SIDE Chapter 61 - First Deployment Part 1

Jasmine got suited up for her first mission. Her husband and mother were both counting on her since they weren't strong enough to deal with the enemies that she would be facing. Her armor only covered the parts of her body not covered in scales and it was crudely made due to it being a rushed creation. There was even an armored mask that covered her face; it was kept in place with leather straps that wrapped behind her head. She originally planned on using her claws as weapons but Gren gave her large iron gauntlets; she was happy to receive a gift from him so she was grinning as she put them on.

The dwarves had more armor to put on so they'd take longer to get ready. Jasmine took this opportunity to call Gren to her room. She was a bit jealous that Estella got pregnant before her so she pushed Gren down while she was still wearing her armor.

After a few minutes she went back upstairs, leaving her victim behind. The dwarves were suited up and ready to go. Ahk refused to wear armor since it would ruin her mobility and the lizardman woman, Eliza, was wearing a similar style of armor as Jasmine was but with leather covering the back that allowed it to be put on like a shirt. The lizardman species is closely related to the draconoid species and has mostly the same body structure as the draconoids but they didn't have the wings, horns, or ability to breathe fire that the draconoids had. They are also much shorter than draconoids with the larger ones reaching only seven feet tall, an entire foot shorter than Jasmine who was only a half draconoid.

Jasmine thought that the dwarves with their full plate armor and war picks looked adorable in a way but knew not to say that to their face. Ahk looked intimidating with her giant axe; Jasmine didn't know where Gren got it from but the axe suited Ahk's massive arms. The lizardman woman looked up to Jasmine and wanted to have the same weapon as her but Gren gave her a weapon called a bardiche; a sort of weird combination between a great axe and a spear. He mentioned something about how it was bad for them to all be in close combat roles.

The only woman left without a weapon was the living statue because Gren couldn't figure out how to communicate with her except through her body language. She kept shaking her head when asked if she was proficient with specific weapons. Either she is used to a weapon that Gren forgot to mention or she just has no experience with weapons.

The journey would take a week either way since the mine was located a bit north of Adierton and they would be traveling at walking speed. It was near the border between the Seka Kingdom and the Land of Healing Light where the Goddess was said to have first appeared. Jasmine wanted to go visit the holy city with Gren one day; provided that he worshipped the Mother since non-believers weren't allowed in.

The food and water were already loaded onto the carriage which left little room for the women to sit. Two of the dwarves sat on the driver's seat while the remaining dwarf sat on the back along with the living statue. That left Ahk, Eliza and Jasmine to take turns pulling the carriage.

Along the way north there were only a few minor hiccups but the six of them were well-equipped to deal with the likes of wolves and boars. Ahk managed split a charging boar in two with her axe which was pretty disgusting. The wolves and boars that they had killed were cooked and turned into food.

The border fort between the Adier Dukedom and the Land of Healing Light could be seen which meant that they were nearly at the mine. The mining village was a bit southwest from the border fort so the next left would take them there. "Finally. We're close to the village. I can't wait to get this over with. Nothing beats a stiff drink after some hard work."

Jasmine couldn't tell the two shorter dwarves apart due to their armor but she would bet that it was Rumi that was speaking. Rumi was the darker-skinned dwarf that was constantly spending her pocket money on alcohol. Letta was the other shorter dwarf and also the oldest of the dwarves. Alba was the only one a bit taller than the rest so she was easier to tell apart.

The tension could be felt from the mining village. There were barricades set up between the village and the mine itself; a group of villagers were set up behind them with pickaxes, brooms, and whatever else they could use as weapons.

Some of the villagers heard Jasmine's group approaching and were startled until they realized that they were a small group of armored individuals. Some showed looks of disappointment when they noticed that it wasn't the army. It didn't matter that they were well-equipped; a group of only seven people, three being shorter than the adults of the village, did not inspire confidence.

A villager with bushy eyebrows and a natural scowl was the first one to walk up to them. "How can we help you, warriors?" Although his words would normally seem polite, the way he said it was quite rude.

Jasmine stepped forward and placed her hand over her breastplate. "We're the FMC here on a mission to eradicate the Rock Lizards that have nested inside of the mine next to Ironside Village. We have the paperwork for your foreman to sign before we begin."

The villager had no intention of bringing them to the foreman and instead had them wait while one of the other villagers, a teenage boy, ran to get the foreman. Autumn was almost over and the temperature was dropping so it was weird that they didn't invite them into the building but Jasmine didn't notice; she assumed that it was because of how tall she and Ahk were. "What took you so long? We've been waiting for help for over a month now. This village is practically destroyed now even if we somehow get access to the mine again."

Jasmine didn't realize that the mission had been available for a long time before it was assigned to their group. "We only became aware of the mission a week ago and left as soon as our armor was ready. We couldn't get here any sooner."

The villager didn't have anything else to say and left the women alone so Jasmine decided to go through their plan again. "The dwarves will follow the others and conserve their strength for when we find a tunnel too small for the rest of us. Then it will be their job to attract the rock lizards to our location. Any questions or concerns?"

The first one to say anything was Letta, the oldest dwarf. "I only just thought about this but wouldn't Ahk be too big to enter the mine?"

Jasmine looked over at Ahk before looking towards where the mine is. "We'll have to wait to find out but you might be right. It would probably be safer to have someone watching the entrance for any escaping rock lizards anyways."

Ahk didn't seem pleased. "Ahk join. Fight." Ahk came all this way due to the promise that she would be able to fight enemies. The wolves and boars that she fought were too easy but an enemy with tough scales might be satisfying to crush.

Jasmine reasoned with Ahk. "If you can fit then you're free to come with us but if there's no room for you to move then you won't even get to swing your axe. There's nothing we could do about that." Ahk finally agreed. "So, can anybody think of something else? Anything?"

Alba remembered a rule that they had when working in the old mine. "No fire. Remember that? Rumi? Letta? Our previous owner always told us to never use fire when in the mine because it could kill us. Apparently fire eats up air the same as we do."

Jasmine was planning on using her fire breath against the rock lizards but would have to rethink that. Her gauntlets should be more than enough to deal with those types of enemies but the fire breath is a lot faster so she was a bit disappointed that she would have to seal it away for now. "Understood. No fire in the mine. Is that it then? Can nobody..." Jasmine noticed a somewhat older man approaching them from the direction of the large building.

There were bags under the man's eyes and he looked nervous about something. "You must be the mercenaries that accepted the request. Welcome to Ironside. I'm afraid that we can't provide proper hospitality for your group in our current condition."

The villager from earlier joined the conversation. "That's enough with the greetings, old man. They've got a job to do. You wouldn't want there to be any more deaths because you kept them waiting, would you?" The guy was rude but the girls did want to get started as soon as possible.

"R-right. So, there was something about paperwork?" The foreman patted around his clothes and seemed to be looking for something. "I'm sorry, I forgot my seal. Can you return inside and fetch it for me?" He talked to the rude villager.

The rude villager walked towards the building and talked to one of the other villagers while glancing in the direction of Jasmine's group. After finishing his talk he went back indoors and the villager he talked to was staring at them. "Anybody else feel like something weird is going on?" Rumi didn't like the atmosphere of the village.

"Do not look my way. Act as if you're talking amongst yourselves." The old man talked without moving his jaw. "The people of this village have gone crazy. Do not trust them. Do not eat anything they offer you. Once you're done in the mine, leave immediately and take me with you if you can."

Jasmine didn't know what was going on but decided to follow the old man's advice. The rude villager was returning with a box in his hands. "Here's the seal. Open the box and get this over with."

The foreman opened up the box and took out a small cylinder and knife. He had to cut a finger in order to get enough blood to cover the head of the seal so that he could mark the request. The first box was to give the mercenaries full access to his mine during the request. The second box marked the success of the request.

After the foreman marked the first box, the rude villager took the seal and knife and placed them back into the box. The man clearly didn't want the foreman to keep hold of it for some reason and that just led the women into believing the foreman's words even more. "The mine is over there behind the wall of junk. If you're going to do your job then go do it already. You, old man, follow me."

Jasmine had Eliza pull the carriage forward while keeping an eye out for the other villagers. The other villagers were all watching their group from a distance. Perhaps it was due to the foreman's words but Jasmine felt creeped out by their stares. They didn't seem like the kind of stares that you would give a fellow person.

The entrance to the mine itself was wide but unfortunately it was too short for Ahk. "Do you mind staying with the carriage? I don't know what the people might do to it and they're still watching us." Jasmine was hoping that the people wouldn't try doing something when the rest of their group entered the mine. Ahk was the strongest person there but she also had the least amount of armor protecting her.

Gren bought three magic lights in preparation for the mission that he sent the women on; Jasmine was of course given her own one that was a bit fancier than the others. The carrying size ones were more expensive but they were a necessary purchase. Jasmine took the lead and was looking for any signs of the rock lizards.

"Ah!" Behind Jasmine was a scream. Turning around, she could see that one of the dwarves was holding back a large grey creature. One of the other dwarves rushed forward and flipped the rock lizard that was attacking her friend before the last dwarf struck it on its weak underbelly using her warpick. The rock lizard's high-pitched hiss didn't last long before it died.

"Good job, you three. You've managed to kill the first rock lizard. Still, where did it come from? I didn't see any signs of it." Jasmine didn't notice any side paths that it could have come from.

"I don't know. It just attacked me from behind. I only heard it when it got close to me." Judging by the voice, the one that got attacked was Rumi.

"How are we going to clear the mine if we can't even see the targets?" Jasmine was starting to realize why nobody else took the request. "Let's return to the entrance. I want to try something."

Ahk raised her axe when she saw movement by the entrance but lowered it when she noticed that it was just her partners. "Okay, everybody. Get back behind me." Jasmine was facing the mine and the other women quickly moved over to where Ahk was.

The breastplate was a little bit in the way but Jasmine could still breathe in enough air to release a massive flame. Rock lizards could be heard hissing for a while and, when the flames subsisted, Jasmine could see their charred remains. "Wow, that's a lot of them. We just walked past all of those without even realizing it." Rumi was glad that she was only attacked by one of them.

Jasmine noticed that there were patches on the walls and ceiling that weren't as scorched. Those must have been the places that the rock lizards were clinging on to. "I see. It might just be possible to clear the mine after all. We can't use fire down there but we can slowly make our way through the mine attacking any odd bumps along the walls and ceiling."

Alba was poking the back of one of the dead lizards with her pick. "Will that even work? Their scales are tough and our weapons will break if we keep using them against anything suspicious in there. We can't rely on your flames when we're deep in the mine."

Eliza had been thinking about something that she found strange. "Why did that one lizard attack Rumi in there? There were so many of them that we walked by and none of them attacked us. That lizard could have attacked anybody but it chose Rumi who was in the middle of all of us."

"Were you doing something when you got attacked?" Rumi shook her head at Alba's question but then realized something.

"Wait." She felt around her waist and couldn't find the pouch she had tied to the armor. "My meat is gone. I think it attacked me for my meat."

The group decided to try going into the mine again but this time they brought a sack from the back of the carriage. It was a boar leg that they cooked on their way to the village. Most of the meat from this specific boar couldn't be eaten due to Ahk cutting the boar in two but the legs were still fine. "If baiting them with meat doesn't work then I'll risk using my flame breath. The living statue doesn't need to breathe so she'll pull me out if I start to suffocate." They still didn't know the living statue's name.

"I don't like the idea of that but I also don't want to wait here for an entire week waiting for the rock lizards to come out for food. Those villagers don't seem accepting of us. I can't tell if it's just because they hate demihumans but it somehow seems different than usual. I can't be the only one that feels this way." Alba was used to humans hating her and the other dwarves--especially the miners.

"No fight. No want stay." Ahk was swinging her axe while seeming frustrated.

"It doesn't look like there's anything to drink here and I'm on my last bottle of wine." Rumi wouldn't mind staying if she had alcohol but she didn't even have enough to get her drunk for more than a day.

"I can't help but agree with you, Alba. These villagers are shifty. Even now there are some watching us from a distance." Eliza locked eyes with one of the villagers and they hid behind a rock. "Definitely shifty."

"At most we'll stay a single night here but I think I'd prefer to stay closer to the mine than the village." Jasmine was used to children mocking her and the adults avoiding her but she rarely left the city. There was a village that traded with Doga to the east of Adierton but they only made trips there when her brother, Jacob, was still staying at home. She wasn't used to this type of vigilance.

Letta didn't agree with Alba. "The humans that hated us were usually more open about their hatred but we didn't have tough people like Ahk with us back then. I don't think they're acting as weird as you think they are."

"..." The living statue didn't say anything, obviously.