Chapter 26: Hitchhiking by Horse
Daphne’s group quickened their pace as they closed on their destination. By now, her whole party was comfortable riding horses. Also, the training they had received from Alenia and her two friends was invaluable.
Previously, Daphne was fairly confident in her bow skills when it came to raw marksmanship, but she didn’t really know how to use her bow in combat effectively. That weakness was obvious when considering Daphne’s effort to defeat the slime in DM’s chamber. She remembered how her first arrow struck the armrest of DM’s chair because she wasn’t skilled on shooting while on the move. When the slime didn’t react, she was able to strike it with an arrow the second time, just as she performed well when shooting at stationary targets for practice.
Alenia was a strict but capable teacher. Now, Daphne’s success rate with the bow was high, even when moving and targeting mobile enemies among obstructions. She still couldn’t compete with Alenia, but at least she wouldn’t embarrass herself so much.
Her friends were faring equally well. The white mage received regular one-on-one magic training with the druid of Alenia’s party, all the while making a dopey face like he cared more about who was teaching him than what he was learning. The swordsman was behaving similarly while training with the elvish warrior. Daphne was a bit jealous, although she’d never admit it to either of the guys.
Only the other female of Daphne’s party, the fighter, acquitted herself well, focusing entirely on her improvement. Daphne had been a bit nervous about a swordswoman training a fighter, but apparently that wasn’t an issue. The elf was well-versed in how to teach beginner fighters apparently. The huge level difference didn’t hurt, either.
As Daphne listened to the rhythmic clopping of horse hooves on the road, Alenia called out to her from behind.
“Daphne, that’s a bit of an odd sight up ahead.”
Daphne raised her eyes and noticed a figure on the road well ahead, near the horizon. Squinting, she could see it was a person walking in the same direction as they were traveling. As she focused on the spot, she came to realize the person was fairly small, like a child or young teenager.
Seeing no reason to alter their plans, the group of seven continued along the road at the same pace. Horses moved quickly and the person ahead of them wasn’t rushing, so they caught up in just a few minutes. As they drew close, Daphne noticed more about the person ahead. They were most likely female, and they had animal ears and a tail.
“Daphne, dear, why don’t you handle the greetings this time?”
“Okay.” Daphne saw no reason to object, even though Alenia had handled most of the interactions until now. As ridiculous as it felt sometimes, Daphne was the leader of her adventuring party. Amazingly, none of her friends had complained about that fact even after all that had happened.
Even as the horses drew close enough that the girl could obviously hear it, she didn’t look over her shoulder. She just continued walking as though she didn’t notice anything. Could she be deaf? If so, walking by herself in the road like this was kind of dangerous. Not wanting to make any assumptions, Daphne called out to her as they neared.
“Hello!”
The girl stopped and turned to look over her shoulder with absolutely no delay, as though she was patiently waiting for the right moment to deviate from her march. Not only was she not deaf, she must have had extreme confidence of her ability to remain aware of her surroundings without relying on eyesight. Those large raccoon ears may have played a role in it. Also, a little girl walking by herself was rather uncommon so perhaps she was stronger than she looked. That would explain her behavior, Daphne figured.
“Well met,” the girl replied, in contrast with her apparent age. Daphne would have expected such a greeting from an older adult, maybe.
Daphne brought her horse to a halt, and the rest of her group behind her did the same. “…Have we met somewhere?” Daphne could have sworn she recognized this girl.
“The Twin Cities Guild?”
“That’s it!” Daphne confirmed. “You’re an adventurer there?”
The girl nodded.
“I was just there recently,” Daphne continued. “I’m Daphne. Why are you out here by yourself?”
“Nina. I’m returning home after a request.”
“You did a request out here by yourself!?” Daphne asked, astonished.
“No, I wasn’t alone, but we had to split up.”
“I see…” Daphne trailed off, unsure of what to ask next. She glanced over her shoulder at Alenia only to see the older elf squinting at the raccoon-girl.
“Her as well…?” Alenia muttered.
Taking that as a cue that Alenia didn’t have any preferences for how to proceed, Daphne attempted to finish her conversation with Nina.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“We’re going to the Twin Cities as well. Do you—“
Alenia suddenly cut Daphne off. “Nina, why don’t you travel with us?”
Daphne was a bit annoyed since she was going to say more or less the same thing after verifying Nina had her Guild identification handy, but she wasn’t about to start an argument with Alenia either.
Nina hesitated, then agreed. Her reluctance was obvious, as though she wanted to decline but was worried it would seem suspicious to decline for no obvious reason.
“You can share my horse with me,” Alenia offered, and Nina accepted. “Let’s chat for the rest of the way.”
Daphne glanced at the rest of her party. For a reason she couldn’t comprehend, the two guys had somewhat envious expressions. The white mage turned to Daphne with a recommendation.
“Daffy, why don’t you ride with Alenia for the last stretch so that Nina here can ride your horse?
“Rejected,” Daphne and Alenia replied in unison, surprising everybody else.
----------------------------------------
For the rest of the journey, Alenia asked Bandit about how she became an adventurer and what her party had been up to. Of course, Bandit only shared information that she and her party deemed appropriate to make public. She made no mention of Thaw or her role as a Guild agent. In addition, she didn’t provide details about what else her party members had been up to recently aside from adventuring.
Alenia had focused in a fair bit on dungeon experience with her questioning. Bandit had admitted to exploring both the Lower Gordu and Upper Gordu Dungeons. Alenia asked several questions about what the Lower Gordu Dungeon was like. Bandit explained that it was being used to train newer adventurers and its content is constantly changing, so she can’t really say what it’s like now. She gave a brief summary of some of the routine monsters they fought and what the dungeon floor plan was like in several places, last she checked.
The most awkward part was when Alenia asked about the Dungeon Master. Of course, Bandit minimized DM’s role in her story. She stuck mostly to information available to everyone at the Guild. She acknowledged that DM likely oversaw their exploration while they were in the Lower Gordu Dungeon, but didn’t admit to any specific conversations. This could theoretically come back to bite her if the elves found out from the Guild that Bandit and company had been sent on a mission where they intentionally made contact with DM, but that was unlikely to come up right now. Even if Alenia sought Bandit out later to complain about the inaccurate information provided today, Bandit could just shrug and say the Guild told her to keep those details private for the time being.
DM had mostly been switching his attention between Bandit and Sasha’s party. He really wanted to ask Ardreth about Alenia’s visit, and he hadn’t had a chance to do so yet. Finally, after patiently waiting for a good opportunity to make contact with Ardreth, he noticed a kid try and fail to pickpocket Sasha as she walked with Ardreth through a quiet lot.
Sasha didn’t have her sword on her, so she reached for the dagger she kept hidden. Ardreth extended his arm in front of Sasha indicating that she should wait. After taking a breath, Sasha realized that going after the pickpocket with a dagger would be overkill. The kid had failed, and they had no evidence anyway. Similarly, Ardreth could restrain the kid with magic, but there wasn’t much point.
Just as Sasha had given up on teaching the kid a lesson, a tentacle hooked around the boy’s ankle, forcing him down face-first. At this unexpected development, Sasha and Ardreth sprung to attention, weapons at the ready. They weren’t afraid of DM necessarily, but he hadn’t injected himself in their lives for a while, so they were especially startled.
The boy stood back up and turned around. “…It’s me.”
“DM?” said Sasha.
“…Of course.”
“It’s been a while,” Ardreth added on.
“…Yes. I saw you battle another wyvern recently. …Do you know why there are so many wyverns?”
Sasha turned to Ardreth, who answered, “We’re not sure but we have some theories.”
“…Please tell me about that as well as anything else interesting you’ve learned about what’s going on in the Empire.”
----------------------------------------
Ardreth’s theory related to dungeons. Occasionally, monsters would leak out of dungeons and cause problems for whatever else was nearby, whether it be the wilderness, towns, or something else. If the level of monsters outside the dungeon was comparable to or higher than the level of monsters leaking out of the dungeon, it wasn’t a big deal. If the monsters escaping the dungeon were at a higher level, or were highly mobile, such as flying monsters, then the impact was potentially much greater.
This concern was one of the main reasons why local Guild branches placed strict restrictions on what level to maintain each of the dungeons at. Also, dungeons near cities were met with continuous waves of adventurers in part to prevent the dungeon from getting targeted by hostile entities, such as foreign nations. For example, if the Union or the Empire wanted to weaken the Holy State, they could target the Twin Cities by sending a secret team to the Lower Gordu Dungeon and then pumping up its level until scary monsters escaped into the forest near the city. Setting aside the unique situation of the Guild’s friendly relationship with DM, such a situation would be a permanent liability for the nation since the Guild didn’t know of any way to reduce the level of an existing dungeon without moving it. In the worst case, they would need to bite the bullet and relocate the dungeon, although few people knew about that capability. Losing access to a nearby dungeon and its resources would also be a terrible outcome for the host nation.
From what Ardreth had seen and heard, the powers that be in the central region of the Empire were messing around with their dungeons. Neither he nor Sasha had been able to figure out the nature of the relationship between the local lords and the Guild branches in this region yet. Ardreth suspected that the local lords were intentionally leveling up the Empire’s dungeons, although he wasn’t totally sure why. If their goal was to weaponize dungeons somehow, all they’d accomplished so far was releasing a few wyverns which needed to get fought off by the local soldiers and passing adventurers. That hardly seemed like a logical motivation.
Sasha acknowledged that her party would continue to investigate these shady happenings and share what they learn at a later date. She also pointed out that Luna, as a native of the Empire, had been upset by what they saw so far and was similarly eager to investigate. The last two members of their party didn’t feel as strongly but were enjoying gaining experience. The hunter had expressed hope that they could have less run-ins with wyverns, but didn’t demand that they retreat from the region. His brother, the spearman, seemed indifferent. He knew wyverns were dangerous game but enjoyed the opportunity to kill them.
“…Before I go, I have one more question.”
“Hm?” Sasha encouraged DM to continue.
“…Apparently, I’m going to be receiving a visit from a few elves including one named Alenia. Anything you could tell me about that?”
Sasha turned her head towards Ardreth as she said, “Elves? In that case, Ardreth is the one—“ She cut herself off as she noticed, for the first time ever, that Ardreth was slack jawed.