The sound of someone banging on his door woke Adimir from his sleep. Groggily he got up from his bed and looked towards the door in mild irritation. Who on Rokna could be knocking out at this hour? "Come on Adimir get up! It's already the middle of the day!" The familiar voice of a certain annoying girl yelled. Oh. It wasn't morning he realized. He probably stayed up way too late working on editing the pigeon.
"Just wait one moment! I'm getting dressed!" Adimir yelled back.
He spared a glance towards the pigeon on the dresser. It hadn't changed much from outward appearances, but on the inside (which is what truly counts) he's made drastic changes. Back on earth, there was an immense amount of research being put into synthetic spider silk to use for biology purposes, such as repairing tendons, nerve cells, and replacing one's own flesh. So Adimir took inspiration from that to redesign the cellular structure of the tendons in the bird's body into a similar one as spider silk. Seeing as how silk in the first place was made up of generally the same types of amino acids as the collagen in tendons this wasn't much of a problem. Upgrading the tendons in the bird took a few hours to do, but that was not all he had to do. If you scaled up one thing in the body, you'd naturally have to increase other things to keep a balance in the body to avoid harming it.
He then had to spend 10 hours on redesigning the muscle cellular structures of the rest of the body to be able to keep up with the improved tendons. And then to strengthen the bones to keep up with the newer stronger bones he had to resort to luring another pigeon into his grasp and using carnomancy to use its bones to reinforce the bones of the first pigeon. There were two problems that one probably thinks of when it comes to doing this. The first is whether or not carnomancy could actually manipulate bones. But a lesser-known fact is that bones are actually made of calcified cells, and so are made up of protein as well.
So, all he needed to do was decalcify it and then mold it around the other pigeon's bones and calcify it again. Of course, this was a lengthy process and he had to resuscitate the pigeon several times while turning off its sense of pain to prevent the body from making any involuntary movements that could interfere with the process. The next problem is the extra weight of the bones, but with the redesigned muscles and tendons the strength they had was several times greater despite being the same amount, so it wasn't a problem, and the overall result was the average looking pigeon sleeping on the dresser. It would need some time to recover from the surgery, so he had no choice but to let it rest for a few days at the very least.
After finishing getting dressed and putting on his mage cloak Adimir opened the door to his room to find Tauna waiting for him decked out in her full armor.
"Finally, you’re out! You look tired did you sleep well?" She asked with concern tinting her voice as she knelt down and placed a hand on his head to take his temperature. Adimir pushed her hand away with a huff.
"I didn't get much sleep last night. Also, why are you taking my temperature? You do that for a cold not lack sleep." He replied
"Oh really? Well, you never know you might be sick too! Did you get any nightmares from that fight with the ogre?" Adimir looked at her incredulously from her question. Certainly, such a monster could give a person nightmares, but he wasn't so weak-willed to lose sleep over a monster. Not over an ogre at the very least.
"Nightmares? No way, I'm not a child. Come on let's go. I'm guessing Mira is waiting for us downstairs." Adimir said before fetching his things, put his pigeon in his bag, and marching down the hallway without waiting for a reply.
Tauna shook her head and followed after him. Upon arriving at the ground floor, the tantalizing smell of various roasted meats and stews filled Adimir's nose. This caused his stomach to release a starved growl. Tauna giggled and patted his head.
"Don't worry, we'll get some food to feed the beast." She said as she started walking ahead of him to a table a lone figure was sitting at. Following her lead, Adimir went and took a seat at one of the three chairs that were set up there. The figure was, in fact, Mira who flashed him a dazzling smile when she saw him.
"Good morning. I hope you don't mind but we already ordered food. I hope you don't mind eating beef roast." She said you him. On the center of the table was a large plate with a slab of juicy beef roast placed upon it, with various seasonings sprinkled over the top of it.
"I don't mind at all. Actually, I'm grateful for you already ordering. I haven't eaten breakfast yet, so I'm famished." Adimir replied while taking a knife and cutting off a slab of meat from the roast and placing it onto a smaller plate that was set in front of him. He cut off a piece of the slab and took a bite as the scrumptious juices of the meat flooded his mouth. "So, what's our game plan for the day?" He asked looking expectantly at Mira.
"Well, I was thinking that we should head on over to the guild and take a look at the quests that are available." Was her reply.
"We should definitely consider taking a caravan guarding quest. Today there's a larger caravan than usual that'll be heading that's too much for the typical caravan guards to protect. They'll definitely be hiring adventurers for decent pay.” Tauna said while chewing her food with her mouth open. Adimir scrunched up his face in disgust at her poor table manners and pointed his fork at her.
"You shouldn't talk when your mouth is full." He scolded her.
"Sorry sorry. I'll make sure I do that next time." She replied with a shameless grin.
"Tauna's terrible table manners aside her suggestions, not a bad idea. It would also be a good way to get some more experience with dealing with monsters for you Adimir. But for now, we should wait to see what's available to make any final decisions on what to do." Mira added on.
"Good idea." Adimir replied, as Tauna nodded her agreement.
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Ten or so minutes of eating later the three bid their farewell to Paul before heading over to the adventurer’s guild. They were now reading the quest board for available quests.
"We could go on another Goblin subjugation quest?" Adimir suggested.
"No way. After that ogre, I don't want to ever want to take another goblin subjugation quest. Besides it only pays 80 copper coins." Tauna vehemently refused.
"Well, there's still the caravan guarding quest. 1 silver per person for every day the caravan is traveling is a good amount of pay. And the quest says that it’s a journey of five days so that's five silver each of us. It's also the quest you suggested we take." Adimir pointed out another quest.
"Hmm. 1 silver per person is a bit worrying. It might mean that the caravan is bigger than they've been letting on." Mira countered.
"Why would that be a bad thing? Safety in numbers, right?" He asked. In his mind, it made sense to travel in larger groups if there were monsters in the world that could randomly attack at any time.
"Because once a group of people gets too large monsters will sometimes attack together regardless of species to get a chance at the fresh food that people are to them. It can get especially nasty if it's for a trip that lasts longer than a day and it becomes a night out like this quest Then you have to worry about all sorts of nocturnal creatures who like to take advantage of the number of people to stir up some chaos. So, there is a point in which there are too many people. It's even harder on the guards too since they're in charge of protecting everyone." Mira answered with a scowl on her face.
"Well, I wouldn't mind having a lot of enemies to fight! If we do well, we could get a raise, couldn't we?" Tauna interjected.
Adimir nodded in agreement. "I for once agree with Tauna. We can also use it as a chance to get stronger as well as get our teams name out there." He said confidently. Mira took a moment to weigh the options before relenting.
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"Alright fine I agree. But if we die don't blame me for saying I told you so." She sternly said while crossing her arms to add to the effect.
"Don't worry if we all die, we can haunt the ones who killed us as ghosts! Maybe we could even try to possess some actual hellhounds to make our team name the actual truth!" Tauna declared while wrapping her arm around Mira's shoulder grinning broadly.
"It won't come to that. I'm sure that nothing too extreme will happen." Adimir said unintentionally raising a flag. With their minds made up the hellhounds departed from the adventurer’s guild to the area just outside of the front gate where the caravan was meeting up.
Once they arrived Mira went to discuss some of the finer details of the quest with the head of the caravan while the other two walked around to see what this caravan was like. When they were talking about a caravan Adimir had assumed it would be something along the lines of maybe a dozen or two dozen wooden wagons heading out with a couple dozen guards, but what reality provided him with looked more like an army departing for battle. There had to be at least three dozen wagons reinforced with iron plating on the walls and wheels. Then there were easily a couple hundred armed guards loitering around killing time playing cards and eating food.
The guards weren't the only ones who were armed, however. Everywhere he looked even the people who were obviously not guards based on their lack of armor were carrying around swords in sheaths.
"This is supposed to be a caravan?" Adimir exclaimed incredulously with his eyes practically bulging out from shock.
"Well yeah. The monsters are a very common and dangerous threat. Some groups of monsters can even travel in groups of 30-50. So, when a caravan departs if they don't have enough guards, they won't be able to last a day unless they are remarkably strong. And this is a particularly large caravan." Tauna explained to him in a sage-like tone with her hands behind her back trying to appear as wise as possible.
"You know for an adult you’re really childish, right? And that's coming from me when I'm an actual child!" Adimir told her with an amused expression on his face.
"What!? Why must you be so cruel to me oh sweet child!" Tauna cried out feigned hurt. He merely shook his head once again in awe at how silly this girl could be. Suddenly though the thought that he didn't even know his own teammate's real age occurred to him.
"You know now that I think of it I don't even know your real age. Are you really an adult?" He said looking towards her skeptically. This question seemingly caught her off guard as she dropped her goofy act.
"Huh that's right you don't know it do you? Well, I'm actually 19. So, I am an adult just so you know." She replied smugly.
"Barely," Adimir replied a bit satisfied at the knowledge he was easily 30 years her senior. More if one counted his past life. Tauna ignored his jab at her age and continued talking.
"As for Mira, I can't say. She looks like she'd be in her teens, but then she can be so mature at times, so it makes you think twice about her actual age." Listening to Tauna's opinion on Mira he couldn't help but agree. He was mentally over 60 years old, but yet he still acted a bit childish himself with his bantering with Tauna. Mira, on the other hand, maintained a relatively dignified, but friendly persona at all times with the exception of that teasing of Tauna at the inn. Before they continued, however, the very person they were talking about interrupted their conversation.
"Alright everyone I talked with the head merchant a bit and we'll be guarding the middle of the left side of the caravan. The caravan will also be departing soon. At this point, we're just waiting for a couple more adventurer teams to arrive before we head out." She told them with her signature amiable smile.
"Sounds great! Let's head over there now then. Get to know the people we'll be working with." Tauna remarked.
"That's exactly what I was thinking." Mira agreed. Before they were able to start heading over to their position they were interrupted once again.
"Hey, did I heard you guys are going to be positioned in the middle left side of the caravan?" A masculine voice interjected. Adimir looked over to see that it was of all people the very same orc that he defeated on the day of the combat test to become an iron rank. He was still wearing the same grey gambeson and using the same 4-foot sword, and 4-foot wide shield that he had the last time he saw him. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who recognized the other as the orc’s eyes widened when he spotted Adimir's small frame standing next to Tauna. "Hey, it's you that little elf kid who kicked my ass the other day!" The orc exclaimed.
"Are you sure you want to be yelling that when there's such a large audience?" Adimir questioned him gesturing to the couple dozen guards and merchants whose attention was drawn over to them when the orc yelled. The orcs already green cheeks turned a deeper shade of green which Adimir took as a sign of him blushing out of embarrassment.
"Oh yes, your right." The orc mumbled.
"Putting aside your outburst why were you asking about where we're being positioned at?" Mira questioned the orc. After being reminded about why he was talking in the first place he quickly recovered from his state of self-inflicted embarrassment.
"Ah yes. I was asking because I'm also stationed there. My name is Bjorn." Bjorn informed them.
"Oh really? That's good to hear! Although I'm a bit disappointed to hear that I missed Adimir beating you up!" Chipped in a grinning Tauna.
"Yes, he was a very formidable fighter. I must say it was an honor to fight you Adimir." Bjorn opined.
"It was fun fighting you as well." Adimir agreed.
"Well since we're all stationed at the same place shall we head over to where we're supposed to be at?" Mira chimed in.
"Your right um what's your names?" Bjorn asked her.
"My name is Mira. The beastkin is named Tauna." She answered him.
"Alright, Mira. Let's converse while we walk." He suggested.
"Well, I for one agree with that idea. So, Bjorn anything you can tell us about yourself?" Adimir asked him.
Bjorn got a thoughtful expression on his face as he thought about to say. "Well I'm a steel rank adventurer, and I use a shield and sword as my weapons of choice. I currently work alone." He eventually said.
"Ah, a fellow shield user. Shields are indeed one of the best friends an adventurer can have!" Tauna acknowledged.
"So, Bjorn how long have you been in the adventuring business?" Adimir asked him.
"I've been an adventurer for the past year. I already know how long you've been an adventurer, but I don't know how long your companions have been adventurers." He answered.
"Mira and I have been adventuring as a duo for around 5 months now. Before that, I was in a group of five adventurers for 8 months. But we eventually disbanded." Tauna answered for herself.
"As Tauna said me and her were working together for 5 months. Before me and her teamed up though, I was going from team to team for a year." Mira said.
"That means you're the one with the most experience then! No wonder you've been so aptly suited to taking the lead on so many things." Adimir commented.
"Oh really? Well, it's certainly good to hear that there's someone with more experience than me around. I'm not much of a leader type." Bjorn admitted with a laugh.
"If I had to say I think Mira is the best suited to be a leader out of our team anyways. She has an agreeable temperament, the experience, and the composed mind needed for such a job." Adimir added.
By now the group had long since arrived at their assigned position and were just lounging around chatting while they waited for the signal to depart. They didn't need to wait that much longer as one of the caravan guards clad in their signature brown leather armor jogged over to where they were.
"Hey, we're heading out now. Stay on your toes, there have been some reports of unusual monster activity lately." The caravan guard said. By now they had already accepted the quest and couldn't quit the mission just because of some unusual monster activity. Not without their reputation taking a significant hit. The armed caravan began to depart from the fortress town on their journey.