CHAPTER 38 EXPOSURE
There were several things I learned in the first few hours of guard duty for a carriage. The first thing is that guard duty is incredibly boring. The second is that guard duty is incredibly boring. And third, by the way did I mention how absolutely boring this job was?
So yeah, that’s about how it went so far. I did my best to still devote all of my attention to scanning around me at the very least, I definitely didn’t want to be the one Lillian or Castella caught slacking off. I was fairly certain I’d get my ass torn a new one.
I flickered between my mana sense and electric sense skills, making extra sure not to stare in the direction of Castella or Lillian. Apparently they were like floodlights to my mana sense skill, and together they radiated like the sun as I had so wonderfully glimpsed back in Vinwood. I was not particularly eager to have a repeat of that moment.
After about 6 hours of walking the carriages came to a stop and I heard Lillian call out.
“Alright we’re breaking for a meal. Teams one through three you’ll keep watch first. Tradeoff with teams four through six after thirty minutes. Once both groups get a break in we’ll keep going for another six hours.”
Fiona’s group fell into line next to us as we settled down to eat the rations being provided. There were a couple of people that were accompanying Lillian and Castella that were in one of the carriages, they didn’t particularly look like normal servants and they certainly weren’t soldiers. But they were the ones who went around handing out the portions to the adventurer groups.
“So Garrus, what were you talking about earlier?”
“Ah that, hmmm. Where to start?” Garrus hummed thoughtfully, glancing in my direction. I could see the unasked question in his eyes. I responded with a wavering of my hand.
‘Half-half.’
He nodded slightly, getting what I meant. I was fine with him telling how he picked me up, but not necessarily that I came from a different world.
“I guess it really started about two weeks ago, give or take a few days. In case you haven’t noticed we have a new recruit.”
“I did actually, I figured the story was somewhat tied into that?” She asked, glancing between us.
“Mmm, somewhat, maybe not quite to the degree you’re thinking though.” Garrus replied.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, he’s an elf although he’s incredibly young for what you’d expect. You’re what?” He looked over to me, “Twenty-five right?”
I nodded, “Twenty-five, probably about to be twenty-six here in a few months depending. Time got a bit messed up for me recently.”
Fiona frowned, I just shrugged at her.
“Well maybe the rest of the story will help it make some amount of sense.” Garrus said before launching into our tale.
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“I… Wow. That’s practically unbelievable. If it were anyone else I’d be saying they’re full of shit, but given that I’m currently sitting here having a meal with an elf kinda helps drive it home anyways.” Fiona said with a slight look of awe on her face.
“Well maybe this is a good time to introduce ourselves at the very least, as I’m sure you’ve noticed my name is Fiona.” She rested her hand upon her chest as she introduced herself before moving her hand to gesture to the warrioress sitting next to her.
“I’m Kaylith, her older sister.”
Kaylith and Fiona had very similar looks, so now that they introduced themselves it was definitely apparent that they were related, they both had perfect blonde hair. They both stood at roughly the same height, several inches under six feet.
“Will you ever stop saying that! You’re only older by like two minutes, if even that. It’s such a negligible difference that it doesn’t matter.” Fiona complained.
“And yet here you are whining about it, quite telling behavior for someone who says it’s unimportant.” Kaylith said with a smirk on her face.
The mage chose that moment to butt in while they continued arguing, “I’m Marcie, the caster support of the group. It’s good to meet you, Alex.” She said, sticking left arm out to shake hands.
She had a short bob of curly brown hair and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. It was an incredibly adorable combination.
I smiled back at her, “Good to meet you too, Marcie.” I reached out to grab her hand and I saw a brief look of surprise cross her face as she glanced down and saw my wooden arm.
“I’m so sorry, if I had known I would’ve stuck my other arm out.” she said, flustering over my arm.
I just laughed.
“You don’t need to worry about that, it’s good practice. I’m still trying to get used to it, I haven’t quite got the fine motor skills on it down like I want so doing stuff like this will help me out in the long run.”
She calmed down as I said that, getting a slightly embarrassed smile on her face.
“How did you lose it exactly?”
“Ah that was-”
“He lost it, saving my life.” Penny flopped her arms around my neck and planted a kiss on my cheek.
I’m sure my face was completely red. Although I tried hard to bring it under control, I still failed miserably.
“He ran past several dozen demons in a cave that they had brought me too after they captured me, one of them got a lucky swing off on him. He wasn’t able to recover his arm before he got engaged with the tier three demon that had captured me in the first place, and by that point it was too late.”
Fiona and Kaylith were listening back in on the conversation.
“You didn’t mention this part of the story, Garrus.”
“I, uh, cut some stuff out to save time. I also wasn’t too sure if Penny would’ve been fine with me talking about that, it wasn’t all that long ago really. She nearly died, Alex nearly died saving her. What ended up being the right maneuver almost went horribly wrong for both of them. Not something I enjoy thinking about.”
Kaylith and Fiona both nodded together.
“Interesting, very interesting. Well you’ve met me, Kaylith, Marcie,” She tapped off her fingers as she named her group, “That just leaves Striga.” She turned back to the rogue who was sitting facing the other way by herself a little ways away from the group.
I couldn’t quite tell what she looked like, she had a mottled gray hood that covered her head.
“Well, she’s not the most comfortable with a group. But once you can get her comfortable, she’s a great companion.”
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“Fair enough,” I said in reply, “One of the kind of people where if she likes you she likes you and if she doesn’t tough shit.”
Fiona laughed, “Yeah pretty much. There’ve been several people that gave her shit for it, they ended up regretting that. Looks like you know better though, so not something I’ll have to warn you against.”
“Hah, at the end of the day isn’t everyone the same way? Some people just choose to be more polite about it. I wish I had half the confidence to push people I don’t like away the way she does. But I’m always too concerned about it coming back to bite me in the butt.”
“Fair enough, it’s definitely not something I do either. I definitely don’t fault her for her approach though.”
Penny still had her arms wrapped around me at this point, she seemed to be dolly possessive of me right now. Not that I particularly minded, She was hugging pretty snugly around my neck. And let it be said that she was definitely not flat-chested.
What? I’m a guy. I can appreciate a good pair of boobs.
The alarm that I had come to understand that Lillian was called out again, “Teams switch. After this next thirty minute break we’ll be back on the move.”
“Well, I guess we’ll get back to it. Good to see you again Garrus.” Fiona said while she stood up.
He smiled and reciprocated, “It is, glad y’all are here with us. It’s good to see a familiar face.”
We divided up where we went this time. On the way out here I had patrolled with Penny, although all of us were pretty close together. This time I was with Karif, we moved towards the front of the little caravan we were on.
“Alright,” Karif said, “Hopefully it stays as quiet as it has been.”
“You think we’re gonna get some excitement.” I asked him.
“Hmmm, it’s definitely possible. I mean either we’re protecting a vip or a strategic asset. Possibly both. I’m sure measures were definitely taken to make sure that this wasn’t discovered, and they probably have decoy groups traveling in towards the capital from different directions. But you never know what someone has managed to figure out. I mean, we’ve got two spellblades here, unless they managed to put some other spellblades on the decoys, if they have any, then this group is a pretty dead giveaway.”
“That’s fair. Yeah, I guess it’s pretty hard to say one way or the other. We’ll just have to hope that it stays the way it has been going.”
Karif nodded, “Here’s hoping.”
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The next thirty minutes went by pretty quickly. Not that we really expected anything to happen. I wanted to be leveling my skills, but it was pretty hard when all of them had some sort of active requirement to using them.
Mana-sense and electric-sense skills required me to actually be running the skills to sense things. Which might seem kind of obvious, if the skill wasn't on then the skill wasn’t actually being utilized and thus, wouldn’t level.
Once Lillian was ready to get the caravan back running Karif and I made our way back to the center where Penny and the rest were located. From there it was more of the same. Walking for hours on end while looking at the empty landscape. Not that it was horrible, but it was quite boring. Normally we would be able to talk and have a good time, but here we were expected to be putting our best efforts into looking into the area around us.
I let out a soft sigh as we passed our 16 trillionth tree.
“All good, Alex?” Penny asked me.
“Yeah, not gonna lie. Just a tad bit bored. I don’t necessarily want excitement in the form of danger, but I wish I had a little something to pass the time. Or that I could let my mind wander, but I don’t want to get distracted and then miss something important cause I was daydreaming.”
“I kind of understand, this definitely isn’t the most enjoyable thing to be doing. But I find it better than just sitting around doing nothing all day.”
“Ah, now see that’s where you and I differ. If I had a choice between doing something and doing nothing, if the something is boring to me I’d rather be doing nothing.”
Penny frowned, “That doesn’t really make sense to me.”
“Skill issue.” I retorted.
“I- what? What does that even mean?” She asked incredulously.
I just smirked, “That’s a need to know basis.”
“I’m fixing to beat your ass again.”
“Oh how the barbarian resorts to violence when words fail it, how dreadful.” I mocked a pompous tone and brough my arm up to feign disgust.
Penny just huffed and walked away from me, obviously not interested in putting up with my antics. I couldn’t help it, teasing her was so much fun.
I directed my attention back to looking around me again. And sure enough, nothing was happening. But I did my best to remain diligent in my watch. Only a few more hours and then we would be breaking for the evening.
I just had to go until then.
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Several hours of walking later Lillian finally gave the order to break.
“Alright, for dinner we’re gonna break the same we did for lunch, teams one through three get first watch, teams four through six get second. For sleep watch, we’ll do one hour watches for each of the groups. We’ll organize the carriages a little closer together in the meantime so there’s less ground to cover. Castella and I will be switching out through the night so we’ll be able to help as well, although we’ll be more towards the inside. If you have any questions regarding my arrangements you can come speak with me, otherwise you know what you need to be doing.”
Penny was sitting a little ways away from the rest of the group, I had been a little slow in getting back from where I had been previously. I looked between the groups and then decided to go sit with Penny.
I came to settle down next to Penny with a sigh, “Man, even if I don’t feel physically exhausted I’m worn out.”
Penny huffed and turned away from me a little.
I knew exactly what she was doing, “Oh Penny don’t be like that. Don’t give me the silent treatment.”
She just ignored me and kept eating.
I smiled, she really was just too precious. She acted all tough on the outside, but when it came to interpersonal relationships she wasn’t all that different.
“Listen, I’m sorry I was teasing you earlier Penny, you’re just too precious I couldn’t help myself.”
She slowly turned to look at me, she was squinting her eyes a little as she gave me a suspicious look.
“I promise, I wasn’t doing it to be rude.” I said, I made sure to stay looking in her eyes. People with skills here could gather a lot more from your motives if you made an effort to be transparent. I wasn’t sure if Penny had anything like that, but she might.
She remained silent for a while, I was worried my slight smile that I had was going to push her away, but in the end she huffed and muttered, “Whatever, it wasn’t that big of a deal anyways.”
I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a light hug. She leaned into it resting her head on my shoulder.
If this didn’t pretty much seal the deal on how we felt about each other I don’t know what would.
I’ve never been too well learned on how to ask about stuff like this, did I say something like ‘What are we to each other?’
But that could also be a landmine, what if it made her upset like I hadn’t been taking it seriously or something? Definitely not something I wanted to fall on, but at the same time what if not saying something about it is what made her upset.
Maybe I was overthinking it and there was a much easier way, in fact I think I knew what it was. And there was no time like the present.
“I love you, I’m sorry I made you upset. You do look adorable when you’re pouting though.”
“I’m not pouting.” She tried to sound angry, but her tone lacked any amount of bite to it.
I just gave her the universal look for ‘really?’
She huffed but didn’t try to pull away, which was a win in my book.
The rest of the evening passed pretty uneventfully. We did our rounds afterwards, before settling in for the night. At least until our shift later in the night.
“Sleeping arrangements,” Garrus said as we all gathered back up. We’ve got what, three tents?” He asked, turning to George.
George nodded emphatically, signing a few things I still didn’t really understand.
“Right, that's what I was thinking as well. George, and myself can have one. Karif and Alex to another and Penny can have one to herself. Sound good?
Penny snorted, “We don’t need to beat around the bush. Alex is sleeping in my tent.”
I raised my eyebrows, “Little sudden, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Only if you’re a bitch.” She said giving me a smirk.
“Hah!” I gave a laugh, “Fair enough.”
Garrus just chuckled, “Alright then, Karif you get your own then, Alex and Penny will share one. Try not to keep other people awake.”
“Please,” Penny said, “I know better than to get overly frisky on duty. And well, if I do, I’m not gonna be the one you’re hearing.” She smirked at me while she said that.
Oh damn. That look she was giving me was kinda hot.
Yeah, I definitely liked her.