Adventurers Guild, Town-Ragnarock:-
Annie the guild master was feeling torn and bored, working on the reports and handling the guild affairs.
“Ah! This is going to take too long like this! Should I go myself and see what the commotion is about?”
But Leaf who was standing behind her moved, and spoke with his face just centimeters away from hers,
“No madam. You can’t move. You knew very well the kind of ties and shackle this position you are holding would bring with it. Now that you have actually succeeded in becoming the guild master, you have to act like one too. Let the missions be solved by the young upstarts. This is your duty as the guild master~ huf, huf, huf.”
Annie snorted thinking about the contract she was made to sign. She sighed and looked at leaf, who was still trying to catch his breath.
Using her index finger she pushed his head away and replied.
“Who told you to say all that in one sentence? Anyways…” She looked through the window to the south and toward the town flourishing outside her window. Her vision expanded and she looked beyond the town wall, and into the fields some distance away.
She bit her lip and a veil of sadness covered her face, as she saw an old man working in the fields. His beard longer than his hair and his back a little bent, clearly showing that old age was catching up to him.
Annie stood up from her chair, which startled Leaf.
“No, please madam, don’t go! What will I…”, but Annie cut him short placing her index finger on his lips to shut him up. And she spoke, as Leafs eyes became watery and his body started shivering.
“Don’t worry. I am not going to the site. I am going somewhere else. Message me once enough adventurers accept the job to form a party.
Then opening the window she flew out of the room, leaving beautiful blue snowflakes behind. They shimmered with sunlight passing through them, but then disappeared before touching the ground.
Leaf watched her fly out of the window. Understood the place she was going, he took a deep breath and mumbled, “He won’t come back madam.”
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Annie flew through the air. Flying over the town and past the town walls, she silently landed on the ground, just before the green fields.
She took a step forward, but then stopped. Smacking her forehead, she used [Freeze] and froze the atmosphere around her. Then she activated her [Barrier] to keep the effect of the [Freeze] to within its boundaries and to stop it from damaging everything around her.
A mellow cold wind originated from her [Barrier] and parted the fields. Seeing that everything was working out greatly she nodded to herself, and silently disappeared midst the wheat crop.
She took extra attention to not create any noise and even slowed down her breathing and heartbeat.
Her every step created a flimsy layer of ice underneath her feet to not affect the ground.
Remembering the position, she walked till she was just fifty meters away from the old man who was plowing the fields with a pick axe.
Sweat dripped down his face, as sun shined right above his bald head, which had a long scar from the front to the back.
He was not very tall. Standing at just 5’5” tall he looked like every other old farmer, wearing an old and worn out, but clean button less shirt and dark brown pants. But there was something about the old man which distinguished him from common folks.
Like how efficiently he was using the pickaxe. His every single draw of his multipurpose pickaxe would leave behind a perfectly straight line and give the illusion as if that line was parting the ground into two sections. The stones were being dug out in real time and getting flung to the side on the same place.
Annie didn’t come out from behind the crops and stood there looking at him. She didn’t blink to take in everything that the old man was doing. At one time she even forgot to breath and almost choked, but got hang of herself when the old man looked at the sky and smiled, exhaling out a small gust of air with his eyes closed.
Noon soon turned into evening, and the farmer finally finished plowing the land. He lay down on the ground and closed his eyes.
Annie bit her lips as her hands trembled. Her feet struggled to move. She wanted to go out into the open, but she couldn’t. Remembering all that her mother had said to her, she struggled as a tear dripped from her eye to the ground and creating a small ice lotus. This also disappeared with time.
At the end she finally lifted her feet to walk, but Leafs transmission reached her and broke her determination.
Hearing that the party had assembled, she clenched her fists and with a heavy heart returned back to the guild.
The old man who was sleeping on the ground opened his eyes as she was leaving, before closing them again after sighing.
“Achoo!!” He sneezed as a cold gust of wind hit the clearing and dropped the temperature down a peg.
“FuFu…” He snickered thinking about something, and went back to sleep.
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Annie came back to the guild after receiving the message, entering through the same window she had flown out from.
Just as she entered, leaf held her legs and clamped to them like a chimpanzee, as he started crying crocodile tears.
“Oh madam! My dear madam! Please stop hurting yourself by going to that man over and over again. He is not worth your affection. I you want to love someone then please lov… Gwack!”
“Sure, why not. I’ll love you…”
“Gwack… Ah, ah, ah… mo… more… love… me more.”
She face palmed and [unfreeze] the pervert, who sat down and moaned taking heavy breaths.
Leaf spoke as his ears turned red, “One more ti…” but stopped when he saw a sharp looking ice needle forming in Annie’s hand.
“So, where are they?” She asked him.
Leaf suddenly stood up, brushed his clothes and pointed his finger at the western wall. Ripples forming on the wall, it went through a change, as a clear crystal screen appeared from it.
Static appeared on the screen, before the view settled and it displayed a red room.
This was a device created by Dr. Steve of the imperial Engineering and research department. The Device named Teve after its creator had a unique function. It could using mana display view from the other device it was connected to.
Annie looked inside the room as memories reemerged from the past.
There was a time when it was her and her team, who sat in the room and talked to the former guild master.
She felt nostalgic remembering all the missions that they had accepted in that same room. The room was designed to create a heavy atmosphere, and make the adventurers subconsciously think that the mission wasn’t an easy task.
She sighed once before looking around the room and thinking,
‘Even the scenery outside hasn’t changed, still no window. The curtains are same too, their holes are still intact. Ah! The hole that I created in the floor is even bigger now. Heck! I can even see the ground! This room is in serious need of some renovation.’
She stopped looking around when her feeling of Déjà vu settled and stared directly at the adventurers who were interestingly looking at her. She scanned their faces and a mischievous thought entered her mind. She spoke in a grave tone,
“So, you are the excellent individuals, who have decided to risk their lives against the horrible and disastrous Dragon race...” her eyes scanned their faces in anticipation and they reacted accordingly.
“…..”
“…..”
“Wh-what?”
“DRA-DRAGONSS??”
“Ah! Honaurable master we are not here for D-dragon subjugation. We- we…”
“Yes, yes…” The girls cried out.
Annie looked at them in confusion, but then snickered when she saw their faces turn pale white.
“Haaha… you all should look at your faces. Pfft! You kids look so scared. This is amazing.”
Because she couldn’t actually send or feel any intent through the screen, she failed to notice a slight flicker in the atmosphere in the screen and carried on.
“Sorry, sorry my bad. You all were looking so tense that I couldn’t stop myself. Now, don’t take it to heart; it will only do you bad, and also me. Well, let’s not get stressed over small matters. Let me say my sorry and once again, please don’t take what I said to heart, but if....”
Hearing that Annie was just joking the kids took a breath of relief. The two girls who were wearing red and yellow colored robes distinguishing them from the rest, smiled like kittens as they looked into each other’s eyes.
While the man completely covered in black didn’t move and neither did the archer in his dyed green rhino Iron back leather armor, over a light cotton shirt.
Other than the assassin two mages and an archer; the team also had a knight; A ranker who had already advanced his class to knight from warrior.
“Don’t worry teacher its ok. Wit….” The knight cut into her talk, but Annie causally brushed his intrusion and finished by saying, “But if you do take it by heart then, you might become someone great in the future.”
To which the adventurers responded by nodding their heads.
“Okay…”
“Yes.”
The knight watching that no one was asking for information other than what had been provided by the guild, decided to directly ask the master.
“Teacher, could you tell us more about the site?” The knight requested.
Annie looked at the knight and thought, ‘this white knight; he’s…not bad I guess. He has guts for sure.’
“You Knight! Are you the leader of this party?”
The knight hearing that flinched a little, and then looked at his companions. Seeing that no one was responding or disapproving, he nodded and spoke with resolution,
“Yes, I am.”
“Good, then their life is in your hand. Whether they live or die will be decided by how you see the situation. Well, we could do all the informalities and teachings at some other time. For now, let’s concentrate on the job at hand.”
“HAI!” they shouted collectively.
“Okay then, as all of you know this job is a simple ant subjugation, but with a minor intricacy to it. The thing is, we don’t know how many ants there are. They could be in the tens, hundreds, thousands or even in the millions.”
Hearing that, the adventurers lost their cool and started shouting.
“How could this be? How can Six B rankers possibly fight with a million monsters on their own?”
“Yes, yes. This is not possible. Why was there no information regarding lack of information on the job description?”
Annie thought she heard something wrong, but then let the thought pass. Hearing them bickering like little kids, a vein popped out of her forehead.
“SILENCE!!” She yelled, which made the adventurers shut their mouth.
“Don’t forget who you are talking to. Now, you are adventurers, and no one forced you to choose this job, it was your choice.” She scanned their faces and nodded when she saw them attentively listening to her.
She added, “Yes, the job is dangerous, but didn’t you read the reward? It says negotiable. Meaning the more you bring, the more you earn. Your pay will depend on the kind of information you bring back.” She saw the knight taking a breath of relief hearing that and reminded them, “And don’t think I will let you all off if you came back without bringing something evident. Otherwise…”
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The hot headed knight didn’t back down from her threat.
“What? Don’t tell me we will have to fight till death. Just because we accepted this assignment, doesn’t mean that you have the right...”
But continuing her manner of speak she completed her sentence.
“Then you could always come back and receive your pay according to the information you bring back.”
“…..”
“…..”
“Haha, young chicks are always impulsive. No matter how much time passes, they don’t learn to have patience and never listen. Good, good, just about the right mindset to...”
“Really, she said it’s the right mindset.”
“Yeah, I was like really afraid right there”
The two mage girls talked with each other and the Knight joined them saying, “Phew. At least we won’t be considered green horns after teacher pra…”
But Annie delivered another punch to their guts.
“Ha-ha, Just the right mindset…to get killed. Like I said, they never listen.” She shook her head disappointingly, but the smile on her face never faded.
All the while Leaf was making faces, completely understanding what they were going through.
In the end, it was quite known in the town and the adventurer’s circle, how unique, both the master and her personal servant was.
“This much is enough for now. Let’s get down to business.” Annie suddenly turned serious which scared the kids.
“All that your party needs to do is to go inside the cave, defeat any and everything that comes out, and get to the very last end of the hole. Salvage every bit of information that you can from the cave, come back, and receive your reward.”
Everyone nodded their heads, except the knight.
“So, shall we also kill the queen? Isn’t it a great asset to nurture f-d rank adventures?”
“Oh! good, good. You lot are not bad. Especially you white knight. Yeah, if the place is not too dangerous then let the queen live, but if you think that there is no other way than to destroy the infection from its roots, then..”
*Silence*
This time no one spoke anything, all of them waited for Annie to finish.
Seeing this, Annie couldn’t help but smile.
“Then you know what to do. Anyways, that is all and well, but I have something I want to ask you all.”
“Yes, master?” They collectively asked.
“Well, before you go tell me...”
*Silence*
“What were your names again?”
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The knights POV:
Shesh, that guild master is too much. She and her assistant both are perverts, but her behavior was especially bad today. Everyone knows, she starts playing with adventurers when her mood is bad. Maybe something happened… Ah let’s forget about her.
After getting reprimanded or as said by master, ‘getting some sense beaten into us’, we left the guild.
Coming out of the marvelously build futuristic building was like unwillingly being thrown out of a castle. The building is that amazing. Those gadgets, that high quality material, other than the people working in the guild, everything else about it is just fantastic.
The guild master did ask us our name, but then completely lost interest, and cut off the connection to that see through gadget.
A crazy thing about that Teve is that, there are only four of them in our great empire, and two of them are installed in the guild. And that thing is not something which anyone can buy with just money alone. This alone speaks tales about the power that our previous guild master held in the empire.
No one knows why he left… Ah whatever.
*Sigh*
Only if our current master wasn’t a mean sadistic bit…
*Ahem*
Anyways, I am the leader of this expedition team. I think I should at least introduce myself to them. I still don’t understand how they let me become the leader? Maybe they don’t want to get recognized or something, well whatever.
So let’s do this.
*Gulp*
*Ahem*
Then first are the greetings.
“Excuse me everyone. Pleased to meet you all,” get their attention with a polite greeting, “I am ‘D’sue’ and I am a ‘Knight’. I usually work alone, but it's my utmost pleasure that I getting an opportunity to work with all of you.” Then say some honey filled words, “I think, none of you mind me becoming the leader of this team. Well, for the time being at least.” And that’s it. That was a bit nerve racking, but I hope I did good.
“Now that my introductions are over, why don’t you all introduce yourself too? That way we’ll at least have an idea of how to arrange our strategy; minding everyone’s skills and levels.”
I’m sweating bullets here please somebody says something. And as if my words were the cue, the heavy atmosphere between the party lifted, and the mood lightened a little. The first one to introduce herself was the fire mage in red robe.
Now, I don’t usually get together with mages. I mean, there is something about them that irks me. Their haughty behavior and that feeling they give just makes me feel nauseous, but somehow I am getting attracted toward this girl.
To tell the truth, she is beautiful. No, she is gorgeous. No she is like a goddess descending from the heaven, as she stepped forward. An angel whose smile alone is enough to warm my heart and ignite my spirit. I don’t know what to say, be it her red eyes, or her red hair or her red cheeks. Now, there is a lot of redness involved with her, but the color doesn’t swallow her and instead make her look prettier.
Everything about her is perfect. That slim curvy waist, those medium C size boobs, those deliciously glossy lips!! I mean everything about her is really perfect, but my thinking about her changed when she started speaking.
She… is just too energetic.
“Hey Mr. Knight, You took too damn long to start the introductions! Martha was like, should Martha just speak or should Martha wait. You know what? Martha hate to wait. See Martha is good at rhyming. Hate, wait, ah Martha is so good. Ah feeling tiered, Martha is going to sleep.”
I literally smacked my head from getting my image of her broken by four sentences from her. She killed the perfection that she was in my mind in a single blow, and she didn’t even introduce herself.
*Sigh*
“Miss, please tell us something about your ability, before… you go to sleep.” Awkward, awkward, even I am saying weird things now.
“Ah! Heehe… sorry, Martha always does it. If it wasn’t for this habit, then father wouldn’t have been disappointed in Martha. I’m sorry.”
All the while I was yelling her to just get on with it in my mind.
“Ok, so Martha name is Martha and Martha is a fare mage.” She said pointing at her robe and the rest of the member’s smiled warily.
“Though Martha’s rank or level is not as high as every one of you, but Martha can assure you all that Martha’s control and skills are first class.” She said and yes, she was smiling. “Yep, yep even father said Martha is a genius.”
She introduced herself and I controlled myself giving reasons like, ‘No,no, no, cool down, no need to panic. She is just a girl, though she has a few screws loose in her head, and says Martha this Martha that everytime she speaks, she is otherwise fine.’ And it actually didn’t work.
“Thank you for telling us about yourself Miss… Martha.” My face twitched saying her name. “Well, now anyone else who would like to grace us by introducing themselves.” And I hoped that the next one wouldn’t be as eccentric as her, but who was I kidding.
The next to introduce herself was the other mage of the party. Standing at 5’4”, she wasn’t just an inch taller than Martha, but looked more mature too. While she wasn’t speckles like Martha, her cold attitude made up for that gap between them.
“Name - Dust. Affinity – earth, I am a Rank 0, level 89, Mage. I specialize in Earth attack and defense skills. Most of my skills are at Intermediate lv-3. So, if you think I can be of any usage to you all, then don’t be shy and do tell me. Thank you.”
*Twitch*
And I mentally face palmed, again, no smacked my head with my hand. What kind of an introduction was that! Though she seems strong, skilled, and spoke little, and gave all the information we required. Actually…. She did a lot better than that other girl who was looking at dust with sparkling eyes.
Then I remembered something. News that had shook the low ranking individuals some months ago.
It was said that the hunter who had single killed a whole colony of black venomous rats.
From what the guild reported, the kill count amounted to one thousand rats, including the king rat which was a ranker.
The thing to note is that the hunter at that time was just a D ranker. Her name didn’t leave the guild rooms, but soon started calling the hunter with the name Dust, for the destruction that she had caused at the site.
Leaving the story aside, If her skills are really at the intermediate level, then she is a strong comrade to have. Well, I’ll also have to be careful of her, who knows when she might get impulsive and try to poke me with a spike or something. Okay, let’s move on.
“Anyone else?”
Then the assassin came forward and bowed respectfully. Covered from head to toe in black, with only his eyes staring out, he looked strange and mysterious.
He held a jet black dagger, which made me question whether it was even there or not, and wrote something on the ground.
“I am sorry, I can’t speak. So please bear with me. Anyways, my name is Enco and as you can see, I am an assassin. Nothing to be surprised about. I am also a ranker and specialize in dagger techniques and dealing with shadows. Thank you.”
Like I said, the assassin had a reason to not speak. The introductions continued with the archer.
Who following the 100 steps to being an archer, was wearing a light colored shirt underneath a green leather jacket. His arrows peeking out from his quiver and his short bow in one hand he looked ready to attack. A dagger hanging from his waist and just like in the book he was barefoot.
He introduced himself as Bill. He told us that he was a member of another B rank party which had gotten annihilated last month, and he had taken the mission to even his losses from the previous mission.
Like I said he was following the guide to be an archer to the roots.
But for some reason, he was taking confused glances at another member of the party, the swordsman.
No, not some ordinary swordsman. Someone who had achieved rank up and had evolved his class into one from the fable of legends. He was the one and only, the hope of this generation against the Demon army, the heartbeat of countless young ladies, the virgin killer, the messiah, the one and only human with the class HERO…
*Ahem*
Off, let’s take deep breaths. Though I must say that I am feeling excited for getting to work with Sir William, but I have a big question to ask him. I mean what is he doing here? Moreover alone, and without his party of five beautiful young maidens?
Well, who care’s. All I know is that other than the archer and me, no one else is giving him looks of envy. Which in itself is strange, considering he is the hero or maybe I am mistaken.
I looked at him and smiled. It was Hero time, but he turned out to be a devil instead.
“Ah! Okay, that will do. So what about you Sir?”
“What?”
“HUH?”
Don’t tell me he is goi…
“Don’t tell me! Don't you know who I am? How could it be? I’m famous you know. How could a lowly knight not know who I am? It's already a hassle giving you the position of the leader, but what the hell yo? Do you live in a cave or something? How the actual fuck could you ask me who I am! I am…”
“Sir!! It's not that I don’t know who you are, but I thought that there might be some who don’t. So, I trie…”
“Shuuu!
Don’t talk when I am talking.
I thought you had some balls to not ask me to become the leader, but looks like you are a eunuch too.”
“whaaa!”
“Shut up and listen. I was going to let you play house for this time, but with such an attitude, you can’t be the leader of this team. So, I am going to lead now and YOU ALL WILL FOLLOW.
Hey You archer! Do you have the skill [Eagle eyes]?”
“How do you…”
“No need for such useless questions, we are already late. Everyone go on and start your preparations. Meet me at the front gate in one hour.
GO! MOVE! WHAT ARE YOU ALL WAITING FOR?
And you, archer, it's your duty to scout ahead with your Eagle eyes. Our objective is very far.”
“But..”
“No buts and also no ifs. Listen to me and my every order. You lot do what I say and I’ll protect you all from any and all danger. Otherwise, you all will be on your own. Let's finish this mission as soon as we can. I have people waiting for me. Understood?”
“…….”
*Twitch*
“I SAID ‘UNDERSTOOD’?”
“Yes, sir” We all shouted at the same time.
“Then go for now and come back to the front gate in one hour. MOVE, MOVE, MOVE.”
“Yes sir.”
And we were made to run like dogs. I didn’t know he had such a fiery temper. I mean he is the hero. He’s got all the girls. He is already living his life to the fullest. So can’t he be a little sensitive.
“Sigh!”
And here I thought that I would get to lead a team of my own, but there is nothing that I can do about ‘HIM’. So, let’s just complete the mission and come back after killing him… or not.
I had nothing to pack and others like wise didn’t have anything to pack either, so I decided to buy some health and mana potions. Who knows what we will have to face there. But if the information is right and the monsters are just ants … then what more could I have asked for.
Then after we packed all the stuff necessary to travel the distance without any disturbance, we started our long journey to an easy quest, at least I think that it’ll be easy. Well, how difficult can a bunch of ants be, for us?
*************
Even though our leader is a bad character, but there is no one who can say anything about his choices and decisions. They were all perfect.
He made earth mage Dust to create a fortress… yeah, a fortress to sleep during the night, fire mage was given the duty to get the fire burning, the assassin had to go catch food and I was made the cook.
What did he do?
Nothing he just ordered us around, but on the premises to act as the guard, while we all slept at night.
The road was unusually long and winding.
Town ‘Ragnarock’ is at three day distance from the Mountain range. Though I say three days, but we took one day to get there, or were made to get there in one day, not much difference.
Though I have to say, Bill really is a great archer. All the bandits and monsters that we met on the road were nicely spotted by him, and were cleanly and peacefully executed by our assassin. He really is a great guy, though he doesn’t speak much, but he also doesn’t need to be given any order.
He always acted first, and killed all and everything that came our way.
There is a road that leads straight to ‘Devils beard’, which is a forest just before the ‘Devil Pass’ mountain range.
The numbers of monsters that we had to face while traveling in the forest were a lot, but all of them were still simply and effectively manhandled by the assassin alone. He is very powerful and trustable. I tried to talk to him, but he always ran away or tried to pick me with his dagger. I think he is just a bit shy.
The forest was really scary. Even I got scared of the pitch black darkness that surrounded everyone at night. Because of big and wide trees, with very dense canopies, almost no light reached the ground after sundown. Our leader wanted to continue moving even during the night, but his intentions were broken by the attack from night wolves.
Night wolves are not very dangerous monsters, individually that is, but the thing is they move in a group. They are pack monsters and their hunting party always contains thirty to fifty wolves at a time. Because of their affinity with the dark element, they can become a pain to fight with during the night.
It was very difficult to spot them in the darkness of the forest because of their jet black hide and non-luminescent eyes. They are like shadows during the night. But because we had the archer with us, he saved us from getting ambushed by them.
We came to the decision to stop traveling at night and to camp over the trees.
The night passed without any difficulty because of our tree fortresses, and we started our journey again during the day to the ant hill.
We encountered no wolves during the daytime, but were attacked by a group of golden snakes.
A golden snake is a rank 1 monster, not especially high leveled, but their evolved forms are much more dangerous than they are. We were very fortunate enough to not encounter them.
About the snakes, they were killed without mercy, again by our one and only assassin. We arrived at our destination at around 1: 30 pm, but because we were a bit tired from the journey, we decided to rest a bit before opening our treasure chest.
Because we were already resting I decided to create some snake soup from the snakes.
The soup was delicious and everyone praised me. I noticed Martha glancing at me from the sides. Maybe girls do like men who can cook.
The leader even advised me to not sell the recipe to any store or inn to keep it authentic.
Everyone laughed a bit, before leader stood up…
“So are you all ready?”
“Yes.” We yelled.
“Then let’s go.” And the nightmare started.