Quest

Twelve hours later, the three horse carriages went out of the high cliffs and entered the flatlands filled with grasses and a few trees along the way. It was around sunset.

According to the group, this was near the Salienc Town. Territorially, there were along the borders of the Jian Dukedom.

After a while, they stopped by the roadside.

Kara and Chris hopped out of the carriage, observing their location. They were followed by Corre, Doctor Angelo, Jane, Ellie, and John.

During their time, Kara and Chris found out that Doctor Angelo was one of the four royal doctors of the Jian Dukedom. He came here with the assistance of the knights. The adventurers and the coachmen were paid by the King.

Unlike earlier, the approaching night had dyed the sky an overcast grey. Only somewhere far away in the horizon was there a little light that was about to hide itself.

The horse carriages stopped by the road side, and the knights began to alight, and then created bonfires that created some sort of territory.

As expected, the passengers of the second and third carriages were mostly knights. They wore iron armors, and armed with shields and weapons such as spears, swords, and bows and arrows.

Most of them had huge muscular bodies. Three of them displayed the crest of Jian Dukedom on their chest armors. They were the leaders. They were supposed to lead the carriages each, but they had to send the fourth carriage back to report so the leader knight of the fourth stayed.

The tallest of three was named Faller who had brown hair, a chiseled face, and a warm-hearted smile. He was the leader of the three.

The second was a little chubby, but he was holding his big axe with one hand as if it was nothing. The last one was a normal looking young man who seemed to be in his early twenties. He had a nonchalant expression that made him looked uninterested with the entire world.

Kara thought the atmosphere would be a little lively, but it was duller than he expected. It seemed like heavy tension weighed on the most of the knights' backs and made their faces unhappy.

"It reminds of the war back in Zephyr." Chris said, as he watched everyone making camp.

"This group seemed to be hunting a notorious bandit group around here, and would help the town we're going so…" Kara said in a voice not so loud, only enough to make Chris hear.

Kara reclined against the trunk of a tree, his hand holding a water flask he took from the group. He drank occasionally, while he watched everyone.

Meanwhile Chris was standing behind him looking at the bonfire with his blue eyes in total focus, making Kara curious.

"I'm curious, but I plan to settle on the town were going for now and try to see how it works for me. What about you? I thought you're going to find your family?" Kara asked.

Chris shot a look over his shoulders and replied, "I'm going to see how things are in the town we're going…is what I decided. Maybe we could be some help. After that is over, maybe I would be on better terms with the people of these carriages too and they could let me ride with them back home. I could go to the north after that, as Doctor Angelo said I can go to north easier through their city."

After that, Chris put his right hand inside his black coat and tossed something to Kara's lap.

It was a map of the Jian Dukedom!

After looking at the map, Kara didn't speak for four seconds.

He now had a decent understanding of the territory too. Their current location was unnamed. The whole vast area was simply labeled as the Borders of the Jian Dukedom. The town nearest to them who was most likely to be their destination was indeed Salienc town.

Salienc Town was a small town that has a small population of 170. It had at least thirty household making it an uncommon size for a small town, but due to it being very far, highly isolated and low in funds, people were going out in the recent years.

Kara took a look at the Sienc City—the biggest city around here and saw one could travel to the north from there by ship.

"I see." Kara said.

At this time, Kara and Chris saw Corre talking to Faller.

Faller was the tallest and leader of the knights.

Corre was the leader of the party of adventurers. For quite some time now, he and someone named John from his party was urging Faller to move on.

"The more time we spent here, the more suffering the town suffers." Said Corre.

"Still travelling in the night is extremely dangerous. Who knows what is around here? It's better to stay safe if we don't even know what happened in the forest of the darn? What if vicious monsters came out?"

Corre stared hard and long at Faller. But Faller shrugged his shoulders.

Doctor Angelo touched Corre's right shoulder and sighed, "He has a point. It would also be good for the horses to take a break."

Corre turned around. Doctor Angelo was right.

"They call themselves knights? What an embarrassment." Corre said in low voice.

Faller and the two high ranking knights just ignored him. The King paid the adventures to escort them in this trip. They were Silver-ranked adventurers—the highest rank around those who consistently was active in the field.

They were leading the way too. Nothing good can come out of taking their leader's petty provocation.

"We'd be relying on you again." The fat round knight with the axe said purposely. "He's so hot-blooded." He later muttered.

After a few moments, the other two of the adventurers approached Kara and Chris who was still staying under the shade of the tree.

These two were girls named Jane and Ellie.

Jane was an archer who had short brown hair and the taller one. On her back, she was carrying three sets of arrows all at the same time and a bow on her right hand. She looked to be the same age as Kara.

Ellie on the other hand had long blonde hair with a serious expression. On her waist, she has oddly shaped daggers that had a slight curve like a crescent. It was not so long or short, just like short swords. Kara especially wondered how she would use it in battle.

"You two. We can help you set up a tent." Jane said.

Kara shook his head, and looked at her eyes, "No we're okay."

Maybe it was short. But Jane couldn't help but stare at Kara. It looked like he was either afraid or intrigued about him.

But Jane was thinking more of how comfortable Kara looked like while he was leaning against the tree.

"Yeah, we won't want to impose on you. Haha." Chris chuckled.

Jane laughed with him. Ellie on the other hand looked like she was uninterested. She yawned and stretched a little.

"Can I sit with you guys?" Ellie said, but she didn't wait for any response, as she sat on the ground. She looked at the tree and switched to look at the sky.

"Sorry, but we just wanted to actually go here. Ellie don't like the atmosphere around there, you know. It makes him mad. The knights are too serious and Corre is as serious as ever." Jane said.

"So you came here?" Kara asked, almost grinning.

"Well, here is better. We have Chris!" Jane was a little shocked how Kara could speak more so she laughed. She thought Kara was the snobbish type.

"Hahaha." Chris laughed, scratching the back of his head.

"Can I ask what really happened to the town we're going?" Kara asked. Kara thought it was better to know more, as he decided to live in that town as he had nothing to do for now.

With her brown eyes, Jane looked at Kara and wondered if it was a good idea to talk about the matter. But she thought it wouldn't be much of a big deal anyway.

"Well, the whole idea is that bandits attacked the town and many died because of that. But there's something more."

Ellie just yawned, as she slowly tried to get to sleep.

"There's actually a mage of the kingdom who gone rogue. He stole a powerful magic item that can turn normal monsters to vicious ones. It seemed like he gathered a notorious group of thieves around here and made them his subordinates."

"That's why the duke even sent us and his knights. For now, we still don't know what really happened. But it seemed like the magic item the mage stole was really high tier. So a lot of the knights wonder if it's even possible to beat them. Some mages are extremely powerful for us normal humans after all. And were talking about a former mage of the kingdom so it's not looking very optimistic."

Kara listened and couldn't help but laugh internally.

He almost forgot that but the public actually feared mages in this world. They were labeled as highly dangerous.

All this time, he had been battling mages and had been around them every day.

"Yawn. It's alright though. He's old now, but Doctor Angelo is a mage too." Ellie said. It looked like she cannot sleep as she wanted.

Indeed, Kara and Chris knew Doctor Angelo wasn't an ordinary man. But who would have thought he was a mage? It was a wonder what power could he have.

But that was enough. Asking too much questions might be dangerous. After all, these two girls were still silver-ranked adventurers.

Kara looked at the pendant hanging on their necks and smiled a little.

'Adventurers, huh?' he thought.