Guild Leader Francis P.O.V
"Alright, let's do a final rundown before we arrive in this new country"
A large number of magically powered carriages were wheeling their way down the road without any horses pulling them at all. Of course, to the Adventurers guild, the payout was much more valuable since they could have a continuous speed without stopping. If the carriages were drawn by horses, then it would take much longer since they would have to stop and let the horses eat and rest. Instead, they were now going a steady 20-25 MPH without needing to stop.
Currently, guild leader Francis was in one of the larger carriages which also had many of his important officials occupying it. There were the general managers, the financial managers, and a few from the merchant's guild that had been hired to help with building houses for occupying adventurers' families and other necessary facilities as well as towing a large amount of food.
Cough Cough
A man wearing glasses and black hair unrolled a large piece of papyrus
"So, this countries name is the United States Of America. From what we know, they have enough personnel to run a large-scale military as well as having multiple giant magical contraptions. They have been in isolation for some time, so they do not have any usable currency but they have skills and buildings that can benefit us accordingly. That is all we know"
Francis raised an eyebrow.
"That's all? What about the spies that we sent in?"
The man put the papyrus to the side before sighing.
"They never made it in. They knew where they were but they had many soldiers on guard and had large lights that didn't allow any of our spies to sneak in since they would be detected in an instance. They are extremely cautious."
Francis looked at the merchant guild representatives, who just shrugged their shoulders.
"I don't know what we can tell you. There quite literally exists no information in other kingdoms other than they are most likely extremely powerful. It was almost as if they just came into existence recently, however, as we all know that is probably not possible"
The carriage shook, making all of them hold on to their seats as they bumped over a rock. They had set out quite early in the morning and they expected to arrive within the hour based on the position that was given of their base. Although, the area they were situated in would be a gold mine for adventurers. They were in the area that was marked as the Devil's Forest due to the large amounts of monsters that infested the area, so if they were able to defend themselves against those monsters then they should be at least decent in military prowess.
They were both susceptible to ground, air, and sea attacks due to their peculiar area so that was a concern, but not a great one for now. Of course, the guilds themselves have two goals, profit, and economic growth using their areas of expertise so they had to take risks like this one.
"Oh wait, I think I see something!"
The man steering the carriage slowly shut off the magical power as the others did the same.
Francis got up and opened the door to the carriage to see what in the world was going on.
"Why'd we stop!?"
"Well...it's because-"
The man who had been driving their carriage pointed at the area right in front of the carriage. There was a small building that had three people inside wearing peculiar clothing that was green and looked a bit spotty. On either side of the building, there were two rails with yellow and black stripes.
"We can't get through unless we go off-road, which would cause the carriages to fall over."
At this point, the men who were doing their thing inside the booth had noticed the dozens of carriages that were now coming near them. They immediately pulled some type of magical device up with some kind of line and started speaking into it, before setting it down. He turned around and spoke to the people beside him before pressing something, which lifted the metal bars up.
He waved at them to come through.
"Well, I guess that solves that problem. I haven't thought about it, but that's a pretty efficient way to stop vehicles."
Everybody who got out of their carriages immediately piled back in and got into a single file line in front of the bar. Since the space was quite tight and the road was a bit narrow, some of the carriages had to circle around and get behind the group so they could travel through. The people in the booth looked like they were counting the carriages as they went past, speaking into their magical devices once again.
"Are they soldiers?"
Francis felt a need to ask the question on everybody's mind. From their perspective, every soldier would carry a bladed weapon or something that was very obviously a weapon. However, these men carried nothing except some type of metal that was slung across their chests.
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The glasses man nodded again.
"From what I heard, probably. No one has seen them in combat other than the prince and princess of the Lunama kingdom and they've refused to comment on their fighting style other than "They're strong" so we don't have much to work with. Though, I'm sure they can provide sufficient protection for adventurers and citizens within their city in case of an attack"
Moving along, they finally passed the building and headed past the walls of their city. Though, to call it a city was probably incorrect because the people that were going around were mostly fit men, though some females were also present. They were going about with daily tasks or driving large magical contraptions that looked like they were made of pure steel instead of wood and looked extremely expensive. More than what even the adventurers guild would pay.
The buildings that surrounded them looked quite similar in pattern scheme to some of the more luxurious buildings, though they looked like they were made up of a different material than they would usually use.
Francis looked on as the carriages finally started to enter down the main road of the place,
"This is going to be interesting"
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Maxim P.O.V
"Alright, so, we'll be going to the Chinese base in a bit. We have no issues here right?"
Currently, Maxim and his group, which now included Flander and Sylvia, were discussing what they were going to do while eating breakfast. Though, he was more or less just discussing with his group from earth because the other two had no idea what China or the U.S or anything else they were talking about was. They were also too busy stuffing themselves for the second time in 24 hours with food.
"There can't be any harm with doing that. I'm sure we're on the same side...probably. Anyways, I'm almost 100% sure that the whole hostage crisis incident was resolved by them since they had so many snipers on them. If they wanted to be hostile they wouldn't need to help us after all."
James listed his thoughts, which the rest of the people excluding the two nodded their heads in agreement.
"If we can have mutual support, we can probably last much longer and have much more stability instead of being by just ourselves. We are unfamiliar to everything in this world, it's a good idea to have good relations with a nation from earth."
"Agreed. Also, what happened to Ben? I heard it was pretty bad."
Maxim sighed. With all technicalities aside it was completely out of his control that one of the wasps got a lucky graze on Ben's arm, but in reality, Maxim still blamed himself a lot for what happened to him.
"They said he'll be fine. It was just a numbing agent, they probably use it to take down larger prey and kill them while they're paralyzed. Nothing life-threatening but he's going to have to wait out the effects."
James and Simon both stayed silent at that.
It had been a tense moment since the large-scale battle with the wasps. They had increased the number of soldiers stationed in the town. It was initially only set at four because they didn't want the citizens to be too anxious or suspicious that they were under a constant threat of being attacked but now that was all tossed out the window and replaced with LAV-25's and M249 light machine guns that were on constant patrol.
"Are we all done? If we are, then let's get in the car we've gotta go before the adventurer's guild people get here. They should be here in around two hours so that gives us enough time to go to the Chinese base, chat, then come back to meet them.
The three of them got up, closely followed by the other two who had just finished with their filling breakfast and were now ready to go along with them even though they had no idea where they were actually going but they were sure it wouldn't be that bad.
Maxim had asked them previously to come along since they may not have talked with any of the natives of this world, so this would be a good chance for both parties to meet. Even though they were both kids, it would be better than nothing.
They soon reached a humvee that already had its engine started, it was just waiting for them to get in. All of them got in just fine since there were only five of them and two of them were teens who were also carrying nothing but some light armor and a sword.
"Alright, let's go then"
The humvee lurched forward as Maxim stepped on the gas. They were a bit short on time because of the deadline for the arrival of the adventurers guild, which could, in turn, help them with their whole economical situation. As of now, they were running on limited supplies since they couldn't create anything domestically. However, they did have unlimited power so as long as they had the base materials everything could still be made.
They slowed down as they went down the main street of Fayetteville. Many people were out and about again, seemingly forgetting about the massive battle that had just occurred right in front of them. As they saw the humvee come down the road, they all moved to the side of the road and watched them as they passed.
Maxim couldn't exactly know what they were thinking, but maybe they wished that they could still have places to drive their own car. They must have lost family as well, everybody did.
"I wonder how my parents are doing..."
"Sir?"
"Nothing. Just keep on looking for threats"
They left the town and went straight into the wasp-against-humans battlefield. There was still a good deal of wasp corpses there, making it quite a (gruesome) sight to look at.
Sylvia peeked out of the window to see the piles of wasps that had been destroyed. Flander had seen the extent of the damage but Sylvia hadn't been informed of what had happened. She didn't ask any questions about it though, she just stared.
Simon nudged Flander
"Your friend okay?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, she likes to craft potions and whatnot sometimes so she gets very interested in monster parts."
"We can give you guys some of them if you want, it's not like we have much use for it"
Sylvia perked up and started to sway back and forth happily at the prospect. Maxim smiled slightly as he watched this whole exchange happen through his rearview mirror.
Kids are still kids, no matter where they're from.
They sped past the battlefield and slowed down so they could carefully navigate the trail in the woods, Maxim really didn't want to crash his car into a tree so he was extra careful when steering it through the dirt path. It seemed that Chinese vehicles had gone this route before since there were tire marks in the dirt from the activity.
Actually, there were A LOT of tire marks. They were seriously going through these woods a lot!
Well, this made Maxim's job easier since he just followed the marks. The tree roots and rocks made the ride extremely bumpy, though it could have been worse since the humvee was made to go off-road so it was much better than expected.
As they weaved in and out of the forest, they saw some movement in the woods but they may have been scared off by the humvees engine or their rapid movements.
They finally left the forest and into another clearing, quite similar to where New Fort Bragg was located. However, they were right on the edge of the ocean.
As the sun shone overhead, they finally reached their destination as the giant base of Zhurihe came into view.
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