The Guild Mage
Not long after Joseph had begun researching methods for training Fire magic, Seymo came looking for him in person.
It hasn't even been a month yet.
Joseph's face was still faintly puzzled when Seymo spoke, his expression grim.
"We've lost all word of the caravan coming up from the south."
The men who were supposed to have arrived days ago had never shown. No matter how long they waited, there was no sign of them — which meant the northern expedition Joseph had been preparing to join would have to be postponed.
So I get more time to research, then?
He didn't celebrate. The fact that Seymo had come all the way to his lodgings to say this meant there was something else.
"I intend to head south and look for them. And so… I was hoping you might lend us a little of your strength, Master Mage."
As expected, Seymo wanted his help. He'd fed Joseph and given him a place to idle — now it was time to earn his keep.
Joseph turned it over in his mind.
…I should go, shouldn't I?
Before, he would have refused. But lately something had been bothering him. Repeated training had dramatically improved his success rate with Fire, yet the amount of mana he possessed didn't seem to be increasing at all. The mana he already had was simply being replaced by fire-aspected mana.
His growth had stalled. He still had no idea why.
Maybe the environment is what matters.
Come to think of it, back in Bari Village he had always wandered the mountains alone, meditating as he went. Ever since becoming the guild's mage, he had been shut indoors doing nothing but repetitive drills. That might be why he'd plateaued. Taking this chance to go a little farther afield and test the theory didn't seem like a bad idea.
There was one thing that gave him pause, though.
"You'll be going yourself, Guild Master?"
Seymo nodded.
"Yes. I believe I ought to go along this time as well."
Joseph didn't understand. Merchant caravans were attacked by bandits and beasts often enough. It was a loss for the guild, certainly, but for the guild master to go looking in person was strange. It might mean the matter was dangerous enough to warrant bringing a mage — and important enough for the guild master himself to take the field.
He hesitated, but he didn't change his mind.
It's not like I'm going alone. This will be far safer than fighting that black beast or those bandits.
It was a chance to investigate his stalled mana, and to develop a practical feel for his newly acquired magic. And if things truly turned dangerous, he had every intention of running without a second thought.
"Understood. I'll do everything I can."
Joseph nodded, and Seymo's face lit up with relief.
"Knowing you'll be coming with us is a tremendous relief, Master Mage."
The guild was already bustling before dawn; some of the men looked as though they hadn't slept at all. Joseph, who had never accumulated much in the way of belongings, packed at a leisurely pace and only made his way to the campsite as the sky began to lighten.
Oh…
Four wagons stood waiting, loaded with only the barest of cargo, ringed by mercenaries. They looked to have gathered only the most experienced and formidable men the guild had on hire.
Money really does have its advantages.
A seat in one of the wagons had been set aside for Joseph as a matter of course. No walking until his feet ached. No waking with a sore back from a bed of stone. No fighting the cold because he couldn't even light a campfire, and no going hungry. He found himself admiring the scale of the procession.
"You've arrived!"
"Yes. There are more people than I expected."
Joseph exchanged greetings with Seymo and climbed into the third wagon beside him. Once enough of the company had assembled, Seymo started the column at once.
The sudden departure of so large an expedition drew the villagers out to the entrance to watch them go.
"Why are they heading south?"
"Who cares? At least it'll be quiet around here for a while."
The expedition was a forced march.
An ordinary caravan would have stopped at villages along the way to rest and conduct a little trade in passing. Seymo had no such intention. They moved while the sun was up and slept in the open when it went down. There were rests, but they were vanishingly short.
Complaints began to surface among the mercenaries, as was only natural. Joseph, riding in a wagon, had no reason to care — but that was their problem, not his.
After a few days, a man who looked to be their captain finally put the grievance to Seymo.
"We're moving several times faster than what we were told. At this pace, we won't be able to keep up all the way."
Fair enough. They were hired men working for a fixed fee, and nothing in the contract they had been given would have covered a march like this. Seymo knew it as well as anyone. He ground his teeth, then shouted that he would throw more money on top of their pay, and only then did the grumbling die down.
The column picked up speed again. Now and then, groups that looked like bandits appeared in the distance, took one look at the size of the company, and melted into the mountains.
They ran on for several more days. Then, at last, they found them: a handful of rotting corpses and the wreckage of smashed wagons, scattered along the edge of the highway.
"Go check it! Now!"
Seymo was shouting at the mercenaries the instant he saw it. They picked through the remains and turned up a banner of the Roph Merchant Guild, torn to shreds. The man who found it said one of the corpses had been clutching a scrap of the flag in its hand.
"Doesn't look like a bandit attack."
Someone said it, and they were right. Bandits wouldn't have smashed the wagons apart like that. There weren't many bodies on the ground, either. The rest had probably fled and scattered.
"Find them! Even if it's just the bodies!"
Seymo's voice was urgent. The mercenaries fanned out, searching for any trace of the missing. Seymo shifted from foot to foot as he watched them work, and Joseph stood at his side, reading his face.
What could possibly be so important that the guild master himself is this desperate to find it?
By now, Joseph was genuinely curious about what the southern party had been carrying. The original plan had been for the guild to join them and set out north together — something important enough for the guild master to personally retrieve, even on a journey north.
Something belonging to a high-ranking noble, maybe?
While he was turning it over, someone shouted.
"Found something!"
They went over. A few more corpses, and a patch of grass pressed down in a way that wasn't natural. Someone had gone into the mountains.
"Gather up! We're going in!"
Seymo made to head into the hills at once. The mercenary captain who had negotiated with him earlier refused.
"Those aren't human footprints."
"What?"
The man looked experienced. He frowned at the trampled grass, his brow furrowing.
"…I can't be certain, but these look like ogre tracks."
An ogre had hit the wagons, he said, then chased the ones who fled up into the mountains.
An ogre…?
Standing beside Seymo, Joseph's expression turned complicated. He had never seen an ogre. He had memories from his previous life, but they were too faint to be of any use, and he didn't trust them besides.
He was still wondering whether to ask when someone else did it for him. The experienced mercenary explained.
"An ogre is a vicious demonic beast several times the size of a man. Anything that sets foot in its territory, it beats to death — doesn't matter what it is."
Beats them to death? What?
Joseph swallowed. Take a punch from one of those things unprotected, the man said, and you'd be pulped like tofu.
Why the hell would a maniac like that be doing this here?
Seymo, it seemed, had thought the same thing.
"Why would a creature that guards its own territory attack a merchant caravan?!"
"I couldn't say. Could be a stray that got driven out of its territory."
Seymo bellowed that they still had to find the ones who had fled, but the mercenaries only looked uncomfortable. No one stepped forward. They had been hired to escort the wagons and search for the missing — hunting a dangerous demonic beast was an entirely different job.
"Tch… Fine! Double the pay! I'll give you double!"
At that, a few of them finally started gathering their gear. Not all of them — but Seymo only fumed, and didn't push for more.
Then he turned to Joseph and bowed at the waist.
"Master Mage… I must ask this of you."
Ah, fuck.
Joseph swore inwardly. He had come along thinking it would help his magic training. Being thrown into a death trap had not been part of the arrangement — not even slightly.
It's not like I can just refuse…
Unlike the mercenaries, Joseph was unmistakably a mage in the employ of the Roph Merchant Guild. He had been living on this man's money. Openly turning down the guild master's request was not an option. And if he confessed the truth — I'm actually a half-baked mage, I won't be any help — Seymo would take the money meant for finding corpses and use it to take Joseph's head instead.
At least I'm not going alone…
"…Understood."
Joseph had no choice but to nod. The mercenaries' faces brightened at once. Having a mage along seemed to put them at ease.
Fuck…
A search party was assembled. Just under twenty mercenaries, plus Joseph, would climb the mountain. Seymo said he would wait with the wagons.
How are we supposed to find anyone in a forest like this?
Joseph had been a hunter in his previous life, but he knew next to nothing about tracking through woodland. His hunting had consisted entirely of bringing down small birds and beasts with mana orbs. The one mercy was that no lunatic among them was foolish enough to put the "Master Mage" at the front of the line.
The experienced mercenary who had known about ogres took the lead. Before they entered the trees, he turned to Joseph.
"We've got some inexperienced men with us. Would it be all right if I gave a brief rundown on ogres?"
Joseph was just as inexperienced as any of them, so there was no reason to refuse. He nodded, and the man addressed the others.
"Ogres are strong, but they're stupid — no better than animals, really. If we spot one from a distance, we bunch up, make ourselves look as big as possible, and back down the mountain slowly."
The advice was much the same as what you'd do if you met a bear in the mountains. The search party agreed to cluster together so that, from a distance, they would look like a single large creature, and to climb at a careful pace.
Joseph listened, then let his gaze drift into the forest. It was still daylight, but the interior of the woods was dim and close. Unbidden, the first time he had faced the black beast rose in his memory. He had been at the front of the group that day, and he had survived by nothing but luck.
There's no guarantee I'll be that lucky twice.
And this time it wasn't even a beast. It was a monster — an ogre. More than ten mercenaries stood ahead of him now, a wall of bodies that hadn't been there before, but it didn't make him feel much safer. Then as now, he had no proper defensive magic. A stroke of bad luck and his head could come off in a single blow.
You never know how these things go.
Joseph drew a slow breath. He cycled the mana through his body once, then followed the mercenaries into the trees.
The moment they stepped inside, the forest felt darker than it had from the outside.
"…All right. Let's move out."
The man in the lead seemed to feel it too. He swallowed once, then started walking. The rest of them picked their way forward by the faint light filtering through the leaves, searching for tracks.
They had not climbed far when someone spoke.
"What the hell is… that?"
He was pointing at a tree that had been smashed apart. The others saw it and said nothing. Neither did Joseph.
"…I think we've found it."
The man in front pointed with a trembling voice toward the base of the ruined tree. In the gloom, a vague mass of something took shape. They drew closer, and it resolved into a human corpse — shattered and scattered the same way the tree had been. There was not a single intact limb. It looked as though a cannonball had struck.
Joseph's mouth closed on nothing.
This is worse than the beast.
He had thought he was prepared from the moment he'd heard what an ogre was. This was beyond anything he had imagined.
"Do ogres normally do this kind of thing?"
The experienced mercenary shook his head.
"I don't think so. The ogres I know of don't go this far."
There was no conviction in his voice.
Joseph made the call at once. The ogre was a maniac. They were leaving.
"Let's go back down and report first."
Everyone nodded, and quickly. The original purpose of the search had been forgotten some time ago. They needed to get out of this place now.
"Huh?"
Someone made a stupid sound, staring up the slope. Joseph followed his gaze.
His mouth moved before the thought had even formed.
At his words, the mercenaries drew together into a single mass.
You've got to be kidding me.
A beast several times Joseph's size, something like a gorilla, was staring down at them from the slope, drool hanging in strings from its jaws.