Chapter 19 Expedition

The baron was standing there with his hands behind his back. "Lucas, come here for a moment.", it wasn't loudly spoken, but Lucas heard it loud and clear. He felt forced to obey. "What is it, my lord?"

"I would like you to go visit one of my mines that need to be cleared, it'll be one of the smaller ones, but I want you to kill all the monsters inside of it. I want you to gain some experience before going to one of the bigger ones."

"Yes, my lord, I will kill every monster inside of the mine."

'Damnit, this dumbass contract is forcing us to please him at every instance!'

'Yeah, are you seriously still going on about that? We agreed to sign it for a reason, now he can't suspect us for anything as we're his loyal puppet.'

"Would you like to go as well?", the baron asked while looking at his son.

"No father, perhaps at a later date, I want to come up with a few strategies before going."

"Sir Havi, you do know it would be very difficult sending him alone in those mines right?" Venion didn't bother whispering so Lucas already knew that he would get in trouble if he actually fought with the monsters in the mines. "Of course, that's why I'm not going to send him alone, he'll get a few soldiers as escorts. Lucas, join the expedition in two days. Show your loyalty to me."

"Of course, I'll clear out those mines to the best of my abilities."

The lesson ended and Lucas went back to his trusty shed, he got used to sleeping in the hay after a while. He thought about the mines, what kind of monsters would live in the mines? He didn't plan to actually fight against them so soon, but now that he had been forced, he wanted to forge a few more plans. He browsed the tome for monsters that could appear in caves or darker areas. He found a few monsters that fit the description, one of them was the spider that visited his village. It was called a Steel Spider due to its legs looking like steel. Other than that, he found that Runic Bats, Graveling Moles, and many other creatures could inhabit the mines.

'As long as I don't have to fight against the Demonic Bear, I think I'll figure something out.'

In the tome every creature was depicted with a little drawing and a danger level, all monsters were below Rank 1 and even a strong knight could handle them. Only a single monster was Rank 1, the Demonic Bear.

'Red eyes, a thick black hide, claws that easily cut steel, and a hobby of playing with their prey, what a great combination...'

'The chances of encountering it in a smaller mine is very small, especially since it is basically at the top of the food chain here.'

'Yeah, but this tome only describes monsters below Rank 1, only the bear is a decent threat for Rank 1 mages, we lack way too much information about the other monsters out there.'

'That can come later, no need to worry about that now.'

He read a lot about their way of life and found that it wasn't very well documented. Most of it were assumptions and almost random conclusions, 'Whoever made this tome clearly didn't care about how the monsters lived.'

Lucas was sure that every detail could play an important role, it was like saying that spiders made webs, but didn't clarify why they did it. He would have to fill in those details himself, and he was somewhat excited to do so.

He memorized a few more runes before going to sleep. The time flew by and it was already time to go on an expedition to one of the smaller mines. What was surprising was that Venion was also there. "Are you also going with us, mentor?" Lucas asked, hoping he would get a negative answer.

"Of course, this is your first trip to fight monsters, I would love to see how much progress you've made." Venion said innocently. Now that Venion came with them, Lucas couldn't go ahead and kill the soldiers on their way there. 'I guess I'll need to think of more plans from now on, anything can happen.'

The group consisted of five soldiers armed with leather armor and a spear. One of them was driving a cart that didn't have a roof, it was simply a large rectangular bucket with wheels. It was big enough to fit all of them. Venion had his signature purple robe on that cast a shadow on his face, covering it like always. 'I wonder what his face looks like.'

'Or why he hides it in the first place.'

The cart held enough supplies to last about four days, it was more than enough since they wanted to end this expedition in a day or two. Lucas brought his own iron sword that he got as a gift for this trip from Liam.

The cart was being pulled by a single horse that had a full brown hide. They needed a few hours of riding before reaching their destination. "Lucas, as you know we're visiting one of the smaller mines of the baron. There are a few mines like this, with the biggest of them being the main source of income for the baron's household. Meaning if you can clear the caves by yourself I think the baron wouldn't mind rewarding you.", just the way he said it put Lucas on edge.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Hmm? I don't need the reward from him if that's what you're wondering. While you could use a lot of training in magical combat and a better room wouldn't be the worst now would it?" Venion knew about the living conditions of Lucas and found them deplorable, "You're a mage, you should act and live like one! Sleeping in such a place is just doing mages injustice."

'What a load of horses-'

'Shut up will you, we can't get him to realize anything strange about us, we need to look like the loyal follower of both the baron and this weirdo.'

'I know, but still, there are limits to what strange beliefs you can force on others.'

"Yes mentor, I'll try to uphold your teachings." Venion nodded when he heard that, although he was disingenuous and impolite against lower ranks, he was respectful towards people of his own rank. Not everyone paid so much attention to the ranks, but in the lower ranks, it was a lot more brutal. Lucas had already experienced that enough, so he didn't need another explanation.

Not much later they arrived at the mine.