Chương 93: The First Job

Thankfully, Orsted was considerate and messaged me using the lithograph stone two days in advance and said that he was planning on coming over for a visit. This prevented a repeat of the scene that played out last time he stopped by.

This time, when Orsted came up the stairs, my whole family (minus Norn and Aisha) stood in line ready to greet him and bowed in respect. Some of them were able to hide their fear better than others.

"Welcome, Sir Orsted", Lilia said as she approached him holding a tray. "Could I offer you some tea?"

Lilia held the tray out towards Orsted in the same professional manner one would expect from a maid at a noble's mansion. If you paid close attention, however, you could see the small vibrations in the tea from her hands shaking.

"Yes. Thank you. I'll have some."

Orsted gave Lilia a menacing smile before slowly reaching his hand out and grabbing the glass of tea. Rather, he gave a friendly smile that everyone else seemed to interpret as menacing. Just this small motion of his hand was enough to make Lilia flinch.

"Why don't we go upstairs so we can talk in quiet", I suggested. I didn't want to put my family through any more stress than I had to. They were kind enough to greet my new 'friend' upon my request, but I know how powerful his curse is. It probably took everything they had to simply greet him politely like that.

Orsted obliged and followed me up to my research room where we had discussed in private during his last visit.

"You said in your message you needed my help with something?", I led off the conversation.

"Yes. There is a matter that would be quite troublesome for me to deal with myself. I was hoping you could take care of it for me."

"Of course. Assuming what you ask is within my capability I would be glad to."

"It shouldn't be a problem for you", Orsted assured. "There is a city on the Western Coast of the Demon Continent known as Bristall. The city is about to select a replacement for their leader who has recently died. I need you to make sure that a certain candidate wins."

"You want me to rig an election? I mean, I could try, but that's not the type of thing I have experience with."

"This isn't the type of election you're thinking of. Whenever the current leader of Bristall dies, a tournament is held to determine the city's next ruler."

"Ah, now I see. Yes, that's definitely something I can handle. Who is it we want to win?"

"A demon man named Gorp."

"Sounds good. I'll make it happen. Why do we want him to win though, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Due to an incident in his childhood, Gorp has a positive view of humanity. His leadership will imbue that philosophy into the citizens of Bristall. In the coming years when Laplace revives, Bristall will act as an important access point for the human army to advance against him."

"How do you know all of this?"

"You don't need to know", he answered curtly.

"C'mon now. We're working together as allies. I've even welcomed you into my home. Trust goes both ways, don't you think?"

Orsted paused to consider what I had said. He looked as though he was about to accept my request but at the last moment changed his mind.

"I will consider what you have said. When you return from Bristall we can discuss the matter further."

'Alright, at least that's something', I thought.

"Take this", Orsted took out a world map from one of his pockets and handed it to me. "I've marked the location of Bristall on the map. It's a fairly large city by the Demon Continent's standards. You shouldn't have any trouble finding it."

"Hmm...", I traced my finger along the map from the location Orsted marked to the nearest Teleportation Circle I was aware of. "This is pretty far from any teleportation circles that I know of; about two two weeks of travel by carriage. Do you perhaps know of any that are closer?"

"No."

"Well that's fine, I guess. When is the election meant to be held?"

"It is likely to be held at the end of this month."

"The end of the month!? That's only two weeks away! Why would you wait until now to tell me about this?"

"Normally I would have taken care of something like this myself, but something else has come up that I must attend to. I do apologize for the late notice."

"No... No... That's alright. I understand how things like this happen. Don't worry Orsted, I'll handle it."

"You have my thanks."

Orsted asked me to reconfigure the Magic Circle to a destination in the Strife Zone, but unfortunately I wasn't aware of the matching circle he was referring to. Instead, at his request, I sent him to the Red Dragon's Lower Jaw where Father and I first met him.

After Orsted left, I told everyone that I had to leave for a short trip to take care of something and that I would be gone for about a month. Sylphy was upset that I would miss the end of the schoolyear ceremonies but there was nothing I could do about it. This mission had a time constraint.

Paul, of course, wanted to come with me but I insisted that I could handle this myself. I wasn't doing anything dangerous this time. No really!

Before leaving, I made sure to configure a magic circle into the magic armor Zanoba, Cliff, and I had been working on so that I could summon the armor at a moment's notice should the need arise. I also made sure that Leo understood that it was up to him to protect our family while I was gone. He seemed to understand.

While everyone once again came downstairs to see me off, I took the small traveling sack I had packed with food and water and activated the magic circle.

My environment suddenly shifted to that of a dusty, dark cavern that extended into the side of a mountain. Going by the map Orsted had given me, I was currently almost due east inland of the coastal city of Bristall.

The problem was that I was two weeks of travel by carriage away from the city and the tournament was set to be held ten days from now. There's also the fact that it's not like I have a mount to ride on. I'm currently on foot.

As I made my way out of the cavern, I shielded my eyes until they had time to adjust to the bright sunlight. This teleportation circle was built into the side of a mountain that was in the middle of the Demon Continent's southern mountain range. In order to make my way to Bristall, I first had to find my way down from this mountain range. It wasn't as simple as descending down the side of a singular mountain. This entire region was a highly elevated series of peaks and valleys. If it wasn't for my ability to levitate myself with gravity magic, simply leaving the mountain range would have been an ordeal in itself.

I made my way westward, effectively walking on air over a valley towards the adjacent mountain when I saw something interesting.

'What a lucky break!', I thought.

My Magic Power Eye picked up several large mana traces bunched together behind a rock formation. If not for my Demon Eye I would have never noticed them.

It was a pack of Fenris wolves. I've seen these monsters before. Fenris Wolves are giant six-legged wolves with black fur, giant fangs, and two flaming tails. They are highly intelligent and agile 'S' ranked monsters due to both their individual strength and their ability to identify tactics used against them and come up with a counter strategy.

I descended down towards them to find that they were all sleeping. Well, all but one that is. One of them was hiding behind a small rock formation on a ledge up above the rest of them. Despite the effective hiding spot, I had seen it in advance easily with my Magic Power Eye.

As I approached from above the pack, the lookout wolf howled causing the rest of them to snap awake and instantly take a defensive stance.

Ignoring their growls and snarls, I continued my slow descent until I gently landed on the ground right in the center of the pack of wolves. The wolves watched me quite carefully. It was obvious that they were on guard. These were intelligent creatures and the scene playing out before them made no sense to them. No creature in their right mind would willingly put themselves in such a situation. There was something strange about this human that approached them. He seemed far too calm considering his current predicament.

After landing on the ground, I began to slowly walk towards the largest of the wolves. I'm guessing that this is the leader of the pack.

Rather than lunging in for an attack like I expected, the huge wolf actually began to backpedal away from me as they all continued with their snarling.

"You really do have good instincts", I said as I raised my hand up, pointing it at the alpha.

The moment I pointed my hand towards him, one of the other wolves behind me took the opportunity to lunge forward trying to take me out from behind. However, he stopped in midair.

I had foreseen his attack using my eye of foresight and caught him midair with gravity magic before firing an [Electric] at the wolf who was stuck floating in the air. The wolf convulsed in the air for a couple seconds before losing consciousness. I flung his unconscious body back to where he laid before waking him up.

The entirety of the exchange took mere seconds and the rest of the wolves simply watched in horror as their compatriot was so easily defeated by this unknown entity. In fact, the group of wolves had stopped growling and it had become eerily silent.

"You!", I said as I pointed my hand back at the alpha. The three meter tall, six-legged canine shivered in fear as I commanded it to "Come!"

As I said this, I pulled the wolf closer to me with gravity magic. The poor monster whimpered in fear as I pulled it in and all the rest of them used the opportunity to scatter in all directions.

"So much for your friends", I said with a laugh.

As I held the monster down to the ground with gravity magic, I walked up beside it and climbed up onto its back before releasing my spell. The wolf seemed to understand what I wanted and didn't try to buck me off its back. Instead, it stood up straight and waited for my command.

I grabbed ahold of the fur at the nape of his neck and pulled at it in the direction I wanted him to travel. It didn't take long for the Alpha Fenris to catch on and take off running down the mountainside as I directed.

Within a matter of hours, we had made it out of the Southern Mountain Range and were now on the open plains heading straight for Bristall. The wolf could run at blistering speeds. Forget two weeks, at this rate I'm going to make it there in a couple days!

### Author's Note ###

This section was too big to fit in the actual author's note so I just decided to put it at the end of the chapter.

I noticed while I was writing this that the time of day never seems to change whenever Rudeus travels across the world with teleportation magic (time zones). It's possible that this could simply be an oversight, but I like to think that it's because of the 'Six-Faced World'. If the Human World was simply one side of a six-sided die, then it would effectively be like living on a Flat Earth and if their six-sided planet was tidally locked to the sun then it would explain the lack of time zones. A little off-topic I suppose. Just an interesting thought.