Chapter 355: A Silent Expedition

Mid Morning - Late Winter : Voldukirk | The Holy Kingdom

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- Astren Ravenna ~

"Hooh..." A foggy breath left my mouth as I looked down at the new brown leather gloves on my hands. -Will just these be enough?-

It was an early, frigid morning that day. The sun was already well over the horizon, yet it showed no sign of warming up the snow-covered streets.

"Just where did all this snow come from? It's supposed to almost be spring!"

Looking over my shoulder, I was met with Elizabeth's radiant blue eyes and bright rosy cheeks, bundled in thick clothes and carrying a relatively large backpack that matched mine. "I'm not sure..." -She's in a good mood...- I paused before watching her happily stick her tongue out to catch a snowflake. "Haha, have you never seen snow before?"

"Hehe, of course not! I came from the Forest of Altair! Snow is only a thing we hear about in stories and read about in books." Reaching her hand up, a sudden swirl of snow appeared before settling to reveal a fist-sized ball of snow in her hand. "I just can't get over how pretty it is."

I wanted to laugh seeing her genuinely inquisitive gaze at the ball. "Unfortunately, I don't think we will be able to view it fondly in about a week."

"Haha, I guess that's true."

Pausing our conversation, I quickly looked around before glancing up the street and waving to Selby, the Lieutenant of the Second Templar Division, who was walking two familiar horses toward us. "It would've been nice if Katherine were here. I wonder how she would react to the snow..."

Elizabeth's face almost immediately darkened slightly. "Y..yeah."

Her reaction told me all I needed to know. -Shit... She still hasn't heard from her...- "Have you even heard any rumors about her?"

She quickly shook her head. "I suspect the Church sent her out to do something since whenever I asked, I just get told off."

-Even with her position in the church?!- Being the stand-in for the hero, she had an absurd amount of administrative power and clearance. -For her to get told off... Just where did they send Kath?-

"Hey, kiddos!" A booming voice echoed down the relatively quiet street as the clops of horses grew near.

"Have you been well, Miss Randi?" Trying to lighten her mood again, Elizabeth was quick to speak up.

"Of course! I heard a bit about your expedition before I left." She paused before coming to a stop and tossing us the leads to the two horses behind her. "All the way to Mount Asgard, huh?" (The Scar)

"Haah, yeah." I let out a stressed breath before motioning my horse over and gently petting his head for a moment. "I can't say much about it, but it sounds like it's going to be really rough..."

"Haha, I bet!" Her hardy laugh quickly eased the mood. "Unfortunately, I can only wish you guys luck. Have you met the rest of the group yer' goin' with?"

I shook my head before motioning my horse forward and hopping on his back. "Our meeting spot is at the edge of the forest outside the western entrance." I gently motioned down the long, wide road toward the colossal gate.

"I see, I see. Well, hopefully they're pretty good. Considering they called both of you to go, it can't be easy."

"Since when has anything assigned by the Church been easy?"

"HAHA! You have a point." She paused as she looked over her shoulder for a moment. "In any case, I can't linger too long. Best of luck to you two! If you see that girlie Katherine, tell her I said hi."

Waving to her as she left, I gently fixed my bags to the saddle on my horse and got moving. "Haah..." My breath was heavy and loaded with stress.

It was finally time to meet the group we would be spending the next three months plundering the world's largest mountain with. -Of all the missions I've heard the Church give.. this has to be the most absurd...-

*clop-clop-clop-clop* Leaving the city, we made haste past countless carriages from merchant groups and peasants hauling huge amounts of lumber and hide before eventually getting out past the snow-covered plains and reaching the forest.

"They said to look for a man with a wood and mythril staff, right?" Considering the unique blue hue of mythril, I expected it to be a good identifier. -But with all the people here...-

Quickly slowing down, Elizabeth and I started scanning the area to look for our person before a voice aimed at us met our ears. "Hey, you two on the pretty horses! Where y'all going?"

It was the voice of a very young boy, and as I looked over, I found him hanging upside down off the limb of a tree. -To be wearing such thin clothes in this cold...- He looked like a peasant that couldn't have been older than 12 or 13. "Do you know where a man with a long mythril staff is?"

He immediately flashed me an excited look. "Ah! Do you mean that kind old man?"

-Kind old man?-

"About a hundred meters that way!" He pointed up the road as a young woman ran up to him in a panic.

"What are you doing talking to strangers?!" She seemed to be his mother.

It honestly reminded me of my time as a kid, but after enjoying the memories that momentarily surfaced and taking an apology from the child's mother, we continued up the road before finding a man napping against a tree with a long staff of spiraled wood and mythril leaning over his shoulder. -That must be him...-

He was clearly a mage, with a long staff donning a large monster core on its top. -But his presence doesn't seem as heavy as I expected...-

"Are you two the ones sent by the Church?" Hearing the gravelly voice, I looked over and caught the gaze of a massive man, easily 2 meters tall leaning against a tree. "The name is Magnai, most people call me Mag. I use this axe, but am just as good with anything else. Fighting is my expertise." He quickly leaned his axe off the tree to show it before pointing toward a dark-skinned elven woman next to him. "This is Eve, she's an archer and scout. She has the most experience exploring these mountains out of everyone here, so expect to follow her orders if things go south."

We both exchanged a quick greeting before Mag pointed at the man napping behind us.

"That over there is Michael Cotorel. I don't know much about him since he's been asleep since we got here, but he's a pretty well-known mage from the Main Continent... And for the last two, there is a guy named Gale, who is also a scout, but he specializes in caves and biology more than fighting, and his wife Arcana, who is a rune mage that specializes in medicine and combat. She is a demihuman though, I hope you two don't mind."

"Of course not." I quickly held up my hands before looking around. "But if I may ask, where are they?"

"They're meeting with the guide. Supposedly he doesn't like humans, so we can't meet him until we get a ways out of the city." He shrugged for a moment before leaning back up against the tree. "So who are you two?"

-Seems like everyone else here are hired mercenaries... Pretty high-rank ones at that...- "We were sent by the Church, but we cannot say anything about our positions; I hope you can be understanding." I gave a shallow but formal bow off the back of my horse before recognizing they didn't care. "I am Astren, and this is Elizabeth. I am a swordsman and she is a mage, we look forward to being in your care."

"Likewise." Eve spoke softly before nodding toward us with a warm smile.

-Now we just need to wait until Gale and his wife get back...- Assuming we had plenty of time to get to know each other later, Elizabeth and I walked our horses to one of the nearby trees and tied them up before taking some time to organize our things.

But it wasn't long before they returned.

"Mag, Eve- Hm?" Noticing me, the seemingly average middle-aged man paused.

Mag was quick to speak up. "They're the ones sent by the church. The girl in front is Astren, and the other is Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth?" He paused before looking toward her, trying to see under her hood before tensing up. "I-I see. It seems we're in good hands!" He paused again before trying to hide his fluster. "Unfortunately, we will have to save the introductions for another time, though. The guide called us to get moving."

Almost immediately, Eve and Mag got moving toward their horses, untying them and hopping on in a flash while Arcana gently woke up Michael and Gale prepared her horse.

"*Snoreee-*-Huh?" Waking up with a bit of a jolt, Michael quickly got moving as well, and we all got on the road, trotting past the crowd before picking up our pace for a while.

It was the beginning of a long expedition. As Elizabeth and I were told, we were going to Mount Asgard in order to meet with native, non-human folk that lived within the mountains known as the Thunderbirds. -Considering how haphazardly this trip was thrown together, it must have been something ordered by the gods...-

But something about it left me uneasy, I simply couldn't pinpoint what. -At least I'm out of that damned church...-

Looking over my shoulder, I watched as the towering walls of the city fell behind the horizon behind us and lowered my head in prayer. -Oh, great Goddess of Balance, please grant us luck.-

As I opened my eyes again, I found Elizabeth looking at me with a slightly concerned expression. "Is everything alright?"

I simply nodded in response. -All I can do is pray that things go well...-

But, to my surprise, the next week passed smoothly.

We traveled west, crossed the river Slidr and reached the less inhabited part of the Holy Kingdom, forcing us to travel down thin roads barely big enough for a carriage, and run through villages that made what I previously considered a small town, Deepcross, seem colossal.

But the locals were wonderful, welcoming us with open arms, perhaps because of our money, and treating us to the best of their abilities.

As a group, we also all got to know each other quite well. Eve and Mag were local mercenaries from the central Holy Kingdom, Michael was from the Kingdom of Kaelallan, and Arcana and Gale were from central Faelith.

A part of me really had to wonder how the Church managed to gather everyone since they all shared similar stories of how they got recruited, being contacted directly by a paladin at wherever they happened to be staying, even if it was several cities away from Voldukirk. -Gale and Arcana weren't even registered mercenaries here...-

But as a group, we meshed pretty well, so I had no reason to complain.

Continuing through the seemingly endless wilderness, we aimed for a town called Sol. This was the last town we would stay in until we reached the edge of the mountains, still about a weeks trip away, and was where we were to finally meet our guide, who had supposedly been following us the whole time. -To avoid humans to such an extent.. I can't imagine he's a dragon...-

Supposedly he was also the reason we had seen such little wildlife in our travels. According to Arcana, he was scaring off anything stronger than an Ogre since anything weaker couldn't sense him.

But I couldn't sense him either. -Are my senses just that bad?-

Just a moment later, Eve held up a fist, causing us all to slow to a halt almost immediately.

"Seems like we got company." *CRACKLE* The sound of a tree snapping like a twig echoed through the forest as we looked down the thin dirt path and saw the head of a huge wyvern poke through the trees.

-Thats a big one...- It was at least forty meters tall, more than big enough to be a hastle to deal with. "Elizabeth, you want to kill it-?" But I was abruptly cut off by Eve holding a finger up to her mouth, shushing me. -Hm?-

I was a bit confused, but before she could even turn her head back around, we saw three other huge wyverns creep over the road, focused on something in the forest to our right.

It was a hunting pod of wyverns, meaning there were likely more we couldn't see as well. -Shit...-

Although not too much for our group to handle, their attention was focused elsewhere. -We need to just let them walk...-

But before my thoughts could even finish, a bright flash of light blasted into the sky before a wall of light engulfed everything in front of us. *ZAP-CRACK*

It only lasted an instant, but when the light faded and my eyes readjusted, a vast section of trees had vanished leaving only the half-molten ground, layered with what looked to be molten wyvern scales coating the ground.

It was so loud that it made my ears ring, and looked like nothing I had ever seen. I was simply left awestruck, with the rest of the group left in the same position.

*Rrrumble* The ground almost immediately started shaking, but before a single thought could pass through my mind, the wyverns that had just crossed the road bolted back across it, taking to the air and leaving a long trail of blood from where their scales had been blown off.

We all simply stood there in shock, not quite understanding what happened until Arcana finally spoke up at a volume barely audible over the ring in my ears. "It uh.. seems like the Church wasn't exaggerating about our guide..."

"Hah..." I wanted to laugh but was too nervous to do so. "No kidding..." -Just where the hell is the Church sending us...-

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