After passing the information on to my team and getting all the tools we'll need during this trip, there's nothing left for us to do. Nobody is really into not even a little training with each other, and doesn't look forward to much to do other than read the scrolls again to distract my mind.
Obviously, this exercise was fruitless, it doesn't make them new or interesting in them anymore. Reading them has only raised my expectations about the missions, not that I think it will be a pleasant time, but it will definitely be stimulating and challenging, I think I'm getting addicted to the adrenaline that fighting new and strong enemies gives me after the fear dying disappears, which usually happens after killing the enemy.
After an unpleasant night I woke up early to get a good place in line, even though the examiners haven't mentioned anything about it it's natural to expect groups to line up in front of the displacement matrix.
I left carrying some extra baggage that I'm going to distribute for others to carry, there's no reason for me to carry the supplies and boxes to conserve the resources that we have to harvest by myself. I plan to give one of the boxes even to the team wizard, intelligently distributing the weight will help us not get too tired.
When I checked I found myself twelfth in line. Looks like I woke up early enough to have a good place in line.
After an hour, the displacement matrix started to work and sent the groups to their destinations, by that time my team had arrived and everyone was ready to start our trip. As the line dwindled and our turn got closer. I found myself feeling the target of hostility, but as there were so many people around me know it was difficult to locate the source of that hostility, at least it was just anger that didn't even spark the intention to kill me, which means that this person just wants hit me and don't kill me.
This is always good news. It's tiring of me having people wanting to kill me all the time.
When our turn came, the procedure was smooth if you don't count the pain and nausea that comes with spatial displacement. They should improve this matrix so that the effect isn't too bad, I think a black core mage would pass out after being moved over such a huge distance as we just went through.
Unlike the tent we were in, we arrived in a closed stone and metal room just one door out of here and around five automated crossbows pointing towards the rune matrix, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had other weapons or even a matrix hidden rune to arrest and suppress an unwanted or violent visitor.
After going through an identity check and explaining why we used the matrix to get here, we were released by the security team. As it is still in the morning and we have no reason to waste time here we went straight to the first town we should arrive to to be able to rest before collecting the first available mission.
From our location we will start looking for healing herbs and anything else valuable that we find on our way until we reach the mountain that the forest where the storm owls live is. Only after completing these two quests do, we go to the village that must be two days' journey from the forest.
Although the mission to solve the villagers' deaths is important and the longer, we take to complete it the number of deaths will increase, we still decided to prioritize our interests.
As the mission is in the farthest location and there's a good chance that one of us will seriously injure us killing the magical beast that is killing villagers and that would force us to look for a healer or just stand there for a couple of days for the wounded to recover. It's safer to finish the other two missions first and risk hunting the magical beast that seems to have the illusion element.
It's a cold attitude and that many people can criticize especially people who have their friends and family being killed, but in the end our lives are more important to us.
Merely sacrificing or making my life difficult for principle or to play the hero is not something I intend to do, especially when I have no connection with the victims or what is killing them.
After leaving the city we had to travel through the plains of this region of the kingdom and on the way, we managed to kill some magical animals of level one and two, it seems that the challenge will only start when we enter the resource arias of this region where animals and magical beasts of level three and with a lot of bad luck those of level four live.
During the trip I don't hear much conversation between the team members, even though the group atmosphere hasn't been the best because of the obvious competition I'm winning. This silence is caused because not one of us is in the mood to be joking or talking in enemy territory.
While we still haven't shipped out of the city where the rune displacement matrix was, we listened and bought a report on the latest happenings within the realm. During the weeks that we were disconnected from the rest of the camp kingdom, a new wave of incidents involving cultists took place.
And the neighboring kingdoms have already finished their preparations to start the war, which is pretty bad news even if it means we still have some time before the conflict really starts. When war really breaks out, we won't have much chance of strengthening ourselves without being on the front lines of the conflict or behind enemy lines.
According to the analysis made by Hilda's mother before she goes to camp our teams are not going to be functional for about a year to a year and a half during the beginning of the war, after that we will have to conquer defending the defensive lines. while high-level warriors and wizards enter the war.
When we've been doing missions during the war one of our mistakes can kill us, but while we're on the defensive lines we can only pray that we're not targeted by a high-level unit of warriors and mages from the enemy realms. Even though it rushes madness I feel safer while doing missions with my party at the start of the war in enemy territory than standing in a defensive line that can be destroyed any time a high-level mage is ordering them to advance against our territory.
The idea of being crushed like an ant by a powerful enemy is one of my biggest fears, because if I find myself in that kind of situation, I don't think I'll have much of a chance of getting out alive.
But back to the latest developments the cultists and priests of the evil gods are increasingly active and bold. Over the past week you hear over three cities wiped out by them and the reason for doing so is that the cultists are sacrificing the innocent villagers to feed the fury of the evil gods or for the necromancers to assemble their armies of the dead.
A big shit storm not only over our kingdom but all our neighbors, the villagers are terrified because of it and the rumors that the sacrificial victims have to undergo long and deadly torture to make their lives more palatable to the evil gods.
Nobody would be calm in this kind of situation and that is making the Mayan cities chaotic. I wonder if the cultists will strike before or during the attack from the neighboring realms, the idiots are being used to fuel the chaos and yet they won't stop the plan to attack us.
I can't understand why the superiors of these realms or ours are so focused on killing themselves in a war when the only ones who are really going to profit are the cultists who are getting stronger and getting a lot of materials to strengthen their dead army with all this death in a war that involves about four or five kingdoms.
But luckily, we don't even hear a report of movement of cultists near the arias we are going to, only hear the episode that several cemeteries were robbed. The necromancers are really partying any graveyard in the kingdom is being targeted by them, if I didn't know it's hard to assemble dead soldiers with low level bodies, I would have a very real fear that a dead army.
With our arrival in the small village that is very close to the forest that we have to pass to reach the Mountain of Owls, we can rest from the short and silent journey.
Tomorrow morning, we will start doing our missions entering the forest full of level three animals and some magical beasts which will be a good challenge for our team.
I wonder what kind of riches we can find there.