The Travelers

-.

-.

While Alephis was situated more or less directly north of Reflet, the mouth of the Great River Gao was directly to the east of that little town, somewhat like the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle. We wouldn't be passing by Reflet again on the way there.

It wasn't like we could use [Boom Tube] to get there anyway. Going from Reflet to somewhere near the the Old Capital of Belfast was possible due to being able to triangulate off Alephis, the New Capital. Anything beyond that would drop us somewhere in the middle of a forest or something, which was obviously sub-optimal for plonking down horse-drawn carriages.

Accurate mapmaking was not yet a technology known to this world, and even Monika's weird magic GPS lacked any real accuracy beyond our personal sensing range.

Ten days on the road was unavoidable. However that didn't mean we couldn't make that journey somewhat less painful.

There were two carriages. The first one contained Yumina, Olga Strand, and Lyon Blitz. The second one had us – Elze, Linze, Yae, and Arma – set up more as a leisure car. Arma and Yae were playing cards down on the floor.

I had commissioned a custom set of Hanafuda cards, but as it turned out that Yae, despite coming from a very Japanese-like culture, didn't recognize them. Then I remembered that playing cards were introduced by the Portuguese to Japan in 1549, leading to an outbreak of card games and gambling and Japan banned foreign playing cards in 1633. Hanafuda evolved from that insular churn of image-based decks as one of those that could be played by the populace with limited use for gambling. Since this time period was roughly analogous to the 1600s to early 1700s without guns, they just didn't have those card games yet.

Arma was fascinated by the brilliantly-colored cards, but the rules were somewhat complicated, so instead of the formal rules she was given to play a much simpler card-matching game.

The objective was to collect all four cards of a Hanafuda suite. (1) First the dealer places sixteen cards face-down. Then four cards are given to each player.

A player then flips up a card, and takes it. They then put down a card in the empty spot and flip up another card. If that other card is from the same suite as the previous card or the one they put down, they can take the matching cards. If the four cards of a suite are matched, they are put aside. If it isn't, then all cards are set face-down again. Then the turn passes to the other player.

If someone's hand or the center area is empty of cards, the dealer will lay down more cards from the remainder.

Yae and Arma were sitting on the carriage floor playing the card game. Yae picked up a card, showing star-shaped maple leaves in red, yellow and gray on a white background as if floating on water, and then flipped up another card. Cherry blossoms. Similar color scheme, similar shape, but different suites. She stared blankly at the non-matching card and sighed.

On a normal carriage, it would have been visible how the cards would shift around as the carriage trundled on bumpy unpaved road. But here, the cards barely even twitched.

"Okay. Playa, I've put up with a lot of your shite. But these… "air suspension" magic tool thingies that you can make are pretty dang good!" Elze bounced in her seat.

The seat cushions were just regular cotton padding. But beneath the carriage, small focused air jets pushed against the ground to keep the carriage level actually half an inch over the ground. Ground traction was maintained because the wheels were wrapped in heavy canvas, a precursor to rubberized tires.

She pointed at me. "These are much more respectable things to get famous for, make your name with these instead!"

I crossed my arms and retorted "I refuse!"

While it would nice to be a manufacturing magnate, magic air suspension had several disadvantages over actual gas-bag air suspension. I couldn't mass-produce them, they kicked up lots of dust, and was somewhat noisy. Becoming this other world's Samsung would take a little more time than being this other world's Jollibee Foods Corporation.

"Though I accept the thanks on behalf of your bubble butt."

"Who are you calling a bubble butt!"

Arma looked up from the game on the carriage floor. "What's a bubble butt?"

Elze eeped in surprise, her eyes widening in dismay. She slapped her palms over my mouth. "W-watch your words! There are children present!"

"A bubble butt is a butt so phat, it's round like a soap bubble and just as bouncy."

"Ooh. Fat!" the little fox girl nodded sagely. She squinted suspiciously towards Elze.

"YOU STUPIDHEAAAD!" Elze immediately jammed her thumbs her into my mouth and pinched my cheeks. "STOP CORRUPTING THE INNOCEENT!"

"Nygahahaha…"

/"It's quite the obvious lie, anyway,"/ said Monika. /"Elze's glutes are nice and firm because she exercises. If anyone here has a bubble butt, it would be…"/

Linze, who lounging sitting on the opposite carriage seat by the corner, reading a book of Shakepeare's plays that we printed out, looked up. She blushed and tried to hide her face behind the book.

Monika then pointed at me. /"This lazy ass over here!"/

"That is fair," I nodded.

"Are butts really that interesting, Mister Clown?" Arma asked again. She put down a card and picked up a card. "Ha! Got it!"

"Well done, Arma-chan!" Yae said excitedly. A swordswoman should not have such horrible short-term memory for patterns. Her own struggle was to allow the little girl to win and be happy without making it obvious that she was throwing the game.

I shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe? You know how they say… heroes are bad ass. They kick ass. Some people are just assho-"

"Get out." Elze pointed to a blank wall of the carriage and the pinprick of light there.

/"… Yes, you're kinda being too annoying right now, Player. Are you bored? Maybe you need some higher level amusements."/

"All right. All right. I'll bum around somewhere else then."

The small pinprick of light expanded out into a [Boom Tube] tunnel linking the two carriages together. On the other side, Olga and Lyon looked up away from the chessboard.

"Playas get out!" Elze hissed through clenched teeth as she hauled me up by my collar and pushed me into the hole. "Reeeeeeh…!"

"Bye bye, Mister Clown!"

-.

-.

Unlike Carriage #2, the lead carriage had its curtains drawn and was lit only by a magic crystal light. It had a much more somber, grownup atmosphere.

I got up, coughed into my fist and stared at this hopeless bunch of normies. "Sorry for ruining your game. So, who was winning?"

The two stared down at the pieces scattered by my ramming headfirst onto the board, then looking up they chanced to meet each other's eyes. They both quickly looked away, blushing faintly.

"S-sir Lyon had the advantage. It's no matter, I was losing anyway."

"No, that's not true! We were already tied, one-one, and Miss Strand won the game before. It could still have gone either way…"

Ooh? That was an interesting reaction. I glanced towards Yumina, and raised my eyebrow. Her response was a smug little smile.

I see. This carriage was a shipping container.

I eased onto the seat besides Yumina and said to him "Mmm. Do you know why you are tasked with Miss Olgra Strand's safety over literally anything else? In this delegation, none but you among all the other guards even known that Yumina is the Crown Princess. Protecting her is more important than even your basic duty to the crown."

Lyon's gaze flicked to the side, and Olga was pointedly avoiding looking at him and hiding her own blush.

"I… I surely do not know, sir!"

Yumina ventured "Um, does it have anything to do with how I'm already more than adequately protected? I don't meant to disparage the Royal Knights, but… they're not quite Red Rank Adventurers."

"Yumina, do you know why we're taking this long route to Mismede? We could [Boom Tube] there in a couple of days instead of ten days, if I were allowed to range ahead – but instead we're taking this slow obvious route with only a minimal level of escort. We're spending so much time when Regulus could attack at any time."

The princess put a hand to her chin. "I'm… not sure. It feels a bit heartless to say… we're being offered as bait?" Yet she didn't seem to mind if even her own father was willing to risk her life that way, because that was part of the responsibilities of a ruler. Frankly, after being pampered all her life, sharing some of the danger was the least she felt she could do for the people that fought for her sake.

"Something like that. But more basic. Yumina, may I see the transcriptions of their game?"

Yumina handed over the sheets of paper. Lyon Blitz nodded fervently.

"May I just say it's very interesting how an entire game of chess could be recorded and replayed with such simple notation! I haven't heard of any other game that allows this, truly chess it is worth being called the King's Game!"

I hmm'ed again. "Lyon, what is the objective in chess?"

"The objective in chess is to… to capture the enemy's king!"

Olga looked up sharply, suddenly alarmed for reasons.

I nodded. "Yes. Not to capture pieces. Not to defend your own King from capture. It doesn't matter if the board is clear or not, checkmate is to prevent your opponent from making any movement that could allow their King to escape capture. So why is this important? Why can't the other pieces just keep fighting on their own?"

I could see the honest young knight hold himself back from saying the obvious 'Because… those are the rules… of the game…?' and tried to think of a more acceptable reason.

"Because… if the King is captured, then no one can tie together all the different forces to fight," said Olga. "Nobles and tribes would surrender or betray the rest for their own advantage if they have no reason to remain united."

I beamed. "Exactly. That's the sort of realism that only someone who lives with having to make sure different tribes act as one can comprehend.

"Despite what people may think, chess doesn't actually teach you anything about tactics or strategy. All it does is expose your habits, your personality. Do you seek to exchange pieces swiftly to clear the board and leave the endgame to maneuver? Do you seek to cramp the board and protect as many pieces as possible? Do you favor the straightforward opening or do you prefer attacking from the side? Chess is no substitute for war."

"Then… what is the point, Sir Zah? Do you have a more realistic way to simulate war?"

WARHAMMER TOTAL WAR YES I WANT TO PLAY TABLETOP WITH SOMEONE. I coughed and looked away. "These ten days were given to us so that we can better prepare to have these two very different kingdoms act as one. Lyon, your father has sent you out to learn about strategy instead of just battle tactics. Miss Strand, so that you can understand that Mismede has leverage over Belfast in this alliance.

"But what both kingdoms lack is a means to prevent betrayal. A carrot and a stick, one might say."

Yumina's eyes glittered. "So do you have a means to ensure both sides don't betray each other? I am sure there are still hard feelings from certain elements on both sides."

Yumina was keenly familiar with how a political marriage had long been the way to permanently fix an alliance. The King of Mismede lacked children of marriageable age however – his eldest was a princess of ten years, and the first prince was just nine years old and the second prince was just six. Mismede would never allow Belfast a reason to press an inheritance claim to the crown of Mismede, so since Sue was a member of the Royal Family she was not a contender there either.

While Lyon Blitz was the son of General Leon Blitz, commander of the Royal Army… Olga Strand was the daughter of Olba Strand, just a particularly successful merchant from Mismede. Neither of them had any serious influence.

I grinned. "Yumina, you are the carrot. I am the stick. And we have these ten days to think up a way to fix geopolitics using only soldiers without borders."

-.

-.

I growled with a faintly Scottish brogue "Ogres are like onions."

I pitched my voice up like a brother from the hood "They stink?"

"Yes. No!"

"They make you cry?"

"No. Yes… but no!"

"Oh so you leave them out in the sum and they get all brown and start sprouting little white hairs-"

I groaned and slapped my face, and then shoved an empty hand out. "No. Layers. Onions have layers. *Ogres* have layers. You get it? We both have *layers*."

"Oooh. You both have layers." Then added somewhat sadly "Oh. You know, not everybody likes onions."

I made some sort of frustrated blubbering snorting noise.

"CAKE! How about cake! Everybody loves cake! Cake have layers!" (2)

It was night and we were camped out beside the road. With Earth magic we raised some stone slabs to use as benches and later so people could sleep more comfortably off the ground. The girls could sleep inside the carriage. Around the fires as we ate dinner, over several nights we shared stories.

Arma clapped happily as the retelling of the story of SHREK came to a close. Yumina smiled as well. The tale of Shrek and Fiona was about socially inappropriate love and marriage, and despite it being about a princess like she was… she looked shiftily towards Lyon and Olga. The two were seated far apart and were pointedly avoiding looking at each other.

"An interesting tale, milord," Lyon said as we relaxed to the night watch. "Lord Faarquad needing to marry a Princess to become a King on his own right… it sounds uncomfortably close to what Her Highness had to suffer." He looked vaguely uncomfortable with the ending. "But Princess Fiona, to turn into an ogre at the end…"

"Don't read too much into it. It's just a story. A princess choosing to become a commoner is just as feasible as any commoner becoming a princess or a queen by marriage. In the end people are just people, no matter our station we all bleed and hunger for love and understanding the same way." I shrugged. Besides, if I were to take the role of Shrek, who would be Donkey?

Probably Elze. Yes definitely Elze.

"I see. Thank you for those wise words, milord."

-.

("Why do I feel the sudden urge to PUNCH SOMEONE IN THE FACE?" Elze muttered from inside the carriage as they were setting up to sleep.

("Sis, you feel that urge ALL THE TIME," Linze said softly as she slid into the blanket.)

-.

"Sir Zah… I would just like to ask… I mean no offense, but… how do you do it?"

"Mm?" Do what?

"How do you… make people laugh?" Lyon asked. "I mean, how do I become as confident as you, that you can look so silly and no one minds it as long as people are happy? Would it help to take lessons from thespians and bards?"

I blinked. "Dude. Are you… are you actually afraid that you're boring?"

Lyon Blitz, tall nice rich handsome blond noble knight guy blushed and fidgeted in his seat. His father was boisterous and unrestrained, so it was somewhat strange that his son would be so proper and dignified. He was afraid of looking silly while at the same time wishing he could be so free with his emotions to be able to act on them. He was like perfect husbando material and yet had the gall to still feel inadequate about wooing a woman.

Riajuu go burn.

I looked around and saw how the Belfast and Mismede guards were not mingling. Whereas the Belfast Knight Order guards were wearing half-plate, the Misemede guards were wearing more mobile padded jacks and some ring mail. Through some unspoken agreement they each defended half of the camp.

One of the beastkin guards suddenly flicked his long rabbit ears up and made a bird-like whistling sound. Instantly all the other Mismede guards went on alert, but didn't sit up to make it obvious that they had detected something.

Lyon noticed it instantly, he was about to stand up and then sat back down. "What does that mean? An ambush? We should-"

"Ooh? How interesting." I opened my palm out, and a holographic minimap floated on top of my hand. At least twenty red dots surrounded our camp. "Night battle, eh? Someone's being… competent."

I grinned and closed my hand into a fist.

Arrows shot out from the darkness and punched through the wood of the carriages.

-.

-.

Now, the obvious question arises – {"Wait, doesn't Monika have some sort of threat radar that's kilometers in radius? Why didn't she detect this ahead of time?"}

The answer is: Of course she did.

However, unless these people attack, it's not like we can fault them for anything. Ambushing the ambushers would make us the murderers. They could simply be some random group of people walking at night. Heavily armed random people.

… Look, it's these small technical details that separated a real Adventurer from any random murderhobo, all right?

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

The arrows perforated the wooden hull of the carriages, but went no further. Because the nice thing about the [Boom Tube] is that, though we lacked a convenient [Inventory] system, it could be linked to a predesignated warehouse. At night, when the horses did not need to bear the weight, steel plates could be brought in to reinforce the walls of the carriage to sleep in safety.

Technically, [Boom Tube] meant that there was no reason to sleep in the carriages at all, we could all be much comfortably sleeping inside an Inn during the night – but that felt immensely unfair to the guards who would have to sleep outside and stand watch over empty wooden boxes. Removing even that slight inconvenience of travel felt like the sort of pampered self-importance of useless nobles.

I reached up and plucked an arrow caught by the [Air Shield] out of the air. I got up and shouted "Aim to subdue but kill if you have to!"

Garm, the wolf beastkin leader, made a set of whistling sounds and gestured left. The Mismede guards leaped to action into the forest.

And Lyon yelled "Men! Take them down! For the Crown and for Belfaast!" The much more well-armored Belfast guards went to the right.

We were surrounded, but three sides were forest and the fourth was across the road. The arrows came from there. Another volley of arrows came out from the dark, but given that most of the guards had already gone east and west into the woods that just left me and Lyon standing near the campfire. Another [Air Wall] stopped the arrows cold.

I could sense the archers had decided it was time to cut their losses and skedaddle. Being across the road meant that they'd have a head start trying to get away. Light cavalry were useless trying to chase people into the woods unless on foot.

I opened my palm out to display the tactical map again.

Four horse-riding guards each from Belfast and Mismede, plus carriage driver and archer guard per carriage … that's twelve versus twenty. Since the four enemy archers had decided to leave rather than help, that was twelve versus sixteen – close enough odds.

Boom.

The carriages were practically sealed shut with metal, the only way out was via [Boom Tube].

Elze came out running, followed by Linze who cast a long-burning ball of fire acting like a flare to expose the attackers. The Belfast guards yelled "Uooooahh!" brandishing their swords to meet the attackers armed mainly with axes and boiled leather for armor.

To the left, the Mismede guards didn't need illumination as much. Yae joined them, skillfully running at full speed through the forests. Short but intense battles lit only by moonlight and flashing steel commenced.

"Raaargh!" the bandits surged forth, shouting and roaring.

"Come Water! Swift stabbing shards, [Ice Daggers!]"

The Mismede soldiers lowered their heads and raised their arms, blocking most of the incoming ice shards on their bracers and helmets. So that was the reason why everyone went around with half-plate and/or breastplate armor, despite how expensive it may be to equip everyone. There were few who wore middle-of-the-road protection like jack of plates or chain/ring mail, because the prevalence of magic affinities meant one was better off with being able to shrug off hits or avoid them entirely.

Behind the group of attackers was a well-dressed person – an adventurer who knew magic. "Ice, entangle! Freezing Curse – [Icebind!]"

One of the Belfast guards dropped from his legs being frozen over. One of the attackers, a bearded heavily muscled man in furs, chuckled and lunged to chop him down with his axe.

Whapow!

Elze punched the axe. The edge chipped under her fist, and the axe head recoiled to strike its owner right in the face with the blunt end. The bandit toppled backwards, his nose bleeding, and struck the ground completely knocked out.

"Wha-?!" the enemy adventurer boggled as Elze pushed forward, backhanding another bandit. The rest of the Belfast guards struck down the rest. "Stay back!"

Elze punched a tree. Then she picked up the shattered tree trunk and threw it at him.

"I surrender!" the adventurer screamed out as he ducked.

We just finished bashing down sixteen enemies. The bandits had eight more people in reserve, and charged down the middle towards the parked carriages.

"Dark come forth! I desire the proud beast wrapped in silver, [Silver Wolf!]"

"Bawooo!" Yumina's summoned Silver Wolves sprang out of a magic circle, howling and snarling. Five of them, adept forest predators, swung the advantage of fighting in the forests well in our favor. Linze began blasting fire and ice magic from behind them.

Lyon Blitz rallied the rest of the Belfast troops to deal with these remaining bandits.

Yae and the Mismede guards finished dealing with the bandits and adventurers on their side, with the wolves chasing down those that didn't engage.

The archers were getting away. I smiled.

"Lyon!"

"Yes, Sir Zah?" he answered from the other side of the carriages.

"Deal with securing the area. I'm going after the stragglers."

"Understood!"

Whumpf. I sprang up with a [Jet Boost], following the fleeing archers. Through the tree cover, my HUD still showed them as red targets. The archers had decided to split off into pairs in opposite directions. That was fine.

I picked the scrambling pair to the left, and slammed through the leaves, landing with a shocking bang right in front of them them. They were thrown up into the air and slammed against the trees. No time for quips, I punched both of them with a [Stunning Fist] to the head.

The other pair of archers began to run even more frantically at the loud sound behind them. I jumped high again, and rather than crash into their midst, I sprang down to a nearby branch and slapped them both with a [Homo Stasis].

While they both were frozen in time, I approached the two retreating archers. They looked like adventurers, with good boots, no armor except strong weather-resistant clothes, and a jaunty green hat. I took out two small yellow magic stones and inserted them into the brim of their boots.

Then I stepped back out of view and cancelled the [Homo Stasis] spell.

They stumbled for a moment and looked backwards in confusion. Whatever wrong feeling they had was put aside as Silver Wolves howling in the distance spurred them to just get away no matter what.

-.

-.

Olga Strand could only sit in the darkness and hug her sister. With the steel sheets inside the carriage, it was impregnable to everything short of perhaps being set on fire.

There was a click of the carriage door being unlatched from the outside. Olga hugged her sister tighter.

Boom. A heatless white light filled the carriage. Gloves pushed down on the ridge of the steel plates, making it sink through the portal to fall down into a distant warehouse somewhere. "It's all right," said Lyon. "The bandits have been defeated. You should be safe now."

"T-thank you. I'm sorry for causing you any trouble…" Olga whispered, a shaky smile and a blush rising on her face.

"Ah, n-no need for that. This is but… this is all part of my duty, don't mention it, really!" the young knight spoke up, whatever cool he had before shattering into a flustered mess.

The foxy lady giggled softly.

-.

"Are… are they dead?" Arma whispered in a scared tone as she watched us pile the bandits, all twenty-six of them, onto the side of the road.

"No, just knocked out," I replied. "Don't worry. We should be safe for now. Why don't you get some rest?"

Arma looked around carefully. She saw Yae and Elze dragging bandits from the woods, and me just standing there not helping. Her small eyes narrowed. "Are you a lazy clown?" she asked.

/"… What, of course he is."/

"Oh! Miss Fairy!"

/"He's right though. You and your sister are the Very Important People that should be protected here. There's not much more than can be done tonight, you should be a good girl and go back to sleep. We're just going to tie up and send away these criminals."/

"… I guess. Okayss..." the little foxgirl mumbled and kicked her toes at the ground abashedly.

Elze and Linze accompanied the Strand siblings back to the second carriage. Meanwhile Lyon, Yumina, Garm the Misemede Guard Captain, and I went into the other carriage.

Once inside, I opened up the tacmap again and showed the region around us, lighting up the insides of the carriage with a sharp blue glow.

I enunciated very carefully "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design."

/"Now hang on there, Sheev (3),/" Monika waved a palm at me. /"Before you get all too impressed by yourself, explain why letting people get away is a good thing."

"This is only possible due to your [Enscribe] Null magic. Behold, the [Spygem]!" A ghostly hologram showed the fleeing enemy archers. Using a passive version of [Air Sense], we could not only show exactly what they were doing, but what they were saying.

-.

-.

"What… what was that?!" one of the archers gasped. "That was worse than what we were told! Damn useless bandits! Now the rest of the guys… the Poison Snakes are done for!"

"Tch. We should've known that much money was too good to be true. But a job's a job."

"T-think we should still let Leader know? We could just go run away and hide by ourselves…"

"Poison Snake and Steel Fangs are one. If Leader doesn't hear from us, his bro's going to send the Steel Fangs to hunt us down and make our death slow since it's gonna look like we're traitors who sold 'em out. The only way we can get the guys back is if the Steel Fangs fight 'em next time."

"Ugh. Workin' with bandits. This is gonna get us black-listed by the Guild. Maybe we should go give ourselves up to the Guild instead, we wus only followin' orders. It's one thing to rob merchants on the side, gettin' called bandits means we're gonna get killed when we're caught."

"Right. Right… we had a good thing going being just Blue Rank adventurers. We can always join another party, right? Wait, you all right? You've got somethin' going there with your chin."

"Huh? What? I don't see- ghlurk!"

The other archer, while his buddy was distracted looking down touching his chin to check if he was wound or something, swiftly drew his knife and stabbed the other through the side of the neck.

As his fellow adventurer collapsed, gurgling and bleeding to death, he quipped "Yeah, you got something going on there, like some sort of disloyal mouthole."

The sole surviving archer ran on towards the next town.

-.

-.

"Interesting…" I hummed. So it was a good thing we used two [Spygems]. "If we send a horse rider out, the only way is to do so immediately. If we didn't know about this and spent time tying up the bandits or waiting until morning, the rider we sent would probably be ambushed and killed along the way."

"This… this is some powerful magic," said Captain Garm. His eyes flicked towards Monika's tiny fairy-like form sitting on my shoulder.

"This is why I am the stick."

The beastkin captain stared at me oddly. Lyon coughed into his fist and said "Sir Zah, what is your plan now? Do you still want to wait until he reaches his 'Leader' so we can hear more about why they are attacking or perhaps who sent them?"

"We don't have the ability to carry along with us twenty-eight prisoners. But at the same time, they're even more useful as bait." I looked up from the tacmap. "Adventurers are rarely cavalry, right?"

"Yes, horses are expensive," said Lyon. "If they're going to ambush us again, they will have do so on foot and block the road somehow. Attacking us while we were supposed to be sleeping meant that we could act as cavalry or just have the carriages run away."

"Hmm. Well the solution seems obvious. The runner we send should be capable of defending himself from being stabbed in the back."

/"So you're going?"/ said Monika.

I nodded. "That's the risk that I'm going to have to absorb."

The goal was to keep tempting bad guys to attack us, get them to escape, and lead us step by step to their ringleader. Torturing was such a slow process. Even Truth Magic spells can't give out information that stooges were never given in the first place.

-.

-.

/"Wait, Player. Your parents were rich, but they're not *that* rich. Where did you learn to ride horses?"/

"World Equestrian Games Simulator!"

/"..."/

"More seriously, there were some farms in touristy areas that allowed for some horse riding lessons at much more affordable rates than clique equestrian clubs. Dude ranches never really went out of style. In fact, the more we advance as a technological society, the more interesting it gets to just be paying people to work in their goddamn farm."

-.

-.

And much to my surprise, I reached the next town of Kaplan safely. I introduced myself to the mayor and the town guard commander and informed them about the situation. We had prisoners, but we couldn't just drive them to town because there's too many of them that if they decided to make a break and run for it in different directions enough would be able to escape.

On the other hand, the town itself didn't really have that many guards to spare and quartering the prisoners would be a hassle since their jail wasn't big enough to contain almost thirty people. I had to assure the mayor that we had no interest in whatever bounty these bandits may have, we had our own urgent business and needed to move on by the day.

It was still the middle of the night and mayor looked irked to be woken up for mere procedural issue. The earliest they could send the town guard out would be in the morning. For all he knew, this was a ruse to weaken village security for actual bandits to pull shenanigans.

Then someone slammed open the door to the guardhouse to offer an unconventional solution.

The leader of the Steel Fangs was a tall, burly adventurer with a neck beard that extended up past his jawline to his ears. It severely flattened the front of his face, but didn't disguise well how he was starting to get a little fat from the years. He beamed happily as he introduced himself to the mayor.

"So, I heard you fine fellows need some prisoner transport security. You're going to send the town guards out for this? Why don't you allow us to help out? No charge! I'm Sacha, leader of the Steel Fangs, and if you need bandit clearing missions after this, just keep us in mind."

Even I was struck a little numb by the sheer chutzpah.

-.

-.

AN:

(1) gamedesign jp /flash/hanafuda/rule_e . html

(2) youtube /watch?v=8r7NAS8NlBM

(3) youtube /watch?v=RVl_sjUrNQE