wkrrk
patreon
Chapter 117: Advance Party (1)
🕑 Added 2024-08-29 05:31:55 +0000 UTCWorld: MSS - Loading...
***
There was no point in delaying. I would set off after Zenom immediately. But before I could do so, there was a commotion not five feet away from where I was.
Currently, the priest was trying to heal Stole again. She was complaining loudly as the hooded priest tried to heal her to no avail. “Hey! Are you even trying? Is this because I’m a Beastman? Does human magic not work on Beastman or something?
Kyrian nodded. “Luck, Lock.”
“You’re the one who needs luck.” I said, eyeing Stole’s tantrum. “I think that Priest is out of mana. Maybe he’s an apprentice or something, I heard that a good number of them are not fully fledged priests yet. Get someone else to take a look at your guys.” I looked at Skaris. “I’ll be off then.”
“Sssscream if you need aid, Sssslaveborn.”
I scoffed, locking eyes with Aurora. “Aurora, take care of them.”
Trusting Aurora to hold down the fort, I hurried to follow after Zenom. He had already entered the Captain’s quarters and I saw his cloak disappear behind the door. In that short moment I saw a glimpse of the other adventurers in the Captain’s Quarters but couldn’t make out who.
When I entered the Captain’s Quarters, I saw a bare room, despite its size. They could easily have fit a couple of couches here but I guess being on the seas makes you realize just how dangerous having too much furniture could be. Besides, the Captain and Zenom both struck me as the type who’d rather use that extra weight for something with more worth, forgoing luxury for gain. The only thing in here was a desk with quill, inkpot and some paper lying around. I peeked at the papers and saw just journal entries of what was being loaded and unloaded from the ship.
Since the room was sparse of decorations, I saw the other adventurers that Zenom had invited to speak with him.
The first one with a strong presence that rivaled Zenom’s own heroic frame was Borealis. He stood with his feet wide apart, hands not too far from where he kept his Gladius. His shield was strapped to his thigh, a strange place to keep it. The gray-haired man smiled at me, giving me a slight nod of acknowledgement, which I returned absently.
Next I saw Delas, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. I swear that the Rogues of this world always know the best place to lean at. The perfect amount of shadows covered him, but not too much so that I couldn’t see his face. It was like looking at a poster for Rogues, completely at ease with a sleazy smile, complete with leather armor that seemed to blend with the darkness. Delas raised to fingers to his forehead and flicked it away in a gesture.
Across from him were two cloaked figures. Their faces were hidden but I knew who they were. One had to be Arione, with that height which towered over the other figure. And of course, the other man held a sheathed cane-sword in both hands, using it to hold himself up with dignity. Arrosh Bloodedge, my master.
And suddenly, I realized that Zenom and Borealis were standing together, pretending not to look at me. Closer than necessary. Across from them were Arione and Arrosh, their expressions shrouded but I thought I felt their gaze on me. Delas, the rogue, was a lot less sneaky about it. He was smack-dab in the middle, between Zenom and Borealis, blatantly looking to see where I would stand.
Hell, they were all waiting for me to choose where I was standing.
Normally, I would have stepped near Arrosh without thinking. But was that really the best choice? Arione’s party no doubt knew of my relationship to Arrosh, but how much did they know about Arrosh’s motivations to join? Was the concept of absolute trust in a companion something that the elf-mage and Clover, the beastman priestess, could grasp?
It wasn’t just that. Zenom, Borealis and Delas were measuring me; as the last one to enter, I just put myself in a place I could choose who to stand with. And I had a feeling they’d all be childish about it, they wouldn’t start until I chose a place to stand, at least not until I made it clear that I wasn’t deliberating about it. I think it might have been all those business meetings and dinner parties my parents made me attend, but I read the room within seconds and made my choice in half that time.
I closed the door behind me and planted my feet.
I didn’t join their little circle. I stood apart from it all.
The reactions were varied. Borealis and Delas just smiled, the latter cracking it open with the subtlety of an elephant in the room. It could have been my imagination but Arione seemed to relax, while Arrosh stiffened. When Arrosh stiffened, I prayed that he was acting and wasn’t taking my action as truth –I was trying to solidify our cover here.
Man, this was nerve-wracking. Was this why all those thriller spy movies were so interesting? Because you could never know if your actions were being taken for their intent? I’d never make a good spy, my heart couldn’t take much more of this.
Lastly, Zenom narrowed his eyes.
When it became clear that I wasn’t moving, Zenom gestured to all of us. “Thank you all for joining me here.”
“That’s why we get paid all those shiny gold things.” Delas replied.
That strangely sounded like an idiom from earth, ‘That’s why we get paid the big bucks’. I was 90% sure that Delas was a Player and from the Player’s Guild. But the other 10%... like I said, I’m not really spy material. I could be making something out of nothing. Maybe I still harbored some anger towards that Guild, for what Coum did to me. Maybe I’m just looking for my chance at revenge and hoping that Delas was someone I could hate.
It’s easy to hate someone. All you need is a made-up reason. It happens at school, work, anywhere really.
“So why’d you gather us here, Sir Zenom?” Borealis asked.
“First, I’d like to inform you of the unilateral decision to reach the nearest landmass. The Captain of this ship has advised us to do so, especially since the repairs might take awhile. It seems that the damage suffered to the Auxiliary Ships was severe and they will need extensive repairs.”
“How much time are we talking here?” Delas interjected, frowning.
“Two weeks,” said Zenom simply.
“Eh, two weeks added onto a month. As long we get paid during that time, I’m fine with it.” Then Delas winked at me.
“I assure you, your parties will be compensated for that time.” Zenom produced a map, summoning it from his Dimension Ring. “However, the issue is not the timeline of our voyage, but where we will be stopping.”
Zenom spread the map flat out on the table and the previous tension forgotten, we all huddled together to look at it. He pointed to an island and circled it with his finger. “The Island we will be stopping at does not have any Village or City that we know of, in fact, we believe it is an unclaimed island.”
There was only one reason why an island would be unclaimed. “Field Boss.” I growled.
The Holy Knight looked up at me, as well as Borealis and Delas. “You are correct once again, Mr. Slaveborn. It seems you are turning out to be our resident expert on Monsters.”
“I’ll say.” Borealis muttered, his eyes shining.
I ignored the two. “Skip this island then. Choose somewhere else.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. We are now in the middle of the sea and the closest landmass lies back East. We would have to return to Miltus.”
“What about these islands?” I pointed at small islands behind a red-dotted line. “I know it’s behind Bada Horde Territory, but it’s on the fringe. If we act fast, we could hide the ships. The only real danger of the Bada Horde is on the open seas and they are trained as such. They’d be patrolling and looking for ships out on the water, they’d never imagine we’re sitting on an island. If we can claim an island, chances are that they won’t even know we’re there.”
“Too risky.” Zenom dismissed it.
“It sounded good to me.” Delas agreed. Him agreeing with me didn’t make me feel better at all, by the way.
I looked to Borealis for support instead. “It’s madness to stop at an Island that has a Field Boss.”
“That is not certainty, it is a hypothesis.” Borealis shrugged. Despite being from the same household, his manners were much more casual than Aurora. I thought it should be the other way around, Aurora being the more easy going of the two being a Bastard and all.
“Even if it’s not a Field Boss, the monsters there are bound to be of some strength.” I frowned. “Jayu doesn’t have information about this island? It’s on the map, surely there were adventurers who made notes of this place.”
Zenom nodded. “The Island is noted to have no natural resources other than trees. The last time this island was visited was over thirty years ago, and since lumber is of no shortage in Jayu…” He trailed off.
Delas sneered. “So they never bothered exploring the whole damn thing.”
“Too many uncertainties. Too many unknown factors. It could even be a temporary outpost for the Bada Horde for all we know. We could be walking into a fort.” I said, slashing the air with my hand.
“The decision has been made, Mr. Slaveborn. There is no other avenue left for us.” Zenom replied.
I glared at him. “There is.” I said quietly.
He stared back at me evenly. He knew what I was talking about.
We could turn back to Miltus.
Of course, I knew he wouldn’t. Too many things were at stake here. If we turned back, how many adventurers would actually sign up again, now that the whole internal Church politics involved in this mission had been revealed? How many of us would sign up again with the knowledge that we’d be sailing through an Imugi’s Territory? A whopping Grade-2 monster which could well have evolved into a Grade-S Dragon for all we know.
Hell, I wouldn’t sign up for it again. I’d advise Clover not to do it too. As I said, it was too risky. The only reason I signed up was because of Dibo’s request about getting in touch with the Player’s Guild. That’s where it all started. And I was more involved in this because of Oung and Khan. But if I had a chance to dip? I wouldn’t even look back.
There was more than one way to make contact with the Player’s Guild. I knew that now. One day, I’d revisit the Scavengers and find out everything that they knew. Not only that, the [Autarch] wasn’t the only Hero. There were other heroes, Six of them to be exact. And I was directly involved with the [Sword Saint] questline. Oung could complain all she wanted, but the goddess wouldn’t want to lose a useful chess piece like me.
…Right?
But all those things were wishful thinking at any rate. Zenom wouldn’t turn back, not now. Not after the whole ordeal with the Bishop.
It’d be admitting failure. And Adventurer’s lips are notoriously light, especially when there’s ale and a good story involved. No one would ever touch this quest.
Zenom looked down at the map, without even bothering to dignify me with a response. Delas rolled his eyes and Borealis politely pretended he didn’t notice what had just happened. Stupid Arione stood like a rock underneath his cloak.
“If you called us here for our suggestions, I believe I exhausted all our options.” I said dryly into the uncomfortable silence. They were just wasting time here now. “You shot down all our suggestions and obviously you have no further information that could help us plan. If that’s all, I’m going to inform my party of our next steps and strategize.”
“Lock is right,” Delas agreed, “Time would be better spent training, resting and fucking.”
Zenom’s eyebrow twitched at Delas’ crude statement, while Borealis hid his grin.
“You are right, Mr. Slaveborn. That is, if I called you five for your suggestions. But I did not call you five for your ideas or input, or rather, I did not call you for input for our destination.” Zenom looked up from the map, looking at the five adventurers in front of him. “I have called you five here to create an Advance Party.”
No one answered for a moment.
“Excuse me?” Delas said, genuinely surprised. “A what?”
“An Advance Party.” Borealis put his hand to his chin, looking all dignified and intelligent with that cheesy pose. God, why did the nobles in this world have to be so fucking classy at everything they did? Man, I just had to be Isekai’d as a slave. “You mean for us to move ahead of the ships, check out the island to see if it’s suitable for our needs. To check for the presence of a Field Boss or High-leveled monsters. Or even the Bada Horde.”
There was no point in picking apart holes in the plan. It was a good one. Well, it was a good plan on paper. But Zenom, for all his brilliant strategist mind, didn’t account for one thing.
“No.” I said immediately, meeting Zenom’s eyes. “Too dangerous.”
“No?” Borealis seemed surprised. “You seemed like a devil out there only moments ago. In fact, you were the first one to reach the swarm of the Moonyo-uhs, of which, mind you, there were hundreds of. I did not think you were the type to back away from danger.”
“It’s not the monsters I’m worried about.” I gestured around us. “You chose people based on their abiltiy didn’t you? You didn’t account for the fact that we all come from different parties.”
Zenom motioned for me to go on.
“If you’re going to create a Advance Party, it’s better to choose people who know each other. I hardly know these guys.” I gestured at everyone. “I have no idea what their capable of, or what their fighting style is like. And you’re saying that the first mission together in this patchwork party is at an island with unknown monsters and unknown presence of an enemy nation?”
“He makes a good point.” Borealis peered sideways at Zenom. “Sir Zenom, perhaps it would be better to reconsider the composition of this Advance Party.”
This time, Zenom didn’t shoot down my idea. Actually, I think some of the words got through that hard head of his. I’m telling you, you don’t know true stubbornness until you come face to face with a Holy Knight who’s been brainwashed by the Church since they were children, raised to be Zealots. On second thought, I guess we have that back in the real world too.
But Zenom actually took my advice and seemed to be thinking it over. Then he said, “Then tell me how you would form the teams.”
I raised an eyebrow. I was so surprised that I looked at Delas and met his eyes for just a second, like that thing you do to make sure someone else heard what you heard and both of you agree that it was a shocker. Ew. Something about Delas just rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t like that the interaction happened at all.
“First of all, one party isn’t enough. You should create two parties, one to explore the island and one to stay behind. That’s so if the first party encounters danger that they can’t handle or are stranded, the second party can extract them.”
Zenom nodded.
“You can’t just put individuals like this. Choose people who know each other. People who can work well.” I finished.
No one spoke for awhile. My logic had been sound, given the circumstances. More than that… I didn’t want to go on an Advance Party mission with these guys –minus Arrosh of course. I didn’t trust any of them as far as I could trust them. Hell, even Arione looked good compared to Borealis and Delas. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. On general principle, I didn’t trust Scions and Delas… well, I explained why.
And those two gave me one more reason to not like them.
“I disagree.” Delas said.
“I do as well.” Borealis joined in.
I sighed.
Comments
Mordock 24
So many interactions with Delas. I guess players just share a lot of social habits
Predyca
Sweetie, you are 1 chapter ahead of us. we at 117 ♥ But thanks so much for the Chapter ♥♥
Kai
Thank you!
