Mark agreed to take in twenty percent of the gross earnings of the theater so Hamil would not be suspicious of where he was getting his gold and based on what the caravan leader told him, it would be a considerable sum.
The audience was still busy talking about the movie and looked like they had no plans of leaving anytime yet. Even the children joined in on the fun and Mark wondered about their parent’s tolerance of their children staying late. He just shrugged and didn’t plan to intrude on how parents instruct their children.
Even Natasha joined in with some of her acquaintances to talk about the film. The movie, The Princess Bride was well-liked in particular.
While Natasha was talking to her friends, Hamil spoke with Mark about the three new movies that he was going to show next.
“So, what type of movies are you going to let us see next?”
“The first movie is for children just like Snow White. It’s called Pinocchio and it's about a lonely old man who had no family who made a wooden puppet boy who came to life, but the wooden puppet boy wanted to become a real boy and the movie was about his journey about fulfilling his wish. The next one was about a fallen noble who went rogue and stole from the rich to give to the poor and the last one was about a dragon. I’ll show you the trailers later.”
Hamil understood what trailers were since he had seen the trailers for the last three movies.
“I’ll give you your cut of the earnings after the last day of the movie showing, is that alright.”
Mark just nodded and then went to Natasha and asked her if she was ready to go home. Surprisingly, she said that she still wanted to speak to her friends about the movie. After introducing Mark to her friends, they continued talking about their favorite scenes in the movies while Mark watched and listened.
After about an hour, Mark escorted Natasha to his caravan and there, they played intimate games for several more hours.
The next day, Mark went to the elven sister’s house to study and after that, went to the acrobat brothers to practice. He wanted to keep up the acrobatic practice for exercise purposes. He really didn’t want to go back to being fat although based on his stats, it would be impossible for that to happen, but he still couldn’t let go of the fear.
In the afternoon, he had nothing to do so he went to the guard station to check up on Natasha. When he arrived there, he saw that everyone was busy and when Natasha saw him, she informed him that she was assigned a dangerous mission of slaying a couple of wyverns in the town of Pine Creek, a day's travel from the city of Argent. Once they leave immediately, they should arrive in the town tomorrow morning.
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“Can I join you? I’m a mage and I wanted to see how the guards will slay the beasts.”
“A mage is always welcome in a mission this dangerous, but you would have to keep up with us and no cart. We will only be using fast mounts. Do you know how to ride?”
“No, but I’m a fast learner and it’s a good time to learn.”
Natasha rolled her eyes but did assign a normal-looking horse to him. Mark was a bit disappointed since he wanted to ride a magical beast mount, but Natasha informed him that since it was his first time riding, to which she couldn’t fathom how it happened, it would be good for him to learn to use a tame and easily controlled mount. Mark just told Natasha that there were extraordinary circumstances that’s why he never learned how to ride a mount.
“Can you give me an hour? I’ll need to inform some people about where I’m going.”
“Sure thing. It would take us a couple more hours before everyone’s ready anyway since we need to wait for the two mages assigned to us by the city.”
Mark went back to the circus caravan compound to inform Hamil and the acrobat brothers that he would go with the guard captain for a mission and would be gone for about two or three days. He also went to the elven sister’s current place to inform them of his would-be absence. After that Mark changed his clothes to winter gear for outside the city and went back to the guard station without bringing anything else since everything that he might need would be in his inventory.
He even had a complete set of tents capable of withstanding the cold and if worse came to worst, he could take out his RV home from his inventory. The RV would certainly make camping comfortable, but he wanted to avoid using it since it was too modern or too different but then again, as a wizard, he could take out any contraption and people would just assume its strangeness for him being a foreigner and a wizard.
“You’re empty-handed. Are you sure you wanted to travel with us without bringing anything?” Natasha asked when she saw Mark without bringing anything.
“I have a dimensional storage, so I have everything I need. When do we leave?”
Natasha just shrugged off learning that Mark had a dimensional space since although not very common, it wasn’t rare when it came to wizards, and she did see him taking out things from his space before.
“We will leave once the mages arrive. They should be here after a few minutes.”
Several minutes passed and Mark saw a couple of people wearing actual robes riding unicorns. The mages were men in their late twenties and their unicorns were gorgeous although the colors were not white. The one with a brown beard was wearing a purple robe and riding a brown unicorn and the other one was a blonde man wearing a green robe riding a gray unicorn.
“Mark, these are mages Ardeen and Lossa.” Natasha introduced the mages and then said his name to the two wizards.
The mages greeted Mark and then the team led by Natasha, the guard captain, rode towards the east gate.
Mark noticed that one guard was assigned to him to assist him during the ride. He was glad that the horse was very mild and easily followed his command. The way he rode was very different from how the others rode their mount. The others looked very refined, like adventurers going on a journey while he looked awkward. The other guards as well as the mages were surprised to learn that this was the first time he was riding a mount, and they couldn’t fathom how anyone could become an adult in their world without learning how to ride.