the price of one thousand dollars a day? It was a high price for any mercenary, no doubt about it. That was of course with the exception of those with special skill sets like aircraft pilots — their prices had always been constantly high.

One thousand dollars a day. That'd be thirty thousand a month. Furthermore, this was just the basic price. Gao Yang felt that if he didn't take up a too dangerous of a job, even if it was just the normal price, it'd be enough for him since Libya's war wasn’t going to end in just a month or two. He felt that if he just did it for a few months, it'd be enough for his parents in China to live comfortably.

Chapter end