“You….Darn…Scoundrels!” The old man struggled, his face flushed red as he waved his fists threateningly. Glenn scowled and smiled apologetically.

“...My deepest apologies, senior. I and my comrade caught the track of something heavy in the ground, and we were investigating it,” He bowed his head slightly, forcing Sahro to follow him.

The old man chewed his words, his eyes bulging with anger.

“Under whose authority are you investigating, huh, you thieves?” Glenn felt Sahro tense up and swore under his breath. He slipped his hand into his coat, taking out the Blood Cross medal pinned on his white shirt under his vest, the glint of the fire quickly catching the old man’s eyes.

“We’re here with the authority of the Blood Cross order,” Glenn lied through his teeth, speaking with a grave tone. Sahro frowned but didn’t say anything, going with the flow.

“...And we also escort Monsieur Maron’s workers, the ones building the brewery” The young man finished, pinning the medal on his vest this time, making it obvious to see. He didn’t want to catch too many eyes, but in a backwater village like this, maybe using upper authority couldn’t be too bad.

‘Oh, Glenn… What a blunder…’ Diamanes muttered in his host’s mind with a disappointed tone.

‘What do you mean…?’ Glenn thought before getting brutally interrupted by the old man poking his chest aggressively.

“The Cleaner’s Workshop? Those damned thieves as well! We pay protection services to take care of the beasts, and we get nothing but runny-nosed brats who can barely fight drunkards! You damned…!” This time, it was Glenn who clenched his teeth.

He breathed in slowly, the words of the old man entering one ear and getting out the other. With a wide smile, he walked past him, enduring and wiping off the spittle that the old man was spitting at him.

The young man walked out of the hut, looking at the sun disappearing under the canopy, slowly replaced by two white moons. The old man kept on trying to push him, swearing and disrespecting Glenn as much as it was possible.

'...Is this the Karen equivalent of this world?' Diamanes questioned curiously, amplifying his host's annoyance even further.

Glenn smiled with all his teeth, clapping his hands together. The old man’s voice suddenly disappeared, and his lips moved without any sound getting out of it. Sahro coughed slightly as he also exited the hut, circumventing the angry old man as much as possible.

“Should we go, Sahro?” The young man calmly asked, his smile unwavering. Sahro nodded, throwing one last glance at the dumbfounded old man. As they walked away slowly, the Black Heir leaned forward, whispering as quietly as he could.

“...How much time is it going to last?”

Glenn looked at the sky and shrugged carelessly.

“Until we’re out of his sight. Ugh, I know we shouldn’t have entered that guy’s home, but it's not my fault it looked suspicious…” He jeered, his smile giving way to an expression of disgust as he cast a cleaning spell over his face, getting rid of all the saliva he'd failed to wipe away.

Sahro glanced at the surroundings and shook his head slowly.

"This place is horrible to defend. No walls, no sentries, a grove in the middle of a forest," Sahro kicked a stone away, clasping his arms together, "...We're sitting ducks here. Hopefully, nothing too strong comes our way," He muttered, his eyes searching through the darkness of the forest.

Besides the song of the night owls, nothing answered his wariness.

"...Hopefully, nothing comes our way at all," Glenn added, the smell of the forest making him remember that night he fled from the bloody battleground, Retni's Plains, and that tentacle monster. What was his name already? Father Albenas, Albedas?

'A tentacle monster? Glenn, how did I not watch that memory yet?!?' Diamanes exclaimed excitedly before diving into Glenn's mind to find some suitable content to enjoy.

They went back to the main camp, near the biggest patch of burned grass and ash. It was apparently where the grains used to brew Fire Spirit were grown.

The workers had already begun clearing out the ground of all the ashes and taking measures to start the construction.

"Chop, chop! I want everything to be ready for tomorrow! We'll begin at dawn! The sooner it's done, the sooner we all get paid!" The counter master yelled, clapping loudly. The workers grumbled, trying to finish everything they had to prepare in advance.

Monsieur Maron nodded approvingly, wearing a satisfied expression as he stood over the workers, his hands on his waist.

Glenn looked over, seeing that the lower-ranked mercenaries had already made their camp near the edge of the forest, establishing a perimeter with lit-on torches. Even if their respective capabilities weren't the greatest, that didn't mean they were all stupid.

They could still set up sentries, rounds, and traps. Cunning often wins over brute force, after all.

...Unless your opponent is Mary, of course. Glenn shivered and looked at Tarana, who was speaking with a...local farmer?

"Aren't the locals supposed to be still staying near the Still Peak?" He pondered aloud, curious. Monsieur Maron heard him and approached with dandy steps.

"Whatever we do here, it's still their villages. They're the ones who are going to cultivate the grains I need and extract the resources the other companies are looking for," He explained, his arms crossed as he stared at Tarana for longer than what was socially acceptable.

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Glenn slowly nodded, before turning toward him and staring straight into the merchant's eyes.

"I do have one question, Monsieur Maron. What are we supposed to protect this place from? And why such a huge pay?"

The merchant shrugged, and slipped his hand into his pouch, taking out a gold coin and playing with it.

"For you all, it might seem like a great amount, but to me, it's only the worthy price to protect my investments. I would rather pay a little bit more and make sure everything goes smoothly, even if it ends up being useless, instead of losing it all again because I was too cheap," He smiled confidently, surprising Glenn a little.

It seemed there was more to Maron than meets the eye. This merchant gave the impression that he was more of a self-made man and not a lucky inheritor.

The man politely bid Glenn a good night and went to do a last check with the workers and the counter master. The young man looked back at Sahro, only to see that the Black Heir was busy cleaning a spot nearby, setting up a small tent.

"He sure isn't losing any time..." Glenn muttered, before walking toward Tarana. The woman smiled at the farmer, who left after nodding and smiling back. She saw her teammate approach and raised her hands helplessly.

"Monsieur Maron was aware of my magical affinity with plants, and asked me if I could find a use from this..." She waved at the field of ashes with a crestfallen expression,"...mess. Surprisingly, the field got even richer from everything burning down, and the earth only asks to give birth to new crops. My powers are also amplified twofold, which is quite practical," She trailed off at the end, hesitating to say something.

Glenn nodded while tightening his tie, saying the words she could bring herself to tell.

"...But Javier, right?" He said without looking at her, his eyes searching for the presence of the silent hunter.

He was nowhere in sight, and he couldn't help but feel guilty being worried about it. Not trusting his teammate was the quickest way of getting killed.

"I don't know, he's...weird, since we fought that thing and recovered him. Different...somehow," Tarana grimaced, before rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"Maybe we're just exaggerating the situation. The guy never was too talkative, and now that he practically died and came back..." She didn't finish her phrase and shook her head dismissively. She left without looking back to a tent the workers had generously set up for her.

'Being a cute girl certainly has its advantages,' Diamanes commented while munching on something.

'Munching on something? Wait, what?' Glenn's thoughts were startled as he realized the contradiction.

'I'm just eating my illusory popcorn, let me be,' Diamanes complained while continuing to watch whatever he was watching.

Glenn remained speechless for a few seconds before pulling down on his face.

"Maybe I'm truly going mad... Curse it..."

The night was uneventful if we ignored Javier coming back while carrying an enormous brown wolf on his back, butchering it in the middle of everyone sleeping.

One of the sentries got so scared by the sight of the pale man that he shot an arrow that bruised against his cheek and planted itself in the corpse he was carrying. Javier wasn't even startled, of course.

It's just an arrow after all, why would anyone get scared being shot that thing near the head?

The twin moons disappeared, replaced by the morning light. Glenn yawned, rubbing his eyes with exhaustion. Sahro took the first quarter, while Tarana took the second.

Javier was supposedly taking the third, but strangely, no one in the team was trusting their backs to him much anymore.

Glenn took the fourth but had been awake for a good half of the night. He couldn't sleep for some reason, so he had been meditating, even if it proved a little bit less effective that day.

'Whatever, I'll just meditate a little longer if I want to be in my top condition...' He thought while watching the sunrise. The sky was colored red, then pink, which was the moment that the counter master chose to wake up.

Like a chain reaction, the rest of the workers woke up and took a charged breakfast of grilled sausages and cheese.

Glenn, carried by his curiosity and not at all by the delicious smell coming over from their side, decided to meet them. It wasn't at all in the hope of getting a sausage, no way.

The workers watched him approaching with wary eyes, their conversations dying down and their food crisping over the fire.

Glenn was wondering how to break the mood when suddenly his stomach decided to do it for him.

Rumbling, rumbling...

The young man felt the blood rush to his cheeks and mentally swore at his appetite.

"Haha, you gluttonous bastard!" Diamanes laughed at him without a second's hesitation, making his left hand's fingers twitch in annoyance.

One of the nearest workers looked at his colleagues hesitantly, before Glenn's stomach grumbled again, so loud it was similar to the sound of the thunder rumbling.

The worker shook his head and picked a skewer that was done cooking over the fire, and held it toward the young man. The latter smiled with all his teeth and grabbed it with exaggerated thankfulness.

"...Thanks," And without another word, he devoured the sausage. He looked at the empty skewer with sad eyes, before turning toward the worker who gave him the sausage.

"So, I know it's a bit impolite, but can I get another one, please...?"

"..."

The middle-aged man stood frozen for a few seconds, before bursting in laughter, his colleagues soon following.

Glenn was slightly startled before understanding that he had successfully broken this invisible wall separating him from these ordinary men and women.

He smiled in relief and accepted the sausage another worker gave him, eating it as fast as he did the first one.

One of the workers gave him another serving, before patting his shoulder warmly. He froze when he realized what he had done, and everyone stopped to see what Glenn's reaction was.

They all secretly sighed in relief when they saw that the young man was just too concentrated on eating the damned sausage to care about a friendly pat.

Glenn licked the juice on his fingers, before casting a quick cleaning spell on his hands to get rid of any filth left.

'Did you get PTSD or something? Do you absolutely need to cast a cleaning spell each time you're eating?' Diamanes sighed in exasperation in his host's mind, making the latter shrug his shoulders without much care.

'I mean, it's a good kind of PTSD, isn't it? I'm just making sure I'm clean, nothing wrong with that.'

Glenn was unaware that this seemingly small, insignificant magic had surprised greatly the workers, and while some looked at him warily, the others had their eyes shining with curiosity. One of the youngest ones couldn't hold his curiosity and came over, carefully sitting in front of him.

"You...You're a sorcerer?" He asked, half-scared and half-curious. Glenn nodded, before scratching the back of his head.

"Well, I'd rather call myself a mage, but sorcerer works too. I do a bit of magic, yeah." To demonstrate, he summoned a light ball above his palm with his mind, making everyone whisper in surprise and awe.

Glenn was a little surprised by how shocked they were at the magic. It felt so...common and simple, that he forgot that the majority could only dream about using spells.

Even if the path was relatively simple, paying a single silver coin to get your First Circle at the closest Magic Bureau, it could only get you so far without a teacher. Glenn was lucky to have Diamanes and most important of all, Redan.

'I wonder how the old man is doing...' He thought with a bit of nostalgia. It had indeed been a while since he last had news of him.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the panicked yell of one of the lower-ranked mercenaries.

"Doran? Doran!?!"