The Runesmith

‘She really does lack any kind of combat classes, reminds me of Elodia.’

Roland was looking at the young woman before him. The short letter that he received from her informed him about the specificity of the test. It wasn’t much, he just needed to deliver the Melaina unharmed to the last destination. Probably the unharmed part was the most important component of the mission.

“So Ms. Melaina I just need to ensure your safety for the entire trip, is that right?”

“That’s right and Melaina is fine, I think we are about the same age.”

“Okay, then you can just call me Wayland.”

After having their greetings Roland pointed Melaina towards the merchant leader that she needed to have a talk with. If he understood this correctly, the guild would cover most of the fees that the merchant would need to pay him. Thanks to this the merchant would get a cheap high-level adventurer as a bodyguard while the guild could dump off someone that was untested.

“Okay then, I’ll be watching you Wayland please remember to perform to your utmost ability as is expected of a gold rank adventurer!”

“Expected huh?”

“Is there a problem?”

“Oh, nothing…”

Roland shook his head but the moment the girl mentioned gold rank expectations he just wanted to laugh. Armand was a gold rank adventurer and he could not be considered very trustworthy. The way she was speaking made him feel that her field experience was close to zero.

The only expectations on a higher rank adventurer would be their capability to solve problems. How they solved those problems most of the time didn’t matter and doing it with extreme violence was expected. Her words made it sound as if he was to conduct him like a noble knight or at least that was how he understood it.

“I’m sure you have a lot of work to do, so I will excuse myself then but please remember that this is still a test!”

Finally, after the greeting and a quick back and forth Melaina turned towards the merchant group. She had to make herself known and probably give another letter to the people leading this caravan. Now Roland had to contend with her looking over his shoulder and perhaps lowering his score if he did something that she deemed wrong.

‘I hope she doesn’t expect me to go out of my way to perform at this job, an adventurer also has to know when it's time to quit…’

The biggest worry he had was that this examiner would have some heightened expectations of him. Yet even if it meant that he failed this test he would not put his life at too much risk. There were far too many people back home that depended on him, the higher rank was nice but it was not worth losing his life. In half a year he could try again and then his equipment and skills would be even higher which would make it easier.

“Wayland, get back to the front cart, we are moving out!”

“Sure.”

The guard leader shouted towards him to go back to his spot while he headed towards the new adventurers that arrived. Like he expected Orson and Dalrak were not riding in his cart, they were even forced to carry some of the crates instead of just acting as guards.

While the new adventurers were getting their tasks handed out he took some time to look at them. There were two new gold ranked adventurers coming along. Together with them, there were four golds and about twenty-five silvers coming on this expedition. This was about the usual ratio of one to five that only increased when going up the ranks.

“You’re already here?”

Finally, his wagon partner made her appearance, the barbarian woman Grisalde was here. When she stepped in her weight made the wagon tilt slightly. Yet this time around she didn’t look as grumpy instead, her face was smiling for some reason. This was surprising as he did manage to embarrass her yesterday by shoving her back.

“Yes, as you can see.”

She just sat down on the opposite side as if nothing happened. Perhaps the small display of his strength had changed her opinion of him but even if it did Grisalde didn’t apologize for her behavior. Instead, she just looked to the side where she spotted a certain halfling walking around.

“Hey, isn’t that the runt from yesterday?”

Roland frowned as he could see that the large woman was now inching towards the exit.

“Just give it a rest, we are all part of this caravan. If you cause more trouble you might not get paid but well, that's up to you."

He just shrugged as after meeting the halfling he realized that some tomfoolery was involved. The barbarian was probably scammed by Senna and ended up losing her money. It was impossible for him to keep watch over the barbarian to not try anything funny and it was not his responsibility either.

If the halfling decided to cheat people out of their money she needed to be fine with the consequences. The only part that he didn’t like was that some of his acquaintances were involved with it. If it wasn’t for them he would have also stayed out of the drama.

“You know what, you might be right.”

“Oh?”

Roland was surprised that perhaps the barbarian wasn’t that dense but he was quickly disappointed by the follow-up.

“Yeah, I’ll just challenge her to another game, double or nothing!”

“Oh…, Well good luck with that.”

Finally, the wagons started moving and he could see that they had doubled in the amount of cargo they were now carrying. He was still riding the furthermost cart which gave him a good vantage point to observe the rest.

‘Now will this go as smoothly as everyone thinks it will…’After leaving this region they would be arriving at the lawless zones of the island. Such places were mostly thinly populated where not even villages existed. Without a large human presence, monsters would flock to the unregulated space.

There were a couple of things they had to watch out for, the easiest would be monsters that didn’t wander in packs or in smaller ones. Those would probably not be an issue due to the size of their caravan. Then there was one of the worst they could meet, organized monster tribes.

These were creatures like goblins or lizardmen. They would form their own villages with many members whose strength was above an average human. Monsters were naturally gifted with high stats comparable to battle-focused classes of humans. Then when you added the intelligence factor they made for tough opponents.

The kingdom didn’t have enough resources to wipe out these wandering tribes consisting of monsters. Goblins were one of the worst as they multiplied comparatively fast and were quite violent.

‘Well as long as it's a couple of goblins we should be fine.’

It was hard to judge the difficulty of the job taken, the adventurer guild took it upon themselves to predict the possibilities of this trip. They had judged it to be under a tier 3 level threat which was why only silver and gold rank adventurers were here. But predicting such things was always a gamble, depending on the items they were transporting they could be targeted by high-level bandits.

‘I guess there is no reason for me to worry too much, the next stop was in five days.’

Roland liked to have a plan thus he went out of his way to ask about the route they were going to travel. They were finally going into the danger zone so he decided to look over the map that he brought along. This didn’t go unnoticed by his fellow wagon partner who at first seemed interested but quickly went back to snoozing.

‘We will be taking this route…’

He brought out something that looked like a red crayon to help him mark all of the potential danger zones. The easiest ambush zones were ones where they had the low-ground or minimal space to maneuver. But an area with a lot of space could also be deadly if the enemy had a large force that could encircle them from all sides.

‘These should be the toughest spots… which makes the first one…’

Thanks to his good memory Roland could easily remember the next location without the need to constantly look at the map. After noting everything down in his head he returned the map to his backpack.

“Hey hold up, I’m supposed to get on this one too!”

As they were leaving he heard someone call out to them. It was your average-looking adventurer and with a quick glance, he was able to get his class which was a ranger. Yet instead of sitting with him and Grisalde, he used the small ladder on the side to get on top of the cart.

‘So that’s our lookout, luckily I have my own way of scanning the area.’

The importance of scouting classes was high as they could quickly inform everyone about an ambush. Previously someone else was up there but it seemed that he was replaced by another adventurer with a slightly higher level.

This person would not last through the entire trip so he would probably be switched out by someone else within a twelve-hour period. Two other trackers would be on the opposite side doing the exact same thing. Roland on the other hand had his scanner through which he could map out the whole area with an improved range than before.

While Grisalde was slowly dozing off he finally decided to take out one of his improved inventions. It didn’t look like much as it was just an unsuspecting box made of metal. But what counted was the inside which had a runic battery and a signal-enhancing spell that would boost the range of his radar.

This it would do without the need of him constantly needing to use his own mana. The most important part was that he could use it while he was sleeping. An alarm would go off if monsters or other living beings entered the range. Only with this alarm clock around could he relax otherwise sleeping would be a challenge.

Time started to pass and they were finally on their way towards the next trade location. While most of the trail would probably be safe there was one area that was sketchy. Before they arrived at it Roland would have to suffer through the trip.

‘This is why I don’t like traveling…’

The wagon he was riding in was really uncomfortable, he had to spend the entire trip sitting down on wood which made his legs quite numb. At one point he even thought about pulling out a pillow to make it more comfortable but with the hardened adventurers around he would just make a laughingstock from himself.

“That’s enough, everyone listen up, we will be staying here for the night!”

Called out the guard leader as he signaled everyone to halt. During the nights they would sometimes stop to camp out. After going into the danger zone it was becoming too dangerous to continue when the sun was down. Monsters started lurking in the distance thus instead the armored wagons were positioned on the outer area as protection.

‘For it being a volcanic island the nights can get cold.’

Roland had decided to stretch out his legs while others moved the carts into place. The reason for them stopping was the forest in front of them. It had dense trees that could hide monsters and bandits. It was a good decision to create an encampment before moving inside and instead of going through it while the sun was up.

The sun going down only made the forest look more gloomy, the red coloring that made the trees look redish didn’t help. There was certainly trouble inside of that place but if the monsters decided to attack a loud convoy was debatable. This was still a task on the safer side where attacks were rare.

“Wayland, you will take the first shift but don’t worry just try to stay awake the scouts will signal you if there is trouble.”

“Alright.”

After looking at Grisalde the guard leader shoved the night shift onto the other highest level holder. Half of the adventurers would need to stay up while the others could set up tents or get their sleeping bags out to sleep around the campfire.

They were certainly not hiding well from any potential threats but the loud noises human’s produced did act as a deterrent to wild animals. They came in numbers which gave them a certain amount of protection as wild beasts would shy away from encampments with too many enemies yet some other types would be drawn in.

While some monsters had a degree of intelligence there were ones that were only filled with killing intent. If they smelled the food that the humans were cooking they would quickly show up to the party. Even if they were somewhat intelligent it didn’t mean that they could judge their own or opponent's capabilities correctly which ended up in them being wiped out during an attack.

‘This seems like a good spot…’

Roland looked back towards the encampment that was about a hundred meters away from the spot he was at now. There he saw Melaina poking her head out with a clipboard in her hand. She was clearly noting down his behavior that might have looked a bit suspicious.

From his backpack, he pulled out a metal object that had spider-like legs attached to it. This was one of his golem spiders that he had decided to bring along for the trip. After setting it down he opened the little compartment that was large enough to store his mapping amplification device.

His armor was connected to this spider drone of his so with the command it quickly activated on the spot. While the people with the tracking and detection classes were there, he didn’t believe in their skills too much. If one of them fell asleep on the job and something decided to attack them at night it would be over.

With that in mind, he decided to have the golem head out into a safe location and dig itself a hole to hide in. The metallic creation was quick to follow its programming and with being able to somewhat glance through its golemic eye, he could monitor where it was going while heading back to the camp.

When he returned to his wagon there was a person missing, the barbarian lady had apparently gone somewhere. He on the other hand had to remain here for guard duty. The person from the guild was watching him so he actually needed to do his job properly without dozing off. If he moved where everyone else was chatting he might get a demerit.

‘I just need to last for a week or two if we get into trouble…’

After giving out a sigh he sat down with his legs outstretched. In the corner of his eye, there was his radar that showed him the position of his golem and what it was doing. With the increased range he was now able to push his radar into the forest area where some creatures could be lurking.

‘Don’t see any monsters, just regular animals, clear for now.’

Just like before the color-coded map painted a picture before him. While there were living creatures there, they were mostly wild animals and birds. With some fiddling, he created an easy runic program that would send out a signal if any monster came into range.

‘This should do it.’

Roland now had two options to either take a nap while his radar did the work for him or continue with his mana skill training. Thanks to wearing the armor others would not be able to tell that he was sleeping on the job unless they came into range. But no one was really interested in guard duty so he was safe from intrusion.

‘Think I won’t get another chance to train that skill again, training it is.’

A quick decision was made but the training would have to be suboptimal as he was unable to remove his armor. It was still better than nothing and thus while ignoring the map for now he continued with the betterment of his skills. But if he would be free to continue with his training remained to be seen.