4 Chapter 4

Like any other day, the inn was completely busy. Surprisingly thou, little Zee was quiet the whole day, maybe it was because he never saw anything aside from the room or maybe because Genna kept giving him small pieces of food every now and then. 'At this rate, he will become a little scaled ball, maybe it is a good idea to go to a tower after all'.

Suddenly Zephyrus felt a small desolated feeling, like a very cold breeze, and he stood up and warily looked around. Finding nothing out of the ordinary he sat again in the small corner he claimed as his, despite the baby-like appearance his eyes scanned everyone he saw as if judging whether to trust them or not.

There was a conflict in his gaze, sometimes it was very innocent but it suddenly got a small glint of wisdom and profound judgment. These changes were very small and quick so they went unnoticed during the whole day, in the end, he felt a closeness to this tall and delicate human that gave him food.

Back in the room, Adrian decided to take another look at his core. Once again Wind essence was gathered during the whole day, using the training manual he took his time and stabilized the proportions of both elemental essence inside his core. The whole process took a little more than three hours this time, he was visibly more tired than yesterday night.

'Clearly the essence accumulates even during my sleep, this is very weird. I haven't heard of anything like this, even back then..' with this thought in mind he looked at Zephyrus, who sat lazily on the floor with a distracted gaze on him.

Focusing on the link they both shared, Adrien slowly started to feel the same things as him. He felt yearning and hunger, abruptly opening his eyes he looked at the little glutton and picked him up.

"Today you got it very nice, didn't you? No more food for today, its time to sleep you little rascal" Hearing this, Zephyrus felt wronged, protesting with a growl that sounded more cute than menacing he tried to struggle free.

Seeing no escape he just felt defeated and let Adrien take him to bed, after placing him near the wall again he softly pat him on the head before saying "tomorrow we will have a lot to do, I need to pay for the ride to the capital and we will need a little luck to get a carriage sooner than later. I will leave you in the kitchen with aunty until I come back, okay?"

His tone of voice was soft as if talking to a little brother. Feeling the emotions of his master the small beast calmed down and rubbed itself affectionately with him, clearly, both the bond they shared as Summoner and Summon plus the way Adrien treated him were slowly getting him to open up.

The relationship of a Summoner and any Summon, either a vital summon or a standard one, was more like family than master and servant. They had to fully and completely trust each other, not only because they had to trust one another with their lives on each battle. But also because if they didn't share any good feeling they won't be able to make use of their strengths properly.

Many techniques and abilities that both could use, depended on their bond aside from their level of strength. In the past many summoners did not take this to heart and always when they needed it the most, their skills and coordination failed, leading them to the worst end possible.

The night slowly went by, once again when Adrien was deep asleep the little Zee crawled out of the sheets and jumped to the floor. This time his movements were smoother and more agile, after two days he was used to his body and his reflexes plus coordination were getting better and better. Despite the chubby appearance, it was surprisingly nimble.

First, he walked around the room for a while before sitting on the floor with a satisfies expression. After this the essence in the air was disturbed, the small beast was constantly absorbing elemental essence like the night before.

~

The following morning Adrien woke up like the day before, tidying everything before coming down with Zephyrus in hand. This time both Genna and Jhon were calm as if the presence of the beast was something that belonged there since olden days. Letting the little beast down he said goodbye and noticed how Genna stealthily gave Zee some small bits of food, he couldn't help but shake his head once he saw the small look of satisfaction the little one had.

'How can he make such human-like expressions, he does not seem like a beast at all'

Walking down the street he noticed the atmosphere full of life, every person was busy either going or coming from work. Shops opened and many shouts filled with advertising joined the already noisy street. Life was always like this in any city, noisy and full of vigor everywhere you looked.

Turning at the corner he saw a group of men carrying boxes from and to their shops, customers entering and exiting the various establishments with relief or disappointment at their findings. After living here for as long as he had, it is normal to recognize a few of the faces, some for their own shops and others for being regular customers at the inn.

He always found interesting how his life had turned out, had someone asked him what he expected of his life when he was young it is obvious that this wouldn't have been his answer. After losing time in his mental musings he found himself just a few meters away from the main square, there was a couple of big buildings and some guards keeping watch around the place.

Despite this being a relatively small city there was a local guard force, it was necessary considering the world they found themselves in. Entering the travel/mercenary agency he quickly found an empty counter and talked with the receptionist.

"Hello, good day"

"Hi there, good day to you too. What would you be needing today, sir?" the receptionist answered with a very rehearsed tone, making clear that she was an old and experienced worker here.

"I was wondering if there is a free seat in the next carriage to the capital"

"Certainly sir, let me check and ill be back with you in a moment"

Bringing out a few documents from below the counter, she proceeded to examine them and paid no mind to Adrien while doing so. Pausing for a second in surprise, he started to look around and found the pair of Students that dined at the inn a couple of days ago.

'Maybe they finished that hunt they mentioned, I wonder what kind of target they had' thought to himself, Adrien would not ask them of course. Some people took badly when others tried to pry on their matters, however, his curiosity won over his reason and he did try to listen into their conversation.

"What do you mean there won't be a carriage to the capital on this week? what kind of business do you people try to have here!!!" said one of them very rudely.

"Calm down man, let the lady explain. Besides, nothing wrong with relaxing and waiting for the next week"I

Turning to his friend the first one said "look, I do get that you want to rest and so do I, but if we do not report in quickly then our reward will be reduced"

"I know, been there and done that. My point is: relax, worst come to worst we can make way to the next city and take a carriage there"

Taking a deep breath the young man calmed down and seeing this the receptionist spoke up: "The problem is that the escorts had to cancel for some reason, the leader of the traveling company said to delay the trip since recently there has been an increase of monster on the route.

"See, that is a perfectly good reason for the delay, what do you think"

"Sure, as good as any. When would the carriage leave then?" the student already had a tone of voice that oozed resignation.

"Hard to say, at least 3 more days and at most a week"

The guy shrugged and was about to leave when his friend suddenly said: "Just out of curiosity, how much is the reward for escorting them?" he just raised one eyebrow and then realized, they were both rank 4 Summoners, how hard could a simple escort to the capital be?

At this point, the lady receptionist in charge of Adrien called for his attention.

"Sir, there are 4 available tickets but there is, however, a small problem"

"Wich is?" He already knew the answer from his eavesdropping on the Tower students but he feigned ignorance.

"The escorts are not available yet, so the trip will be delayed for a couple of days. If you still wish to buy then you could leave an address of where you are staying, and we will inform you once the carriage is ready to leave"

After discussing the price and leaving the direction of the inn Adrien left, he passed by a couple of shops on the way back and bought some stuff and things he needed. Namely some dried rations, a few candles and other camping supplies.

When he arrived he found that the inn's dinner had quite a few customers, leaving everything in his room he resumed with his work, noticing the small beast laying on his corner very relaxed eating some small pieces of meat.

&

Back within the agency, our two students were walking out of a room on the second floor, after accepting the job both of them had to sign some documents and discuss the date of the trip. Everything went fine except for the dissatisfied look one of them had during all the procedures.

"I still can't believe we got more work to do, it was supposed to be a small hunt, if it wasn't because.."

"Oh please just, shut up once and for all!! it's just looking after a single carriage, the whole caravan has another fixed group that serves as guards"

"The what now?" The complainer felt confused at his friend words.

"You didn't believe that a single carriage full of passengers was going to make the trip to the capital right?

"Of course not, they need the escorts. right?"

"you have never ventured away from your family's city, have you?"

"Of course I have, many times actually." He said with a look of arrogance.

Looking incredulously at his friend he said: "How many of those times were you on a regular caravan or even a single carriage, that was not guarded by your family's knights and escorts?"

Hearing this he was baffled and a very embarrassed expression flashed briefly through his face before saying nothing, he knew his friend was right.

With a deep sigh, he proceded explanation about how unlikely if not impossible, for a single carriage to make the trip to the capital, despite the fact that those roads were usually very safe when it came to beasts the trip would take 3 days at regular speed. That in case there were no problems in the road, beasts and bandits being a few.

Usually, when it came to trips for more than one day long, caravans composed of various traders or travel carriages were formed. There was safety in numbers for the common people, and aside from some agencies that contracted extra guards for security reasons, the caravan itself had personal guards that went with it on a regular schedule.

Most of those regular guards were Summoners that dropped out of the independent or even the kingdom's own towers. The extra guard were those that needed extra money or took their mandatory missions from their agencies, guilds or even the towers themselves. Just like both of them picked the hunt of those mantises as their mandatory task in the tower they belonged to.

Making way down to their inn, they also bought a couple more supplies before passing through a blacksmith and requesting some reparations to their weapons and armors, the previous battle left their equipment in a sad state, a testament to the intensity and the number of enemies they had to battle.

After that, it was time to rest, for the day after tomorrow they would have to make way to the capital and then to the tower.