Thankful that the merchant had become occupied with trying to sell her wares to the other people milling about, Mamoru let out a sigh of relief as he began to read over the notice in a bit more detail. It seemed straightforward enough--kill bears, bring back the corpses, obtain money. That meant, though, that if he was going to take on the job, he'd be needing to hire someone to bring them all back. Logically, that could be handled afterwards, but for now...

Right, taking on bears alone was a death sentence. Though they are often solitary creatures, a bear is still a bear. And then there were the fringe cases where bears could control qi...

It wasn't as if it hadn't happened before, to be fair; there were a few cases in the past where animals had some instinctual reaction to qi or something, and the resulting messes were never pretty. But hey, at least they usually went for a lot of money.
...
Granted, that money usually went to the families of those who died, but it was better than the families and the men dying, right?

Before he could begin walking around to the usual hunters, though, Mamoru paused for a moment as two women (one of which being the merchant who was attempting to have him buy her goods) offering their services. The swordsman gave them a quick once-over before shrugging and nodding his head.

"I don't think there's any problem with that, you two. Scouts are always a bit more troublesome to come by in this region because everyone's so focused on strengthening their bodies for their work, so your help would be appreciated; as for you, miss merchant... Remember that the bears are a bit more dangerous this time of year. I'd recommend you stay alert if you wish to come along; the more the merrier, correct?"

With that said, Mamoru moved off to the side before beginning to converse with a few of the regulars. After all, if there was anyone with experience with this sort of thing, it was them. Even if they decided they had better things to do for the day, their advice might still help in the long run.