Chapter 44: Sudden Commotion
Everyone disembarked their respective carriage as they prepared to set-up camp for the night.
According to Erika and Randy, the path leading from city to city was patrolled by mercenaries. If any beast were found, they would immediately send a message back to the nearest city and work with them to kill the stray beast to maintain the safety of the roads.
The case of the Wingless Land Fire Dragon was of a rare occurrence and a mind boggling one at that. For a creature that big, it should have been easily spotted by wandering mercenaries.
Regarding that, Randy could not help but speculate that it might have come from an undiscovered underground tunnel and emerged from there. He already reported this to the Mercenary Guild of Red Stone City though so they should be assembling capable warriors to monitor or even subjugate that Wingless Land Fire Dragon.
However, in order to do the latter, they must invite Masters or even a Grandmaster Summoner to oversee the whole operation. Unfortunately, Masters and Grandmasters were very rare. This was also the reason why there were a lot of areas marked forbidden in the map as Gold Grade Beast were not easy to defeat and kill.
Anyways, even though it was safe around the roads, they still decided to camp for the night. One must know that there were a lot of beasts active during night and some might wander around the roads.
The area they were in right now was a huge clearing a few meters away from the road. It was a famous spot known by everyone who traveled between Red Stone and Red Cliff City. The clearing was also specially made for night campers to use. In fact, this spot was also used by Erika and the others when they were on their way to Red Stone City Last week.
The eight carriages were formed into a circle while the Wind Horses were fed and returned to their respective Summoning Crystals to get a proper rest.
As they set up their own individual camps, the servants also began their own work. They set up the cooking wares and began to cook for the entire team as they gathered together for a bonfire.
The tight circle formation of the carriages helped conceal the light of the fire. But just to be safe, they decide to put off the fire once they were done to avoid attracting unwanted guests.
Time flies very fast. Everyone was already done eating and Randy and the other coachmen were now discussing their night duty shifts. They were mercenaries and guarding the night has always been engraved to them.
This was not part of their job for the time being but they still chose to do so for everyone’s safety. If there were any dangers though, they would immediately report it to Erika as she was stronger than them with her grimoire and summons. The coachmen also could not use the Wind Horses in a battle so if a fight broke out, they would only be able to rely on their own abilities to resist.
Anyways, the eight coachmen decided to take turns guarding the night. A total of four hours each as they grouped themselves into two teams.
Miguel nodded his head with their arrangement but deep inside was still alert. For some reason, his intuition told him that something was wrong. He could not pinpoint it though. Hence, he decided to be on guard as well.
As the surroundings turned dark, the fire was put off as everyone, except for the four coachmen mercenaries returned to their respective tents to rest.
Inside his tent, Miguel closed his eyes and began to meditate. He circulated the Return of Origin Technique and began to cultivate and refine Origin Energy for the second time today.
He actually planned to cultivate at Red Stone City earlier but since they only stopped for a brief period, he postponed it, afraid that he might get interrupted during his session. He actually tried stopping midway before, and it resulted in all the previous process getting wasted. Not only that, it even backfired to him to the point his body ached a lot. Since then, he no longer dared to try stopping midway and he would make sure that he wouldn’t be disturbed during a cultivation session.
Less than two hours later, another drop of Origin Energy was condensed at the top of the grimoire inside his Inner World, adding to a total of three drops of Origin Energy.
Miguel smiled in delight and decided to take a quick rest. He sensed the surroundings and realized that energy was still abundant and the grimoire was already gathering energy around the air to resupply it’s now drained up energy reserves.
Miguel took a quick glance outside and did not find anything peculiar. However, his senses were still warning him about something. Knowing that his senses would not lie, Miguel decided not to continue cultivating, lest he got disturbed midway.
He went outside and decided to chat with the coachmen.
Gaining new information and new knowledge has always been Miguel’s greatest desire. These coachmen who were also hired mercenaries surely has a lot of on-hand experiences and information compared to Erika who only spent most of her time inside the Red Family Castle and its Grimoire Summoner School.
When Miguel emerged from his tent, the four coachmen, including Randy immediately turned their heads towards him in alert.
"Can’t sleep?" One of them stated as he looked at Miguel deeply.
This man was called Murphy. Like Randy and the others, he was wearing a straw coat and a normal shirt underneath. His face looked terrifying with the large scar on his right cheek that extended all the way to his chest.
At this moment, he was holding a black-colored saber that looked very sharp.
Unlike Randy who was quite muscular and looked strong, Murphy was thin and looked weak. However, one should not underestimate him as he was actually considered as the strongest of all the mercenaries that Erika has hired for this trip.
According to Randy, Murphy had once killed a Level 2 Beast on his own before. In fact, the sword he was currently holding was said to be forged from the Level 2 Beast that killed alone back then, making this sword a graded weapon like Miguel’s longsword and dagger.
Miguel nodded his head as he slowly walked towards them.
"That’s normal. I was also afraid and could not sleep when I first went out into the wild for a mission too," Murphy comforted Miguel with a gentle smile.
Although that was not the reason for him being unable to sleep, Miguel still nodded his head and sat beside the four of them calmly.
"I don’t know, I seemed to feel that something bad would happen," he said as he sat down.
He told them directly about it so that they could prepare themselves for what was to come, and in truth, Miguel was actually prepared for his words to be dismissed like the words of a child.
However, before anyone could speak, Randy actually looked at him seriously, "You would not feel that way without a reason. Don’t worry, we will be sure to inform you guys once something goes awry, right guys?"
No matter if his words were only to console him, Miguel still nodded his head in appreciation.
Miguel then asked some details regarding the rumors about the Wingless Fire Dragon from Randy. The other three coachmen, including Murphy also listened attentively. Although they heard of these rumors before, Randy said that he was a close friend to the two mercenary guys who first saw the Wingless Land Fire Dragon first hand.
Randy was not stingy with his words this time either as he recounted all he knew about the beast and the rumors about it.
And just like that, four hours passed in the blink of an eye.
Miguel’s intuition seemed to have calmed down, and he thought that he might just be overreacting due to the Wingless Land Fire Dragon’s incident.
When the four coachmen came out of their tent and exchanged shifts with Murphy and the others, a commotion suddenly broke out not far away from them, startling the nine of them to high alert.
Each of them took their respective weapon as Miguel readied to summon the grimoire as he gripped the graded dagger on his waist.
The eight of them, experienced in the ways of the wild, did not make any sound as they took positions to examine what had caused the commotion at the distance.