บท 19: The Search Begins
The next morning, I wake up early and grab a quick breakfast from Anne. The previous night she had given her approval of my new clothes/armor. At least she didn't call me something absurd like The Black Sorceress. After breakfast, I head out towards the dungeon to meet up with the rest of the rescue party.
Arriving at the dungeon entrance, I spot the rest of the group outside waiting, don't know if they were waiting on me or not. Thania just gave me a cold look then briefed the rest of the party.
"Now that the sleeping princess arrived, we can continue. As said yesterday we are to find the missing groups. I have a magic device that can locate each member, or more precisely, locate their tags. Are there any questions?"
Since she brought it up, I decided to ask her some questions of my own.
"Yeah, I got some questions. Why are you so hostile to me?"
She gave me a cold glare before answering me.
"Frankly, I don't like you. You reek of some noble child playing at being a mercenary. I don't know how you did it, but you so you somehow managed to trick the Guild Master into being a mithril rank. Probably used some family connections or bought your way in, but I plan on weeding you out. Those stupid scars on your face don't mean anything either, probably all self-inflicted anyway. So, this is your only warning, go back home and suckle on your mother's teat. You don't belong here. If you continue, then I can't guarantee your safety."
Ok wow, so she just dumped all her thoughts out there like that then. No hiding anything. She was also strangely accurate with the whole noble child thing too.
"Sorry to disappoint you but I have no family and my rank was earned I am just as strong as you if not more. I plan on completing this request."
This remark earned me another death glare.
"We'll see. Come on guys let's move out and get this over with."
With that the rest of our group picked up their packs, only a few had no packs and only guessed that others were carrying their gear. We continued into the entrance where our group stopped and Thania spoke up again.
"We are going directly to the eighth floor. Anyone who has not been to that floor should leave now, we won't be coddling anyone to get them to eighth from a lower floor."
While saying this she gives me another one of her looks. Probably trying to find an excuse to have me dropped from the party. I simply stand there and just stare at her until she finally turns away. Following her lead, everyone uses the orb to teleport to the eighth floor.
I was the last to arrive and received surprised looks from some of the other members. Thania herself even had a surprised look but quickly started to mean mug me again. After confirming everyone arrived Thania spoke to the group again.
From here we will travel while in a formation. We will have shield bearers upfront. Next will be any mage class and archer class mercenaries. The rear will be taken by any striker class mercenaries. I would also like a contingent of scouts in the front and the rear."
Since I considered myself to be both a striker and mage class, I moved myself to the back and was met with another disapproving glare from our fearless leader who also took up a position in the back. Once everyone was in their positions, we started to move forward using the device as a kind of GPS to find any mercenaries. I had my map function so I could use that to aid us if needed as well. I also decided that I wouldn't use my full abilities here just yet either, didn't want to give away all my cards.
We proceeded into the jungle following our scout and Thania's direction looking for any clues to the missing party. Along the way, we ran into some of the local wildlife and they were all killed rather easily. I collected anything that could be used as food during our jungle hunts. Several hours later we came across the body of one of the investigation teams, he was just a young kid. We collected his tags and continued with the search.
Towards the end of the day, we stopped and set up camp. Thania was barking out orders to everyone like usual.
"Listen up! We are making camp here. We will rotate guard every two hours with two people at a time."
Looking at me she continues her spiel. "Noobie, you will have the mid-shift. Hope you get enough sleep."
She is seriously starting to get on my nerves. I simply shrug and continue to make my camp in a tree, like I always do. Seeing how my reaction wasn't what she was expecting, she starts to bark orders at the others.
Before sunset, the camp was set up and many of the other mercenaries were getting their dinner ready. Most were eating some dried meat and bread and others were simply roasting some meat over a fire. I climbed down from my tree after getting my bedding ready and walked to the edge of the camp. I then proceeded to make a little fire and pulled out a small pot from my inventory. I filled the pot up with some water I had stored and started to boil it. I then proceeded to cut some of the meat I had hunted earlier into small cubes. I then added the meat and some seasoning to the pot to get a hodgepodge stew started. After several more minutes, I added some vegetables.
After a while, it was done, and I sat back to enjoy my semi-good cooking. While I was eating, I noticed I had the eyes of some of the mercenaries on me including Thania's. It seemed she was waiting for to acknowledge she was looking at me before she attempted to say anything.
"Look at this! The princess is too good for real food, so she needs to pamper herself to a fancy meal."
Ok that's it she is pissing me off. Not stopping my meal, I reply to her.
"Let me guess, your single right? I can see why though. Who would want to be with a gorilla who can't cook and is only good at breaking stuff? Probably wouldn't know what good food taste like even if it smacked you in the face."
I have no idea if gorillas exist in this world or not but judging by everyone's silence and the anger dripping from our fearless leader, I would guess my words worked. Thania then exploded in anger. She grabbed her large sword and started to yell at me.
"You think you're hot shit?! How about we settle this in a duel. I win you leave the mercenary guild and go back home. If you win, I will be your maid until we are done with this mission. How's that?"
What have you done? You crazy woman. You are just about to become a maid. I will enjoy this a lot.
"Deal, but don't cry when you lose."
I could see that just added more fuel to the already raging inferno that was her temper. The other mercenaries gathered around on one side of us expecting a good show. How often is it that they witness a fight between two mithril rank mercenaries.
Deciding on not revealing all my cards to her I opted to end the fight as soon as possible, and the best way to do that is with surprise. She only thinks of me as some spear user.
Thania came charging at me with her large sword. I could see she had imbued the edge in some kind of mana and was later confirmed when her strikes missed and hit the ground. This continued for just a few moments so I could accurately gauge her fighting style and any weaknesses.
"HA! For a cocky little shit, I got you on the edge. I guess that rank is all show."
I have had enough of her foul-mouthed temper, so I decided to end it. She came at me and swung down, I juked to her left. Standing behind her I angled the hook on my polearm towards her ankle. Using my strength, I pulled her foot towards me and tripped her. Using her surprise to my advantage I cast the spell I had used on the assassin wannabe to make it difficult for her to breathe. As she rolled over struggling to breathe, I angled the blade part at her neck and smiled.
Her eyes were wide with shock as I could see the smoke coming from her head indicating she was thinking too hard about her predicament. Finally concluding she lost, she drops her sword and closes her eyes. Seeing her finally surrender I release my spell. Thinking about it now, I was unaffected by my spell. So maybe I don't need to breathe...I will think about that later. Moments later our bystanders erupted into chatter as they were excitedly talking about the duel they just saw.
"Did you see that? I thought that Lynn was having a hard time!"
"I know right! She was probably just trying to find an opening or something."
"Did anyone notice her use of wind magic just then?"
"I did. But I can't quite tell what it did. All I know is that the air around her felt somehow wrong."
Finally getting up to her feet, Thania finally turns towards me.
"I guess you can stay. Don't forget your night watch shift."
As she turned to leave, I spoke up in response to her.
"Don't forget our deal. Starting tomorrow you will address me as Mistress. Oh, and I will also need you to prepare my breakfast tomorrow."
Hearing that she hurriedly walked back to her tent.
I store the rest of my dishes in my inventory and climb up to my tree to get some sleep. I spend some time trying to see if my clock function also has an alarm and was pleased to see it does. I set an alarm and doze off to sleep.
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Thania was back in her small tent. Most mercenaries only used something this small or no tent at all. After all, they were not like nobles who needed large tents. Laying down on her bedroll she thought back to her duel. What went wrong? She seemed unfazed by her magic sword technique that was feared and known throughout the empire. Even if she missed the shockwave should have still had some effect.
She then started to think about how easily she had lost to her.
[I swung my sword at her and the next moment she was behind me and I was on the ground. Had she just been toying with me the entire time?]
Anger started to well up in her chest at the thought of how unfair that fight was. She then started to think about when she was laying on the ground.
"Her battle aura was so strong I could not breathe. What does a child go through to become that battle-hardened? Also, that smile...It reminds me of myself a bit. Full of dominance...with a bit of insanity."
With these thoughts running through her head she didn't realize the different faces she was making ranging from pure hatred to pure bliss.
"I'll show her next time. I will crush her the next time. No one makes a fool out of me."
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The morning came relatively fast. My alarm worked rather well too. It woke me up before the previous watch had the chance to wake me up. During my shift, some small fries poked a little too far into our camp and I was able to easily deal with them. Other than that, I spent most of the night listening to another mercenary, Jordan I think his name was, talk on and on about how great my fight with the captain was.
I awoke once the sun started to peek over the trees. I have also always wondered about that. Is that a real sun in the dungeon? I want to ask Teona that next time I see her. Climbing down the tree, I find my new maid so I can eat my breakfast.
Walking around the camp I see there is a communal "kitchen" setup. Calling it a kitchen is being nice, all it is is just some more dried meat with some kind of porridge. Thania finally noticing my presence slowly walks over to me and hands me a small bowl and a piece of dried meat.
"Here this is yours."
"Tsk tsk. Is that how a maid should act? You need to address me as Mistress and be more courteous in your actions. Also, we need to work on your cooking skills, though I suppose this will do for today."
Through her clenched teeth, I could tell she was struggling with my demands. Well, it's her fault for her situation. I didn't bring up anything about her being my maid.
"Yes, Mistress. This one understands. I would be delighted in serving you better."
I could barely contain myself as I watched her say that while she was trembling in anger.
The morning breakfast was short and one of the mages in the group used water magic before storing the items into what was probably a storage ring of some kind. Glad to know that my storage ability won't stand out too much now.
Once the camp was packed up, we continued with our search in the same configuration as yesterday. Throughout the morning I continued to educate Thania on the working of being a good maid. Of course, these teaching were based purely on what I knew from my old world. At first, she would be defiant. I slipped in the fact this was her deal she made with me, as well as having the other mercenaries here, she finally accepted her fate and obediently listened.
Noon came around and Thania once again served me lunch. This time however I introduced her to the art of cooking. Using my cookware and some simple ingredients she was able to make a basic stew. Not that it mattered as my cooking skills were not much better, but I did consider what I could make to be pretty decent.
Our lunch, however, was interrupted by a roar and the crashing of trees. Everyone Then gathered their things and formed a defensive formation.
Crashing from the trees was a large T-Rex looking monster except this one had what appeared to be black feathers growing in spots on it.
Seeing us it opened up its mouth and spewed out a green sticky substance. Our group managed to avoid the stuff which was good as it had appeared to be slightly acidic or corrosive.
Finally, something that looks like it will be fun to fight.
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