Glenn rubbed his hands together, casting a complicated expression on the two groups before him.
"...Well, of course, you guys had to separate yourself perfectly," He grumbled, looking at the twenty workers on one side, Lefeivre leading them, and the mercenaries on the other, Reed at their head. Glenn rubbed his temples, before shrugging.
"That leaves my vote. I, of course, speak for my comrades," The young man clasped his hands together while pointing his chin at Javier and Sahro. The two were only watching the spectacle, one with an amused grin, and the other with a blank face. The two groups held their breath and tensed. Whatever Glenn chooses, that would be their next course of action, and there'll be nothing they'll be able to say.
"...And so, let's go to the quarry!" Glenn exclaimed, jumping off the carriage's roof. The workers sighed while the mercenaries nodded with satisfaction.
'Alright, at least that's one thing done. We still need to get to the quarry, and probably fight whatever is entrenched there. This day just doesn't end...' Glenn sighed again, before telling everyone to start the convoy again. They had no time to lose if they wanted to arrive at the quarry before night. Hopefully, there'll be some accommodations there because he didn't feel like sleeping in a damned tent tonight.
'A bed, with a mattress, that's all I want...' The young man's thoughts were interrupted when Lefeivre, the foreman, grabbed him by the shoulder with a worried expression. Glenn raised an eyebrow.
"Sir Glenn...Since you're leading the operation now, I need to tell you about the Blumar Quarry," The muscular worker crossed his arms together. Glenn looked at the convoy that was about to depart and invited Lefeivre to continue.
The worker sunk his massive hand in a tiny pouch hanging at his belt, and pulled out a blue piece of rock. It was gleaming in the light of the sun and almost looked like it was changing form depending on its direction. Glenn took it with an interested look, negligently throwing it up and down.
"This...What is it?" Glenn inquisitively asked. Lefeivre took it back and kept it out of Glenn's range, safeguarding it.
"...That's a piece of Blumar, one of the only construction materials that doesn't let Mana pass through it. The Magi Brotherhood can never get enough of that thing, hence its price," The foreman explained, holding the rock carefully with both hands. Glenn grinned and tilted his head to the side.
"So that's expensive stuff. If that's so profitable, why is there no permanent installation in the Blumar Quarry?"
Lefeivre frowned.
"There was in the past, but one day monsters began to appear in the quarry, probably due to an undiscovered Rift. The fact is, we tried to get rid of them, but they never stopped coming and the Rift was impossible to find. It just proved to be an extreme liability to our Company's Financials, so we abandoned it. It's probably home to these creatures now," Lefeivre took out a thick pipe filled with tobacco and lit it up with a match that he scratched against his boot. It took a few minutes for Glenn to realize the item was in Lefeivre's hands.
'A match?'
Lefeivre drew a few puffs from the pipe, creating a small cloud of smoke around him. Glenn tried to push the smoke away from him with his hands but failed to do so.
"Cough, so, what are these monsters like? So I have at least an idea of what I need to kill," The young man coughed, chasing the smoke away with a small blast of Mana that put out the pipe. Lefeivre frowned before taking another match and approaching it from his boots. Glenn grabbed his arm and stole the match, looking curiously at it.
"...How does it work?" He couldn't help but ask, wondering if somehow the Maron Company had managed to successfully arrive at the technological level to create matches. The young man couldn't remember how exactly the things were made, but he was sure there was supposed to be some phosphor in it, and he could hardly believe that it was something easily used without some specialized machines.
Lefeivre grumbled and took the match back, not letting Glenn observe it much. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be a red tip or anything, and it was just a very short straight stick. How the flame lit up was a mystery for Glenn.
"...It's just a stick with a bit of Fire Mana imbued in it," Lefeivre shook his head dejectedly and lit up his pipe, throwing the dead match away. Glenn sneered.
'Yeah, of course, it's Mana. Everything is Mana in this damned world...' Glenn grumbled. Lefeivre took another puff of his pipe.
"About the monsters... They were humanoid rock monsters the size of houses. They were quite fragile, so much so that all the mercenaries had to do was give them a good hammer blow in the legs for them to collapse. They also had a central gem on their forehead which, when destroyed, seemed to kill them directly. It's a pity they had to be shattered for the creatures to be completely dead because I'm sure those gems would have been worth more than their weight..." The foreman paused, before shrugging.
Stolen story; please report.
"That's all I know. Don't let us all die, Sir Glenn. I'm dearly attached to life, as we all are," He warned, before leaving for one of the carts that had started moving, jumping in. Glenn smiled, before jumping on top of Maron's carriage and sitting on top of it.
'Since Maron's looks like he's the main target, I'll just stay there for now, and let my Mana slowly come back. Javier went to the back like I asked him earlier, and Sahro was at the front. We should be fine anyway, I'm sure the attackers didn't expect to lose one of theirs so easily...' The young man looked at the sky, its color slowly turning to an orange tint as the sun began to set.
"Hopefully we'll arrive before night..." Glenn mumbled, crossing his arms together.
Finally, the convoy resumed its road, under the falling light of the rising moons. It seemed like luck had their back this time, as they didn't suffer another attack on their way to the quarry. When they arrived, the unveiled moonlight of the cloudless night shone on the quarry, an immense square carved into the marble ground.
Glenn observed the place as he leaned in from above, unable to find anything close to moving.
"...I'm not sure the creatures Lefeivre mentioned are there..." He mumbled, crossing his arms together. Sahro glanced at the quarry for a second before shrugging.
"Well, all good for us if they're not there. Additionally, I can't see any traces of any human that passed by, but maybe Javier had more chance than me...?" The Black Heir trailed off, looking at Javier who was also leaning in with wrinkled eyes. The Pale Son shook his head, before shrugging and jumping down, unbothered.
Glenn extended his hand out before sighing.
"...If he wants to do the recon, may he do so. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't care much for what I'd have to say, anyway..." The young man turned around dejectedly, Sahro closely following him from behind. The mercenaries lit up some torches while the workers complained of the bad working conditions, which they hadn't stopped doing ever since Maron disappeared. Glenn couldn't help but understand their dissatisfaction.
'I'm also that bastard's employee, damn it!' He thought sadly, his thoughts disturbed by Diamanes' mocking laugh. The entity only laughed, not commenting anything on his host's issues, somehow making it even more annoying than if he had said something.
'Just shut up, if you're not saying anything!'
'Hahahaha!'
Glenn's eyelids twitched, and he rubbed his temples tiredly. He looked at the two moons now hanging in the sky, bathing in its light. His mind earned a few minutes of peace, until Javier suddenly popped back out of nowhere, startling both Sahro and him.
"Shit!" The Black Heir pointed his stump forward, threatening Javier with his shoulder, before coughing awkwardly and turning away, no doubt to hide his cheeks reddened by shame. Glenn barely managed to restrain his chuckle and nodded at Javier, who returned him with a thumbs-up.
"I take it it's fine to go down there for now, then, Javier?" Glenn tried, smiling when he saw the Pale Son nod.
'Hey, I'm starting to understand him!' He happily thought, Diamanes sneering in response.
'Good job understanding a guy who can't talk. Who would have guessed he could have used his movements to talk? Incredible!'
Glenn ignored the mockery and signaled the cart at the forefront to begin the descent into the quarry. The convoy tackled the downhill slope, going one carriage at a time. It was always a particularly fascinating sight to see the carts moving without anything to pull them, powered only by the Shards that the various drivers possessed. Shards, moreover, which they didn't hesitate to use to accelerate or brake.
'When I think back to it, with such an easy-to-use instrument, it only makes sense technology didn't develop as much as it should have. They just use Mana instead of struggling to find some complicated solutions,' remarked the young man. He closely monitored the descent, his Mana ready to pulse out anytime. If there was a moment to attack, it was now. Luckily, nothing happened.
"Huh. No rock monsters, no necromancers, nor any bullshit like that. How...relaxing..." Glenn smiled at the unexpected but pleasant surprise. He had prepared for all but for it to go smoothly.
"Don't complain, that makes for a nice change," Sahro added sarcastically, Glenn chuckling in response. The last cart was finally down, and the convoy began to install their encampments. Reed was installing his tent with the help of two other mercenaries before Glenn came talking to him.
"Hey Reed. Sorry, but you and your people will have a bit more work to do," The young man began, not noticing or at least acting like he didn't see the mercenary's displeased expression.
"I want traps, torches, everything you guys can muster to protect the camp. Javier, Sahro, and I will relay ourselves to guard the camp, but any little bits to scrape for additional defense are good to take," said Glenn, patting Reed's shoulder. The mercenary's expression changed, and he chuckled to himself. Glenn raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
Reed waved his hand dismissively.
"Nothing, I thought you would ask me or the guys to stand guard while you Fixers would use the rest. I'll take care of it, don't worry," The mercenary nodded with a smile, before screaming some orders to the other mercenaries. Glenn wrinkled his nose, trying to think of something else he needed to do, before giving up. He turned toward Javier and Sahro, one already sleeping without a care in the world on top of a stone, unbothered, while the other was yawning very insistently. Glenn sighed.
"...I'll take the first guard, then. Sigh," He shook his head and jumped on top of an abandoned block of marble, trying to survey the whole camp from his perch. There were many abandoned blocks of marble like the one he was standing on, and some crumbled wood contraptions let one hint at some kind of pulley system that served to transport the materials back to the top of the quarry.
"...Maybe I'll have a few workers focus on repairing that stuff. I need one of us three to stay in the camp to defend it at all times, while the others will focus on finding clues about that necromancer's identity. I also need to get Lefeivre to help me wake Maron the fuck up, because I'm not going to do his share of the work any longer..." Glenn paused, before tapping his finger on his chin, "...Unless I do get paid for it? Oh, I might have found a loophole here... And since I'm the only one who can value my work as a leader, I can probably..." The young man's mouth widened in a large, wicked smile, and he chuckled to himself in the night.
He took out some pemmican from his dimensional pouch and ate in silence, watching over the camp.
Nothing would escape from his eyes.