Chapter Forty-Five - Roadtrip

I let a few crumbs, but... I legit don't know where to go with this small trip! I think the volume really will end with the MC reaching the princess at this rate, we're already at about 80K words!

Oh well <3

***

Huron came to meet them the next morning, in order to kindly send them off. 

“You’ll want to be careful on the walk over,” he said as he met them at the inn.

“Is the route so dangerous?” Rosario asked. “I recall there being no actual road from here to Forgingburg, but the last time I attempted the voyage was... long ago.”

He nodded. “There’s still no clear road, though there are more attempted roadways, and perhaps a few new small villages dotting the path. I take it you’ve tried this before and know what to worry about?”

“It has been a long time,” Rosario reiterated. “I recall there being a... place with many undead, and of course the slugs.”

“Those are your two greatest worries, yes,” he said. “The dead mount is two days away from here. It is still a place filled with powerful necromantic energies. You can go around the north of the mountain range, avoiding the space entirely, but that adds two days to the travel time. If you take the route along the foothills of that Markar mountain range you’ll avoid all but the furthest-ranging scavengers.”

“I see. And the slugs?” she asked.

Those had been very high-levelled world monsters. They were slow, rather unintelligent and damn near impossible to kill. That were the excuse for why the area had no cities and towns to rest in.

“Still to be avoided. Their secretions are still farmed by some, but they are still powerful foes. A third tier fighter like ourselves may have little to fear, but overconfidence is an insidious foe.”

Rosario thanked him for the advice, but soon they parted ways.

Their first stop was the Adventurer’s Guild, where they picked up several parcels and did a bit of paperwork. Rosario saw no reason not to join the guild herself, under her own name. This smaller branch didn’t have the same devices to check on a person’s level, so she simply registered as Rosario Thorn, [Swordmaster]. Lucky did the same as a level 4 [Soldier], and all three formed a small party with Cricket as the nominal leader.

That meant that once they delivered these goods in Forgingburg and picked up more quests along the way, they’d build up their guild credit. It was good to farm faction reputation when one could. The extra bit of money helped. And, as a team of three, they could technically take more quests. 

Those they took for the trip were all the same: deliver parcels to Forgingburg, a city that was two weeks away.

Obviously, she planned on making that same trip in half the time. There was no bonus pay for it, but that was fine. Speed was important.

Once they had loaded Lucky’s pack with loose letters and a few parcels, Rosario took the rest of the items to be delivered into her own inventory, and then they made a final stop at a guild-affiliated shop for supplies. The road was quite long, so they stocked up with a good amount of non-perishables. 

That meant fresh hardtack, pemmican, and because they had the coin to spare, some more luxurious foods as well. Travel bread filled with oats and honey and dried and salted fish, as well as a couple of pounds of jerky. Of course, Cricket insisted on taking an entire wheel of cheese. 

They also took some additional ingredients. Vegetables that would last most of the trip and plenty of spices. They’d have enough with them to cook a small stew every night. 

Mostly, Rosario was concerned for Lucky. Her lower level meant that she had fewer stats to rely on as a crutch, and she was a growing young woman. All of the exercise and hard work Rosario was pushing her through was going to be costly, and she needed calories to burn.

Other than that, they picked up a few specific potions that Rosario was lacking, and a few small items they were missing. 

It was halfway through the morning by the time they walked out of the eastern gate and started to make their way out. 

“So, Swordmaster Thorn,” Lucky started after their first half-hour of walking. 

“You may just call me Rosario,” Rosario said. “Or Rose.”

“Can I call you Rose?” Cricket asked. “It’s a very romantic name!”

“No.” Cricket sniffled, then broke out into theatrical crying. “Did you have a question?” Rosario asked Lucky while pretending not to notice that Cricket had ‘fallen’ on the ground to throw a tantrum. They were slowly walking away from her.

“Ah, yes. I was wondering what the exercise for today was?” Lucky asked.

“None,” Rosario said.

“None?” Lucky asked.

Rosario glanced at her. “Lucky... you’re walking with a bit of a limp, and it looks like you can barely hold your arms out.”

“I could do it,” Lucky said. She set her brows and nodded, her determination impossible to miss. “I can always do it, even if I can’t. Even if it breaks me.”

“Hmm... I can respect that. Still, give yourself a day to heal. We’re just walking. Tonight you can help us set the camp and cook, that will give you a little more [Soldier] experience. You’re approaching level five. That’s a big milestone for any new class.”

“Class?”

“Job, I mean.” Rosario kept making that mistake. She chastised herself for it.

She did see where Lucky was coming from, so she decided to help her along in other ways. She wasn’t entirely sure if there was a knowledge component to jobs, but she suspected that there was. After all, she had noticed that there were teachers that showed their students certain things, and there were academies and schools to teach. 

So, naturally, people searched for knowledge about their job and its function. But could a person level simply by learning? 

She wasn’t sure if she should ask, and even if she did, she’d want proof. So she started to ask Lucky questions and then give her hypothetical situations. At first the young woman was confused, but eventually she caught on. 

“You are in charge of a small unit of scouts,” Rosario said. “Your job is to secure a pass at the flank of your army. When you arrive at the pass you discover two things. A large group of monsters is moving nearby on the other side of it, and there are some locals at the pass, observing it. What do you do?”

 The questions were made up on the spot, and honestly, they were less about finding a specific solution as they were to make Lucky think about her role as a [Soldier] and about situation she might be in. Rosario would sometimes instruct her in one tactic or another, and Lucky would then, if she remembered, bring it up later.

“Is the pass narrow enough that we can make a shield wall?” she asked.

“Yes, but your unit is too small, and isn’t equipped with large shields. They’re scouts.”

“Uh... are the locals friendly?”

And so on. It was interesting seeing the way Lucky thought, and just how... kind of innocent she was?

Rosario had to keep reminding herself that Lucky was a farmgirl born and raised in a town so small that it was entirely possible to know every single person by name. She had strange ideas, and rather large gaps in her knowledge. 

“The locals are initially a little hostile,” Rosario said. “But you feel like they want to warn you about something.”

“Then I’ll listen, obviously,” Lucky said with a firm nod. 

She was at least very earnest, and Rosario found it cute when Lucky’s brow set and her little horse ears wiggled as she thought.

“They tell you that the monsters are migratory, and that they travel through the pass and will enter the valley where the army you’re from is located. They are inedible.”

“Inedible, why would that matter?” Lucky asked.

“Armies are hungry things!” Cricket said as she tried to do an ‘inverse flounce’ a move she was trying to invent which involved walking on her hands and bouncing her skirt in a distracting way. “If the army is anything like a caravan, then it’s a lot of people to feed.”

“Oh!” Lucky said. “That makes sense, I guess. They can’t exactly have a garden and animals to butcher. So... I guess, uh... can... what are the people with me?”

Rosario smiled. That had come up in an earlier hypothetical, that her job meant that she was supposed to be good at some things, but not all things. “You have a [Tracker] a [Scout] and an [Apprentice Druid]. The rest are [Solders]. No second tiers or above.”

“Okay... maybe the druid might know something? We could scare the monsters off. Some can be cowed. Or we could make the pass unpassable, I guess. Wait, what was the exact goal of our mission?”

Rosario chuckled. “Good. Don’t lose sight of that,” she said before explaining.

The conversation was fun, though eventually it bored Cricket enough that she barged in and started telling bawdy stories to try and make Lucky blush, and eventually night started to fall.

The first day of their trip passed. They were all just a little closer to the Demon Lady.

***