“You again? Hmph…” The old man at the Traveler’s Guild said as we walked in.
That was actually about as polite as he got. It didn’t really matter to me. Every time I used him, I ended up in a new place, and once I was in a new place, I could take advantage of Portal and return there whenever I wanted. However, today’s journey would be two trips. That’s why the first portal was done so early in the morning. Otherwise, based on this guy’s disposition, it definitely would have been later in the day so he could sleep in.
The first transport would take me to the town of Nyphal. Nyphal was about an hour on foot away from another Great Dungeons, the Mirror Labyrinth. Since I was interested in all of the Great Dungeons, I would have wanted to travel there anyway. So, this got one more place out of the way. From what I understood, there would be a four-hour gap before the next transfer. It was plenty of time to look around. So, once we made it to Nyphal, we planned to purchase any information we could and head to the Great Dungeon.
Nyphal was supposedly on the border of the Ost Republic. I was curious about their culture as well. I heard that there were currently tensions between the Ost Republic and Aberis, but I didn’t know what those were about. It didn’t really have anything to do with me. I was the farthest from the Ost Republic border, so it was unlikely I’d ever be called to protect that border. Doing so would strip Aberis of any protection on the western front of Dioshin. Although there were no wars with Dioshin, the relationship between the two countries has always been tenuous at best.
“Alright, everyone gathered?”
I got into the transport with my girls. It was actually a very full contingent. It looked like a lot of soldiers were traveling along with us. Perhaps the battles with the Ost Republic were escalating since they seemed to be sending nearly fifty troops. Only two of them appeared to officially be Knights. The rest were swordsmen of varying ability. It was difficult to tell for me, but Lydia said that she could tell a swordsman’s level with a look now. It must be one of her higher skills or a natural ability of a beastkin, I didn’t know what.
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As for the wagon and the supplies, I put that in my largest storage ring, which just had enough room to fit it all. If that didn’t work, I would have just created a portal once we got back and brought it through, but I’d rather not waste portals if I didn’t have to. You never knew when you might need another one, and shuffling around my dungeon points was annoying and always ran the risk of me accidentally forgetting to reselect Reset and thus becoming stuck with my layout until I earned more points.
I had managed to reequip all of the girls with storage rings again so that they could store their stuff. I hadn’t done this for Faeyna, Salicia, or Carmine because they didn’t travel around as much. However, for the girls I brought with me, I felt it important that they are able to bring along all of their stuff. They all had rooms at the Mansion and in the Capital, but they opted to carry most of their stuff with them when possible. They were a bit more reserved in what they stored after their rings were destroyed last time, but they still liked to bring a lot along. The cost per ring was about 100 gold, but two rings I had found in the dungeon as treasures, so I had only needed to buy three more.
The portal erupted and the group of us were teleported away to a new location. Like always, the new Traveler’s Guild wasn’t much different than the last one, so the transfer wasn’t that dizzying. The people sitting around and behind the counters were different, but that was about it.
“So, this is Nyphal, huh?”
The soldiers all moved out of the Traveler’s Guild at once, and my group traveled behind them. However, we didn’t get far as the entire group of fifty had suddenly lined up and stood at attention. Celeste, who wasn’t looking, plowed into one of the guys and knocked him down. This caused a disturbance and Lydia went to help the soldier out and I went to admonish Celeste.
“Wha- It’s you!” A shocked voice suddenly shouted out.
I looked up to see the man the fifty troops had all lined up in front of. At first, I didn’t recognize him because he seemed to have lost a bit of weight. He was glaring specifically at me and Lydia. It was at that moment that the expression on his face became recognizable.
“Lord… Tibult?”