Adventure Calls

Some days later, on the eve of my being able to move in in my new house actually, there was a sudden commotion next to the village entrance.

"Listen Judis, the outside world is not as forgiving as you might think. You're only nineteen, there's hardly any chance you will be able to take on enough missions to sustain yourself until your skill matches the minimum requirement for Fox rank ! " The old man explained, desperate to keep his son from leaving the village.

"Come on dad ! I know that already, this is why I planned on taking a side gig while I worked on climbing the ranks."

"And whose money do you think will be able to put a roof over your head in the meantime !?"

"Yours obviously, unless you plan on forsaking me !?"

The tension had kicked up another notch at this threat. The reason for the ongoing argument was simple, Judis the only son of the bartender working at the pub wanted to leave the village and travel to Depteria to become an adventurer.
Depteria, or the labyrinth city, was a large town on the outskirts of the main entrance to the most famous labyrinth of the continent. As such, the majority of the population there dealt in the various trades that enjoyed dealing with adventurers. Something that was to be found there as well, was obviously a large guild. In fact this adventurer guild was the largest in the world. There were various other guilds for other occupations, but they weren't nearly as frequented as the aforementioned one. Point being that if you were an aspiring adventurer, this was without a doubt the place to head to. 

"Of course not ! But you need to realize that if I'm this worried it's exactly because I simply cannot provide you with enough funds to have peace of mind." His father announced, feeling miserable.

That being said, for a teenager it would obviously be difficult to make a living out of it in the beginning. The pay was low for the lower ranks and a lot of the requests were tagged 30+ –with equivalents for longer living races– to indicate they didn't want to deal with people under this age. 
As for the argument of having his dad support his endeavor financially, as much as I understood where he was coming from and thought it was fair, Judis seemed to forget about the reality of his dad, no, of this village's situation.

Upon realizing what he'd made his father shout, Judis went quiet. It was irrefutable after all. And even he could understand how difficult it would be to even reach his destination like this.
He must be pissed at himself for having refused to help out his dad at the bar all this time. I thought absentmindedly as I waited for the young blacksmith to bring me my order.
That day I would see the result of the hours of brainstorming we had done over the creation of my new equipment. Along with the leftover material for my sword that Xenia had graciously offered me, I'd gone to fetch a few other things from the mountains to complete the list and that was all. Needless to say I was pretty excited for the result.

"Oh I know !" Judis exclamed. "Why don't we ask Sensei to come along ?"

At the mention of the oh-so familiar title, I felt a jolt up my spine. Come on...

Over the weeks I had spent around here, obviously I had managed to get acquainted with everyone from the village. Judis was one of them. Joining the grown-ups and myself for our hunting sessions as often as he could, Judis had already talked about his dream with me. Not seeing any reason to hide it, I revealed how I had undergone training under a knight commander in another country. As a result, Judis had asked me to become his own instructor. Then, one thing led to another and I ended up training, or at least overseeing, his whole party's daily practices.

"Look, if we bring him along we'll have two front liners, a scout, and someone who can do all
three !" He delivered, ecstatic.

Don't make it sound like you can just pick me up like a random luguage and put me to use.
I complained inwardly, slightly exasperated. I didn't expect his dad to agree anyway, so I said nothing. That man had to know that wouldn't solve their money issue. Not only that, but I was also basically a stranger on top of being an experienced fighter so, if anything, they should be paying extra if they wanted me to come along and ensure their safety.

"Hmm.. you make a valid point." Conceeded the middle-aged bartender, much to my surprise. 
"Go ask him."

Once again, the village was quite small, and I was stuck before the blacksmith's cart since I was waiting for him to finish, so Judis found me without issue.

"Sensei !" He called, a big smile plastered over his face. "Did you hear ?"

"No." I feigned ignorance.

"Dad has given us permission to leave the village !" Stop lying, I thought. "But he said he wanted to hire you to be our escort on the way." 

Upon hearing that as he made his way towards us, his dad bonked him on the head with a fist and took over the negociations.

"Forgive my stupid son.. he's way too eager to leave this shithole, you see."He started. "That said, it is true I would feel more confident about sending him off if you were willing to at least show them the way."

"It's fine I understand. Though I have to say I'm not too thrilled at the prospect of departing right now." I said, gesturing with my chin to the nearly completed house sitting at the edge of the village.

"I can imagine. And while it's true I should hire you rather than ask for a favor, if I want to squeeze out enough money to truly support his decision, I fear I won't be able to spare enough to secure your help on top of that." He admitted.

Ahh... I guess I could offer this much. They have been very welcoming since I first came here after all. And I can always tell him he owes me one in return. Convincing myself I could always ask for a favor later, I decided to conceed. This way I'm also acting on the motive for my departure from Ispron as well I guess, kind of.

"Fine. Let's just say you owe me one for now, and I'll ask for more in the event they bring me trouble along the way." I finally said. "In that case however, I expect their parents to chip in as well of course."
Sparing a glance and a giving furtive wink over at the parents of Judis' comrades and party members, I completed the deal.

"Sensei !!" Launching themselves at me, my four disciples celebrated my decision by hugging me and thanking me countless times. Leaving me a little embarassed. They are as tall as me when I was their age, but their emotional maturity must be way below what an earthling would expect from those numbers. I marveled, still taking in the cultural differences and the issue of lifespans.

                                                                         _____________

"Woah, is this the new armor you were talking about, Sensei ?" Mikel, the party's tank, asked excitedly as he saw me reorder the content of my large briefcase.

"Yeah and it's actually pretty sick if I do say so myself." I was very happy with the result of the blacksmith's work. We had designed the pieces together but, transforming ideas into reality, not to mention so accurately, had been his job. Which he had done to perfection in my opinion.

"Let us see too !" Exclaimed the other three just as excited.

"Nah, I'm keeping it for when I'll need it. I wouldn't want to wear it out unnecessarily before I really need it."

"Boo !"

To be honest, I had barely even seen it myself. I'd put everything on after he'd completed it to check if there were any issue with the measurements or the feeling, but other than that, I'd kept it folded and dismantled in my briefcase. I know this is even sturdier material than what my usual gear was made of, but I can't help but want to treasure it like this for a little longer. 

That night we were taking a stop in Tarta. It was a small town a few kilometers away from the famous underground labyrinth "Fos", so after a week and a half of camping outside beside the carriage, it had been decided we would allow ourselves a bit more comfort and use the opportunity to restock on supplies.

"Hop to bed early, otherwise the city gates will be too busy for us to smoothly exit the town tomorrow." I commanded.
Being the second most frequented town around the labyrinth on this side of the country, Tarta saw a lot of traffic, especially in the morning. So if we wanted to reach the labyrinth city of Depteria before nightfall the day after tomorrow, we would better move out early the next morning.


On the morrow, we were able to successfully prepare to leave around sunrise. Mary, the party's scout, had had trouble waking up but other than that it all went smoothly. At least until we reached the gates.

"Move out of the way, the cleaning crew is coming through !"

Commanding the merchants and onlookers to stand by the side of the main road, a couple riders gestured for a medium sized platoon of soldiers (?) to enter through the gates.

"Hey It's huge ! Who managed to defeat that ?!" Exclaimed an adventurer.

What was most surprising among all the early chaos, was that. An creature the size of an elephant was being hovered in the air inside a magic cage of what appeared to be electricity. A unit of about twenty people in the same uniform walking orderly under and around it. It seemed they were the ones who'd retrived the monster carcasse.
Though it's difficult to tell which monster it belonged too in this state... I admitted. The thing was basically all bones by now, and the people carrying it around didn't seem to have kept its hide. Maybe it was even missing it from the get-go, I ventured. How could I know ? There was only so much I knew about local monsters and wild beasts. A skeleton monster moving around thanks to mana, the source of magic, was not a farfetched conclusion to reach in this world.

"What's the cleaning crew though ?" I wondered out loud, thinking back on how the riders had introduced the bunch that was putting on this show.

"It's a service employed by the adventurer's guild." A passerby explained, catching my whisper as he stood beside me among the crowd. "They are hired to retrieve the monsters and other loot adventurers secure during missions. Although only in case it comes to species of that size in fact. Otherwise they would need to pay extra."

That was interesting to learn. It was true that I never considered how this kind of process would translate into practice, so I was happy to come across the information randomly like this.
After discovering what magic could achieve in this world, I'd grown to believe that most things could be carried out using it. And while it was currently being used to carry the aforementioned task, I kind of expected anybody to be able to manage as much. Which obviously wasn't the case.

"Sensei, the road is clear, let's go." Calmly asserted Jose, our mage.

"Yeah, you're right let's'."

With that, we finally departed on the last leg of our journey.