Journey to the Capital

The rank 4 adventurer party, Mercenary of Dawn.

The members that formed it are a rank 4 warrior, Dagget. Male, 31 years old. Blue eyes and red hair.

Rank 3 heavy warrior, Randy. Male, 29 years old. Brown eyes and thinning blonde hair.

Ran 3 scout, former hunter Dankan. Male, 30 years old. Blue eyes and black hair.

Ran 3 sorcerer, Grinda. Light and water elements. Female, 26 years old. Black eyes and brown hair. Dagget’s lover.

They are my targets. They embezzled the requested item that they  should collect and ran away with a necklace that is a family heirloom.  The noble that they tricked requested the assassin guild to assassinate  them and recover the necklace.

「Family heirloom huh……」

I unconsciously touched my mother’s memento inside the amulet pouch on my chest.

If I’m in opposition against the assassin guild, there is no need for  me to do this work, but with a contact of the guild coming to keep  watch, I can’t slack off.

……I’m glad that they are scoundrels.

The Mercenary of Dawn headed to the large scale dungeon near the  capital because although their party has few members for their rank,  they have good balance and depending on their equipment, it will be  possible for them to stay in the dungeon for a long period.

It will be difficult for me to chase after them alone if they dived  until the deep floor. To deal with them safely, I should deal with them  in the capital or in the city at the south where the dungeon is located,  but if I can’t catch up to them there, then my only choice is to aim  when they return for resupply.

Even so as expected, the most solid plan will be to do it inside the dungeon.

The public order in the capital is too good, so it will be dangerous  in a different sense there. But if it’s in the dungeon, my life will  also be at risk, but the same will also apply to my targets. An opening  will show more often the more dangerous it is.

It’s my bad habit to think too much about a lot of things. But, if I  imagine various situations and prepare countermeasure beforehand, I’ll  be able to take action immediately when things actually happen.

Even so right now I should take action first rather than thinking too much about things that are still far off in the future.

My assumption and hypothesis will change completely depending on the  environment and situation at the actual site. I need detailed  information in order to heighten the precision of my thinking and  assumption too.

.

I stayed in the neighboring city of the northern frontier district’s  branch for three days to prepare using the adventurer guild and the  shops in the city before departing to the capital.

I couldn’t find out who my contact will be even after investigating  during those three days. I think they will contact me at the actual site  but, what I wanted to know is “how many contacts there will be”.

As long as they are there, I won’t be able to take any strange  action. Even if I dispose the contact, but if there is more than one  contacts and I let them get away, my betrayal will be exposed. I can  only pray that at the very least the contact is someone who I can defeat  easily…….

There are two routes to go to the capital from this territory of Count Heydale.

First is passing through the main route along the sea from the  territory of Count Sentrea where I worked last time. It’s the relatively  safer road that Elena used before. And then the other route is going  straight to the south from Dandall, through the valley of a mountain  district. It’s dangerous but I can arrive faster with this path.

If I used exclusive high speed carriage like Elena, I might be able  to arrive faster using the main road along the sea. But, I will take one  month by walking and riding the stagecoach stationed along the way.  It’s not like carriage can’t pass through valley but, even so ordinary  carriage and traveler doesn’t pass there because of the bird type  monsters’ frequent appearance in the valley.

Only a major company guarded by Dandall’s garrison guards will pass  through there once a month. Even commoner can come along if they buy the  ticket that is issued by the merchant guild, but it’s really expensive.  If one doesn’t care about the required time, normal traveler usually  will use the safe route.

But, the route I’ll use is the dangerous valley. I intentionally  choose the dangerous path in order to become stronger in short time.

After that I spent another ten days and passed through several  territories of nobles who are the dependents of Margrave Dandall and  went south. Then I arrived at a territory of a baron that is close to  the mountain district.

Even a free person like me won’t need to pay that much money to enter  a city unless it’s a big city. Even so I paid one silver coin as the  passing fee at the last city and entered inside. There I purchased food  and other necessities.

After that I asked for information of monsters in the adventurer  guild of that city. The guild here is a desolate place where there are  only hunters bringing in monster material when they defeated monster by  some chance. The staff who taught me a lot about the monsters here also  grieved that this city only has few dedicated adventurers.

There are several types of monsters that appeared in the valley, but  as expected a subjugation force will be dispatched right away if high  ranked monster like griffon appeared, so its appearance hasn’t been seen  for these ten years. In the first place griffon will target horse. It  should prefer to hunt something like deer rather attacking walking  traveler.

When passing through that valley by food, the small and medium sized  monster will become the problem. There are falcon type monster named  Wind Bird that tore apart its prey with outrageous speed before preying  on it, and crow type monster Giant Crow that like to catch traveler and  bring them back to its nest for food. Those two types of monsters  frequently appeared.

The small Wind Bird is a rank 1 monster, while the medium sized Giant  Crow is rank 2, but according to the adventurer guild’s hypothetical  difficulty level, the Wind Bird is categorized as rank 2 while Giant  Crow is rank 3.

The reason for that is simple. That’s because the location is at the valley where there are a lot of obstacles and open sky.

It’s difficult even for adventurer with rank 1 or 2 bow skill to hit  them. Even rank 2 or 3 warrior can’t attack unless the monster come  down. To have a proper hunt, sorcerer who can use offensive wind sorcery  is necessary, and even then it’s difficult to hunt the monsters unless  with a party that can prepare shield for protecting the sorcerer.

……”Normally” that is.

.

Early morning in the next day, I avoided people’s gaze and stepped into the valley while the sky is still dark.

I’m passing the bottom of the valley, but its width is only around  ten meters at best. The steep cliffs at both sides are around fifty  meter high. The place is a bit dark even when it’s afternoon.

But, it‘s safer to walk here when it’s dark as long as you have a way  to conquer the darkness. The enemy are monsters so they will attack if  they feel my presence, even so perhaps because of their bird eye, their  search range narrowed when it get dark.

On my way until here, I travelled while training my darkness magic,  but it’s still difficult to activate it and I’m still training even now  while I’m walking through the valley. A monster finally found me when it  became noon and the sun shined down on the valley from directly above  me.

「……It came.」

I heard a faint sound of something slicing through wind, then an  instant after that my Search skill caught the presence of something  small approaching.

I reflexively twisted my body backward and dodged while swinging my  black knife as the thing passed me, but that presence’s owner also  rotated to dodge the blade and swiveled to the sky mockingly.

The falcon type monster──Wind Bird attacked human not on its own by in swarm.

As expected it’s hard to hit flying opponent with knife……. If it can  move like that, then hitting it even by throwing knife will depend on  luck.

While I’m thinking that, the second Wind Bird attacked from the side.  Its speed is like arrow. It will be hard to sense them with sight if I  fight them properly, but Wind Bird’s speed will drop only for an instant  when they attack.

I focused my Search so that I won’t miss that instant and threw my “blade” to the Wind Bird when it attacked again.

The Wind Bird rotated in the air to dodge that blade, but I matched  its movement and controlled the string of the pendulum that I threw.

『Gugyah!』

The Wind Bird whose wing is cut by the pendulum’s blade crashed on  the ground like arrow. I didn’t inflict a lethal blow, but it won’t be  safe after falling to the ground with that speed.

I also threw a pendulum from my left hand in a curving trajectory  instead of straight. It cut apart the wing of another Wind Bird that  attacked me.

I don’t stay in one spot and dodged the Wind Birds’ attacks with  complicated footwork and taking them down with the pendulums drawing an  arc through the air.

I paid no mind even when my aim missed. It’s good enough if my  blade’s hit accuracy reached thirty percent. But, even if the blade is  dodged it’s meaningless if they also don’t dodge the string I  controlled. The Giant Spider string that I strengthened with my mana  can’t be cut even by the Wind Bird’s claws.

I cut their wings or entangled them with string. I took down nearly  ten Wind Birds in several minutes. With that the rest stopped  approaching me and circled around on the sky. One of them fired “wind  colored” magic particles at me.

The name Wind Bird isn’t just for show. These things can use level 1 wind sorcery Wind Cutter.

Wind type sorcery has good speed and they are also invisible, so it’s  hard to dodge, but my “eyes” that can see the color of magic particle  can dodge as long as there is enough distance.

With the magic power value of Wind Bird, they can only fire once or  twice at best. If they fired twice, they will run out of mana and their  speed will drop drastically, so Wind Cutter can be said as the Wind  Bird’s trump card.

One Wind Bird ran out of patience seeing me continuously evading and attacked me while firing wind sorcery from close range.

「──Shield──」

A shield of light around thirty centimeter in size is created on my  left hand. I made the Shield came into contact with the thickest part of  the approaching green colored magic particles and parried it by holding  the Shield diagonally.

Without pause I cut the wing of the Wind Bird that came straight at  me with my black knife. Then the remaining Wind Bird flew away to the  sky to escape.

『GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!』

The next moment, as though to replace the Wind Birds, a piercing cry reverberated through the valley.

It’s unknown whether the Wind Bird escaped from me or got scared  because “this” came. I heard the cry together with the sound of wings  flapping. A black bird with huge body that reached four meters with its  wings spread out swooped down as though to cut through the darkness of  the sky.

.

▼ Giant Crow   Race : Large Bird –  Difficulty Rank 2

【Magic Power : 69/73】【Stamina : 212/215】

【Overall Combat Strength : 145】

The Giant Crow caused a gust of wind with its wings while heading straight at me.

I threw the pendulums in my hands in order to meet its charge. But,  the pendulums’ blade only grazed its black wings a little. The  intelligent Giant Crow saw that and directed its sharp talons toward me  in ridicule.

『Gua!?』

In that instant, I took out a new pendulum on my palm and dodged the  talon while winding the pendulum around the Giant Crow’s wing.

The Giant Crow flew to the sky in panic. I controlled the string with String Control and hindered it.

『KUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!』

The Giant Crow shrieked angrily and flapped its wings to drag me to the sky along with the pendulum’s string.

But, I don’t let it. I pulled the string even stronger to hinder its  wing’s flap. I also quickly knocked the heel of my boots together so  that blade shot out from it. Then I kicked it on the ground like a  wedge.

The boots that I received from master is something that she used in  the past. It has a mechanism in them. If they got impacted from a  certain direction, small blades will come out from its front tips and  the heel.

I fixed myself on the ground with the heel blades and pulled the  string with my body reinforcement in full power throughout my whole  body.

My rank on the whole is still rank 2, but several of my support  skills has reached level 3. Using Magic Power Control level 3, I  circulated mana through my whole body, and with Pressure level 2 I  stopped the Giant Crow’s movement for just a moment──

「TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!」

『KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!』

Even though I got dragged across the ground through the inertia that  left the ground gouged, I used all my strength and slammed the fearfully  screeching Giant Crow on the ground head first.