“Did my aunt tell you anything? Perhaps a reason why she gave me such a…competent guard?” he asked.

“Not that I know of.” the old man replied. “The path from here to the capital should be clear. The King just passed by after all.”

Adrien nodded. The King probably had killed every goblin he got his eyes on. But he had only done so on the guarded paths.

“What is going on in your mind, my lord?” the old man asked kindly, though Adrien noted an edge in his voice. So he had been ordered to keep Adrien in line. Or the old man just had his own opinions on Adrien, and was acting on them. A pity. Adrien had almost begun to think that they would be cooperative.

A cooperative guard would have been refreshing. But it was not like he didn’t know how to deal with them.

“Oh no, I was merely curious.” Adrien gave the old man his widest smile. The old guard simply stared at him for a second before the smile returned on his face.

“Of course, my lord.” the old guard said. Adrien closed the window, still smiling. The first law of dealing with nosy guards was to tell them nothing. If they knew he was going to try something, then they would stop him.

Now, he didn’t really have plans beside getting to the academy as quickly as he could, but he was tempted to try something now. The only question was what. Adrien looked around the carriage, his eyes narrowing in thought as he considered his possibilities.

Well, he could practice magic. But that was just boring. Adrien already knew every one of those spells by heart. No, he needed something new. A new experiment. What should he experiment on?

More resonance magic? The seeking spell had been strangely effective. Figuring out how mana interacted with Bloodline Power could be useful. Adrien paused, realizing that it might be a bit difficult to do that. The Bloodline Ability was locked until the next stage now. And that wouldn’t be coming anytime soon.

And the quest was locked similarly. That still bummed him a bit. Adrien might not know what the Questing Book meant by quests, but he had heard of such things. There had been travelers from other worlds who spoke of them. And usually they tended to be a bit more…meaty.

Not something that seemed to involve sitting around while he waited for the carriage to reach its destination.

Well, maybe he could try to do other things. Perhaps he could try some levitation magic. That hadn’t really gone too well when he tried it. The knives tended to lose power once they passed a certain distance from him.

But he didn’t really have anything to throw. And maybe he shouldn’t try throwing things inside the carriage. What if he broke it? But then what? Did he have anything to do? Should he have brought books?

Why didn’t anyone tell him that a carriage journey was so boring? This felt like something he should have been warned about! There were no books for him to read, no games to play and no one to even talk to. Not here.

Wait, he did have people to talk to.

Adrien popped his head out of the carriage, finding the area to have become much darker than he had expected.

“Are you bored?” The blond guard, Roy’s voice emerged from behind him. Adrien craned his neck to look at him.

“I just wanted some fresh air.”

Roy just gave him a knowing smile. “I get bored on journeys too. I thought this one would be better cause I was supposed to travel with a squad, but looks like that’s not happening. The old man refuses to speak a word and the Void is…the Void. Not a word from either of them.”

“Perhaps some of us simply value silence.” the old man replied from the other side of the carriage. “There is merit in not attracting goblins.”

Adrien slunk back into his carriage. If talking attracted goblins, then he shouldn’t -

“What goblins?” Roy scoffed. “If there are any goblins around here, then they have long been attracted by the carriage. The road hasn’t exactly been maintained well, you know.”

The old man did not respond, and Adrien took that as a sign that perhaps Roy was right.

“I can talk.” a voice came from in front of the carriage. Adrien found it a bit familiar, though he couldn’t exactly place why.

“Focus on the road, girl. Crashing into something would not serve us well.” the old man said, sounding quite grumpy.

“There isn’t another creature for miles, and I’m hungry.” the voice whined.

“Yes, well so am I.” the old man growled back. “I can safely say we are all hungry, but we cannot stop for dinner yet.”

“Why not?” Adrien asked, though he regretted it almost immediately. That sounded like a foolish question.

“Have to reach the next city by nightfall, my lord.” Roy said. “The gates close at sundown.”

Adrien frowned, looking at the horizon. “The sun is already setting.”

“Well yes, but it is not actually sundown until it is dark.”

“Is the city even nearby?” the driver whined. “I can’t see it.”

There was a moment of silence at her words, not even crickets making their opinion known.

“I thought you were the driver.” Roy said, breaking the silence. “I haven’t been this way before.”

Adrien turned his neck, waiting for the old man to chime in, though no reply came this time. Another minute passed in uncomfortable silence as they tried to understand what had happened.

“The city is another hour away.” the Void said, his voice as deep as Adrien had expected it would be.

“Then we won’t reach in time.” Roy stated, sounding puzzled. “I thought we were on -”

“The gates shall open for the Conjuring Shadows Clan.” the Void interrupted him, apparently too impatient to let him finish.

“Um, are you sure?” the girl asked, sounding afraid. “The goblins flock towards the city, we would be in big trouble if we are caught outside it.”

“There should not be enough goblins in the area to threaten us.” the old man said. “The city is well behind the lines, the goblins have been sneaking in larger numbers lately, but there shouldn’t be more than small bands in the area.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well here’s a thought.” Roy interrupted. “If we are already going to be late, how about we sit down and eat?”

Adrien had to admit, he was surprised he wasn’t hungry too. But for some reason he just didn’t feel it. Perhaps it was Aunt Veena’s healing. Yes, that should be it.

The sound of a stomach growling broke the silence, prompting a suppressed giggle from the driver.

“I do believe that should be possible.” the old man agreed grudgingly. “Perhaps we should just make camp -”

“The sleeping supplies are insufficient.” the Void stated. “The carriage is traveling light, there are no tents.”

There was another silence at that. The group had a lot of those. Adrien wasn’t sure why. Were the people present here just that awkward with each other? Did it have something to do with how this team was put together?

“There is a clearing a dozen paces away that should be sufficient for our needs.” the old man said.

“Where? I don’t—wait, I see it.” the driver said, sounding strangely excited at the thought of food. Just how hungry were they? Did they even have lunch?

The carriage rolled off the road into what looked like a natural meadow. Roy wasted no time in getting off his horse and moving towards the back of the carriage.

“Well folks, it is eating time!” Roy declared excitedly.

“I presume we have to cook it first.” the old man snarked back in response. “I tend to prefer cooked food to eating it raw, but if you prefer it otherwise we can act like it is normal.”

Adrien tried to open the carriage door, though it appeared to be jammed. Why was the bloody thing stuck now?

“What are you talking about, old man? This is military ration, don’t need to cook it, just eat it.”

Another silence followed, broken only by Adrien kicking the door. The bloody thing was refusing to budge.

“I see. I suppose I am used to a different fare then.” the old man replied, his voice coming from the other side of the door. “Wait a second, my lord, the door has been fastened shut.”

Adrien blinked. “Fastened shut? Why?”

“The goblins have started to get poisoned darts through door openings, got a new gadget for it. Have to keep them sealed shut now.” Roy replied, already chewing on something.

The Void approached Adrien holding a plate.

“Oh, is that mine?” he asked, looking at it. The plate had what looked like pasta, sealed inside with some kind of thin cloth. And it looked quite different from what Roy was holding. More than a bit different in fact, it looked like a different dish.

‘The Duchess prepared it for you.” the Void simply said, handing the plate to him. Adrien looked at it and the food others were eating, wondering if he should say something.

But what would that even accomplish? There wasn’t really anything he could say.

Peeling the cloth back, he stabbed one of the accompanying forks into the pasta, raising it to his mouth. Yes, this was prepared by the castle cooks, he knew the taste.

“Did she -” Roy muttered before swallowing a rather large bite. “— prepare ours too? I think they taste better.”

“Eat.” the old man ordered crankily.

“I bam!” Roy replied unintelligibly, his mouth still stuffed with food. “Whby bu you bave a boblem bid me?”

Adrien had to take a couple seconds to understand what he meant. Was Roy asking if the old man had a problem with him? Yes, it did look like that.

The old man just looked at him. “Eat. Or the goblins will.”

“What goblins?” Roy said snidely, and then jumped forward just as an arrow landed where he had been seconds before. The group collectively froze, staring at the arrow in silent astonishment. The goblins were attacking them? Now? How had they snuck up on them?

A black pool appeared in the direction the arrow came from, hands stretching out to pluck goblins from the trees. Roy finished off his meal in a hurry, jumping around in something that perhaps could have been a dance.

Or he just had something stuck in his throat. Adrien wasn’t sure. The lightning came either way. A shifting of feet made him turn around in a hurry, a spell on his fingertips as he suddenly became aware that the goblins were right there.

A girl stood before him, her hands opening the carriage door.

“I ugh- I just thought -” the girl motioned towards the carriage with one hand, opening the door with another. Adrien understood.

“Get inside, quickly. I will follow.” he said, turning around to look for goblins. The sun had properly set by this point, and it was getting quite dark. With every passing moment the goblins became more difficult to see. The little he could see was only because of Roy's lightning, though it did not seem to be hitting goblins very often.

At least that was something he could solve.

Calling on his mana, Adrien imagined a bright source of light like a lamp that was attracted to goblins, revealing their presence. Mana surged out of him, a sphere forming in the air that illuminated the sulking figures that approached them. Roy’s lightning made quick work of them.

Adrien rushed into the carriage, calling on his mana once again to now imagine a ball of fire. Then he shot it towards one of the goblins. The old man wasn’t idle either, charging towards the goblins with his staff raised, golden light covering him from head to toe. The light healed any wounds the goblins made before he disposed of them, letting him charge into their number with little fear.

Then a pool of darkness appeared once more, Adrien’s ball of light growing dim in its presence. The pool looked especially dangerous in the dark forest, spreading out like some creature of darkness.

A second there was ground below them, and before they knew it they were sinking into darkness. A silent deadly foe they could not see. Then the hands emerged one by one, shooting out faster than he could track, catching onto goblins and pulling them into itself.

That was when the goblins broke, rushing towards the carriage in a bid to escape the pool. Not one made it close. Adrien was proud to have killed three of them before Roy and the old man killed the rest. The balls of fire took far too much mana, but they were effective. Even if they only killed one goblin each.

A silence followed the goblins’ death, the three guards coming together to look at them.

“That was lucky.” the old man finally said, breaking the silence.

“Yes.” the Void stated in reply, the black guard’s figure looking quite intimidating in the low light. Or perhaps that was just Adrien’s newfound fear of his power.

“How did the goblins sneak up on us?” Roy asked. “I didn’t hear a thing. The goblins aren’t even sapient, those things don’t think. How the fuck did I not hear a thing?”

The other two had no reply.

“The break is over, we make haste for the city.” the old man declared. “Perhaps they have information about this.”

Adrien frowned, looking at the goblin corpses littered across the ground. How had they sneaked up on them? There were dozens of goblins here, they should have made some noise as they came. But even in the midst of the battle, he hadn’t heard a thing.

“Wait a second.” he said, getting off the carriage and walking towards one of the corpses. “I wanna check something.”

“Please, my lord, this is no time for -”

“Wait.” the Void interrupted.

Adrien looked at the goblin’s corpse through his mana senses, observing it. There wasn’t much to look at, goblins generally did not use magic before they had their own Awakening. And Awakenings were rare things even on the frontlines.

But rare did not mean never. This was the weakest the frontline had been in a century, and there had been a near break just a few days ago. If a goblin had Awakened and somehow ended up on this side of the border…it was trouble.

As expected, he found a rough piece of metal crudely shoved into a piece of dry wood with markings on it. The thing was clutched on by a goblin that looked just a bit bigger than the rest of them. Or maybe that was just his imagination. The magic in the object, however, was too real.

“Drawings that make little sense, materials that look like waste and a bucket load of mana.” he spoke his observations out loud. “What we are looking at, gentlemen, is the goblins’ latest invention. A stealth device. And it looks like they are just handing them out.”

Of course, there was silence at his words.

“The lot of us are dead.” the old man declared, breaking the silence. “If this Awakened goblin strikes at us before we reach the city, we are dead. The city is too far -”

“Sounds like we should get moving.” the Void said, peering down at them from atop his horse. Adrien’s only response was getting into his carriage.

Now he kinda wished he had an easy quest. Would be better than dealing with an Awakened goblin.