Book 3: Chapter 18: Invitation and A Merchant's Observations
'Quest details: I, my family, and my merchant company require an escort to bring us to the lands of Crimson Foxkin Clan for trading purposes.
Quest issuer: Member of the Elgoran Merchant's Union, Rodorick Halbundon.
Requirements: Two full parties (a group must have at least 10 members to be considered a party), at least of D-rank strength or the group must be silver-plated. Up for negotiations for smaller but more qualified groups.
Reward: 1 silver coin per party per day. Meals are provided for and you may sleep in a carriage we will also provide.'
Soph nodded. Lone would like this quest. It sounded easy and was a way for him to meet new people and possibly make useful connections, all things he enjoyed to some degree.
New people meant new facts to learn and possible skills to earn, while connections were the same. If a second adventurer group were to tag along or maybe even two given the standard size of a party, that would give Lone the excuse to obtain their skills while training or whatever other reason her clever lover could come up with.
Soph grabbed the notice and said, "C'mon, Breena. We're gonna sign up for this one."
The red-headed foxkin nodded sharply, her guard as high as usual.
'It's your fault she rarely, if ever, replies to me!' Soph mentally complained.
Sophie snorted back and replied, 'We do not care.'
Soph sighed. Before long, she had signed herself, Lone, and Breena, up for the quest. It was a good thing Lone had been sure to add a note to his file that Soph could assign any quests to him that she wanted to just like he could do so with both her and Breena.
The guild employee had almost refused her until she pointed that fact out. 'She must have been a new hire. Staff here are usually really good. It has to be for Lone to praise it so often...'
'A man who has been stealing glances at us for some time is approaching. The sword on his back sure is large. We wonder if he is compensating?' Sophie chuckled. 'Do you wish for me to take control?'
'No! You settle all of your problems with violence. Sure this guy is attracted to my face, but that's normal. He clearly wants something else,' Soph replied, refusing her other personality from becoming the active one.
"Hey!" The big man greeted her with a wave a smile on his face. "I noticed you've been down here for a while looking for a quest to do with your friend."
Soph remained quiet and she met his eye contact with disinterest even if that didn't seem to faze him at all. 'No special mana colouring so he isn't a mage. My aura says he's a B-ranker like me but Mana Sensing says he's almost an A-ranker. He's gotta be kinda old then, right? What did Lone say was the normal age range for humans at this level?'
'Between 30 and 60 depending on talent and determination,' Sophie answered.
"That's right, why?" Soph answered the man's statement.
The warrior chuckled as he scratched the back of his neck. "We need at least one more person for the quest we have to do. We'd like to invite you. Your friend too, of course, though you'll be responsible for protecting her and she won't get any completion credit. The experience should be good for such a low ranker though, right?"
'Told you he wanted something else. I'm finally being recognised for more than just my pretty face!' Soph gloated as she mentally stuck her tongue out at her more serious self.
'Yes, yes, well done. Now how will you reject him without offending him? And what if he is pushy and insists you join his team? Hmm? What t- Damn it,' Sophie sulked, clearly having felt Lone's approach just as Soph had.
"Hey, Soph. Where's Breena?" Lone asked as he approached. "Ah, there you are. You're getting so much better at blending into stuff. Bet you'll earn a skill for it soon."
The shy girl nodded her head thankfully and replied, "I-I'm trying."
Lone smiled and turned to face the warrior with a large sword on his back. "Hey, couldn't help but overhear you. Sorry, man, me, my girlfriend here, and little Breena, already have plans. 'Ppreciate the invite though."
Soph didn't miss the flash of disappointment in the warrior's eyes at Lone's mention of her being romantically involved already, which she found amusing and a bit annoying.
Amusing because she was very proud of the fact her heart belonged to Lone and his to her. Annoying because why wouldn't someone who was as beautiful as everyone claimed she was, not already have a partner?
"You're Lord Immortus. I-I didn't know she was your companion," the warrior replied with an awkward stutter.
'Yes, be intimidated by the man with fluffy tails and not by us, the woman who killed an X-ranker,' Sophie remarked sarcastically.
Soph rolled her eyes. 'Lone injured the prince, what you did wasn't made public. Only the strong people in this city know about that. And, well, probably the upper management of the C.A.A...'
Soph really hoped her other half's actions wouldn't reflect poorly on Lone in the future since he had plans for the Continental Alchemist's Association.
Lone laughed lightly. "Don't worry about it, man. We've gotta go now but hey, maybe next time we're in the city we can do a quest together. Last time I worked with other adventurers I was betrayed and almost killed. Would be nice to have an experience very different to that."
As they exited the guild, Lone asked Soph, "Find any quests?"
"One. We gotta go and negotiate though," Soph answered. "It's an escort quest from some merchant company that plans to go to the Crimson Foxkin Clan. They were asking for a silver-plated group or every party member to be at least D-ranked. We don't have an official group and we don't have enough people for a party, so we gotta go and negotiate."
Lone nodded. "Makes sense. I assume the guild told you where we can find the merchants?"
"Yup! They're camped outside of the eastern gate. They've been there for a couple of weeks holding some sort of trade fair or something while they wait for their escorts to be arranged," Soph explained.
"Not on a tight schedule then if they're happy to wait for competent enough guards. A trade fair, huh? Sounds fun," Lone replied. "And maybe I can earn the Haggling Mastery skill. I need to learn how to stop accepting any asking price or reward since money has no meaning to me."
A small girl with pointed grey wolf ears ran up to a tall man who shared this interesting feature of hers. He laughed and scooped her up. "What's wrong, Little Rinrin? Is the fair boring you?"
She frowned in that perfect way daughters did to melt the heart of their fathers. "There's nothing left to do! The stupid guards won't teach me anything and I've already played all of the games at the stalls! When can we go to the Crimson Foxkin Clan? I wanna leave now!"
"You little demon, you know I'm waiting for the last group of adventurers I need to hire to protect you and your mother," the girl's father, Rodorick Halbundon, answered in an exasperated manner.
They had been here camping outside of the central-eastern gate to Golden Pass City for almost a month now. He had to be thankful to the Primals that his cargo wasn't perishable.
Were it up to him, he would have left as soon as they had finished their business here. Golden Pass City was a nice enough city but even though it didn't discriminate against different species, it did discriminate against different levels of strength.
Rodorick was just an I-ranker, though he was 432 years old. Being immune to ageing had its perks. Regardless, neither he nor his lovely wife had the strength to really flourish in a city like this so they had made plans to travel to a fellow beastkin settlement that was only a few hundred miles away.
They hadn't obtained any useful information here either. They were simply too weak to inquire about the things that interested them.
Sadly, their planned route it wasn't an overly patrolled one so protection was needed and very few people were interested in a job that amounted to essentially babysitting a bunch of low-ranker merchants for several weeks.
Even the one party who had agreed to the job and seemed like a good fit were close to cancelling the quest since they had been forced to wait for so long. It was all Rodorick could do to offer them a bit more money for their time.
'I won't just go with one party though. It would be foolish to ignore the advice of the employee at The Adventurer's Guild. Their recommendations for escorts are almost never wrong. We need another set of guards. Sorry little demon, you'll have to wait some more,' he thought as he held his pouting daughter in his arms.
Rodorick squeezed his daughter gently then set her down. He watched her waddle off with a smile, his eyes then observing the small trade fair he had set up to cover the cost of keeping the first bunch of adventurers paid until he was finally ready to depart.
Only a few moments later, he saw something unbelievable. His small child who had barely seen seven winters was rushing back to him in excitement while holding the hand of a tall handsome foxkin.
This foxkin looked young but he was an adult so he could have been any age, really. He was dressed casually with a simple tunic and trousers on. Rodorick noticed the adventurer's pouch at his waist and he couldn't help but see the half-eaten caramel-covered apple in his free hand.
His hair was long, going past his shoulders but his face was cleanly shaven and something about his multi-coloured eyes just screamed 'always calculating'. It was like his eyes could never go dull and would always have countless thoughts about whatever entered their sights.
The foxkin's most striking features, however, were the number of tails he had and his fur colouring.
'A Golden Foxkin? Nine beast traits? How and how? And those awakenings... What does the black represent?' Rodorick wasn't sure.
By the foxkin's side was a short human woman wearing full plate armour except for a helmet. She too, like the man but in a more pronounced way, was exceptionally easy on the eyes. Enough so to almost made Rodorick lose his deep-rooted biases against humans.
Her eyes were incredibly enchanting as if they saw all but they were also as soft as the touch of grass. They shined brighter than most emeralds. Her hair was golden and almost flowed down to her waist. She seemed enamoured by Rodorick's daughter but also oddly on-guard against her as if she could harm... not herself, but the foxkin man in some way.
'Odd. Jealousy, maybe? Is she bonded with him? She must be insecure to worry over a child holding his hand,' the merchant thought when he noticed someone else who he hadn't seen at first.
Trailing behind them was a young girl who was also a foxkin though of a different clan from the tall man, as made clear by her Darkness-tainted crimson fur. She was honestly a bit hard to notice even if spotting things that were amiss was a core trait for any merchant worth his weight in salt.
She came across as very focused and also very desperate to not be seen. Noticing his gaze, her expression noticeably dropped despite her wearing a mask that covered everything below her cheekbones.
'An aspiring rogue, maybe? She's from the Crimson Foxkin Clan which is interesting... Hmm... What an odd matchup, these three. Well, if Little Rinrin is delivering them to me, they must be adventurers looking for work, yes? But only three... If they aren't a full party they will either leave disappointed or angered, or my waiting has resulted in some seriously powerful escorts appearing at my figurative doorstep,' Rodorick concluded.
He wore a happy merchant's smile when his daughter let go of the foxkin man's hand and rushed up to him. "Daddy! These people wanted to talk to you! The fox man has so many tails! They look fluffier than Grandma's! I wanted to touch them but the smelly human said I wasn't allowed..."
Rodorick watched as the short human woman's lips twitched, cracking her otherwise perfect smile. "I'm not smelly. Lone loves my smell. You're smelly..."
The Golden Foxkin laughed in good humour. "Hey! I'm Lone Immortus, Immortus the Immortal. We're heading to the Crimson Foxkin Clan for personal reasons and figured we'd help escort you guys along the way. Up for some negotiations on responsibilities and compensation?"
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