"You know I've been meaning to ask this, but out of everyone in your family, you seem the most on edge about Monster's Night. Why is that?", Voxea asked me from her drajule while I was riding Rakka.
"It's... complicated", I replied.
"Really? We do have some time until we get to the main hall, why don't you tell me", Voxea quipped.
She wasn't wrong that today was going to be a long day, for today was Monster's Night, and that meant the annual delivery of the "Last Rites" shipment.
Every Monster's Night, the town mayor has our brewery deliver five barrels of our most flammable spirits and five barrels of our most delicious wines.
The idea for them doing so stems on the ideas that if the night goes well, they can bust out the wine and celebrate surviving another Monster's Night while also using the spirits to cremate the fallen and disinfect any wounds that were sustained the night before. If the night didn't go well...the mayor has been doing this for a little over six years now, and none of the flammable barrels he has purchased have been used...yet.
Anyways, mother and father decided to send me to deliver the alcohol this year, with Rakka pulling the shipment. Their reasoning for this was for two reasons.
The first reason being that they were busy making sure everything at home was safe and secure. Aside from general barricades, they decided to add in some traps of both the mundane and magical variety. A pitfall trap may not hurt or outright kill some majimonsters, but it does make it very inconvenient for them to try and get out.
The second reason was exposure, or more accurately, getting the mayor's approval. The way new binders got sent to the Royal Academy in the New Capital from the frontier area was one of two ways: independent travel or the registration convoy.
Independent travel needs no explaination, I would basically travel all the way to the New Capital and register at the academy. The only problem was that the Capital was about a two-three months journey on foot and the Wildlands are still extremely dangerous for a lone binder, especially one without a map.
The group convoy on the other hand was a lot safer. The Empire would routinely send out binders to the far corners of the Wildlands in search of isolated towns and villages in order to bring them back into the Empire's fold, while also teaching them about the art of binding monsters. This eventually evolved into the Academy routinely sending envoys to several towns on a route in order to pick up new hopefuls to bring to the capital for proper training. The only downside is that the town's leader needs to inform them the exact number of would-be binders with proof. This was to either save time and resources or prevent fakers, I'm not sure which. Either way, the end result was that a powerful Imperial Binder would be leading an escort in order to safely transport rookies like me to the capital from frontier towns like mine.
It's for these two reasons is why I was currently riding the back of giant Ragnaceros while it was pulling a heavy cart full of alcohol. Nothing says, "Hey I'm a new binder and I need a sponsorship", like riding the living proof of it through town. I was actually against this plan initially because I was a bit paranoid about some of the outside binders connecting me to my parents' vendetta bounties, until they reminded me that binders tended to pop out of nowhere. As far as everyone in town knew, I was a lucky accident born to very mundane brewing family.
With that paranoid thought behind me, I began to notice some people in town starting to stare at me. It is an oddly satisfying feeling having people recognize yourself as a binder and them staring with a mix of fear, respect and awe. Even some of the binders who showed up for the Monster's Night defense were looking a little jealous.
[Don't let that stuff get to your head, and are you going to tell me why you seem antsy about Monster's Night or not?], Voxea said in my head.
[I'll-]
"Well Hello Silv-WHOA, WHAT IS THAT"?!
[I'll tell you on the way back, I have some talking to do].