Two days later, at the end of the afternoon, a rustic cart stopped on the square of the hanging tree.

- Bentvale! Is this your destination, young lady?

- Oh? Uh...

The Magician was awakening from a bumpy nap, lying on a worm-eaten bench and wedged behind several barrels and two crates of equipment. She grumbled and stretched, panicking for a few seconds before discovering that the Ogre had not disappeared, but had already jumped out of the vehicle.

- Oh, here we are, she said to her mustachioed coachman. Thank you very much, dear sir! It's a good thing we have people like you on the road, otherwise we'd never have made it to this... place.

- Grudufl added the Ogre after sniffing the air.

The insatiable gourmet had smelled something cooking, somewhere in a neighborhood house, and began to waddle.

The Magician searched for her purse, grumbling:

- People are so stupid! Most of the stagecoach drivers refused to take us, can you imagine? All because I'm traveling with a companion who's a little overweight!

- Well, as long as you can pay... That gives me a little bonus, eh! I don't care if your friend's weird.

By weird he meant too big, too tall, greenish skin, huge yellow teeth, almost no hair, ears that moved of their own accord, bulging eyes, an endless appetite and hands the size of a large shovel.

- Ten gold coins, as agreed?

- That's right, young lady! With this I can afford a good room and a piece of blood sausage! You absolutely have to try Bentvale's blood sausage, you know? It's a real curiosity, they make it with sheep's blood, it seems.

- I'll keep that in mind.

- And if you have the opportunity, buy yourself a sweater from the knitters of Bentvale, it's very popular.

The moustachioed man collected the coins and put them in a small pouch, then he shouted two or three insults in local dialect to his old equine. The latter shook his head to chase away a few flies, and the cart set off. The merchant moved away, waving his hand:

- I must leave you now, I have two barrels to deliver to the castle! You'll see, this village is quiet and very nice!

- Thanks again! replied the girl.

She started coughing, which she had been doing more and more since she left Glarg. She thought she had an allergy related to the vegetation. This didn't help her throat problem.

Her vocal cords had been damaged a few months earlier by a misdirected Ice Cone, a spell cast the wrong way by a distracted student. Since then, she spoke with difficulty and her voice sounded rough, older, sickly. Studying battle Magic often had painful consequences like that.

She could still consider herself lucky, as it was a lesser evil compared to what had happened to some of her classmates. Her roommate had lost an eye, Justin Bamar had a tentacle on his back, Marc Lenido had become very clumsy now with his arms that were a foot too long, and two apprentices from another class had been devoured by a demon from an entropic summoning. There was also the young blond boy in the front row, the one who wanted to become a fire mage and whose parents were very rich, who had lost both his hands in an explosion. The poor guy would never be able to turn the pages of the grimoire he loved so much.

The Magician sighed as she studied their new surroundings. She was standing next to the Ogre, in the middle of a large square and facing a single, gnarled tree with faded foliage. On the perimeter of the esplanade she could see several rustic houses, an inn, a butcher's shop, a bakery, a bazaar with a heterogeneous display and a shabby guardhouse. From the door of the latter, two militiamen dressed in badly sewn tabards, wearing oversized helmets, were watching her with suspicious eyes.

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- Takula zuduf! she whispered to the monster who accompanied her.

Which, in the language of the ogres, more or less meant "let's get the hell out of here before someone comes to mess with us".

She had been told many times in her S.F.T. (Survival and Field Techniques) class that adventurers, even novices, should always be wary of guards and militiamen. Peacekeepers, both in large cities and in smaller towns, used to watch them, question them, search them, and accuse them indiscriminately.

Considering the actions of some Fangi adventurers, it must be said that they had good reasons to act this way. Under the illusion of having a mission to accomplish, and even if it wasn't necessarily brilliant, the adventurers allowed themselves everything and anything. They stole from stores, sometimes beat up citizens to get information, insisted for hours on getting discounts from weary shopkeepers, stole anything of value and shamelessly entered homes without being invited.

Adventurers were wary of the guards, but they tended to fight them when they were outnumbered and tried to get in their way, which had created a tense atmosphere over the centuries. It was said that adventurers would sometimes kill the big dogs, or even the cows in the fields, in the hope of getting a few experience points to advance to their next level, imagining they were dealing with monsters, or simply out of idleness. These scoundrels never felt any remorse and would kill anyone to get their way or to collect three gold coins. All this led the guards to confuse adventurers with brigands.

As cautious travelers, the Magician and the Ogre instinctively went to the inn to book a dormitory for two nights.

It was the last day of the decade of great returns, the day before the feast of Obulos. Therefore, they had one day to spare before reaching the Nahel's Dungeon, about seven miles away. They would take advantage of this time to rest, stock up on supplies and check the state of their equipment.

Then it would be the adventure! Finally! The opportunity to test her powers other than on straw dummies!

----

Not far away, sitting at a table in the back room of the Weeping Dog tavern, was a short, bearded traveler. He was unhappy because his chair was too low and he couldn't study the map the old man was showing him properly.

- You see this little drawing, here behind the grove?

- Well, it would be easier if the table wasn't poorly designed, but hey...

- This is where you'll meet your comrades, in two days in the morning.

- Yeah, so I don't really like the word "comrades," for one thing... My own friends live in the mines.

- Your colleagues, if you like.

- Yeah, okay, I'm good with that.

The bearded man nodded in annoyance, pulled himself up on the chair and looked at the map, then grumbled:

- Ah, shit! If I look at the scale, we must already walk at least seven miles! How much is the reward already?

- Eight thousand gold coins, but you've asked me that three times already!

- Eight thousand, good. But... Is it per person, or do we have to split?

- YOU HAVE TO SPLIT! I've already told you that too. Do you realize how much money this represents?

The old man may have run out of patience, but the traveler was used to it. Ever since he left his home, he had been constantly encountering humans in a bad mood. It was as if they didn't like his people.

- I mean, the axes are of good quality, they're expensive... he grumbled.

- So, let's summarize, said Gotran after having regained his composure. You leave the day after tomorrow at dawn, you go to the dungeon and you find the other members of the group, then...

The bearded man cut him short:

- Hey! I have an idea! If I go alone tomorrow to do the mission, I'll be back with your thingy in no time, and I can have all the gold coins for myself?

The flabbergasted wizard leaned over the table, trying not to scream:

- No, it's impossible, come on! It's far too dangerous! You'll be slaughtered by the wizard's acolytes! Do you know what a dungeon is? It's full of monsters and traps! That's why you need a crew!

- Ah, damn it. It was a really good plan though.

There were a few seconds of silence, during which Gotran tapped nervously on the table, wondering if he had not made a mistake by hiring this shaggy adventurer from the mountains. He knew that his people could be very efficient once they were in the field, but it was still embarrassing. The mage sometimes felt like he was talking to a wall that had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.

The bearded man in front of him plunged his nose into his beer, but it was empty. He waved the container and winked:

- Tell me, the beers, you're buying right?

- Yeah, yeah, the wizard said wearily. Whatever.

- Oh, that's cool. HEY! THREE MORE!

Then, seeing the face of his new boss, he added:

- AND ONE FOR MY FRIEND TOO! I mean, you look a little pale, you don't want to get too depressed, man. We'll get you your Gladalada thingy!