Thurdinheim Delivery

Yngvarr called us out of our rooms before the sun even rose. The only one that had gone to bed early was Runa. With all of us having auras except Vesta, the lack of sleep wasn't bad. While Fulvia seemed to have learned her lesson from drinking at Bragi's and didn't have too much the night before.

Once again I was on the wagon with Fulvia and once again she spent the day talking. Since she had learned that I had only been in the north for a few months she took it upon herself to let me know some basic information about the northern province. The south west contained the Forest of Gosigronn with the rest of the south being similar to the Grehgi, hills, plains, and sparse forests. In the east where the the largest mountains on the continent the Torgyn Fyall, they separated our kingdom of Angynor with the kingdom states of Kievhenia.

The west contained the coastal region of the Synbuk bay and lake regions. The north contained a number of lesser forested mountain ranges before it became a frozen tundra. In the middle were rolling lightly forested hills. She let me know the major houses and cities in the province and how some of them got along. Having been educated as the son of Duke, I was already familiar with most of this. I let her ramble as it was easier than trying to get her to stop.

We set a normal travel pace but Yngvarr skipped lunch again and kept us going later into the evening. The dinner crowd had already mostly left by the time we arrived at an inn in a larger village. For that night watch it was Runa and Vesta, Yngvarr and Fulvia, and Kulfr and I. Did we really need to go through an evaluation like this? I wasn't interested in the guild and they had been ordered by the Union Master to help me. As for Kalfr, in my opinion, he had already proved himself to be an insecure negligent idiot.

Before our watch we shared a room and I was out as soon as I laid my head down to avoid any interaction before I needed to. It felt like no time had passed when Fulvia knocked on our door for us to take over. As we went down to the stables, he kept giving me side glances.

"I don't care that the two of you aren't friends. This is a job and sometimes you have to work with people that you don't get along with. Understood?" Yngvarr must have been concerned since this was the first time that he said anything about how we needed to conduct ourselves.

"Understood sir." Kulfr said.

"Understood." I said.

After he left the two of us sat in silence for a while. I took the opportunity to do some rhythmic breathing that would minorly increase my basic aura. It wasn't that effective but the normal cultivating method wouldn't allow me to keep an eye on my surroundings.

"You really think that's going to make a difference?" Kalfr snidely remarked.

"It'll add up over time." In my life on Earth, college and my occupation left me little time for certain activities. I learned to find whatever time I could to do things like exercise, study, read for fun, ect.

He just tsked at me and we lapsed back into silence. It was close to an hour later when he talked again.

"You know you're just going to drag her down." He said.

"Uh, what?" I asked.

"You're a freelancer that's already made enemies of a few guilds, so barely anyones going to want to work with you. You went out of your way to get a Union representative that has been a failure since day one, so you're not going to have any support from the Union. Your career in the north is going to be a joke. Might as well head back south rather than get in other people's way." He said.

"What in the world are you talking about?" I asked.

"Vesta is a talented mage that could make S rank one day but any relationship with you would only jeopardize that." He said.

"I don't see why that has anything to do with you." I said.

"I'm someone that cares about her and has her best interests at heart." He said.

"Vesta is a grown woman that can choose her own friends." I said.

"She's too inexperienced. Once she gets a few years in the Union, she'll look back and see what a drag you were on her career and resent you for holding her back." He said.

I was left speechless. Of course I knew this had nothing to do with her career in the Union. She'd make S rank regardless of whether we interacted with each other or not, she was just that talented. He just wanted me out of the way so he could try and get under her robes. It was in my best interest to just ignore him. We weren't in any kind of relationship that required me to step in on her behalf and this wasn't a competition.

"If you're so concerned about people dragging her down then maybe you should stop interacting with her." I replied.

"You really think we're the same. I'm about to become a B ranked adventurer in one of the best guilds in the entire kingdom and I've already mentioned your low circumstances. You're an even bigger moron if you think we're even close to the same level." He said.

Why was I even arguing with him? I just shook my head and tried to ignore him. This only deepened his hostility towards me.

"If need be I can make sure you stay out of her life." He said.

"I'm sure you'd try." I said.

He turned to fully face me and moved his hand towards the sword on his hip.

"You really think they'll let you advance to B rank if you attack me?" I said.

"You're overestimating how much anyone would care." He replied.

I sighed. "This entire quest is an evaluation. Do you really think Yngvarr isn't monitoring us?"

This caused him to hesitate and glance around us. He relaxed his posture and moved his hand away from his sword.

"Just don't say I didn't warn you." He said.

The rest of our watch continued without incident, as we just ignored each other. In the morning we set out for Thurdinheim. While I had been fairly confident that he had been monitoring us, I didn't even notice a side eye from Yngvarr towards either of us for our confrontation last night. The day was uneventful and because we had such a long day yesterday, we found ourselves pulling into the city a few hours after noon.

This time Yngvarr led us to a large alchemy shop that was right across the street from the Union branch. A middle aged woman with black hair in a tight bun wearing rather ordinary robes compared to the other alchemists I'd seen recently came to greet us. Ingvarr handed her our scroll of introduction. The woman I presumed was Master alchemist Magnhilda then looked over the crates.

"I hope you watched these like a hawk around Bragi, he no doubt tried to steal anything he could get his hands on when no one was looking." She said.

"One of us was with your goods the entire time. I'd stack the reputation of the Rainbow Blades that everything is here." Yngvarr said.

"I wouldn't have paid as much as I did if I thought you'd do anything less." She said.

A few workers came out and started to unload the wagon. After they were done Yngvarr led us across the street to the Union branch. With the goods having been delivered, we didn't have to worry about watching the wagon any longer and we were able to leave it unwatched in the stables.

Having skipped lunch once again and settled in for a meal. As we did, I started to notice the common room of the branch was starting to fill up. Most of the adventures coming in seemed to look confused. From what I overheard, the Branch Master had sent out a summons. The room went from having around a dozen people to over 40.

"Erlandr, what's going on here? There seems to be a bit of commotion." Yngvarr asked a man with short black hair in black leather armor and a red cloak.

"Yngvarr, I didn't know you were in the area." He extended his hand and they grasped forearms. "I'm not really sure myself. We all started to get summons on our Union tokens. They even sent out Union representatives throughout the city to find people."

"Thank the Spirits you're here Yngvarr." Our attention was pulled to an older gray haired woman in full armor with a dark green embroidered cloak. One side of her head was cut short and the other side was tied into a long braid.

Yngvarr immediately stood and gave a little bow, "Master Ragna, is it that serious."

"I'm about to let everyone know, but our chances are a lot better with you here." She said. As she climbed onto the chair Yngvarr stood up from I looked past her. There were four younger adventures, two men and two women, all wearing the same dark green embroidered cloaks. One man and one woman were wearing armor, the other man was wearing mage robes with a staff in hand, and the last one was also in robes but had a medallion made of twigs that marked her as a witch.

"Attention everyone. Under the authority of Duchess Torgeir and under the direction of Margrave Jorfi, all members of the Adventures Union in the vicinity of Thurdinheim are hereby inscripted into the service of the kingdom." She began.

The room had gone quiet when the former Union Master had started talking but after her pronouncement it went completely silent. In my entire life my father had only inscripted adventures once and that was when a dragon had started to run rampant and he had only asked for A and S ranked adventures.

"All of you are under obligation to aid in this threat. If you don't, you will be removed from the Adventures Union and branded a coward throughout the kingdom. And if any of you even think of running away I will personally hunt you down and kill you. About a half a day north a nest of Myvarg has been discovered." She said.

I thought the room had been quiet before. A few adventurers started to look around thinking that her threat of death was the better option. Depending on the size of the nest it would be considered anywhere from a B ranked quest to a S ranked quest. During the Years of Sorrow the eastern province had three different S ranked nests that nearly destroyed them. A nest was feared almost as an apocalypse beast.

Damn my fate.