7 – Scouting

Vivi flew across the city, marveling at the wonder of the experience. Beneath her, Prismarche sprawled out. The city had grown, but compared to modern cities as she knew them, it was tiny. It had to be, when the entire city was enclosed in a wall. Cities in safer territories could get away without defensive barriers, but not this far north.

Lailah had worked her way into the wilderness. As Vivi caught up, she saw that the woman’s party consisted of four people. Lailah, her teammate ‘Dom’, a young man in white robes, and the surprise addition: Saffra. The red-haired catgirl seemed to be a mage, based on the slim length of white wood she was carrying—a wand.

After the warnings Saffra had given, Vivi was baffled as to why she would accept a party invitation from Lailah. Briefly, she wondered whether she had warned her away as some sort of ploy to ensure her own spot on the team.

But that didn’t make sense. Saffra was glaring daggers at the two older adventurers, only wiping the expression away when they looked her way.

The party of four was trekking through the pine forest that started immediately outside Prismarche’s walls. If logic between game and reality held, Prismarche was in the far north of the human continent, in a dangerous area even by the standards of this monster-infested world.

Vivi hadn’t needed to travel far to reach orichalcum-rank monsters—which seemed to be shorthand for levels 800 to 1000—and such beasts could rampage through the vast majority of adventurers. She didn’t think any amount of gold-ranks could kill one, and gold ranks were already uncommon from what she’d seen at the Adventurer’s Guild. Most were bronze and silver.

Exiting the safety of Prismarche immediately brought people into level 200 plus territory. Meaning silver-rank threats. It wouldn’t take long for this party of four to find monsters worth their time, seeing how all of them were wearing silver badges themselves.

Vivi was almost certain she had let unfounded paranoia guide her decisions, but Saffra’s worry had been so genuine, and remained so palpable even now, that Vivi persisted, hovering above the group with [Invisibility] active.

Better safe than sorry.

***

These creeps weren’t fooling anyone.

Trekking behind Lailah and Dominic, Saffra glared at their backs as Allen went on and on about some healing spell he’d recently mastered. This boy had to be several years older than her, but it sure didn’t feel like it. Did he not realize the situation he was in? The danger these two represented?

Not that she could be certain of anything. Lailah and Dominic’s reasons for arriving in town were perfectly natural. Prismarche, being the nearest border city to the seventh Cataclysm Monarch’s domain and thus the Party of Heroes’ final destination, had always thrown extravagant festivals on Peace Day. On the centennial celebration, travelers had come from all across the continent.

Prismarche already fielded more adventurers than average, but with the festival, there were three times the normal amount in the city. Maybe even extra orichalcums, possibly a Titled. An influx of new faces wasn’t odd. Not in the slightest.

Lailah and Dominic’s stories checked out in all aspects.

She didn’t care. Something was off about them. Saffra trusted her gut. After what had happened the last time she hadn’t, she wouldn’t ignore her instincts again.

She clutched the silver necklace hanging around her neck to calm her nerves.

The question was, why was she out here with them?

She should be looking out for herself. Who cared if this blond-haired clueless idiot had blindly accepted their party invitation without a worry in the world?

She didn’t even know Allen. Apparently he was a local, an acolyte at the temple, and often visited the Guild. So maybe she should. She’d been in Prismarche for four months and had made the Guild her home; she slept there every night. She guessed his face was vaguely familiar.

But no, she hadn’t accepted Lailah’s invitation because she knew Allen. She just…couldn’t let this cheerful idiot face this alone.

And even she knew she was probably being paranoid. Something about Lailah and Dominic made her skin itch, but what was she expecting? That they would murder them to harvest their belongings without fear of retribution from the city guard? Adventurers did tend to carry around most of their net worth on their person, so it wasn’t implausible. Murdering adventurers was a great method for making money, if one didn’t have morals.

Or worse, capture and sell them alive?

In either case, that was where Saffra’s mind had gone, generally speaking. It wasn’t all that rare. Not common, but there was a dark underbelly of crime throughout the human kingdoms—any civilization really—that even the most naive of citizens were wary of.

And adventurers were some of the easiest people to make disappear without suspicion. What would most people think, even Guild staff, if an adventuring mission ‘went awry’ and a team came back minus a person or two? They might make token efforts toward an investigation, but even with divination magic—should they find justification for employing someone who could cast it—they wouldn’t find anything. Not with so little to go on.

Logically speaking, ninety-nine out of a hundred times two older adventurers offering a quick team-up would be friendly camaraderie. Something to do before celebrations began in earnest that night. In fact, that the invitation had been framed as an easy mission further suggested nothing strange was going on. It would be more suspicious, now, if something went wrong.

Yet Saffra had such rotten luck that ninety-nine in a hundred odds didn’t comfort her in the slightest.

In any case, she should be looking out for herself. But she hadn’t been able to convince this tall blond boy to decline the invitation, so Saffra had walked up and offered to join too, and after a moment’s consideration, Lailah had smiled and accepted.

Saffra had to do this. She wasn’t going to let something horrible happen if she could help it. Even if Allen was a stranger.

I can only blame myself, she thought sourly. I deserve what’s coming.

“Remember what we talked about,” Lailah said, smiling over her shoulder. Saffra remembered to wipe her dour expression clean and nod earnestly. “You two are silver ranks, same as me, so I don’t need to harp on you. But you never know when things’ll go wrong, and someone getting hurt is more likely in an unfamiliar group. Keep sharp.”

Allen turned a look toward Saffra as if to say ‘See? They’re good people, they’re looking out for us.’ Saffra seethed in silence, her face not betraying her emotions. Her time at the Institute had made her good at that. Though, in her annoyance, she wasn’t able to put up the usual mask, so she settled for an aggressively blank face. Allen faltered, cleared his throat, and kept walking.

This time of year, the Frostfern Glade was more green than white, and the worst monsters were in hibernation. But it was still more dangerous than almost anything found in southern, safer lands. One of the reasons she’d come here—it made great training grounds. The other, bigger reason was that she’d needed to get as far from Meridian, and thus the Institute, as possible.

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She kept her attention sharp. It would be awfully awkward if she misguidedly came on a hunting expedition she didn’t want to be on, only to die to actual monsters instead of the metaphorical ones in front of her.

Even if, again, she had zero evidence these two couldn’t be trusted.

The first few fights went without a problem. Saffra reluctantly admitted Lailah and Dominic knew what they were doing. Almost too much so. They seemed better than silver-rankers ought to be.

Was it another level of paranoid, to add that to her tiny stack of ‘evidence’? That they might be faking rank to more easily lure in prey? If they were killers or similar, they wouldn’t want to fight on equal footing. They would be solidly gold rank at least.

Saffra started to doubt herself as the hunting trip continued. An hour passed, and a second, and it had only intended to be a casual expedition anyway. Peace Day celebrations would begin in the evening. It was already diligent to be making a short trip into the Glade on an impending holiday.

Sure enough, one fight later, Lailah announced, “That ought to do it. We should head back now. Wouldn’t want to miss any of the fun. Any objections?” She looked around, but received none. “You two did great, by the way,” she added, smiling at Allen and Saffra. “You especially, brat,” she teased Saffra. “I’d swear you’re Institute trained, if not for how the semester ought to still be in session.”

Saffra hadn’t expected the Institute to be brought up. She stiffened slightly, her mask faltering before she smoothed out her expression again. “I’m glad you think I did okay,” she said, somewhat tensely.

“More than ‘okay’,” Lailah laughed. “Watching you makes me feel like I didn’t take my career seriously enough when I was young. I’m twice your age, yet we’re wearing the same badge.”

“Not all paths start and end the same,” Allen said with that sort of faux-wise tone that so many temple acolytes used.

Maybe she was being uncharitable. She didn’t dislike Allen, he was just a huge idiot who didn’t know what was good for him.

…Though she was starting to think he’d been right. If something strange was going to happen, it would have by now.

By all accounts, Lailah seemed to be the friendly older adventurer she was pretending to be. Her bulkier partner was both less suspicious and more—because he’d stayed close to silent the whole time, only making call-outs during combat. His broad-shouldered, scarred appearance was suspect…but not really. Scars and a serious demeanor weren’t anything to make someone blink twice in an adventuring career. She was grasping at straws.

She really had gotten this one wrong. While listening to gut instincts was important, that didn’t mean every impression would be correct.

That feeling solidified as they headed back to the city. If something nefarious was going on, it would have happened in the deepest part of the Glade, where a chance-based intervention was least likely. They were already getting close to the city walls, where another adventuring group might be nearby.

Saffra felt silly about the whole event. At least she’d made some coin and gained experience working on a team. The day hadn’t been a waste, even if she’d had other things she had wanted to pay more attention to.