Jaylin’s POV

Two days.

We’ve been walking towards Deepcrest village for two fucking days, at first we were looking forward to traveling to the swamp and potentially catching a new type of creature, but we were mostly interested in this for the money. Well, that and the potential of raising our ranks and getting noticed or at least acknowledged by a noble.

However, things didn’t go according to plan, things never go according to plan. The carriage we rented for the trip broke down not long after leaving the city gates, we didn’t have the time to wait around for it to be fixed or to walk all the way back to the city and wait in line to be allowed to simply look for a carriage that was willing to take us all the way from here to a remote village in the middle of nowhere.

So, we walked, for two days. Everything hurts and aches and if we keep this up any longer most of us are going to collapse before we even make it halfway to Deepcrest, so even the sadistic Gale allows us to finally set up camp and sleep under the tents instead of under the stars for once.

Gale assigned me watchdog duty, so I have to be vigilant throughout the night. He also saw it fitting to bestow upon me the ever-so-prestigious job of keeping the fire going all night.

“Jaylin.”

I nearly pulled the sword out of my scabbard when I heard Rodi call out my name, once I saw it was him I relaxed a bit and returned to tending to the fire.

Rodi came and sat down on the ground next to me, he looked restless, I suppose he has a lot on his mind.

“...Can’t sleep?” I ask whilst raising an eyebrow and looking towards my stargazing friend.

“...Guess not?” Rodi replies, his answer sounding more like a question than anything else.

“Any particular reason?” I decide to pry further, mainly as a distraction from the mundane duty of being on watch.

“Honestly, I was just thinking about what happens once we get there, the swamp I mean. Do we simply check if the monster is there and capture it? What if it isn’t there at all? What if it is there and we aren’t anywhere near powerful enough to subdue it? I just feel like there’s too many unknowns to justify taking the risk of chasing after a new creature.”

Rodi let loose and started opening up about all his worries for this current mission, but I’m not really surprised he’s having these thoughts. Ever since we were kids he’s always been cautious and he especially hated taking risks, the biggest one he’s ever taken was coming with me to a large city to become an adventurer.

A city certainly is different than the simple countryside village we lived in before, more people, more noise, but most importantly, more opportunities to make it big. If we had the talent for craftsmanship or the makings of a scholar we could surely secure a safe and comfortable job in any reasonably sized city, but sadly, like many others we have little to no talent in any of the art forms.

The only thing we were decent at was monster slaying, so being spurred on by tales of valiant adventurers hired directly by kings, or heroes that slaughter any demonic foe that would cross their path, we registered ourselves at the local adventurer guild.

However the stories and tales that bards sing about in taverns at night about mighty and heroic adventurers hardly mention the amount of dedication, sacrifice and talent needed to reach that level. Within the first week of joining the guild we were on the verge of giving up, the only thing that kept us going is the desire to be something greater than mere farmers.

A true want or desire for more meaning in life something found in many if not all humans, we were nothing special in that aspect, but that didn’t stop us. Far from it, if anything it helped and pushed us further than ever before. Desire for greatness can be good in moderation but the deeper the obsession runs the more it can corrupt a person.

Power, prestige and wealth can be just as venomous to the person who would covet them as it would be helpful.

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“The best advice I can offer you is not to think about it.”

I offered the best piece of advice I could, although I feel a bit guilty not being able to offer more. The job of alleviating the pain and worries of people is the line of work fit more for a priest instead of an adventurer.

“...you and I both know I can’t help but worry, an expedition to a swamp filled to the brim with creatures that would be better off extinct is not something I can relax about.”

Rodi was always worrying, not so much for himself but for other people around him. People back home often mislabeled him as craven and looked down on him for his cautious mannerisms, but the people closest to him knew he wasn’t afraid to fight to protect people if he had to. And his concerns were never unfounded or unreasonable, in fact, his instincts were usually quite sharp and he had a noticeable knack for recognizing and anticipating dangerous situations, but he didn’t need his special instincts to tell him that searching for an undocumented creature with barely any prior information on it in a swamp widely known as monster territory was far from a vacation.

“...Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”

I repeated a quote our village priest would so often repeat to the children who wanted advice on how to become an adventurer.

“Hah, quoting the Vankarcian texts now are we? I’ve said this before but you would’ve made a great priest if you had more patience.”

Rodi insulted me a little by handing me a backhanded compliment, but it seemed to make his mood a little better so I didn’t mind. The Vankarcian texts, Father William would often talk about them. Supposedly they were a gift to the lord of castle Vankarcian from the gods for devout service to them in the crusade against the rapidly expanding species of monsters known as the Volsier.

They would be able to take the form of the last creature they ate, naturally, that included humans too. Shapeshifting creatures set on devouring humanity from the inside had the very real potential to cause the extinction of humanity. The gods with ties to humanity had risen from slumber and sent a divine message to the reigning holy emperor, he was to call another crusade, something that had not been ordered in hundreds perhaps even thousands of years.

Humanity cannot call a crusade without the express permission of each patron deity, and even then it would have to be a a situation dangerous enough to disrupt the delicate balance of the world. The gods ordering a crusade themselves was never recorded in history, so it had been a shocking event for many, according to church documents and stories passed down from people who witnessed it the sky split and the gate of heaven was shown to human eyes, battle angels poured out from the clouds and launched an assault on the homeland of the volsier.

Overnight the battles raged on and left the homeland of the volsier barren and no better than a wasteland in the eyes of anyone civilized, to monsters however, it was a paradise. Predators from every continent rushed to the wasteland like something was compelling them to go there, the land that was only recently freed of blood and battle once again found itself the host of the biggest bloodbath ever documented.

Some say that the volsier cursed the land with their last breath and that’s why monsters flock to the land to prey on each other, maybe they’re wrong maybe they’re right, but it’s nothing that can be known for sure. The most famous general in the crusade was lord Albert Avner Vankarcian. A man that single handedly led a small army of knights and cut deep into the homeland of the volsier, slaughtering all that got in his way.

Eventually he was outnumbered and surrounded by the main army of the volsier that had circled back to stop his unending conquest of their territory, he used his army of knights like a band of mercenaries, fighting only small engagements and relying on guerrilla warfare to tear down the army brick by brick. He held for three weeks against an army of fifteen thousand with only one and a half thousand knights, moments before he was cut down the gods intervened and struck the ground with divine lightning.

It was enough of a diversion for the lord and his battered remaining knights to retreat into allied territory, according to rumors after the crusade had ended the gods had seen to it that his show of valor was rewarded. And so they sent texts detailing tactics of war to pass on to future generations, along with a cryptic message insinuating that the texts were not from this world.

The volsier had low birth rates and that was likely the saving grace of humanity, it wasn’t like we hadn’t taken wounds from the conflict however. Some were smart enough to stay hidden and learn human culture, posing as citizens and only feasting on travelers that got lost in the night. It took many decades for these to be captured and burned at the stake and more often than not, innocent people were tried and hanged.

It’s still up for debate if all the volsier were truly wiped out, more than likely some survived the crusade and the genocide that followed.

“Say we do capture this monster and sell it to a noble, do you think we could convince him to sponsor us for the rank up exam?”

Rodi chucked out a question to probe my opinion.

“Honestly? It’s possible but it would depend on the quality of the monster to begin with, we might be able to get our individual guild ranks up from E to D but our group rank still wouldn’t go up without maybe one or two good subjugation missions.”

I responded with a slight smirk in a matter-of-factly tone.

“You mean a zovine nest subjugation?”

Rodi asked in an inquisitive tone.

“If we can get the chance to take one on, then yes.”

zovines are bipedal hunched over lizards with the head of buffalo, individually they’re rather small and weak. A competent F rank adventurer is enough to take one on, however, when they start breeding and setting up nests in dense forests they become more of a problem. They attack any nearby villages and destroy the local ecosystem, and when the land they live on becomes devoid of prey from over hunting they move to a new area filled with more ample game.

This wouldn’t be much of an issue if they lived far away from humans, however, to them humans are no different from the regular animals they hunt. So more often than not when animals in their area becomes lackluster they move on and set up a new nest near villages and other settlements. Needless to say this is a major problem, and if the number of zovines is considerable it can even be considered to be a threat a C rank party will have to deal with.

Most of the time a D rank party is enough and cases in which a C ranked party is needed are rare, usually when that happens it means the creatures are being led by a forest mage. A monster that is was born with the ability to feel mana and has a talent for manipulating forest sprites to impose its will upon a forest and even its inhabitants, usually zovine but in rare cases even dryads or orcs.

But that would require a large amount of mana and ungodly amount of talent to control highly intelligent and sentient creatures, a threat like that would call for an A rank party.

“We’ve still got a few more hours until daylight, I’ll take over watch you should go get some sleep.”

Rodi interrupted my musing and offered me something I desperately wanted to hear with a gentle smile.

“Hah, gladly, don’t push yourself and wake me up if you want to switch out.”

With that exchange over I retired to my tent to finally get some precious sleep before the long trek to deepcrest in the morning.