Natalia and her companions seemed to be in some sort of hurry, because I was immediately contacted the day after. Cornelius slipped a piece of paper with instructions on how to sneak into a Galahad Trading Company warehouse in the break of dawn tomorrow and stow away on one of its trade caravan wagons. And that was it. I guess I’d know the rest of the plan when she deemed it necessary.
That was perfectly fine with me. If she were thinking of doing something shady, at least she was careful enough to keep it discreet. Besides, she had no reason to trust me with more information than I needed to operate with.
After spending most of the day gearing up and getting my R&R, I was ready to roll out. At the break of dawn, I snuck into the warehouse, hid in the designated crate for 30 bloody minutes and waited for the crate to be moved onto a wagon (To pass the unpleasant time, I thought about the sweet sweet loot I’d get out of this job~). And once the wagon stopped, I popped out of the box, gathered my gear, and stepped out of the covered wagon.
I spotted 7 women in travel cloaks waiting for me outside the wagon. Wait, no, one of them was Cornelius dressing up as a noble lady. His effeminate features and androgenous voice really sold the disguise. Heck, I wouldn’t have immediately noticed had I not been acquainted with him previously. What a clever way for Natalia to cover up her tracks: with a trap~
I walked up to the women and presented my best smile and bow. “Good morning, Ladies. My name is Rummy. I’m a former Ranger and forge-smith. I’ve lived through 26 winters, and I’m single and ready to min…”
“This isn’t a matchmaking interview! Move it!” Skera shouted in an irritated voice.
“Well, it won’t be with you around!” I snapped back at her. How dare she cock-block me? I had enough bad luck with women already. No need to make things even harder here, Skera!
Meanwhile, Emma smirked at our adversarial exchange. “Skera, there’s nothing wrong with being polite.” It’s nice that she sided with me, but then she added. “In fact, given his background, I’m surprised somebody taught him manners.” She smiled at me knowingly, as if to probe my facial expression for any clues. Even though I knew she had nothing on me, I was sweating a bit under her intelligent gaze.
Skera remained obliviously undeterred. “These women are the trusted confidants of Lady Natalia and her noble cause. Go find your helpless housewife somewhere else!” She glared at me as if I were a wolf eyeing her flock of sheep.
“Who says you can’t be married while working for a noble cause?” I casually countered. Sure, Artorian society frowns upon such things, but I didn’t.
Some of the women gasped. I didn’t think what I’m saying was that shocking, even in this world. Despite the taboo, some families needed working women to stay afloat. This was a harsh frontier town after all. I guess some of them disagreed with me on that.
Sensing escalating tension between me and Skera, Natalia stepped in and handed me an Adept-level air mana crystal as the down payment. “Apologies, Adept Rummy. I’m afraid there is no time for pleasantries as we have a tight schedule to keep. Perhaps another time?” She smiled sweetly at me.
I gave her a non-commital shrug. “Fair enough, so where are we?”
“We are on the road to Clarent, some 500 meters from the city gate. We have to loop around the city and enter the Wilds through the Western Settlement.” Basically, we were just outside the city.
“Let us depart then. The Western Settlement is a full day’s marching ahead and I hate walking in the night. Farewell, ladies and Cornelius.” I bid my farewells and began the journey. Based on the setup, I’m assuming these ladies were Lady Natalia’s stand-ins to cover up our tracks.
“Nice eyes, Rummy!” Emma beamed her radiant smile at me as she complimented me. “I didn’t think you’d notice!”
“I’ve been working here for 11 years, Lady Emma. Would’ve died a long time ago if my eyes weren’t sharp.”I smiled back. Good, they were all traveling light and wearing leather armor, even Skera. This will make it easier to get to the Narrows in 3 days.
Natalia actually took my advice to travel light. Most nobles would’ve had too much pride to follow sound advice even if they knew deep down it’s the right thing to do. On top of that, I just knew she had to twist Skera’s arm to get her to abandon her favored heavy armor (given how stubborn she was, that couldn’t have be easy~). So far, she seemed like a boss I can see myself working under.
***
Fortunately, the first day ended uneventfully and we made camp about 3 klicks northeast of the Western Settlement. Since we’re on the edges of the Wild, this was to be expected. Goblins and mana-beasts rarely ventured out that far in what was considered to be human territory.
I slept on a tree branch 3 meters above where the ladies had made camp. I guess there are some comforts that even the pragmatic Natalia won’t give up on. I didn’t blame her- it took me years to get used to sleeping on a tree branch, all tied up like damsel on the train track (except my right hand, which was on Aurelia at all times in case of ambushes). Either way, it appeared Skera had first watch, so she should be safe from prowling predators of the night.
By the time I woke up, Emma was on second watch, with her cloak by her side. I slowly and quietly descended from my branch. Emma noticed me and waved. I softly approached her at the campfire.
“Morning, Rummy.” She politely whispered.
“Good day, Lady Emma.” I quietly replied.
Now that her cloak was off, I actually got to see her full figure. And boy, there were many things to like. Despite her leather armor’s best effort, I could see her DD bustline and slender waist. Her sizable ass was perfectly formed. Although I was not an ass man, I knew a work of art when I see one~
“Oh, please drop the Lady title. Unlike Lady Natalia and Lady Skera, I’m not a noble, nor a Knight.” Well, that was surprising. Emma’s manners and appearance looked way too refined to be a common maid. Something wasn’t right here.
“I see. How long have you been up?”
“Not that long. Lady Skera stayed up most of the night.”
“Still don’t trust me, huh?” I chuckled. That was to be expected, given her headstrong personality.
“Please don’t take it personally. As you can imagine, she is distrustful of most men.”
“Oh, I’m not. It’s nothing worth losing sleep over. As I get paid for the job afterwards, I don’t care about what she thinks of me.” I shrugged.
“A job with an incredibly risky payment that you asked for. I don’t suppose you’ve considered that if any one of us even gets one scratch from some ambush that you failed to detect, you would end up with practically nothing for your troubles?”
“Nothing in the Wilds is guaranteed, Emma, even the ‘safe’ options are inherently risky. All I could reasonably hope to have are a few good plans and sufficient preparations.”
“Wow, so there is actually a plan? And here I thought this is a risky gamble of an overconfident man.” Emma sarcastically quipped. Man, she was showing some sass... Awesome!
I smirked a bit. “I have decent perception and years of experience in the Wild. That’s where my confidence comes from.”
Emma looked at me with a playful smile on her face. “Really now, what does your prized perception tell you about the woman sitting across from you?”
“Well, based on how you torched that one noble brat’s crotch, I’m guessing you’ve had a bad history with that man. And the intensity of that <
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Her silence seemed to confirm my guess. At least, she let me think I was right. “Alright. My turn. I know you have multiple weapons hiding under that cloak. Aside from the one on your left hip you strap a weirdly shaped spear on your back. At first, I thought it was just a sidearm in case you had to engage at melee distance. But if that were to happen, the spear would be the last weapon you’d want to use in close quarters combat. Something tells me that it is no ordinary spear.”
Wow, her deduction was pretty spot-on! Wait, was she paying close attention to me because she thought I was a potential enemy or because she thought I was a potential husbando?
“Maybe my skills with a spear is my secret weapon.” I teasingly replied.
Emma scoffed. “Hah! You’re no spearman. Every step you took was quiet and stealthy. You could even jump down from a tree and make no noise on impact. Skera is the best trained fighter I know and she couldn’t even dream of doing that. Everything about you screams stealthy marksman.”
I wryly smiled. “With all due respect to Lady Skera, nothing about her is subtle.” Emma smirked in response. “I may have a helpful tool or two for dire situations. As a professional, I hope you understand why I prefer to keep it a secret.”
“You know, when we first agreed to your proposal, I was immensely disappointed in you. I thought you were either a brash fool for overestimating yourself, or a tricky bastard planning to lure and backstab us in the Wilds.” That’s a fair criticism. If I didn’t know about the existence of firearms and <
I leaned closer to her, looked right in her lake blue eyes, and asked. “Well, so am I a brash fool or a tricky bastard?”
With a cute flustered expression, she leaned back and whispered. “Idiot.”
Haha, it took me 11 long years, but I finally got myself a love interest in this shitty world! Huzzah!
We spent the rest of the dawn chatting about our crappy childhoods while waiting for Skera and Natalia to get ready for yet another grueling day in the Wilds.
***
*Thunk!*
My arrow pierced the back of the skull of a goblin scout. The small, green corpse unceremoniously dropped down to the ground as black tar-like blood trickled down. By the time the rest of the scouting party noticed their dead comrade, I loosed a 2nd shot and Emma launched a big <
A cacophony of shrieks and screams reverberated throughout the forest, and then an eerie silence took over once more.
“I thought you said there would be less goblins if we took this detour of yours!” Skera complained as she wiped goblin blood off her armor. “That was the 4th scouting party and it’s not even noon yet!”
Instead of cutting straight to the Narrows and spending 1 day and 1 night in the heart of goblin country, I’ve decided to travel around the fringes of their territory. The plan was to go from the Western Settlement to the Sequoia Locker, then to the Narrow on the 3rd day. Hopefully we’d avoid any goblin war parties on the way. Goblins were nocturnal demihumans blessed with superb night vision, so camping out in the middle of goblin territory at night was a bad idea no matter how many guns I had.
“Lady Skera, please take my word for it. It would’ve been much worse had we headed north into the heart of their territory, especially at night. Scout parties were easy to pick off, but a war party was a different story. A war party led by a Champion hobgoblin could even overrun veteran Ranger squads under the right conditions.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t live in some sexist fantasy smut where they mercifully killed the men and brutally raped the women. Goblins were equal-opportunity rapists in this fucked-up world. Men have holes too, and the goblins here didn't care who they’re gangraping to death as long as they’d get to eat the prey afterwards. And if the prey was really lucky, they’d do it in that order.
A scouting party usually had 6 to 12 goblins armed with pointy sticks. A war party, on the other hand, had around 40-80 goblins with captured weapons and bucklers. I wasn’t confident enough to defeat a war party even with my secret weapons. So excuse me for trying to avoid fighting a goddamn horde of goblins...
Natalia stepped in once more. “Skera, we’ve decided to trust Rummy’s expertise as a guide. And so far, he has given us no reason to doubt him.”
Reluctantly backing down, she begrudgingly said, “Apologies, my lady.”
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” Natalia graciously pointed out.
“That’s alright, Lady Natalia. Let’s not waste time with insincere apologies. We still have quite a bit of hiking to do today, I’m afraid.”
***
After a few hours, we arrived at my Sequoia Locker. We ended up slaughtering 7 goblin scout parties, but fortunately avoided any war parties. That was a win in my book, and I’d take that win any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.
I opened a hollowed out tree trunk (not the one that contains the entrance to my secret hideout, of course) and took out 4 full waterskins. I passed out the waterskins to my clients and took the empty ones back into the locker.
Skera scowled at me. “How do I know these aren’t poisoned?”
“I was at Carnwennan before we left and there’s no point in storing poisoned waterskin in my stash.” I casually replied as I drank from my waterskin, not even looking at her.
“My, how resourceful. It seems like you are well prepared, Rummy.” Emma said with an admiring smile.
I smiled back, “There is no such thing as being over-prepared in the Western Wilderness. Now, let’s rest up for a brief moment before- ” I noticed a couple of broken branches exactly 1 meter long and frowning.
Scattering these (exactly) meter-long branches was my primitive security measure around my home base. People and mana-beasts walk over branches all the time, but only bears, people, and Champion mana-beasts (AKA actual threats) were heavy enough to break them. It would appear that I have/had visitors.
Now, I didn’t know when they were here, but the fact that they were here was concerning enough. After I suddenly stopped talking, I began to track the movement of the visitors. Fuck, the tracks appeared to hastily covered, meaning that my visitors were human professionals.
“Rummy, what’s wrong?” Emma asked with concern.
I took out my bow and nocked an arrow. “Company.” This greatly startled Skera and Natalia, who immediately assumed a defensive stance.
“If this is an ambush, I swear on my Lady’s honor I will kill you first.” Skera glared at me as she drew her arming sword.
Ignoring her, I used my handy <
The Witches were back...
Field Inventory
Primary Weapon
Recurve bow made from Champion mana-beast sinew/Quiver with arrows
M1 Garand v.1.0 [Christened Severance Pay]
Secondary Weapon
Colt M1911A1 Semi-Automatic Pistol v.2.0 [Christened Aurelia]
Armor
Champion mana-beast leather body armor, bracers, and greaves; Leather boots lined with bear fur
Mana Crystals
1x Adept-level air elemental mana crystal
1x Adept-level fire elemental mana crystal
1x Adept-level earth elemental mana crystal
1x Beginner-level ice elemental mana crystal
5x Beginner-level life elemental mana crystal
Stash of various mana crystals
Misc.
Utility belt, grappling hook, rope, dark green cloak, field satchel, waterskin, rations, boarskin map and steel knife
1x .45 ACP steel centerfire pistol suppressor
1x .30-06 Springfield steel centerfire rifle suppressor / bayonet
6x en bloc clips of .30-06 Springfield armor-piercing ammo
3x magazines of .45 ACP hollow-point ammo
1x leather holster