69 Iris wins

Leo was curious as to why the bounties he went after were so easy, though it wasn't a bad thing since it meant the bandits weren't that strong. After a few minutes he realized that he technically was "overpowered" as he was using chi, on top of being a werewolf with naturally enhanced physicalabilities. It didn't help that Arthur lowered the natural standard for strength when he made it where people couldn't train in magic anymore. Leo didn't realize it, but he was starting to show signs of being a battle junky as he had yet to find a real opponent.

These thoughts went through his head as he gathered up the bodies of the bandits after collecting the Chiefs head, and piled them up for burning. According to Iris they needed to burn the corpses or they might turn into undead, which he didn't know the day before. Leo kept quiet about that, and hoped that since there was only ten then there wouldn't be any problems. While he collected the bodies, Iris was checking on the captives and the bandits hideout for their stolen loot. As he finished collecting the corpses, Leo cried out,

"GODS DAMN IT!!" Iris came running over, and asked urgently,

"What is it, more bandits?" Leo however, was crestfallen as he just pointed to the pile of bodies. Iris looked at them half expecting there to already be undead. But then Leo just said,

"You killed more than I did..." Iris was dumbfounded, then started laughing hysterically. The bodies all had distinct wounds from what killed them, slashes from Leo's sword and holes from her arrows. Apparently Leo counted them as he collected the bodies and found more died from her arrows than him.

As they sent the people the bandits captured ahead, Iris continued cackling at Leo the entire way back with him internally swearing that he'll even the score later. Later they arrived at the city gates again, and Leo repeated the process to receive the bounty. One hundred gold coins in his pockets, Leo felt a little better. He then walked over to the inn that Felix and Thomas were staying at for a status report, and to pass them twenty gold coins for expenses. With nothing new to report, leo and iris returned to Hilda's house.

When they returned, Leo went straight to clean up, while Iris went to see if Hilda needed any help as it was now almost dinner time. Iris repeated their exploits in an attempt to explain to Hilda that they were both capable of handling themselves in fights, but Hilda got increasingly stressed as Iris explained the more dangerous things. Leo then came into the room, and placed a pouch on the counter.

"To help out where we can." He said simply. Hilda thought it was simply part of the bounty, and figured it would be good to get breakfast with it, until she opened the pouch and saw how much was in it. Hilda had never had much money in her life, the house was left by her parents, and whatever they hoped to get from Shane being in the military was mostly spent on alcohol. That was why when she saw the twenty gold coins gleaming at her, she nearly had a panic attack right there.

"I,I, I can't accept this!" She said almost in a panic. Leo just laughed quietly, and replied,

"The bounty was one hundred gold coins, that's only a little bit and I plan to earn more while we're here. That's also for any travel expenses when elder grandma comes to get you. I'll probably give you more of my future bounties depending on how much I get." Hilda looked flabbergasted at Leo's words, she had spent the last nearly twenty years with Shane draining them dry of any funds, so Leo handing her his hard earned money was a big deal for her. She wasn't really sure what to think of this son-in-law before, but now she was starting to think that her daughter had a better sense for men than she did.

***

The next three weeks went by swiftly for Leo and the others. He would alternate between bounty hunting, and studying the dwarven language with Iris. As time went by they believed they were getting good at speaking it, but would only be able to know when they arrived at the dwarven kingdom. He would help the boys learn magic in the evenings, while he sometimes helped out Matthew at the forge to demonstrate how to smith while using chi. He nearly fainted when Leo stuck his hand into the glowing embers.

Perhaps the thing that made the most improvement though, was iris's relationship with Hilda. As she spent more time here with her while Leo went bounty hunting, the two swiftly became close once the awkwardness was cleared away. They spent most of their time with Iris talking about her life in the village growing up, Natalie, Jack, elder grandma. Iris even proudly talked about the time Leo defended her from curly's harassment soon after he just arrived. She skillfully avoided topics that Hilda would consider terrible, like the behemoth, the battle, and Leo's first transformation.

Actually they didn't know anything yet about Leo and Iris being werewolves, as Leo didn't want to scare them right after Iris reconnected with them. As such they also didn't know that he was technically becoming a king and Iris his queen. When it was time for the last full moon, Leo said that he was staying in the forest overnight to collect several bounties at once. As a result he took several low level bounties to work through as he recovered from the full moon.

During that time, Felix and Thomas were busy gathering information. Felix was sneaking around any nobles nearby that would receive info about the dwarves, while Thomas was hanging around taverns and market places to listen for rumors. Leo was planning to leave in another week if there was no news, but fortunately that wasn't the case as Felix stormed into Hilda's house with the letters he had stolen.

"Leo this is bad, another two weeks and the dwarves might fall!"