Brisa hid a flattered smirk behind her drink at the 'x-ray vision' comment, then curled her lip back at Kate's explanation of law enforcement by contract. What the fuck was this? It felt . . . perverse.
"Paid commissions fer takin' outlaws sounds downright unsettlin' t'me. Wouldn't these 'Rescue Teams' jus' go fer whatever paid best? I mean there's state bounties fer wanted mon, and there's hired thuggery, difference bein' one's in the public interest and the other's no better'n companies with hired goons. Ranger Union members are salaried. They serve the common good, not the highest bidder."
Kate gave a side-eye at Brisa. Did her world really manage to handle everything just with a group of these 'Rangers'? Why, even if the sheriffs and the guards back home
weren't riddled full of corrupt incompetents, they'd quickly be in over their heads without knowing the lay of the land in advance.
"Well, I can't really answer that since I'm not a Hunter or law enforcement, but it's just the way things have been as long as anyone's remembered," Kate replied. "I dunno how well your Ranger system actually
works, but I'd have trouble seeing even the army manage to do the same in my world. With how big Varhyde is and all the Wilders in the hinterlands, they'd probably bankrupt the royal treasury if they tried to do that in earnest."
The Sneasel pawed at her chest, before continuing on.
"From my own experience, a team of Hunters who know the land of a Mystery Dungeon well can be pretty threatening on their own," she insisted. "I don't doubt that a good chunk of them are picking their fights based off a payday, but evidently
someone thought that having Hunters chase bounties for them worked well enough for it to stick around for so long."
Gods, that was what Kate had to live with? Good grief. Brisa stared with concern at the sneasel, wondering how she herself would handle such a world.
"Things ain't always fair where I'm from, nor is the law always th'same as th'moral high ground, but Kate . . . yer world sounds like it's bleedin' wholesale."
Kate raised a brow in reply. It was hard to say that Varhyde was sunshine and rainbows, what with the land being locked in a seemingly eternal war with its perpetual rival Edialeigh, it'd certainly been doing
worse in the past. The war was currently being fought on Edialeigh's territory, it'd been a full five years since the war had last crossed the sea and been fought in Varhyde's territory, there weren't any feuding Legendaries between the two lands left to set forests or fields afire in heavy-handed attempts to put their thumb on the scales. Sure the local currency had a habit of losing its value quickly, there were always levees for new recruits for the front lines, and the guards seemed to shake down Pokémon for bribes more often than they actually did their jobs, but as an Outlaw that lived on the margins that wasn't
her problem...
"That's probably a bit more true than you think for one 'mon or another, but that's life," she said. "Life among Wilders has always been cutthroat, and Varhyde's kinda having its own moment."
Kate caught herself before flattening out her ears in annoyance.
"Well, I suppose being in a war with Edialeigh across the sea longer than most old farts have been alive and getting some Legendaries knocked off is probably a bit more than a 'moment'," she admitted. "But the point is that I'm getting by and so are most 'mons even if it's not exactly paradise."
