Chapter 397: Three Travelers

The town gave them exactly what Boren had demanded: hot food, proper beds, and an innkeeper who charged him extra because his luggage occupied half a storage room.

Sage considered the last part deserved. They left shortly after sunrise the next morning, passing through the eastern gate with several merchant wagons heading in the same direction.

For the first few hours, Boren complained about the storage fee with such persistence that Mina eventually began repeating his arguments in an exaggerated voice.

Sage tried ignoring both of them while reading a small spellbook inside the carriage, but concentration became impossible when Mina leaned over his shoulder for the fourth time and asked whether he had reached the interesting part yet.

"There is no interesting part," Sage told her, closing the book before she could turn another page. "It’s a study on mana compression. You complained after three sentences."

Mina shrugged and reached into her bag for another sweet. "Because whoever wrote it needed fewer words."

Across from them, Boren nodded gravely. "The child understands scholarship."

By midday, Sage had decided walking beside the carriage was preferable to listening to them.

The road wound through open farmland before entering a long stretch of wooded hills, and when they stopped beside a stream to rest the horses, Sage moved away from the camp and began practicing.

Small circles of mana formed above his palm, compressed, separated, then reformed as he worked on controlling several streams simultaneously. Being a 4-Star Master Mage had not made practice unnecessary; if anything, the greater amount of mana available to him made sloppy control more obvious.

He had barely settled into a rhythm when Mina appeared beside him and started copying his hand movements despite producing absolutely nothing.

Sage ignored her until she narrowed her eyes dramatically, pointed at a tree, and whispered something that sounded suspiciously like "Supreme Destruction Magic."

He finally lowered his hand and asked what she thought she was doing.

Mina maintained her serious expression.

"Training."

Sage looked toward the completely innocent tree. "You’re threatening a tree."

Mina nodded. "It knows what it did."

Sage stared at her, then noticed Boren sitting beside the fire trying not to laugh. "Take your student back."

Boren immediately shook his head. "Too talented for me."

Lunch became another argument. Boren had purchased roasted meat, fresh bread, dried fruit and a jar of expensive honey in town, then calmly informed Sage that all of it should be recorded as travel expenses.

Sage accepted the bread and meat, questioned the honey, and discovered that Boren’s definition of necessary expenditure had expanded considerably since leaving Greyvale.

"Food is obviously a travel expense," Boren argued while spreading honey across a piece of bread. "And good food keeps morale high. Therefore expensive food is practically an investment in Guild efficiency."

Sage pointed toward a small wrapped package beside him. "What about that?"

Boren glanced at it. "Spiced cakes."

Sage asked whether those were necessary too, and Boren answered without hesitation. "Morale."

Sage then pointed toward the bottle Boren had purchased before leaving town. "And that?"

Boren’s confidence faltered slightly. "Medicinal."

Mina immediately looked interested and asked what kind of medicine it was.

Boren cleared his throat. "The kind adults drink after difficult days."

Sage held out his hand. "You’re paying for that yourself."

Boren looked genuinely wounded. "This organization has no respect for employee welfare."

The three continued like that for two more days, and somewhere between shared meals, roadside camps and Boren’s increasingly creative attempts to classify personal purchases as Guild expenses, the journey developed an easy rhythm.

They traveled until late afternoon, found an inn when one was available and camped when there wasn’t.

Sage used most stops to practice magic or review reports carried from Evergreen by courier, although Leona had apparently taken his warning seriously because very few required his attention.

Mina explored every campsite as though expecting treasure beneath ordinary rocks, while Boren somehow became responsible for cooking despite complaining every time. It was different from traveling with Gregor, Valeria, Vanthrice and the others.

There were fewer discussions about missions and fewer powerful fighters constantly watching the surroundings.

For once Sage wasn’t leading an expedition into a Vault or hunting monsters. They were simply three travelers heading toward another city, and he found the normality unexpectedly pleasant.

On the third morning, they caught up with a large merchant caravan moving east along the Royal Road.

Nearly twenty wagons traveled together beneath the protection of hired mercenaries, with merchants, servants and several ordinary passengers filling the spaces between them.

Their driver spoke briefly with the caravan master and learned they would follow the same road for several days before separating near another regional junction.

Traveling together meant greater safety and easier camps, so Sage agreed when they were invited to join the rear of the column. Nobody paid much attention to them beyond the usual questions.

Sage introduced himself simply as Sage, while Boren somehow managed to spend ten minutes talking with a grain merchant without revealing anything useful about himself.

Mina made friends with an elderly woman traveling to visit her son before Sage even learned the woman’s name, and within an hour she had somehow acquired a handful of dried berries from another passenger despite having enough sweets in her own bag to survive the entire journey.

The caravan stopped that evening in a broad clearing commonly used by travelers.

Fires appeared between the wagons, horses were watered, guards changed shifts and merchants gathered in small groups to eat while discussing prices and road conditions.

Sage sat near one of the larger fires with Mina and Boren when conversation turned toward Evergreen.

A heavyset merchant named Orwin had recently returned from Riverdale and spoke enthusiastically about the amount of business appearing around Adventurer Guild branches.

"I’m telling you, the demand is ridiculous," he said while tearing bread apart over his bowl. "Weapons, leather, preserved food, medicine, rope, tents, monster-processing tools. Put a shop near one of their branches and you’ve got adventurers walking past your door from sunrise until night. I’m considering moving one of my nephews there and opening a supply store before everyone else gets the same idea."

Another merchant sitting opposite him snorted. "I’ve heard the stories. Half of them sound like tavern nonsense. Hundreds of thousands of adventurers suddenly belonging to one organization? Dungeons ranked with letters? A tower that helps people cultivate? Every trader coming out of Evergreen adds another miracle to the story."

Orwin pointed his spoon at him. "Then go see it yourself. Riverdale isn’t imaginary. Neither is the Guild branch. I watched adventurers line up to register missions, and merchants there are making money because those people spend constantly. The Guild takes its portion, of course, but at least everything is organized. I hired escorts through them once. Price was written down, route was registered, and I knew the strength of the people I was paying before they touched my cargo."

Boren glanced toward Sage with the smallest hint of satisfaction. Sage pretended not to notice and continued eating. Hearing Guild members praise the organization was one thing; listening to merchants who had no idea they were sitting beside its founder was considerably more interesting.

Not every opinion was flattering. One caravan owner complained that Guild rules made certain jobs more expensive because weak adventurers could no longer be hired cheaply for dangerous work.

Another disliked the fees charged on some services. Orwin argued that paying slightly more was preferable to hiring five fools who fled at the first monster, and the discussion quickly became lively enough that several travelers from nearby fires joined in.

Then a thin merchant near the fire leaned forward with the expression of a man about to share something far more important. "Forget the branches. Have any of you heard about their Guildmaster? They say the man can find dungeons before they appear."

Sage stopped with his cup halfway to his mouth. Boren immediately looked down, suddenly fascinated by his dinner, while the skeptical merchant laughed and dismissed the claim as exactly the kind of nonsense he had been talking about.

"How does someone find a dungeon that hasn’t appeared?" he asked, but another merchant quickly joined the discussion, claiming nobles across Evergreen were furious because the Adventurer Guild kept acquiring dungeons before anyone else even realized they existed.

Mina made a strange choking sound beside Sage. He turned slowly toward her and found both of her hands covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she desperately tried not to laugh.

Sage gave her a warning look sharp enough to make her lower her eyes, although that only seemed to make the situation worse.

Orwin noticed her reaction. "Something funny, little miss?"

Mina shook her head much too quickly. "No. I just remembered something about mushrooms."

Sage closed his eyes briefly.

"Mushrooms?" Orwin repeated.

"Nothing important," Sage said before Mina could explain. "Please continue."

The thin merchant happily did. "One story says the Guildmaster has some ancient magical compass. Another says he has Mages stationed across Evergreen watching mana disturbances. But the best one I heard is that he can smell dungeons underground."

Mina’s face turned red. Boren coughed into his fist. Sage calmly drank from his cup and decided there were moments when revealing his identity solely to end a conversation might be justified.

Instead, he endured several more theories, including one claiming he had made a contract with an underground spirit that whispered dungeon locations into his dreams.

By the time the merchants moved on to discussing taxes in the next region, Mina was leaning against Sage with tears in her eyes from holding back laughter, and Boren had wisely refused to make eye contact with him.

Later that night, Sage sat outside the circle of wagons practicing mana control while most of the caravan slept. Three small spheres of compressed mana rotated above his palm, changing direction whenever he shifted his fingers.

Mina sat nearby wrapped in a blanket, supposedly watching but clearly fighting sleep.

Boren approached carrying two cups and handed one to Sage before lowering himself onto a fallen log. "For what it’s worth, Guildmaster, I think the underground spirit story has potential."

Sage didn’t look at him as he threatened to deduct the expensive honey from Boren’s salary.

Boren immediately straightened. "Baseless slander. Terrible rumor. I never believed a word of it."

Mina’s sleepy voice drifted from beneath her blanket. "Dungeon nose."

One of Sage’s mana spheres flickered out, and Boren suddenly found the darkness beyond the camp extremely interesting.

The next morning the caravan resumed its journey, following the Royal Road between wooded slopes that gradually tightened around them.

Sage spent part of the morning riding outside the carriage simply for the quiet, while Mina talked with passengers farther up the column and Boren attempted to convince a merchant that sampling local food qualified as professional research for future Guild restaurants.

By afternoon, clouds had gathered overhead and the road narrowed as it entered a long pass between rocky hills.

The mercenaries became more attentive there, spreading themselves along the wagons while the caravan master urged everyone to keep closer formation.

Sage noticed the change but sensed nothing immediately dangerous, so he continued beside their carriage, watching the tree line and occasionally exchanging words with one of the guards.

The caravan had almost reached the narrowest part of the pass when shouting suddenly came from somewhere near the front.

The lead wagons stopped so abruptly that horses reared against their harnesses, drivers pulled hard on their reins, and the halt traveled backward through the column until every wagon stood motionless on the road.

Mercenaries immediately reached for their weapons while merchants began rising from their seats, trying to see past the wagons blocking their view. Mina stopped talking.

Boren leaned from the carriage, his earlier humor disappearing as more shouting carried from ahead.

Sage turned toward the front of the caravan.

Something had happened on the road ahead.