CHAPTER 37 CHAPTER TITLE GO BRRRRR

It didn’t take us particularly long to gather everything we needed for whatever was planned. I had to expect it was some convoy or protection mission. Garrus had been particularly vague on the details of what we were doing, but that might’ve just been the fact that details on what was happening were vague. Need to know basis kind of thing I guess.

Penny and I easily finished up in an hour, give or take a few minutes and we arrived at the main gate shortly after. I pulled my hood up preemptively, I had dealt with enough people to know that just sitting around with my ears hanging out was usually asking for trouble, who knew what would set someone off here. There was a somewhat small crowd here. I took a few glances at the levels of the people around me, most of them stuck firmly in the second tier. I guess the areas around Vinwood were relatively peaceful, I didn’t hear about any roaming goblin groups or anything like that.

In fact as far as I was aware the only real place that could be considered ‘dungeon like’ was the oversized molehill Garrus and the rest had saved me in. Things like the demons seemed to be a complete anomaly around here.

“Guess Garrus isn’t here yet.” Penny said idly from my side.

I flicked on my mana sense skill briefly before immediately turning it off and hissing in pain as my sight instantly bloomed up like there was a sun in the plaza.

‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] Has leveled up 1 > 2

Huh, well what do you know? Just that easy.

“You okay?” Penny had a concerned tone as she rested a hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah yeah, I’m fine. Just blinded myself by turning my mana sense skill on, guess there’s just so many people here that it burned out my eyes.”

Penny hummed thoughtfully, “Maybe.” She didn’t sound completely sold on the idea, but didn’t offer anything in return. Which fair enough, if you don’t have definitive answers it’s usually best not to say anything.

I kept scanning through the crowd just trying to see if I could level my identify skill.

[Level 322]

[Level 252]

[Level 152]

[Level 523]

Ooooh a tier three that was pretty high. Garrus and the rest of the group had gained a few levels since I first met them but still hadn’t broken to the higher parts of the third tier yet. Third tier went to level 100 if I remembered correctly. That person was making good progress.

[Level 472]

‘Ping’ [Identify] has leveled up 1 > 2

Very nice, just takes a little bit of work. But as long as I keep steady with it I’ll have it up at tier max in no time. I smiled a little and started humming to myself as I got back to work.

[Level 222]

[Level 122]

[Level 191]

[Level 192]

[Level 4226]

‘Ping’ [Identify] has leveled up 2 > 3

[Level-

…

What?

The?

Fuck?

“Uhhh, Penny?”

“Hmm, what’s up Alex?”

“Why is homeslice up there Level 422 tier 6?”

I felt Penny’s senses immediately sharpen as she locked her eyes onto the person I was pointing at.

The woman was about half a foot shorter than I was. She wore exceedingly decorated and ornamented silver colored armor, but in a way that simply said ‘I’m extremely important and getting in my way is not a good idea.’ It in no way looked impractical. She had a blade sheathed at her hip, it looked like a classic longsword although the hilt was anything but classic. It was exceedingly and expensively designed, signifying not only wealth but authority. She had dark raven colored hair that was pulled back into a simple ponytail with angular eyes that gave her a sharp stare. She had well-defined cheekbones that gave her an imperial look that matched perfectly with her gaze.

While she didn’t look rude or pompous so much as she looked very disciplined in a way that said ‘everything will go the way I want or I will force it too.’ Standing next to her was another woman that was as tall as I was and looked to be significantly more toned than I was.

This woman had stark white hair, and it wasn’t from age. Hell she couldn’t have been older than me, 25 at the oldest. She looked incredibly young.

[Level 3896]

Which made her level all the more intimidating. Her armor was quite a bit different. While the raven haired woman had the ornamental style, hers was a lot more rugged. It was textured in a way that gave it a scaly look, the pauldrons had singular spikes that jutted out outwards away from her face so she didn’t stab herself in trying to do overhead swings I guess. It looked a little more impractical to me but her level said otherwise, so I wasn't gonna be the one to say anything to her face.

Her blade was a massive black slab slung across her back without a sheath. I doubted there was a sheath that could fit that thing normally and honestly? It was way more intimidating, I found, to just leave it for people to see.

Penny hissed next to me, “Those are two of the five spell-blades of the kingdom.”

I immediately bit down hard on my tongue. I definitely wanted to keep myself from laughing in their presence, because knowing my luck they’d hear it all the way across the crowd between us.

It wasn’t so much that I thought the name was kinda corny, I mean… I guess it was a little, but it was more that I just really didn’t expect something like this to exist as well, I should’ve been expecting names like these the moment I realized there were adventurers. But for some reason I just had never considered it.

“The dark haired one is Lillian, also known as the Gravity-blade. The tall one is Castella, the Dragonblade. “

They even had the titles to go with it! I had to admit to a degree it’d be really cool to have a title like dragonblade. I mean, come on. Even if it’s a bit weeaboo to have a title like that it’s still cool on some level, right?

“How does that work though? There are way more schools of magic than just five and I sincerely doubt Dragonmancy is one of them.” I asked Penny.

“It’s more like they follow the spell-blade class set, using magic combined with sword fighting and sometimes through sword fighting, basically as long as they get famous and they fight the way you fight then they’ll be named a spell-blade. Although the title is usually for life unless there comes a good reason to pass it on.”

I nodded slowly, “Interesting, so not that it’s likely to happen, but theoretically I could become a spell-blade?”

Penny tilted her head slightly, “Maybe? The spell-blades are native to the kingdom. Other countries have similar things, but our country is famous for our five spell-blades. You know guildmaster Stark is one of them right?”

“Guildmaster Stark is? That’s pretty fucking awesome, which one is he?”

“The Spatial-blade.”

“Huh. That’s really freaking cool. When were y’all planning on telling me this?”

Penny just shrugged, “Dunno, it’s just one of those things that never really comes up.”

“Penny, Alex!”

I turned as I heard a familiar voice call out to us. Garrus, George, and Karif were walking up each of them carrying a pack loaded with supplies like Penny and myself.

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“Hey, I was a little worried when we didn’t see y’all here!” I yelled back.

“Yeah, we fell a little behind trying to decide how much we really wanted to spend on a tent or whether we actually needed one. In the end we decided it was better safe than sorry and decided 50 silver was a reasonable amount.”

“Fair enough,” I then lowered my voice as he got closer so I wasn’t yelling what I said next, “According to Penny, we’ve got two of the five spell-blades standing at the front by the gate.”

Garrus’ eyes narrowed as he focused in on them. He drew in a breath of air through his nose before replying, “Yeah that’s definitely Lillian and Castella. Never seen them myself before now and I’ve never really heard of two spell-blades ever being together like this for anything. Usually they go places by themselves to handle things, so whatever it is that they’re here for you know it’s important.”

“There’ve been a couple of instances where two or more have shown up to something, but yeah as Garrus said, it’s usually for something extremely important. Like protecting the Queen, kind of important.” Karif interjected.

I nodded as the group kept whispering to themselves while I looked at the two spell-blades, the shorter one, Lillian, snapped her eyes in my direction locking them to mine. My heart instantly leapt into my throat. The gaze was really fucking intense, I swear she has some skill for it.

I nodded my head lightly to her as we maintained eye contact. She didn’t return it.

Eventually her eyes moved on and I felt like I was able to look away from her. I let out a long breath that I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. George was the one standing closest to me at the moment and heard me. He gently rested a hand on my shoulder fixing me with an inquisitive look.

“Yeah I’m fine, just got into a staring match with Miss Lillian over there. I lost handily.” I said with a slight smile.

His lips curled upwards slightly and somehow through his stare managed to convey the words of ‘be more careful in the future.’ Which I 100% agree with. No more staring matches with people five tiers above me.

After deciding she had waited long enough, Lillian stepped forward and spoke. Instantly the entire group of people here quieted down but her voice would’ve projected over the crowd.

“I thank you for coming out today to try out for this job. I’m sure several of you are wondering why the listing was so vague on what exactly was happening, I’ll now be giving a few more details on what exactly is happening here. This mission is a guard detail that will be heading to the capital. It’s a one-way trip. The rest is a need to know basis. Of which none of you need to know. Any questions?”

I tilted my head slightly as I processed her words before leaning in a little to Penny, “Garrus said the only time more than one spell-blade gathered in one place was to do something of vital importance, like guarding the Queen for example.”

“Yeah, for the most part.”

“Does the Queen have any children?”

“I uhh… Yeah I think so, why?”

“How much you wanna bet this guard detail is for one of them.”

Penny frowned, opening and closing her mouth several times before turning to look at me, “I’m not taking that bet.”

I gave her a shit-eating grin before tapping my temple in a knowing manner.

God it hurt being this smart.

No one openly spoke up a question to the spell-blade standing in front of them, she nodded and carried on speaking.

“Alright then. We will now go over some qualifications to be joining us on this. As it stands we have way more people than we need, this won’t take up much of your time, so there won’t be anything like one on one interviews or anything like that.”

Several people sighed in relief at hearing that. I didn’t have high hopes for their chances of making it in if they were worried about their personality or something being what kept them from getting on the job in the first place.

“If your party has a majority of its members in the second tier or lower or if you have no healer you may go, we do not require you.”

Ouch. That quite easily eliminated about 75% of the people here. I saw several groups start to walk off huffing and muttering angrily under the breath. I guess no one was stupid enough to try and yell at the tier 6 in front of them. That was a pleasant surprise I found, normally you’d expect at least one person to do something stupid.

“Hey, that’s a load of shit! Healers are hard to come by!”

“Ooooh, she won’t like that.” Karif whispered

I stand corrected. I agreed with the man though that was yelling, healers were hard to come by. At least dedicated ones were, I didn’t think of myself as a dedicated one. But most people wanted to be the strong cool guy standing at the front unleashing big attacks, no one liked to be relegated to a support role.

Except I loved playing support in games, if you were good at it you could change the entire outcome of a fight, although to some degree you still required the people you were supporting to be good at their jobs. Which is why I tended to delve more towards hybrid support roles, a role where I could be a supporter but also fight for myself.

Much like I was now.

Castella did not appreciate the tier 2 copping an attitude with Lillian. She stepped forward and immediately an immense pressure swept over the gathering.

It was suffocating, I could barely breathe as I felt like I was getting crushed into the ground. Then just as quickly as it happened it was gone.

“Thank you Castella, I trust you’ll have no further problems finding your way back home?” Lillian spoke calmly, but the implied threat was practically explicit in her words, ‘Leave before I make you.’

The man trudged off with his group without another word.

Once everyone had trailed off and we were just left with groups that either had a healer, were mostly in the third tier, or like us that met both qualifications.

“Excellent, the rest of you, if you could come closer I’d like to get a quick rundown of your groups so I know how best to lead you. Castella, if you could secure the caravan, when I’m finished here we’ll be leaving.”

Castella nodded without saying anything and stepped away.

Everybody trudged forward getting into a somewhat rough approximation of a line, Lillian started at the far end and we were sitting more toward the middle.

Lillian however moved through relatively quickly, she got a quick rundown of each class from a group and then gave them a few quick, terse instructions before moving on. Shortly she reached our group coming to a stop in front of us.

“Leader?”

Garrus stepped forward, stopping in what looked like a parade rest, “Me.” He said simply.

“You’ll be team four, Healer?”

“Aye we got one, he’s not a dedicated one, but he’s more than good enough to keep us all alive.”

She gave a quick glance before stopping at Karif, “You?” She asked with a slight frown.

I stepped forward, “No, it’d be me.” I answered for him.

She frowned a little harder, fixing me with a stare, “What’s your other class?”

I tried hard not to, but a little smirk snuck out anyways which she very clearly noticed from her sharpening gaze.

“My other classes are a blade fighter and a sorcerer class.”

She stared at me with that intense gaze glancing between myself and Garrus who wasn’t saying anything. She eventually focused back on me alone.

“Hood off.”

I took in a deep breath before following her instructions and flipped it off.

Her eyes immediately snapped to my ears, before frowning and quickly giving me a once over. Her hand settled on the hilt of her sword.

“Are you hiding your level?”

This time it was my turn to frown at her, “No if I was hiding my level it’d be showing up as question marks. Like this.” I focused a little and managed to disguise my level from observation, “I can’t make it appear as if I’m a higher level than I am if that’s what you’re asking. So yes I’m tier one, but I do have three classes. As for why,” I really shouldn’t say this next part, but some part of me just couldn’t help being a snarky asshole, “That’s a need to know basis.”

Lillian's gaze sharpened on me, it felt like she was staring into my soul before she just smirked a little back at me, “Fair enough.” She then walked on to the next group.

Garrus let out a little sigh, “Did you have to deliberately antagonize her? You could’ve just said you didn’t feel comfortable talking about it.”

“Of course I did. If I’m not being an insufferable asshat all the time, how are you guys supposed to like me?” I asked him while feigning an incredulous tone.

Penny snorted trying to hold her laugh in, Karif had a faint smile on his face as well.

Garrus just shook his head chuckling ruefully, “Try not to go overboard, the last thing we need is for her to actually take offense with us.”

“Aye sir!” I said while giving him a mock salute.

Lillian finished up the rest of her inspection relatively quickly and went to stand back in front of the gate, and now that I wasn’t being distracted and there wasn’t a huge crowd in the way I could see through to the other side and saw several carriages lined up outside the gate. Currently the guardsmen of the city were preventing anyone from coming in this direction.

“Alright, I’m satisfied with the groups still here. We’ll be heading out in fifteen. Make sure you have everything you want ready to go by then. Team one I want you at the front you’ll be forward guard, Team two I want you on the back end of the group. Team three you’ll be a ways out sweeping up behind for any threats. Team four I want you settled in the middle. Team five you’re with team four. Team six-”

At this point I started to tune her out. I glanced to my side and looked at team five. There were four of them, it seemed to be an all-female group as well. Two warrior looking types, a caster, and a rogue. All solidly in the third tier.

[Level 223]

[Level 253]

[Level 103]

[Level 323]

The rogue seemed to have the highest level, they looked to be a pretty solid group.

Garrus walked up to them, “Hey, Fiona. Didn’t realize y’all had made it back.” He walked up to the higher level warrior grasping her forearm in greeting.

“Garrus! Good to see you too. Yeah, we pulled in last night actually, saw the listing for this guard detail and couldn’t pass it up. Seems pretty simple and laid back, so not too much more effort for some more money.”

“Hah! That was my thinking as well. You missed out on all the excitement though, could’ve really used your group too.”

Fiona gave him an inquisitive look.

“There was a demon invasion just over in Muldren, we managed to uncover the start of it and it went way deeper than we expected. Vinwood nearly got crushed, hell Commander Malcolm is being presumed dead after he fell into a portal they had opened up. We’re still not truly sure what happened to him.”

The mage spoke up in surprise, “What? How in the world did that even happen? Was he outnumbered or something?”

“Not sure, our group was handling a different group of demons about five miles away from his location, by the time we arrived he was already gone, none of the guardsmen had a particularly good view on it either.” Garrus said while shrugging.

Lillian called out at that moment, “Alright! We’re moving out, let’s go!” Her voice easily carrying across the area to everyone here.

“We’ll probably have more time to talk about this later, for now let's get down to business I suppose.”

Fiona nodded in response.

I silently sent up a prayer to whatever gods might exist in this world, ‘Please, please let this mission not be as dangerous as the last one.’

Hopefully that didn’t jinx it.