"So you mean our jobs would be to do adventurer work till we paid off our contracts and then you'd take us in as teachers for your own personal? Is that even legal?" Asked Brandon, looking between his party menbers and Mari, who was sitting on a love seat instead of either couches.
"What do you think nobles do after they have reached the maximun amount of troops alowed in their territory durring peace time? They don't just let their teachers laze around until thet birth another child." Aki pointed out. "I plan on beggining and taking over several bussineses, each of them will need guards and administrators, so i need people to pass those through hellish training that will make whoever i put in those positions excel." He explained.
"I kind of don't want to do the part of hellish training, but it does seem like a good offer." Sara pointed out.
"But what about me?" Asked the now bald Sieg, who somehow had a perfectly smooth head.
"While i don't need you in my party i still have usses for a normal B-rank adventurer. Starting with serving as muscles and going up to representing us in other locations as we expand. Some people need several tipes of convincing, and you will be handsomely rewarded for rendered services, but i always planned on getting one or several reserve parties of adventurers under my own. Raids happen, and i really don't want to have to go with by joining up with people i can't trust." He elaborated, though his last example made all but his wife shudder. "After this delve i've been planing i will even finish enchanting your equipment and pass you through some training before deciding if you can permanently have it. High level equipment being ussed by those that cannot properly wield them will only cause suffering to all." He encouraged, getting a glimer of something in the eyes of the smaller man.
"You mentioned a delve, what would be your plan on that? I feel like i need to know before comiting to this last mission." Brandom butted in after he finished.
"Certainly. You see, me and my wife know of a newly spawned dungeon in the chasm forest, a rank 6 mountain-side dungeon that has dark and earth elementals on the first levels. I plan on sieging that dungeon until it is spent and flood the market while obtaining materials for our own use on the way. I even enchanted three more wagons to properly transport our gains. I did not spend the last six days simply rolling around after all." He smirked. "The dungeon should be two days away in a convoy, and having more people for the trip ins and outs is completly nescessary even if it irks me."
"That, i can't use light magic, you know?" Sara worriedly added.
"Didn't expect you to. I'll be focusing on damage and utility, so having someone else in the healing department is great." He explained, calming her, who then looked at her fiance and nodded.
"It seems we all agree to go." He declared.
*****
And so, five wagons, eight horses and one demonic donkey pulled two adventurer parties to a journey through the gigantic forest separating the three countries. While passing the habitated planes between the town and the forest was a simple trip, their schedule was rather strange, having them rest through a part of the day and spending part of the night trecking through a strangely cooperative forest path that seemed to close behind them.
The adventurers would have gone quite crazy if they didn't know Aki intended to use magic to open a direct way between their point of entry and the dungeon. It was still quite disconcerting and mystical though, Sara herself having no idea how he could apply the same school of magic so diferently. He said he was only level 5 in life magic, but she somehow doubted that was the full picture.
The second day of said trip was quite uneventful too, the adventurers quickly and silently reaching their destination. No one felt like they wanted to camp inside the monster nest for no reason, so they spent the night right by the door with their watch mostly turned to the forest around them. Luckily dungeon monsters had great dificulties getting out because of the gods' restrictions.
"Okay, so me and Xera are going inside first and opening up a safe chamber, you guys wait fifteen and get the horses inside, then protect me while i make some fortifications furter down the tunnel. The place is quite narrow, so i will have to widden it a bit for the waggons, but otherwise there should not be any monster able to hide from me. Anyway, let's begin, i suggest you all cover your ears." He said, none of the present ignoring his last commentary for even a second, which made Aki smirk. When he turned turned to the inside of the dungeon however...
*ROOOOOAAAARRRRRR*
A sound that shook their very bones struck, and though they could clearly see Aki was the one that had roared, it was hard to imagine anything short of a gigantic beast having that kind of power in their voice. Xera looked more excited than afraid, and Mari had a mix of both, but the other three could barely pay attention to the them as ghastly whispers and groans resounded from the cave entrance, quickly followed by rumbles and heavy footsteps.
Even in the distance, the several blue wisps framing shadows and lines of tall golem's could be seem. Then they started to die.
"I knew this was going to get me a lot of XP!" Comented Aki as the golem's crumbled under their own weight and his dispersing force while the shadow monsters were easily and quickly shot by several beams of light since they'd been compressed into flat surfaces and could not resist the diagonal pull that Aki had put, so their escape attempts actually got them closer to the shooter.
"Before you all ask, I am using space magic to manipulate gravity, light magic to shoot the shadows and earth magic to crumble the golems, yes." Aki explained, walking forward while ignoring the stones and powders on the ground. Maintaining so many spells was not as easy as me made it look, but he knew his wife and fiance would remenber to loot for him.
*****
"Oof, ok, jobs done, gotta relax a bit, so you guys scream if you need me, okay? My mental energy took quite the hit." Aki commented, entering the small flat house he'd made.
"That was definitly not the kind of thing a B rank is supposed to be able to do. Is he secretly an A rank?" Asked Sieg, the other three also turning to Xera, who just shrugged.
"I never really asked, but he always had a great focus on his metamagic skills, so that every element would have great power even if not that high level. Plus, he likes to use his advantages over his enemies and always seems able to notice or make a weakness." She interpreted, talking for the longest they'd ever seen her.
Little did they know, even this 'small' massacre of elementals had given him another capped job. Turns out, just like some crafting professions, when you ussed your craft to kill, the XP penalties for combat were lifted.
"We should be more worried about the monsters, however, this is not going to be simple without the fully fortified position that Aki made last time, and if he says his mind needs rest, it really does. He doesn't act on his complaining unless it is serious." She reinforced.
"I imagined so, but how are we going to deal with the shadow elementals? Do you also know light magic?" Asked Mari.
"I do, though it is weak. It is best if I show you." She said, reverting to normal.
Her words did make the party calmer though, even if it was weak, they could still hold the monster down with other magic and have Xera kill them off since these guys were immune to physical attacks and had resistance to everything but light.
One of the reasons for their drops being so expensive, besides the fact it was a finely granuled powder that was a pain to collect, was that almost no one had the patience to fight the things without a light magic user, they'd either give up in annoyance or die from it's attacks, since as an elemental, it could regenerate more when around its respective element.
Which is why the four that were not in the know were very surprised when she instantly killed two with a normal swipe of her spear.
"So your spear is enchanted to deal damage to specters? You could have told us sooner you know?" Mari pouted.
"It is not. That was spear intent." That paused all of them. She knew it was something impressive, sure, it required a lot of training and some very complicated exercises, but she could not use it as she wanted or for very long. Her wall was one of skill, so she was mostly dumping most of her time in training to rank up instead of slowly getting XP for jobs. After some time of trying to get their attention, she just straight up started fondling Mari. It'd been five minutes and it was getting akward even for her.
"Stop that." She hissed, startling everyone out of the thought loop. "Wait, doesn't that mean you have spear technique at level 10?" The catwoman asked, completly ignoring the faux pass.
"It's level nine actually. I haven't mastered it yet." She corrected, causing one bald spearman to dogueza at her feet.
"PLEASE ACCEPT ME AS YOUR DISSIPLE!" He begged, even doing the cerimonious three dogezas and regretting not having a cup of alcohol with him. This attracted a lot of monsters, making Xera ignore him while fighting the elementals, but the man hadn't moved even a bit.
"I was going to train you anyway though." She finally responded, twenty minutes after the initial request, receiving another five dogezas of great happiness, and some blood, which made her think the costume was really strange and slowly walk away.
Some two hours later.
"Me? Yeah, I guess I qualify on the skill department, if barely, but I still need more attributes since mine are quite spread out. I'm in the middle of a wall, so it doesn't matter much, but I actually got a commanding tipe job right now, so maybe after the next two?" Aki offered when questioned.
"Commanding, didn't you say before that your job was tempter?" Asked a confused Mari. They were quite distance from the others, and Aki barely had a semblance of shame, ever.
"Yeah, I attracted all those mobs, which actually gave me XP for attracting and trapping them, then I got the XP from killing them, so I got capped and changed my job." He said, shrugging.
"What? How?" She was even more confused.
"I brought a job crystal I made inside one of the wagons, dummy." He said and blew her a raspberry while ruffling the top of her head.
"Who are you." She said, her face cold and her voice quiet.
"People of this planet don't know how to do these, do they?" He asked, looking troubled and making some exaggerated movements before whisking her away. Mari was extra rigid.
"Why are you here demon?" She asked.
"That's your guess? Well, I can't say it's a bad one considering how I look from the outside. I'm not a demon by the way. If it was something like that I could very well just use magic and take control of your body instead of trying to talk to you. I'm an otherworlder Mari, a transmigrator allowed to come here. Xera knows that already. I can tell you my whole story if you want to. I can only think of one way to prove I'm not a demon though, and that would be pretty fucked up, high chance you will get hurt and it is extremely likely that I will be persecuted, never allowed to step into a city again before I make a deal with the gods or die."
"..."
"Do you want something before I commit heresy? Any request on who's coming? Something for the head or body ache?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You still believe in the goddess of life, the God of rain, those you said before?"
"I sometimes pray before going into a dungeon or the like, what of it?"
"That means you have a faint connection to their pool of divine power, which they can use for seeing and hearing through your body up to the point where you lose your faith completly." He explained.
"That... Actually sounds possible, they're gods, but so what?"
"I can tap that connection the other way around and make you cast holy spells until someone comes to see what the fuck is going on."
"How the fuck would you do that?! They're gods!" They were now standing inside one of the wagons and she was sure the others couldn't hear her, so she complained, clearly seeing how it'd be dangerous.
"So they can easily tell you I'm not a demon or abissal creature using the form of a human." He pointed out.
"Don't do it, you crazy bastard! I will shut up, okay?!" She hurriedly said.
"I don't know, how will you ever truly know I'm what I say? Demons don't actually have any special weakness, you know?" He said. Aki was sad, but he was not stupid, approaching the gods shouldn't be done like this, nevermind so early that they could easily dispose of him for one reason or the other.
"I... I don't know, ok? I'm just scared!" She pointed out, tears coming to her eyes.
"Mari, you can't let anyone know of this. This is an order." He said, and suddenly there was a great pressure on her, which subsided quickly. "Done, now I don't have to kill you." He sighed, then pointed to a crate by the side, asking her to sit.
"What is this? There was no geas in the contract I signed." She said, trembling a bit. Aki took her in his arms and quickly put her down, sitting her and then getting another box so he could look in her face.
"Part of the contract was invisible and it had two signature requirements on the same place. You signed both. The same goes for your former party. I can let you read yours if you want, but magical contracts don't need to be fair to work, just signed."
"Why do I not remenber this? Why have I never felt that?" She asked, referring to the simple fact that those kind of contracts normally left a mark on the person.
"Because I wrote that you'd renounce the possibility of finding out about it before I activated any geas. Here." He said and took her contract out, putting it in front of her face. When he was about to wipe her tears, he thought better and gave her a handkerchief. He had a ton of those. Then he started to put some mana on the last page of the contract. The words on it changed completly, but the signing was the same. "Read it *Hic* please."
She finally looked up, only to see Aki looking normal. There were still teardrops on his pants though.