Chapter 603: It’s Not That Easy!!
Chapter 603: It’s Not That Easy!!
"Motherfucking asshole! Get back here!!!" A black-haired woman screamed at the top of her lungs.
She was none other than Lyra in disguise, while Uraan held her back by clamping both of her shoulders with his arms from back, trying his best—or pretending to try his best—to keep Lyra grounded while the man in front of them simply made funny faces.
"Hahaha, bitch. What wrong did I say by addressing you as a whore? Which woman walks around with 3 men in the same party?" the man said with a laugh.
"Isn’t it natural for me to ask about your rate?"
Lyra’s anger only flared further at the man’s words, but by that time, Tavian was already standing behind the man in question and simply placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Who—AAHHH!" the man screamed as Tavian casually broke his shoulder with a press of his palm.
"Don’t you feel like you think too highly of yourself?" Tavian said, glaring into the man’s eyes with cold, dead eyes.
All colour drained from the man’s face as he ran away from the scene as fast as possible.
When the group finally reached a secluded place, Marco snapped.
"AAAHH!!!" He scratched his head like a madman.
"Why is it so difficult to pretend—and even more so, to become friends with someone?!"
More than 10 days had passed, and Group 1, consisting of Uraan, Lyra, Tavian, and Marco, were still struggling to even begin the first step of their mission: getting familiar with some people.
The same scene was occurring with Kaelion’s group, where Dhalia had just finished beating another man who wanted a piece of her.
Though careful not to reveal their complete powers, they still couldn’t control their tempers against the loose-mouthed adventurers and mercenaries—especially when Dhalia or Lyra themselves were being objectified.
But contrary to them, Leo and Lily were proceeding smoothly.
"Adventurer Evan, you have exhausted your daily quota for riding the horse. Please allow other people to ride."
A rugged hunter—apparent from his Hunter Guild ID—spoke respectfully to Leo.
"Whhhaaatt? So quick, man... Haah, I guess there’s no helping it." Saying that, he picked Lily up from behind like a child and placed her on the ground. He then hopped down himself, allowing the hunter and another hunter to climb onto the horse as they continued the journey.
Since the horses were provided by the City Lord’s son, everybody had an equal opportunity to ride them, as the number of horses was limited.
Every adventurer was given a daily quota of 2 hours of horse riding.
There was also a system of assigned rest hours during the journey. Since the group was supposed to travel continuously for 12 hours before setting up camp for the night, leaving the 2 hours of horse riding aside, a person was allowed to take 2 hours of rest inside the empty carriages while the caravan continued moving.
This pace allowed them to travel nearly 60 to 70 kilometres per day if there were no unexpected beast attacks that forced the whole caravan to halt.
As for the caravan itself, the total length of the carriages alone was nearly 350 meters, but if the vanguard and rear guard were included, it stretched for nearly half a kilometre.
Each carriage was 10 to 12 meters long, while the horses had nearly 3-meter-long bodies included in the carriage length. The road itself was 10 to 15 meters wide, making it possible for two carriages to travel side by side.
It was Leo’s first time seeing such a developed trade route, and what astonished him was that this was actually the minimum standard in this world.
Right now, Leo, Lily, and many other people who were on foot were simply walking to keep up with the caravan’s pace.
Still, since many carried their belongings in huge bags on their back, it made many people tire quickly and seek rest inside the carriages, only to rejoin the journey minutes later so they wouldn’t end up consuming their entire 2-hour rest window at once and then be forced to walk continuously for 4 hours.
But the thing was, they were no stronger than normal people—some were even weaker than a Low 1-star individual.
But for Leo and many others, a long rest was better than short, cruel breaks, so they continued walking for 4 hours—their Mid 1-star to High 2-star bodies were more than capable of that. Then, they rested for 2 hours straight before walking for another 4 hours.
But even that felt like luxury; they were more than capable of a continuous walk.
Matter of fact, at the speed the caravan was travelling, even a normal person could maintain the pace with a bit of effort, so for hunters, adventurers, and mercenaries, it was easy.
The City Lord’s son made it so people were always ready for the inevitable beast attacks.
Things would only get challenging when beasts started attacking the caravan and stamina consumption skyrocketed. A single fight could be enough to tire a man more than walking for the entire day would.
While walking, Leo kept his ears open for any gossip. But the only thing he heard was people being jealous of each other.
Normal people—in other words, newbie hunters—were jealous of experienced, established Hunters. Hunters were jealous of Adventurers, and Adventurers were jealous of Mercenary groups.
And if nothing else, everybody was jealous of Beast Masters.
As for the difference between Hunters and Adventurers, it was one simple thing: talent. While even normal, talentless people could become Hunters, possessing some sort of talent was paramount to becoming an Adventurer.
There was only one other way for a talentless person to become an Adventurer: they had to become a Hunter and gather more than 10,000 Credit Points.
The advantage of being an Adventurer was access to more quests and missions.
The odd one among them was the Mercenary Guild, which accepted all sorts of people while also having lower security standards. This meant that finding criminals among them wasn’t rare, and even the Mercenary Guild didn’t actively look out for them or hand out punishments like the Adventurer and Hunter Guilds did.
People could either work as individual mercenaries or become part of mercenary groups.
As for the special thing about mercenary groups that made other people jealous, the founding leader needed to possess at least Pseudo 3-star personal strength. They received missions of all types, including participating as part of an army during border conflicts.
Most nobles also preferred them over other unstable groups because it was easier to give them missions that Adventurers, who were under strict watch of the guild, couldn’t do.
While Adventurers and Hunters were ’officially’ limited to work posted by their guilds, Mercenaries did all sorts of work that didn’t require authorisation from the guild.
In simple words, the Mercenary Guild was a high-risk, high-reward place where established individuals flourished multiple times more than most successful Adventurers.
Having or belonging to a mercenary group was equal to having a large network of people that made life easier and jobs more secure.
There were only a few rare Adventurer parties that reached the same level of reputation as mercenary groups, but even then, those Adventurer parties eventually transformed into mercenary groups one way or another to gain access to a wider range of jobs.
And just like that, a whole day of nearly 70 Kilometres passed with no beast activity around the caravan... or at least that’s what people felt. Since, for Leo’s extreme senses of over 2 to 3 kilometres, he already knew it was otherwise.