Chapter 2: An Increase to an Elucidation

Chapter 2:
An Increase to an Elucidation

 

THE QUEST WAS, in short, to deliver Scena Lombardia to Hansa. A meeting of the adventurers taking part in the quest would be held the day after Loren had readied his equipment. They heard about this from Chuck the moment they returned to the inn Lapis had booked.

The shopping venture ended up raising Loren’s debt to Lapis by a considerable amount: fifty silver for one new set of leather armor. Five gold for the black coat Lapis recommended. An additional fifteen gold for the weapon Lapis chose. Added on to this, an assortment of salves and a dagger just in case. Also, the tools and bags needed to maintain equipment, along with plenty of preserved food and clothing. Anything an adventurer might ever need.

“Adding that on to your current total—oh, fine, I’ll throw in a slight discount. Forget about the copper coins. Let’s say you’re at twenty-three gold and eighty silver.”

“That’s more than my life’s savings there.”

“An adventurer’s equipment is what’s saving his life. What were you expecting?”

The pair had quarreled as they paid the somber-faced shopkeeper. In any case, Loren was finally sufficiently equipped to fight as an adventurer.

As for the meeting, Loren thought it rather sudden when he first heard about it. The night before, he changed their double bed booking at the inn to two single rooms, parted from a discontented Lapis, and in the morning, he accompanied her to the adventurers’ guild.

On arrival, they gave Ritz’s name and introduced themselves as the adventurers who would partake in the request at his party’s recommendation.

They were redirected to a room to meet the client—a guild receptionist—as well as the girl they had extracted from the forest. The girl was out of her white dress, now properly outfitted for travel. With them were the roughly twenty iron-rank adventurers taking part in the quest. Given the size of a standard party, that meant a handful of different parties would be working together.

Loren noted that the red-haired boy who had snatched the longsword from right under his nose was among them. The boy seemed to notice Loren at practically the same time; he pointed at the copper tag hanging from Loren’s chest and called out to the receptionist.

“Hey. Wasn’t this quest limited to iron and up?”

“Those two are joining under the recommendation of some silver-rank adventurers.”

“Cronyism, eh?” The boy sneered, looking straight at Loren. The black longsword hung from his hip. His armor was chainmail reinforced with sheet metal—quite an intricate piece.

“By guild regulation, a copper-rank adventurer may be treated as an iron-rank with the recommendation of a member at rank silver or higher. The guild has no issue with their participation in this quest,” the receptionist explained to pacify the other adventurers eyeing the newcomers.

Loren cracked a faint smile; he realized he couldn’t really deny the nepotism.

That gesture rubbed the red-haired boy the wrong way, though. He promptly pointed at Loren’s chest. “I told you yesterday, you need to learn your place. I don’t know how you cozied up with silver-rank adventurers, but you’d better take care not to get in the way.”

Being a copper-rank adventurer as well, Lapis had every right to feel just as challenged. However, she seemed entirely uninterested in anything the boy had to say. She simply observed the exchange, looking if anything a little irritated at the holdup.

Seeing no other way out of it, Loren reluctantly engaged. “Yeah, you got that right. We’ll be in the corner keeping a low profile.”

“Not even going to defend yourself?”

What am I supposed to do with this guy? Loren shrugged.

Thankfully, the guild receptionist stepped in. “Leave it at that, would you? You’re comrades on the same quest.”

“Don’t put us in the same boat.”

“If you don’t stop now, I’ll be forced to conclude that you intend to hinder the quest’s progress, and the guild will have to penalize you,” the receptionist warned.

The boy finally shut his mouth. He sent a glare toward Loren before receding to the part of the room where his comrades presumably waited.

“The same goes for you two,” said the receptionist. “Please give some thought to the fact that you’re an exception. We wouldn’t want to regret putting that special rule in place.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Once Loren lowered his head, it seemed that was the end of the matter. The receptionist turned, taking a good look at all the participants and then raised her voice ever so slightly. “Our thanks to everyone who expressed their desire to take part in this expedition. If you’re unaware, this is to be considered an official guild quest. You are to deliver Scena Lombardia here to the city-state of Hansa.”

The young blonde girl that the receptionist indicated surveyed the line of adventurers with somewhat fearful eyes—though at the receptionist’s prompting, she lowered her head.

“Scena is the daughter of Hansa’s chancellor. I ask that you treat her courteously. Hansa is about a three-day wagon ride away, and we will be preparing the wagon. We ask that you guard the wagon along the way. The reward is twelve silver a head.”

Loren took that to be quite a hefty sum—that is, until he realized it covered a six-day round trip. That meant he would be paid two silver a day. The cost of living for an average grown adult was roughly fifty copper, and as such, the reward wasn’t anything spectacular.

“Hold up. You’re telling me those two coppers are making the same as us?” asked a different adventurer—not the cranky redhead. “Don’t you reckon it should be lower?”

“As far as the quest is concerned, they will be treated no different from iron-ranks. That means equal payment as well.”

“You’re kidding me. I’m already having a tough time accepting these complete amateurs are coming with us. Now you’re saying they’re worth just as much as us? Hey, you, say something!” the adventurer snarled, a vein popping on his brow.

Loren tilted his head. “Something? Well what d’you want me to say?”

“Go on, tell ’em, ‘We’ll take half, so give the other half of our share to the irons,’ eh? Can’t you understand that?”

Loren stood silently as the man approached him, still snarling. A part of him did understand where the man was coming from, but he had neither the duty nor the obligation to go out of his way to comply with a fellow behaving like this. That said, he could think of no easy means of silencing the disgruntled man.

As Loren idly considered his options, Lapis spoke up. “Ah, but if our participation is in compliance with guild regulations, we have no reason to give up half of our promised reward.”

The man shifted from Loren to Lapis, lips peeled back in a growl. “What’d you say, wench? Say it again, I dare ya!”

Then the man reached toward her—but his efforts were in vain. Loren intercepted his wrist halfway to its target.

“What? You wanna go?!”

What was it Lapis said? Loren thought. So long as nobody got killed, quarrels between adventurers could be written off as self-defense, especially if the other man started it. As Loren’s opponent grappled to free his hand, Loren slowly increased the pressure of his grip, staring straight into his eyes with a smile.

“Wh-what are you doin’…you, you!”

The adventurer wore leather bracers, yet the point of his arm where Loren squeezed let off an ugly sound, like a wet rag being torn in two. The man’s face paled. He yelped, his expression contorting in pain.

Loren wielded what was, essentially, a giant hunk of iron. While his arm strength was self-evident, without additional grip strength, he would never be able to keep such a sword on course. This grip was now on the verge of crushing a man’s bracer, muscle, and bone altogether.

“Dammit… L-Let go, you piece of—”

Struggle as he might, the adventurer couldn’t free his arm. Even worse, bit by bit, the unsettling noises coming from it grew stronger. This would, if he did nothing, turn disastrous. In a panic, he gave up reclaiming his arm and used his free hand to grasp the hilt of the shortsword hanging at his waist.

Loren saw this. He shook the man by the wrist. This small, nonchalant motion on his part sent the adventurer flying straight into the wall before his weapon was out of its sheath. The man collided with a damp, bone-juddering thud before collapsing to the floor.

The adventurer was by no definition a waif. On top of a large, stalwart build, he was weighed down by all his adventuring gear. By flinging the man with one hand—seemingly effortlessly—Loren had demonstrated his caliber far better than he could with words.

“It’s fine as long as he’s not dead, right? Anyone else got a bone to pick? Otherwise, could we get on with the story?”

Half the adventurers looked pointedly away; the other half seemed somewhat impressed. On closer inspection, they saw that Loren carried a bundle on his back just about as tall as he was. Even if the adventurers didn’t know what was inside of it, they could assume it was his weapon. Every adventurer who had initially suspected the bundle to be some sort of bluff could now easily imagine him having the strength to handle something so massive.

His skills were still a mystery, but his pure physical might far surpassed those of most—if not all—iron-ranks. Evidently, no one else wanted to find out.

“Continuing on, we have already sent a few messengers from Kaffa to Hansa,” said the receptionist. “As you might imagine, we wished to inform the chancellor that we had his daughter under our care. However, we have been unable to confirm whether any of them reached their destination.”

This implied something dangerous lurked along the way. It also meant that, despite the guild’s best efforts to ensure the message got through, not a single one of their men had managed to succeed. What exactly lay in store for them? How treacherous was this trek? Each team would have to make the call for themselves.

Even so, one adventurer raised a hand. “You’re offering chump change with that level of risk?”

“At present, we have not established exactly what the risk is. However, we have prepared additional compensation for any inordinate trouble. I promise that whoever encounters and deals with this problem will be paid in accordance with the liability entailed.”

A few eyes lit up at that, though others grimaced and grew restless. They understood what the receptionist was really saying: Not only did they foresee a high chance of the escort party colliding with this unknown threat, whoever wanted additional payment would have to collect evidence of its defeat to present to the guild.

“Backtracking a little, I must reiterate that this is an official guild quest issued by the Kaffa branch. It is possible to decline, but that may come with certain penalties. Furthermore, should you succeed, you will earn certain guild benefits along with the reward. Please make your final call with that in mind.”

For the first time, Scena opened her mouth, lowering her head to the gathered. “Please, won’t you take me to my home? I cannot offer a reward here where I stand, but I swear I will inform my father of this debt.”

I know I have to stick with Lapis, thought Loren. But that’s not all the skin we’ve got in the game. Now that Ritz has given his recommendation, there’s no way in hell we’re getting out of this quest.

While he observed the other adventurers debating with each other, Lapis began reading through the contract they received. Loren hadn’t taken escort quests before. The folks who posted them were usually powerful or rich—high-class in some regard. The way he saw it, there was no reason for someone like that to associate with a crude and violent mercenary by choice, though he wasn’t that knowledgeable on the matter.

As he knew nothing about this sort of thing, he was sure Scena would be the only one in a wagon while the adventurers formed a perimeter and walked around it. He only realized he was mistaken when he saw the guild had booked three wagons.

“We get to ride?” he asked.

“It would take more than three days if we had to guard on foot,” said Lapis.

That wasn’t to say the wagons were any kind of grand. Just wagons with cloth canopies. Still, Loren found himself impressed by the guild’s competence. They’d prepared enough wagons to carry every single adventurer who accepted—which was nearly everyone.

Incidentally, nearly everyone referred to the fact that the adventurer Loren had slammed into a wall had been forced to drop out. Loren worried the man’s comrades might try something, but in the end they had the discretion to follow the tacit rule—all squabbles between adventurers were justified so long as no one died. While Loren couldn’t read their minds, they didn’t antagonize him.

“Still, that’s a lifesaver,” he said. Sure, Loren had plenty of stamina from training to shoulder the weight on his back, but he didn’t want to waste it on more bickering.

“I’m more amazed you can march while lugging that around, Mr. Loren.”

“You just have to get used to it. Same with most things in life,” Loren said as he hopped onto the wagon.

There he ran into his first problem. The moment he took a seat at one of the two benches facing each other, his weapon completely threw off the wagon’s center of balance—not to mention it took up quite a bit of space.

“There isn’t much we can do about that. We’ll have to take up one side, you and I,” said Lapis. “The others will have to squeeze into the opposite bench.”

The guild intended to have eight people in each wagon, with twenty-three adventurers taking part and the last seat reserved for Scena. If Lapis and Loren took up one bench, that left six people squeezing into a seat meant for four—which did, admittedly, balance out the weight. However, the extra space made Loren feel even more confined. He was already a lower-ranking copper adventurer, and now the iron-ranks were eyeing him sharply.

“I’m real sorry. I don’t have anything to say for myself,” he said to them.

This one was most certainly his fault. He lowered his head in earnest apology. The adventurers initially appeared to be taken aback by his sincerity, but given a moment, they seemed to accept it.

“Nothing you can do about it,” the oldest one grunted.

“I’m in your debt,” Loren replied, and that was the end of it.

Yet just as one problem was resolved, the next one arrived. The red-haired boy—who was supposed to be riding elsewhere—boarded their wagon. The boy had seemingly foreseen Loren taking up more space than he deserved and stormed over to ask him what he was so proud of. As Loren raised his head from his apology, the boy snorted.

“Oi, small fry!” he declared. “Not only have you failed to learn your place, now you’re troubling the other adventurers! Just how far do you intend to drag us down?!”

Loren placed a hand over Lapis’s face to mask the murderous glint in her eyes. Sure, he also took issue with how and when the boy was saying this, but his words were fundamentally not untrue. Loren didn’t feel like rebutting them either.

The boy knew it too. He opened his mouth to drive the point home, only to be interrupted by the irritable snarl of the elder adventurer.

“Piss off, brat! We’re already past that! Get back to your wagon!”

The boy’s mouth remained blankly open, but no words came out. A few women—presumably his comrades—arrived to retrieve him and frantically dragged him back to where he belonged.

Loren took the opportunity to observe the boy’s party structure. A woman in splendid plate armor whose long blonde hair didn’t know the first thing about curving. A younger girl with freckles and curly brown hair, who carried a wood staff and wore a deep blue robe. A girl in mostly white priest vestments with a short mace in one hand, whose aqua hair was cut short in a bob.

“Are one-man, three-women parties the latest craze or something?” he asked, recalling the first party he’d joined not too long ago.

“The knight-looking one is Leila,” Lapis whispered to Loren, his hand still over her eyes. “The magician-ish one is Ange, and I think the priest was called Laure or something. She serves the god of water, if I’m remembering right.”

“How do you know all that?”

“I saw the registry at the guild. By the way, that red-haired kid is Claes. A young and highly sought after adventurer.”

“Sought after? Who in their right mind would want him?”

But Lapis had said this without a hint of irony, which led Loren to believe Claes had some sort of sponsor.

“For now, it seems like it’s the adventurers’ guild itself,” she said. “Though I didn’t have time to find out what the guild sees in him. I’ll need to look into it further.”

Loren didn’t know whether to be more surprised that Claes had such a powerful sponsor or that Lapis was so nonchalant about digging into some else’s situation. He ultimately decided to keep quiet.

“Incidentally, the elderly gentleman here is Mr. Brosse. He is a veteran who has been an adventurer for twenty years.”

“Yeah, yeah, say what you want,” said Brosse. “I’ve been at this for twenty years, and I’m still an iron. Right laugh, ain’t it?”

“Perish the thought,” said Lapis. “Only a handful of adventurers ever reach silver. I can only imagine what we have to learn from a man whose skills have allowed him to remain in such a dangerous industry for so many years without major injury.”

This time, Loren couldn’t contain his surprise. Lapis had said something completely inoffensive. He finally released her—and she grabbed at his collar, her liberated eyes demanding to know where this genuine shock was coming from.

Their exchange, however, somehow softened the air with the other adventurers. Brosse crossed his arms, clicked his tongue, and turned away.

“Oh? Don’t be shy.” Lapis smiled.

“Shy—ah, whatever. Just sit there and shut your yap.”

It wasn’t unusual for an adventurer to be rough around the edges, and in fact, Brosse was surprisingly good-natured for the trade. Loren lowered his head once more. “You saved us there, thank you.”

“And you pipe down too. Mind your own business and keep flirting with that young thing next to you. ” Brosse shooed Loren away with a hand, making it very clear the conversation was over. Saying any more would have been rude.

Loren held Lapis back before she could say anything else and whispered into her ear. “So, I guess Ritz’s party was pretty amazing.”

“Amazing enough to slip coppers among irons.”

The point was, they were hitching a ride on the coattails of their former comrades’ prowess.

“Making connections with amazing people is a talent in itself, you know?” Lapis beamed.

“I get it, I get it. Can’t you sit still for one minute?”

He knew he couldn’t win against her with words. Just as he raised the white flag, the wagon that housed Scena slowly started down the highway.

 

“Hey, there somethin’ off here?” Loren asked. The wagon behind them had come to an abrupt halt.

As this would be a three-day wagon journey, they planned to make camp for at least two nights. The guild hadn’t hired specialists to drive—they were run-of-the-mill folk who didn’t have the training to drive through the night. The whole train would come to a stop at sunset. This early pause was unexpected.

Their formation was such that their client always rode in the center—sandwiched between the other two wagons ahead and behind, with Loren and Lapis in the one up front. However, something seemed strange about the driver of the wagon behind them.

“Oi, you all right?” Loren asked as he approached.

The driver of Scena’s wagon let out an off-kilter breath, wiping the sweat from his brow with a pained look on his face.

“What happened?”

“N-nothing happened, but I’m not feeling well.”

When they left Kaffa, all three drivers had been healthy young men. However, this man’s complexion had taken a turn, like he had come down with some sickness. Sweat slid down his face, drop by drop.

“Did you come into contact with anyone in your wagon?” Loren asked.

“Th-they should be fine…” While the driver stuttered, it didn’t seem like he was hiding anything. He really and truly wasn’t feeling well.

“Hey, kid. What are you doing?” Brosse asked, coming up as well.

Loren pointed at the driver. “He’s ill.”

“What? …Oi, you lot! Forget about camp, come spread a sheet!”

The moment he saw the driver’s face, Brosse called out to his party members, then climbed up to the driver’s perch and lowered his body to the road. Loren helped him out when Claes came out of the wagon in the back.

“What are you doing, lowlife?!”

“Lapis, could you check inside the wagon?” Loren asked, ignoring the boy. “If I recall rightly, it’s all women to ensure the client’s safety.”

“That was the arrangement, yes. Fine, leave it to me.” Lapis climbed up the wagon side and stuck her head under the canvas.

“Oi, you! Answer my question,” Claes snapped.

“Don’t really got time for you,” Loren muttered.

“What?!”

With all the noise Claes was making, Loren considered silencing him—then Lapis’s voice snapped him back to his senses. “Big trouble, Mr. Loren! Have a look!”

“Out of the way.” Loren brushed Claes aside and moved to Lapis, who had thrown the canopy wide open for all to see. The sight that awaited made him swallow his breath. “The hell is this? What happened here?”

Scena was still there in her traveling gear. She had sunk deep in her seat, her back slumped against the wall. Her rhythmic breaths indicated she was sound asleep—perhaps from fatigue. That wasn’t particularly surprising, nor was it the issue.

There were seven female adventurers riding alongside her, and every single one of them was now sweating and just as pale as the driver. Some sat there in a daze, while others had crumpled to the floor, unable to manage even that.

This was downright bizarre, no matter how you looked at it. Loren called out to Brosse, who was busy examining the driver.

“Brosse! Help me out here!”

“Quit your yapping, what’s the—oi, oi, the hell’s all this?” Brosse cried out.

It was such an unprecedented and disturbing sight that it left the other adventurers standing stock-still, paralyzed. Fine then. Manners had no place here. Loren hopped in and began unloading the bodies of the blank-eyed, listless women.

 

“Hmm? Hmmm? But what could it be…?” Lapis groaned from her place to the side of the area where the adventurers were setting up camp.

A tarp had been spread out, and the driver and the adventurers who’d been guarding Scena were laid upon it. At this point, not a single one was conscious, and agony wracked every face. Having proclaimed that medicine was a part of her priestly knowledge, Lapis was examining them. Her words and expression told Loren he should prepare for bad news.

He couldn’t contain his shudder as he recalled carrying the women out of the wagon. When he held them, he had found their bodies shockingly cold. Loren had seen and touched his fair share of corpses as a mercenary, both those of enemies and of his allies. Having encountered so many cadavers, he was well versed in that kind of chill. These bodies had been far colder.

It was so off-putting that he hardly even registered Claes clinging to one of them and bawling his eyes out.

Are they even alive? Loren wondered and timidly brought himself to ask, “How is it?”

“We’ve lost two of them.” Her reply was dreadfully brief. In fact, Lapis said it so easily that for a moment he wondered if he had heard wrong. But seeing the other adventurers look just as startled, he knew it wasn’t just him.

“Dead?”

“Yes. The cause of death is as yet unknown. But they are not breathing, and their hearts have stopped beating.” Lapis pointed out two of the female adventurers. They looked no different from the rest—eyes closed, not a twitch—but Lapis said they were dead, and Loren trusted her to know.

“You sure?” Brosse closed in. He had been overseeing the camp’s construction.

Brosse was most likely the oldest of the adventurers taking part this time around, and those in the profession knew well enough to honor seniority. Even those that weren’t Brosse’s party members listened to him without much complaint. Claes was the only one who mouthed off and refused to obey—and perhaps Brosse didn’t feel like forcing him. Claes’s party had been left to set up their own camp.

From Loren’s point of view, Brosse’s orders came from the knowledge of age, and this whole experience would be a lot easier if he just followed the man’s instincts. But everyone thought differently, and he wasn’t going to raise his voice over it.

“I’m certain,” said Lapis. “Do you want to check, Mr. Brosse?”

“Just in case. Let’s see here.” Brosse stooped down over one of the bodies Lapis indicated. He lightly touched the body’s wrist and pressed a finger against her neck. He was back on his feet in no time at all. “Yep, dead. No doubt about it.”

“Yes, they are completely and utterly dead.”

Did she really have to push the point? Loren thought.

Her next words blew his question away. “I recommend cremating them here.”

“Oh, really?”

Loren felt that Brosse’s surprise was well warranted. Every land had its own way of dealing with their dead. However, burial was standard practice, coffin or not. The cremations Lapis suggested weren’t completely out of the question, but the regions that practiced such customs oftentimes did so only after some major event had taught them it was absolutely necessary.

“Right here?”

Loren was sure Brosse hadn’t considered bringing the dead with them, but evidently that didn’t mean he’d thought a burning was in order.

“If we aren’t cremating them here, I recommend we hurry back to Kaffa,” Lapis said indifferently.

“Why’s that?”

“This is just a hunch of mine, but…those two are going to turn undead shortly.”

Her warning disturbed all those who heard. Turning undead referred to when a corpse became a certain kind of monster—zombies, ghouls, and the like. This happened for a variety of reasons. The influence of some magic, for example, or the curse of a high-ranking undead. Other times, the deceased’s own obsession kept them in the world they should have departed.

“So it’s come to that,” Brosse muttered.

“If you doubt me, well, we have another priest. You could have her look into it.”

Priests were specialists when it came to leading lost souls. It was hard to think that a disciple of the god of knowledge could be mistaken in her arcane assessment of such a thing, but if Lapis’s claim strained belief, a second diagnosis wouldn’t be hard to come by.

“Hey, keep our priest out of your—” Claes started the moment his comrade was brought up.

“Claes, it is a priest’s duty to look after those who have lost their way. Please.”

Claes’s mouth was already half-open for another complaint, but the blue-haired priest, Laure, cut him off. She jogged up before anyone called for her and knelt by the body.

“Lord of water, my lord. Please show me the way.” She drew a seal in front of her chest with her fingers, then closed her eyes to pray.

Loren found himself muttering, “How very priestly.”

“Are you implying I’m not very priestly?” Lapis asked.

Loren stared off into the distance. He hadn’t intended to say it in the first place, and he had no answers, neither for Lapis’s question nor her glare.

Laure had finished her check-up by then. She rose and patted off her knees. “I see corruption budding in their bodies,” she confirmed. “They will both become undead before long.”

“This ain’t good…” Brosse cursed. “Quite a pickle we’ve found ourselves in.”

There was little that could be done about it. They would need to explain the situation to the two women’s comrades, secure their belongings, and find a spot for cremation. The fire would need fuel enough to burn bodies as well.

Brosse complained under his breath about the additional work. But he clearly knew grumbling wouldn’t get anyone anywhere, and after scratching his head, he quickly got to work.

They couldn’t burn bodies by the camp. After some consoling of the bereaved adventurers, the two bodies were put to flame quite a distance away. Luckily, the sun had set, and their smoke wasn’t too visible from the camp. Even so, watching the lapping tongues of flame redden the darkness from afar was not a pleasant sight, even for Loren.

 

“It’s getting quite strange around here,” Lapis muttered while laying out her sleeping bag in the tent they’d set up.

Loren nodded. He eyed Scena, sitting on a fallen tree alone in the center of camp. Even if the reasons were unclear, the driver and every adventurer who had shared a wagon with the girl had succumbed to a mysterious ailment. Two of them were dead. Understandably, the adventurers feared her.

However, the quest was to deliver Scena to Hansa, and they couldn’t treat her poorly. She had a tent posted at the center of camp with all the other tents forming a circle around it. Nonetheless, she was clearly being kept at arm’s length.

Loren thought it harsh to treat a girl barely more than ten in such a way. He resolved to ask a question—but Lapis replied before it escaped him. She was standing at his elbow before he even realized it.

“Do whatever you want, in my opinion,” she said.

“You don’t mind?” Loren asked, a little startled.

“I don’t. Is there any reason for me to stop you?” Lapis placed a hand on his forehead. She seemed to be trying to pet him, but it just tickled. “All I want is to have you with me for whatever I do. I hope you would make the same concessions for me. I have never intended to prevent you from doing anything.”

“That’s something at least.”

“So please, go ahead. Do what you must.” Lapis saw him off with a beaming smile.

Loren proceeded to walk up to the lonesome girl. “Hey, wanna eat with us?” he asked.

Scena, like the others, had been allotted rather bland preserved foods. Hard bread and dry meats that could be eaten without cooking—and she had left it all untouched, her head hung low. As she looked up from her seat, Loren felt a few eyes gathering on his back.

“Won’t taste any better eating alone,” he said.

“Um, no, that’s… I don’t have much of an appetite,” Scena timidly replied. Her eyes were incredibly wary; she seemed to think he was coming down on her for leaving her food untouched.

Do I really look that scary? Loren spread his arms to show he had no ill intent. “Well, y’know. Eat a bit, eh? Tomorrow’s another busy day.”

“Yes… But, um, won’t my company be troublesome for you?” The adventurers’ attitude toward Scena was so blatant that even as a ten-year-old girl she could infer her status in the group.

“Don’t mind it. My comrade said it’s all good.”

“R-really. Then…maybe I’ll indulge a bit.”

Scena rose, and Loren beckoned. Some looked on awkwardly, others looked a bit touched. And only one—namely Claes—made a fuss.

“I should have expected you coppers to have a knack for cozying up to big shots,” he said. “I guess you’re trying to brownnose as much as possible, maybe get a little bonus at the end. There’s no other reason you’d get close to that—that—”

Time to shut him up, thought Loren. While he didn’t care what anyone said about him, he believed Scena was better off not hearing whatever came out of Claes's mouth next. With one hand, he grabbed the dead tree Scena had been sitting on and hoisted it up.

Yet before he was ready to throw it, something flew past his side at tremendous speed. Loren froze, log still in hand. His eyes were locked on Claes, who flew backward, having taken a blow to the face.

As Loren slowly set the log down, he noted that the unidentified flying object had been one of the many sticks gathered for firewood. He could tell Lapis had chucked it—who else could do so with such brute force?

Ange and Laure hurriedly raced up to Claes. Leila the knight glared at Lapis but quickly averted her eyes. A clear and deep-set fear had settled over the lady knight’s face.

“Lapis, is it safe to look at you yet?” Loren timidly asked. He had positioned his body to block Scena’s line of sight.

He got only the most innocently cheerful reply. “Why, there’s no problem whatsoever. Hurry and bring Miss Scena over.”

Scena looked up at Loren curiously, none the wiser. He placed a hand on her head, decided it was better not to know what exactly the knight had seen on Lapis’s face, and gave up thinking about it.

The next quarrel came as they prepared to depart the next day. The female adventurers who would have ridden in Scena’s wagon refused to join her again.

Excluding the two adventurers who had died, Scena’s escort and the driver all regained consciousness by morning. They had recovered enough to move on their own, but after hearing of the mysterious circumstances of their illness, they turned down their prized seats for the second leg of the journey.

No one blamed them for it. Two people had died just from riding on that wagon. There was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again and no telling who would be next.

That didn’t mean they could leave their client on a wagon alone—that simply wasn’t an option on an escort quest. Someone had to be ready to come to her aid the instant something untoward happened.

“What a pain,” Brosse grumbled—not that he planned to ride with her.

Can’t blame him either, Loren thought.

“In that case, how about we ride with her?” Lapis proposed, as if the idea had only just struck her.

“You sure about that?” Loren asked.

Lapis clapped her hands together like she was trying to imply this was a brilliant idea. For himself, Loren didn’t mind as long as Lapis was up for it. Still, a touch of anxiety lingered, muddying his expression.

“We were perfectly fine last night,” Lapis pointed out.

They had initially approached Scena due to reluctance to leave her by herself. After that, they had found themselves equally averse to abandoning her to sleep on her own—even if she would be surrounded by the other adventurers. After some consultation with Brosse, they had moved Scena’s tent closer to their own.

Saying she had lost her appetite, Scena ultimately barely ate a thing, but she seemed to appreciate the consideration. She also seemed to enjoy the company. To Loren, her lack of appetite suggested she was taking this situation a lot harder than her appearance suggested, and he had done his best to strike up conversation.

The night had passed in this way. As of yet, Loren hadn’t fallen unconscious, nor did he feel ill. All the same, he hesitated.

“Or are you going to tell little Miss Scena to enjoy her trip alone?” Lapis asked.

“I…don’t know.” Loren thought for another moment. It wasn’t that he wanted to leave Scena there anxious and abandoned—in fact, he would much rather avoid such a thing if he could. Ever since his company had fallen, Loren had experienced enough loneliness to grow sick of seeing anyone endure it.

“In that case, I think you should take one for the team,” said Lapis. “Don’t you?”

Ultimately, Loren lurched over to Brosse and made the proposal.

“Are you two gonna be okay?” the old hand asked.

“Reckon so,” said Loren. “We spent a whole night close by the girl. Way I see it, the problem’s not with her.”

“Well, fine, if you’re all right with it. It’d actually be a real burden off my shoulders. Doesn’t matter the circumstances—leaving a client unsupervised is terrible for the reputation.”

“Great. Are there enough seats in the other wagons for everyone?”

“Any folks who don’t want to ride with her can put up with some cramped knees as recompense. Forget them. Anything happens, you tell me. Wouldn’t want you collapsing on us too.”

And with that, Brosse accepted the proposal. After all, none of the other adventurers were about to step up.

“Oh, it’s you, Mister…” Scena greeted the two of them with a mix of surprise and delight.

Loren smiled and waved, putting her at ease as best as he could. Then he left her to Lapis and took a seat right behind the driver. From there, he could keep watch over the wagon and the driver’s condition at the same time. Sure, the driver was back on his feet, but he hadn’t completely recovered. It would be trouble if he made a mistake and strayed off the path. This position also let Loren shout to the other wagons if he had to, and it gave him the appearance of the bodyguard of a high-class lady, which might deter unwelcome attention.

Not long after, the camp was packed up, and the caravan once more set off for Hansa.

“Be careful from here on!” Brosse shouted to his party members. A majority of the guild’s envoys had disappeared at the two-day mark.

“Are we going to be…all right?” The tension in the air made it all the way to Scena.

“It’s quite all right.” Lapis reassured her with a smile. “We have an incredibly skilled mercenary with us.”

“You talkin’ about me?” asked Loren.

“Who else is there, Mr. Cleaving Gale?”

“Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve got the wrong guy.”

Lapis looked quite taken aback by this statement.

Loren scratched his head and was compelled to explain. “I get that a lot, sure. But think about it. How the hell would someone like me get a moniker like that?”

“Does that mean you’ve met the real Cleaving Gale?”

“Of course not. I’d be dead.”

Lapis put a finger to her chin for a short while and then looked at him with probing eyes. “Incidentally, Mr. Loren, has anyone ever told you you’re slow on the uptake?”

“Frequently, actually. What about it?”

“So that’s it. I see.” Lapis nodded with newfound understanding, earning her quite a confused look from Scena.

Whatever she’d learned from that, she didn’t seek to learn more. Loren set his focus back on the road, absentmindedly listening to the idle banter inside.

 

“It’s so uneventful, I’d say it’s a bit of a letdown,” Lapis exclaimed over a stifled yawn. Some time had passed since they had broken camp; it was nearly noon. Whatever they were keeping an eye out for never attacked. The journey proceeded steadily, and no one seemed ill after riding with Scena.

“It’s about time we find a spot to rest,” said the driver.

Loren chewed over this. It’s already that time, eh? he thought as his eyes caught sight of a few silhouettes down the path.

“Someone’s ahead of us.”

“Travelers, maybe?” said the driver.

Loren wasn’t so optimistic; he narrowed his eyes to focus.

He had noticed them from the center wagon, so of course, the front wagon had already seen them as well. A line of around ten-odd figures blocked the road. Perhaps they had yet to notice the wagons, as they showed no hint of getting out of the way, forcing the front wagon to slow down.

“Did something happen?” Lapis asked as theirs decelerated in turn.

Not that Loren had a clear grasp on the situation either. Soon, all three wagons had come to a complete stop, wary of the unmoving figures ahead. A handful of adventurers from the front wagon disembarked and approached the line.

“The hell are you, and what’re you doin’ here?”

“Oi, can’t you tell you’re blocking the way?”

Armed adventurers shouting in gruff tones would usually be enough to startle the standard band of travelers, but the shadows didn’t move.

Loren left Scena to Lapis and jumped down. He walked to the front of the caravan, where he met up with Brosse.

“Something strange about this.” Brosse held a hand over his eyes to squint through the harsh sunlight.

Looking in the same direction, Loren nodded. “I can tell. Who are they?”

The shadows were dressed like normal townsfolk, as far as he could see. They were unarmed; they simply stood there. For a moment, he didn’t think they looked too dangerous, but he just as soon corrected himself.

These folks stood in the middle of a highway, one with no towns or villages nearby. In other words, the figures were dressed normally for town living but not for being way out in the middle of the wild. Indeed, none of them looked at all prepared for traveling.

Loren grew warier and warier. “Hey—”

Just before he could speak his mind, the shadows finally registered the adventurers. A few turned to face them at ludicrous speeds. Their mouths opened so far one might think their jaws had unhinged. Their fingers curled like claws, and they began their sluggish approach.

“Brosse!”

“What in the goddamn name of—wait, you lot, get back!”

Brosse’s warning proved unnecessary. The adventurers in front turned and fled, desperate to avoid this conflict. The shadows continued to lurch forward in cold pursuit.

“Hey now, what’s going on here?” asked Loren. “Aren’t they human? How’d they get here?”

Had they been dealing with monsters, the adventurers would have drawn their weapons and gone on the attack. However, while the group approaching them definitely behaved strangely, none of them looked any different from an average person.

In this moment of confusion, the priest Laure called to them with as much volume as she could muster. “Everyone, watch out! Those are undead!”

“You serious? Undead in broad daylight?!”

While some of the adventurers cried out in shock, Loren calmly studied the figures. He wasn’t too knowledgeable about the undead, but this wasn’t his first encounter. A battlefield was more or less a factory for corpses filled with regret. While undead weren’t that common, they popped up from time to time—especially when slain bodies were left to fester.

To wit, he knew ghosts couldn’t appear under sunlight, but the ones with physical bodies, like zombies, could on occasion be seen wandering the battlefield at any hour of the day.

“Which means they’re zombies?” he asked.

A handful of adventurers raced up past Loren. The red-haired boy was in the lead, followed by a knight, a magician, and a priest. Claes and his party had rushed out, weapons in hand, to intercept the approaching undead.

“They’re jumping the gun,” Brosse sighed bitterly, but they were technically doing the right thing.

Loren had every confidence that four iron-rank adventurers could wipe out mere zombies without issue. Actually, this would be a good opportunity to determine whether Claes had the skill to back up his bravado. He watched the road ahead with deep interest.

 

“Don’t run too far ahead, Claes!” Leila cautioned, to no avail.

Claes kept up his swift pace and drew his longsword just as swiftly. The glimmer of his blade outshone the sun itself. As these figures took what looked to be a fearful step back, Claes’s lips curled into a smile. “Zombies are no match for me.”

Like Loren, Claes had concluded these were zombies. Zombies ranked high among the undead in terms of threat level, as they possessed the ability to increase their numbers by biting living flesh. However, they were so feeble that even copper-rank adventurers had little trouble dispatching them. An iron-rank party could eradicate them without breaking a sweat, even if outnumbered.

Not that any of that mattered to Claes. He was an up-and-coming adventurer with many hopes riding on his shoulders. For his own reasons, he had to prove he had the skill set to warrant that investment.

Thus, he decided to take the initiative whenever other adventurers hesitated. His comrades knew his determination, and for precisely that reason, they followed without complaint.

“Get back to your graves!” Claes cried as he swung. His blade plunged into the neck of the zombie in the lead.

The slow-moving undead failed to put up a defense. For that, it earned itself a severed windpipe. But Claes scowled as his sword stuck midway through this flesh—trapped in the neck he wanted to cut.

Zombie bodies were no stronger in death than they had been in life. Rather, damage and decay made them even more fragile. However, the one Claes had just cut still looked human. Neither could he detect any sign of mortal rot. What’s more, the force of his strike would have decapitated a normal human, yet he had met strong resistance about halfway through.

“Take that!” Claes was still an iron-rank adventurer. He mustered his strength the moment he felt the blade fight back, forcing it the rest of the way through, and kicked down the newly headless husk.

“They’re solid!” cried Leila, just beside him. She had torn another figure’s shoulder open. Her blow had similarly stopped at the collarbone, and as it tried to grab her, she kicked it to the ground. Pulling her sword free, she stuck the blade into its neck and twisted to dislocate the spine. “They’re not just zombies!”

At Leila’s warning, Laure put her hands together. Her mouth moved in muted prayer until her eyes snapped open in shock. “They’re revenants!” she shouted.

Anxiety washed over the adventurers. The word revenant meant “one who returns,” and it was reserved for a specific class of undead. They came to be in practically the same way as zombies: through regret, a spell, or the designs of another powerful undead. Compared to zombies—who, while unhinged, possessed essentially the same abilities they had in life—a revenant was stronger dead than alive and could even retain a certain level of intellect.

To wit, they were generally stronger than zombies. One-on-one, a copper would have a tough time facing a revenant, while a savvy iron would flee if they came in great enough numbers.

“Think he needs help?” Brosse reached for his weapon—dual handaxes.

Loren glanced his way and then back toward the battlefield. “Doubt it.”

Claes fought so fiercely. He made mincemeat of his foes, never faltering, even knowing he was up against revenants. Each swing inflicted a clean cut.

Seeing the enemies begin to fall, Brosse relaxed his hand. “He’s not just talk.”

“Guess not.” Loren nodded. Putting aside whether or not he liked the guy, Claes’s technique deserved praise.

“How about you? Just gonna sit and watch?”

“Who knows?” said Loren.

Loren’s understanding was that Claes took issue with him and Lapis because they’d joined the quest on the power of their connections. In short, he despised the thought of someone hitching a ride on a job they didn’t have the skills to complete. In that case, Loren wanted to know if Claes himself had what it took.

That said, this was only half the reason he watched. The other half was to keep an eye out, making sure no other foes approached. Ten-odd undead suddenly appearing in the middle of a road was strange by any measure. Perhaps something nearby had produced them. And maybe whatever or whoever that was had positioned the revenants as bait. Loren couldn’t dismiss the chance of a surprise attack.

Undead generally lacked intelligence, but entities advanced enough to create them could be just as cunning as humans, if not more so. Take vampires, for instance. Loren knew those existed, at the very least.

“Maybe I’m overthinking it,” he muttered.

“Hah?”

“Just talking to myself. Looks like they’re finishing up.”

Just as Loren said, the number of revenants was steadily declining. Claes’s abilities went without saying, but Leila’s sword skills also proved considerable; she impaled and immobilized a new revenant with each thrust. As follow-up, Laure the priest smacked Leila’s stuck revenants with her mace, putting an abrupt end to their afterlives.

Only the magician Ange had no part to play, not that she could help it. Her comrades were too skilled to need magical support, and magicians could cast magic only a limited number of times a day. Even so, it took a certain talent to calmly observe the situation and refrain from expending unneeded power.

“It’s over!” Claes took a sharp step toward the last one.

Then—light burst from both his feet and his longsword.

“What?!” Brosse shouted in shock.

Loren’s eyes widened ever so slightly.

Claes closed in and slashed the last revenant more fleetly and sharply than before. His blade entered from the undead’s shoulder and exited from their flank, meeting barely any resistance.

His party members all yelled as he did so.

“Claes?! You idiot!”

“Claes.”

“Looks like he got too fired up.”

Claes turned to the other adventurers, his attitude practically screaming, How do you like that?

However, he was abruptly surrounded by his party members, who scolded him one after the next.

“Don’t show that off left and right, how many times have I told you?!” Leila snapped.

“B-but it’s not really a problem if anyone sees, is it?” said Claes.

“Claes, you can never tell who’s watching. Please contain yourself,” Laure urged.

“You could have won normally,” Ange said. “You really are stupid.”

“Ange, I’m, uh…”

The magician’s cold words hurt Claes the most, though he did his best to make excuses as he deflated.

Meanwhile, Brosse was unable to believe what he had seen. He stood there in a daze. “What was that? He suddenly went—poof.”

“You couldn’t follow?” asked Loren. “Man, I don’t want to get old.”

“Piss off! You’re saying you saw?”

“For what it’s worth.”

If Loren had seen those movements for the first time while fighting Claes, he didn’t know if he would have been able to deal with them. That fearsome acceleration, the unbelievable edge of the sword in his hand… A revenant’s body was sturdy, resistant to damage—yet Claes had severed the last one cleanly, bones and all.

Technically speaking, Loren thought he might be able to meet the boy’s blade if he really had to—but he would need the right sword. A normal longsword would be ruined, either by the end of the fight or because it snapped midway through.

“Still, what even was that?” Brosse muttered.

“Yes, about that,” Lapis said, nosing in on their conversation.

Brosse flinched—she had appeared before he sensed her presence. Loren was less flustered, though he gave her a side eye.

“You know what he did?”

“Of course I do. I don’t serve the god of knowledge for nothing.” As Lapis proudly raised her chin, Loren nodded, urging her on. She let out a somewhat deflated snort. “That was probably Boost.”

“Magic?” Loren assumed.

Lapis shook her head. “It isn’t. For argument’s sake, there is a similar spell called Assist. However, while Assist provides a marginal increase to the abilities of the person it is cast on, Boost enhances not only the person but his equipment as well.”

“Sounds convenient.”

If Lapis was to be believed, Boost enhanced the effects of sword, armor, and every single tool a person held while so amplified. Loren and Brosse both realized just how powerful that could be.

“You don’t see it often,” said Lapis. “Normally, only those with the aptitude to become heroes or paragons can use that.”

Loren didn’t know the difference between heroes and paragons; they were both undoubtedly too high up in the clouds to matter to him. However, he let out a sigh. He had just realized how much of a pain this was going to be, being loathed by someone who was apparently close to being one or the other.

“That’s, well… I can’t blame the guy for being a stuck-up prick, I guess,” he said. “Not when he’s got that.” Although Loren had to wonder what someone with those gifts was doing as an adventurer. Granted, that muddled matter had nothing to do with him. He decided not to think about it.

“It seems he’s sponsored by the adventurers’ guild at the moment, but I take it he’s being propped up by some country as well,” said Lapis.

“Doesn’t matter. Not to us. Someone like him’s not gonna remember us once this quest is over.” Despite what he said, Loren took a step forward.

Lapis chased him rather frantically; she had noticed he was walking toward Claes. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. But for now…” Loren nodded ahead, not at the ruckus Claes’s party was still making but at the bodies strewn around them. “We should bury them. Can’t just leave them out to rot.”

“A sound point.” Lapis nodded.