– Adventurer Life Day 54 (Fri) – Noon – Comnes Town – Adventurer"s Guild

After finishing with the party discussion in the warehouse, we came over to the adventurer"s guild.

The aim of this, is the request board in the lobby.

We decided back then that we"ll be taking a merchant escort request that heads to our destination… taking the future into consideration, I thought it would also be pretty good experience to work under another party.

I was checking the merchant guarding requests by the board, but I"m getting a feeling that there"s a lot more of those requests than usual.

Most likely because of the recent situation with the northern countries, and the new slime cloth that"s been quite popular at Comnes recently.

Slime cloths really are becoming a thing huh…

Back on topic, there are two types of adventurers when a.s.sociated with merchant escorts… the first is being employed by the merchant themselves, while the others would be employed by those adventurers… We would fall in the latter.

From that first point, if the merchant where to get a favorable impression of a party after several workings together, and if the transport becomes big enough, they can directly employ them as their main core escorts.

Hiring escorts for every trip becomes quite tiresome, and there will be times when the hired adventurers would not be as reliable.

Keeping a reliable group employed is more favorable.

However, since the number of escorts needed would change depending on the news of dangers regarding of their journey, the variance is usually made up by that hiring adventurers by the guild, which would usually be that core adventurer"s responsibility.

And so, for most merchants, the escorting group is usually made up with one directly employed group guarding the more important cargo, while the rest serves in escorting the rest.

It used to be much more lax before, but with the recent danger of ‘Elite" monsters appearing out of nowhere, this sort of regulation becomes more widely used.

In the end, we took on an escort request that was planning to leave on Sunday, the day after tomorrow.

Sunday is usually the party"s rest day, so instead we will have this on Sat.u.r.day instead.

We can also give a visit to our acquaintances here before leaving on that day too.

For me, that would include some of the people in the guild, coworkers from my time as a guard, the guards by the south east gate, the weapons merchant Adonnis, the two innkeepers from ‘Nessos" Temptation" and ‘Bulbuls Inn", along with a couple others as well.

I"ll be leaving my acquaintances from the Rostam workshop last… I"m going to have to discuss with them about the creation of those throwable potion containers along with a number of other commodities.

I"ll be needing a lot of those containers, about 20 of them, so it would be quite pricey for me.

Visiting them before, I was quite surprised to see the workshop so busy, despite already having an increase of workers.

I heard they had a new item for sale, which had them more busy to keep up with the demand… I"m going to have to check up on that when I get there.

– Adventurer Life Day 56 (Sun) – Morning – Comnes Town – South Gate

After doing what we had to do yesterday, we now arrive by the southern gate for the escort request.

Since it"s my first time doing this kind of quest, we arrived early by the meeting point.

I"ve been looking at the road as it disappears off into the horizon.

It"s raining a little today, but no one else here seems to mind, and the caravan group would depart at the set time regardless.

Since I wouldn"t want our luggage to get all wet from the rain, I covered it up with a sheet of slime cloth. Benedetta had also covered herself with a transparent rain coat over her mantle.

Though, Centurion and the rest don"t seem to be affected at all by the rain.

As skeletons, they"re probably much more resistant to bad weather compared to humans.

They don"t get sick do they?

A short time ago, I was listening in to my surroundings, and it seems like not all of the carriages have been prepared yet.

Right now, there"s the merchant affiliated adventurer group going around checking up on all the escorts that will be accompanying them… oh, they"re coming over this way.

"Erm, "Legion"… 12 people and a horse cart. That"s quite a lot… wh!!"

The person that came over here had a circlet over his head. His body was covered in a gra.s.sy colored robe, and a long cane equipped on hand.

His long hair seemed sort of messy, and his face was slender, but somehow he sort of reminds me of a famous actor.

… Aside from that however, he"s the spitting image of what you would expect from a magician.

That person got surprised when he looked up and saw Phillips.

"Phillips of Comnia… ah, Comnes. Pleased to meet you."

"Ah… ha, uhuh."

Phillips gave his greetings to the man… He wasn"t any taller than me, but the height difference between him and Phillips was over half a meter, so I"m not too surprised.

His reaction reminded me again how absurd Phillips" size is.

I approached the man who was still staring up with his mouth agape.

"h.e.l.lo. I"m Nemo, the party leader of "Legion". Over here is our bow user Benedetta, and Centurion."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"GREETINGS."

Since Benedetta feels awkward in introducing her Divine Protection to others, so I left it out and mentioned something else… It"s not like we"re being paid for it anyways, so I"m sure they won"t mind if they didn"t know about it.

The rest of the other members had also already introduced themselves, so the surprised person is left to also tell us about him.

"I"m Cesar. Well, as you can see, I"m a magician. I"ll also be counting on you… That said, who are those warriors there?"

Cesar was pointing over to the 8 skeletons behind us who were ordered not to move in their spot.

Among them, 3 are equipped with spears, another 3 with axes, and the remaining 2 have steel maces.

Of course, these skeletons are each under command of Phillips, Centurion and mine respectively.

All in all, that makes 10 summoned out at once.

It"s a long trip, so it would be best to not waste too much mana, as this amount is just under my natural mana recovery rate… though then again, calling out any more would just make us too conspicuous anyways.

"Those guys are the skeletons I summoned for this trip… Each of them should be as strong as experienced warrior in Comnes."

… That"s what I think anyways…

At the very least, Phillips and his subordinates have enough power to back it all up, so that statement should be fine.

"!?… A summoned creature you say?"

"… Well, yes…"

Cesar began taking a closer look and looking around at the skeletons after hearing that, mumbling to himself of how he didn"t notice they were skeletons at first.

Once I realized it was my turn on the roll call, I hurried back to my party.

"For this trip, the one in charge of organizing the escorts would be the leader of the "Nerwa Warriors", Robert. The planner for today is…"

It seems like the main group for this trip would be the ones from Cesar"s party, as the man Robert steps out from his group and stood in front of the rest of us escorts.

His black hair and beard doesn"t seem to be well maintained… but the calmness from his face and manner of speaking gave a much different impression of him.

As far as I can tell, that name sounds pretty southern from here… The same goes for Cesar"s name. Perhaps the "Nerwa Warriors" is a party group based from the south… 

It was now time for departure, so we head to the back of the group.

Since we have a cart to bring with us, we were instructed to travel by the end of the line so that it would be easier to maintain formation.

As for the rest, they"ve been gathering about and getting ready at their own place.

"Alright, we"re now departing!"

We all start moving by Robert"s signal.

– Adventurer Life Day 56 (Fri) – Before Noon – South of Comnes – Main Road

Since we have a large amount of people in our group, we were put in charge of the rearmost carriage.

From there, Centurion"s team and two of the normal skeletons were walking alongside it, followed by me and Benedetta on the side of our own cart, and Phillips" team at the back.

I found out a while back, when we were going back and forth from the Gravel Field, that Phillips had the best searching ability in the party… putting his height and good eyesight aside, his long experience as a warrior gets him an edge in noticing surrounding disturbances.

Even back when we first encountered him in the abandoned mine, he noticed the thugs hiding in the back even while we were fighting… though he was under the impression that they were our companions and prepared to fight them as well.

Had he been our comrade back then, that situation that happened right after wouldn"t have happened…

With that the case, Phillips and his team was best to be put at the rear.

That said, Benedetta, who had been an apprentice to a hunter before becoming an adventurer, displayed a much better searching ability than me, even with much of her previous ability degraded from her divine protection.

It seems like much of it was recovered after repeatedly searching for some potion ingredients back in the gravel field.

Though from what she says, her searching ability isn"t half as good as it would have been if she were to be on horseback apparently.

Speaking of which, from what I could remember seeing her through the skeleton"s vision, I recall her fighting ability when riding considerably increased. So much so, that I"m actually considering whether or not it would"ve been best to give her one of the horses instead of having both pull the cart.

Though about the cart, in addition to the all the steel that had been left over, we also had a number of camping equipment and slime cloths that adds on to the weight.

Even though these "Polpenius" Horses" have a lot of power to them, they still seem to struggle, though only a little, from this uneven ground… I blame the golem for this.

Even so, the road isn"t too bad. Though there are a couple of small stones that seemed to be jog the cart up everytime the wheels runs it over, it"s still decently flat and straight. Nothing I wouldn"t expect from a main road.

After a.s.sessing the situation of my party like that, we continue walking along quietly along the road.

"This really is amazing. It"s like they"re actually soldiers."

By the end of the line from the caravan group, Cesar walks along beside us.

Reason being is that members from the ‘Nerwa Warriors" would supervise other hired escorts.

Supposedly, Cesar is in charge of us, but it seemed like he"s more interested in my skeletons rather than to actually supervise.

“Why is it that all their weapons are only for close combat? Wouldn"t it be better if at least some were to have a bow?”

“…… Since there"s only a few of us, we"d prefer it if they were to focus more on defence instead and keep close together.”

“Hmm…”

In truth, it"s really only because the skeletons are too clumsy to properly use one, but it"s not like I"ll be telling this to someone outside our party.

Cesar continues on looking at the skeletons closely as we walk, that was until Phillips turns to the direction of the adjacent field and speaks out.

“Benedetta!”

“Yes!”

Benedetta shouted back in response, and quickly drawn out her bow and released it!

The arrow disappeared into the tall thickets from our right.

*Gu-!”

Right after, a large beast jumps out from its hiding place… but it was immediately followed up by a second arrow straight to it"s forehead.

From the way the beast collapsed, it seemed to have a lot of weight to it. Seeming to have the appearance of a large red bear… However, the beast had about 8 large fangs protruding from its mouth, so it is probably a monster I don"t know yet.

I had a skeleton approach it to confirm its death… It never happened back in the gravel fields, but mammal looking creatures like these tend to give a scarily strong will to live when approaching death.

I hear stories of adventurers dying from monsters by approaching carelessly.

… However, Benedetta"s arrow pierced deeply right in between it"s brows, so there won"t even be a chance for it to do that.

(The preemptive attacker in our group might actually be her when using that bow…)

Finally being able to use her favorite bow, Benedetta became a warrior with the second strongest offensive ability in the group…

(Maybe I should give her the horse…)

The next time I level up ‘Sculptor", I"ll give that horse for Benedetta to use.

I"ve already seen plenty of times in the gravel field how her offensive ability rose dramastically when on horseback. And with the skeletons by her side, that should make a pretty strong team.

That said, her bow had been ‘engraved" and ‘plated". Without that, she says she wouldn"t be able to be as skillful as she was before.

“Hm. Defeating a fanged bear with only two arrows… That girl isn"t someone to underestimate.”

Cesar gave his praise to Benedetta"s skill with the bow… I looked towards her in delight how someone else gave her praise, to which she had already looked away seeming slightly fl.u.s.tered.

“Because of that, I get to preserve my mana longer. Much appreciated.”

Being a mana dependant user myself, I"m fully aware of how important mana would be to a mage.

Even more so in this world. As far as I know, there are only a few special mages that could continuously use mana without worry, so preserving mana becomes the most important habit for a mage.

By the way, for this caravan group, ownership of prey falls into the party that defeats it.

As a custom, the entire caravan group would stop and have a look out when situations like this happens.

“You"re going to have to dismantle the corpse right? Should I ask the group to wait until you"re finished?”

Cesar asks, but I told him the rest should carry on moving regardless.

After that, we placed the dead bear onto the cart, then had one of the skeletons from Centurion"s team hop onto it and start dismantling the carca.s.s.

Cesar looked surprised when seeing it, but we continue on with our journey anyways.

—- Summoning Memo —-

Centurion Team:
Members: Centurion, Skeleton 1, 2, 3
Equipment: Hatchet, Shield, Armor and helmet

Phillips Team:
Members: Phillips, Skeletons 4, 5, 6
Equipment: Spear, Shield, Armor and helmet

Other Skeletons:
7 – 37: Club, Round shield, Armor and helmet

Metal Golem ‘Talos": 1
Wooden Horse: 1

#Golems can be divided to a maximum of three bodies.

I forgot it was supposed to be a circlet, not a hat ?

TL Note: That famous actor that was mentioned was Kindaichi Kousuke ()