Early in the morning, the expedition party was finally lined up in a row and left on schedule riding on the skeleton carriages.
Last night, I handed out various cloaks and ponchos to the 66 people that were heading out this time around. They were specifically customized to their specific tastes. These were the items that I had the leprechauns start making earlier. To note, I specifically made it so both me and Kanami-chan both have the same poncho type.
I distributed the rest of the coats and various clothing to the other group members staying behind. On the back of the overcoat is the emblem of the mercenary group Parabellum, with another insignia on the right shoulder that indicated what corps that person belonged to. On the left side of the chest, the individual's rank was indicated with golden thread.
You can tell what corps a person belongs to with a mere glance. It also allows other members of the group to easily determine the person's rank. The material is made of a combination of items dropped by various creatures such as the Minotaur. The leprechauns made this material by combining my own thread with various ingredients from monsters such as Powdered Turtle Snake Shell and Crystal Crocodile Skin using special techniques.
Combining these items created a peculiar thread that granted protection from both heat and cold, was fairly water resistant and had a quite high durability. The materials are normally quite expensive to obtain given that their drop rate is rather low, but since Minokichi-kun's group killed Minotaurs and other bosses in large quantities while they were at the Labyrinth City before, we had obtained a decent quantity of these materials.
The embroidery of the overcoat was of a superior quality as well, giving it even more protection than some new brand armors would have given, especially with the enchantments that were added into it. Mass production of the overcoats has been scheduled and I fully plan on having them adopted as the standard equipment for Parabellum in the future.
Now then, let's talk about the expedition. Although this is only the second expedition out of the forest using the skeleton carriages, some routes had already been established. This included the shortest route to get out of the forest from the base.
When the skeleton carriages advanced on difficult to traverse terrain such as the underbrush and overgrown forest/ mountain paths, they are able to change their shape according to the route, allowing them to more easily traverse the terrain.
Given the fact they're technically undead, they've also had a special coating applied that grants them a resistance to sunlight.
In the beginning, we spent a lot of time getting out of the forest as we had to make sure to cover our route out of the forest. That was to ensure that our path couldn't be tracked back to our base.
While following the route, the expedition group had to form a line since the path was only wide enough to pass a single carriage at a time.
Of course, this is only until we get out of the forest.
After we exit the forest, the group will split up and head out to each of their respective destinations.
Now, as for the groups I mentioned before:
The first group is heading towards the Royal Capital Osvel is led by me.
There are 24 members aside from myself including Kanami-chan, Redhead, Wind Lord-chan and Seiji-kun. We're using four skeleton carriages.
The second group led by Minokichi-kun is headed for Labyrinth City Purgatory where they will train and gather more materials.
There are 20 members with him including Asue-chan as well as several Lords and the Monkeys. They have three skeleton carriages.
The final group is comprised of those that have worked hard within the group and is heading to the Sternbild Kingdom and Kirika Empire so that the members that the group comprises of can visit their families.
The people receiving this reward were those that went with Minokichi-kun's group before. It also includes their guard detail, for a total number of 22 people. They have three skeleton carriages.
That's the situation with the three groups that are heading out. Though each group will have their own toils and situations, we cannot allow any blunders to happen. When I think about blunders… I get an unpleasant feeling. Well, since it's pointless to worry about these things, I just need to move on and deal with anything as it happens.
This time, on our journey towards the Royal Capital, we didn't take the regular breaks that we had on the previous trip since I decided that we should cover as much distance as possible to get there quickly.
Because the skeleton carriages move in such a way that the passengers barely feel any movement whatsoever, equipment maintenance, studying and other nimble tasks are fairly easy to accomplish.
Our travel time was to be used as efficiently as possible. Thus, by the evening, we had already crossed the large plains and hilly areas and managed to pass through the mountain path that the Falaise Eagles resided in.
All in all, we covered quite a bit of distance today. Although a considerable amount of time was used as we stopped to regularly hunt the monsters of the various areas that we missed our first time through, the fact we advanced this far in one day is worthy of making a note of. Given that the skeleton carriages don't get tired and can travel at the same speed as a regular horse drawn carriage, they seem like they are an excellent form of transportation. In addition, the skeleton carriages can be modified to turn them into primitive tanks. There are certainly quite a few uses for them.
In the evening, we decided to make camp in an open field off of the highway while I was considering the great potential for the skeleton carriages in the future.
They could even be modified into tents if the need arose. They certainly are convenient after all.
Since we had not done much training today, we trained extra hard for two hours this evening.
Although Fire Lord-kun was in my group previously, there was also a Dragonewt by the name of Ramura-san here this time.
She's a well-endowed beauty with fair skin that has golden colored hair that reaches down to her waist as well as having deep, golden eyes.
She has two horns that extend from her forehead and curve backwards. From her hips extended a long and thin tail, she also possessed a yellow dragon Orb in the center of her forehead.
Since the training focused on assessing their strength, Ramura-san and several other members ended up severely injured.
Fortunately, because Seiji-kun is in our group, they were safe since he was able to heal even serious injuries in a few moments. After that, Kanami-chan who was holding back, and Redhead, who was going all-out had a sparring match.
Their appearance bathed in moonlight was extremely beautiful. Sigh, Kanami-chan and Redhead are simply stunning tonight….
Today's synthesis results:
[Crescent Flash] + [Flying Slash] = [Flying Crescent Flash]