Chapter 208 – Traveling.

‘She really does lack any kind of combat classes, reminds me of Elodia.’

Roland was looking at the young woman before him. The short letter that he received from her informed him about the specificity of the test. It wasn’t much, he just needed to deliver the Melaina unharmed to the last destination. Probably the unharmed part was the most important component of the mission.

“So Ms. Melaina I just need to ensure your safety for the entire trip, is that right?”

“That’s right and Melaina is fine, I think we are about the same age.”

“Okay, then you can just call me Wayland.”

After having their greetings Roland pointed Melaina towards the merchant leader that she needed to have a talk with. If he understood this correctly, the guild would cover most of the fees that the merchant would need to pay him. Thanks to this the merchant would get a cheap high-level adventurer as a bodyguard while the guild could dump off someone that was untested.

“Okay then, I’ll be watching you Wayland please remember to perform to your utmost ability as is expected of a gold rank adventurer!”

“Expected huh?”

“Is there a problem?”

“Oh, nothing…”

Roland shook his head but the moment the girl mentioned gold rank expectations he just wanted to laugh. Armand was a gold rank adventurer and he could not be considered very trustworthy. The way she was speaking made him feel that her field experience was close to zero.

The only expectations on a higher rank adventurer would be their capability to solve problems. How they solved those problems most of the time didn’t matter and doing it with extreme violence was expected. Her words made it sound as if he was to conduct him like a noble knight or at least that was how he understood it.

“I’m sure you have a lot of work to do, so I will excuse myself then but please remember that this is still a test!”

Finally, after the greeting and a quick back and forth Melaina turned towards the merchant group. She had to make herself known and probably give another letter to the people leading this caravan. Now Roland had to contend with her looking over his shoulder and perhaps lowering his score if he did something that she deemed wrong.

‘I hope she doesn’t expect me to go out of my way to perform at this job, an adventurer also has to know when it’s time to quit…’

The biggest worry he had was that this examiner would have some heightened expectations of him. Yet even if it meant that he failed this test he would not put his life at too much risk. There were far too many people back home that depended on him, the higher rank was nice but it was not worth losing his life. In half a year he could try again and then his equipment and skills would be even higher which would make it easier.

“Wayland, get back to the front cart, we are moving out!”

“Sure.”

The guard leader shouted towards him to go back to his spot while he headed towards the new adventurers that arrived. Like he expected Orson and Dalrak were not riding in his cart, they were even forced to carry some of the crates instead of just acting as guards.

While the new adventurers were getting their tasks handed out he took some time to look at them. There were two new gold ranked adventurers coming along. Together with them, there were four golds and about twenty-five silvers coming on this expedition. This was about the usual ratio of one to five that only increased when going up the ranks.

“You’re already here?”

Finally, his wagon partner made her appearance, the barbarian woman Grisalde was here. When she stepped in her weight made the wagon tilt slightly. Yet this time around she didn’t look as grumpy instead, her face was smiling for some reason. This was surprising as he did manage to embarrass her yesterday by shoving her back.

“Yes, as you can see.”

She just sat down on the opposite side as if nothing happened. Perhaps the small display of his strength had changed her opinion of him but even if it did Grisalde didn’t apologize for her behavior. Instead, she just looked to the side where she spotted a certain halfling walking around.

“Hey, isn’t that the runt from yesterday?”

Roland frowned as he could see that the large woman was now inching towards the exit.

“Just give it a rest, we are all part of this caravan. If you cause more trouble you might not get paid but well, that’s up to you.”

He just shrugged as after meeting the halfling he realized that some tomfoolery was involved. The barbarian was probably scammed by Senna and ended up losing her money. It was impossible for him to keep watch over the barbarian to not try anything funny and it was not his responsibility either.

If the halfling decided to cheat people out of their money she needed to be fine with the consequences. The only part that he didn’t like was that some of his acquaintances were involved with it. If it wasn’t for them he would have also stayed out of the drama.

“You know what, you might be right.”

“Oh?”

Roland was surprised that perhaps the barbarian wasn’t that dense but he was quickly disappointed by the follow-up.

“Yeah, I’ll just challenge her to another game, double or nothing!”

“Oh…, Well good luck with that.”

Finally, the wagons started moving and he could see that they had doubled in the amount of cargo they were now carrying. He was still riding the furthermost cart which gave him a good vantage point to observe the rest.

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‘Now will this go as smoothly as everyone thinks it will…’
After leaving this region they would be arriving at the lawless zones of the island. Such places were mostly thinly populated where not even villages existed. Without a large human presence, monsters would flock to the unregulated space.

There were a couple of things they had to watch out for, the easiest would be monsters that didn’t wander in packs or in smaller ones. Those would probably not be an issue due to the size of their caravan. Then there was one of the worst they could meet, organized monster tribes.