With the sun shining in the sky and the damn sand hitting my face, my group had been skirting the desert towards the border for the last few hours. Apart from the irritating sand that still attacks us with an unusual ferocity for something lifeless, this route of travel turns out to be very smooth and efficient.
Maybe it's because it's a terrain transition or something else, but the path we're taking has a ridiculously small number of magical animals and not a single magical beast. And that means fewer interruptions in our speed of locomotion, so even if our route is a little crooked, we're buying time, at this rate we'll get to the meeting point with the smugglers very early.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, being late is really bad, but arriving early can be just as problematic as being late. I particularly want my team to have minimal contact with smugglers, Alice is neutral or strangely tolerant of criminals which is quite the opposite of Gloria who is very hostile towards them, but the two aren't exactly my biggest problem.
Gloria knows she should keep quiet, but Hilda is a big problem because if she hears shit from some of the smugglers she'll attack. Hilda may have the good sense not to fuck up people much stronger than her and with a very high rank of nobility or even realize it, but smugglers don't have any of those protections.
I'm really scared that Hilda will start a fight or end up killing one of the smugglers for talking shit to her or our team. The same amount of time the groups have to talk or do shit that will piss each other off will increase the chance of everything going to shit.
I just hope they don't fight during the ambush against the smugglers who are operating this smuggling route.
Thanks to our luck and the way was very clear, the day passed smoothly, our travel speed only slowed down on my next trip that we left the protection of the desert and entered the savannah.
We will have to cross a good stretch of the savannah to reach a more common type of terrain for us, despite not having a dense forest on the border, the green field has several scattered trees and very few stretches with good tree cover.
It is indeed a beautiful sight when the sun shines in the clear sky, but unfortunately our path now has a considerable number of magical beasts that spoil the peaceful landscape I have riding this dirt road, this region is much more violent than the well-maintained roads. that we have for the whole kingdom.
A merchant to be able to get through this stretch without being killed by the magical beasts and animals must have an escort formed with several gray core warriors and maybe some green ones to lead. Big convoys tend to attract more enemies and unfortunately the most dangerous ones aren't animals or magic beasts.
But this only applies to large groups, a small group like ours hardly attracts much trouble especially when all of us are mounted on level two magic beasts. Low level bands of thieves would avoid us because we can be quite dangerous since at the very least it would be an elite gray core group, but there's still a good chance of having green core people leading a small group like this.
Adding that most of their mounts cannot reach us would be a fight between few people and that is very risky for any criminal. It is safer and more profitable to attack commercial convoys.
I'm now sure of this information because we passed some lookouts who must be members of different bandit groups operating on the kingdom's border. They may think they are hiding but when my eyes sweat, they are colored dots in the landscape, I don't care too much about them because even if one of these idiots' attacks, I doubt we can't kill them all or run away in case a group of strong bandits show up.
Our journey reached its final stage when we left the road and started following a trail that doesn't exist, the map I received is very detailed but it doesn't show that this route is used a lot.
Of course, this could just be the criminals covering their tracks, they wouldn't be very smart if they let their movement routes stand out easily in the environment like main roads.
Our speed slows it down as we approach a tree formation where there is an idiot hiding, as the route I was given passes right through the trees so I believe this idiot must be from the group we are partnering with.
I stopped my group under the trees and waited, but to my surprise nothing happened.
"Why did we stop here?"
"We were waiting to see if they would come to welcome us, but I don't think they will. Before you meet them remember not to get into trouble, there are still many hours until the ambush and I don't want anything wrong to happen before it, so everyone stays quiet and ignore provocations."
I see offended, angry and upset faces, but not one of them seems to be against it or to have realized that fighting with criminals is not a smart idea.
"Are you going to stay up there? Won't you complement us?!"
The idiot who must be a watchman didn't come down or answer me,
"Lazy, let's go."
My group continues to travel at a moderate speed along the tortuous route the map has.
It didn't take long to get to a small hiding place and to my surprise it wasn't hidden by trees but buried in the ground, I thought they hid it using the tree covers in the area, but a hole in the ground is very elegant.
But this is not a simple hole not only is it quite large but also to a good number of fighters and two mages and a very large amount of rune arrangements scattered throughout this area.
It looks like a field of light to me, various colors glowing that signal a handful of deadly traps or reinforcement so the tunnel doesn't collapse in case anyone attacks or when someone does a stupid thing inside their base.
To welcome us a couple of warriors and a mage are at the door of the base, it doesn't seem to be a very good reception, but at least not the hostility coming from them but from some idiots who are still inside the hole.
"Good morning. It seems that you arrived safely and early, think that you would arrive only at dusk or after it. Did something happen my new friends?"
"It's okay, we just had a few setbacks in the desert and we decided not to waste too much time there.
"The desert can really be quite complicated to deal with. I've already lost several companions in that dangerous desert; I advise you to have an earth element mage to help you do your quests there. It makes a huge difference."
"Thanks for the tip, but the problem was an issue we can handle. It's just that we would spend more time than we expected in the desert, but as we weren't the prey to finish our affairs in the desert we decided to come straight here. The ambush is our priority now."
"Lead the way."
My team got off our mounts who decided to rest in the shade of one of the trees that was close to us, as they entered the tunnel behind the green-core warrior with the earth element who should be the leader here.
The mage who chases after us with her gray core warrior I noticed something different about the shadow element mage who has a gray core, her mana and elemental energy are pretty depleted, less than half of what would be normal for her, but I I can't find even a sign of the shadow element around us.
It didn't take long before we were all crammed together in a meeting room, with several maps with markings on the table and wall.
"Well, I'm a pretty straightforward person. My name is Erick and I am the leader of this unit and I believe that for better cooperation between us, neither one of us should be the leader of this operation. I think when I explain my plan which is open to change if you guys have good suggestions that everyone agrees with, we will have a plan that everyone is happy with and not the need to keep fighting for hierarchy between us."
Different approach, but I believe it can work very well.
"I have no problem with that, my name is Ulric and I am the representative on my side. Although I was promised the leadership of this ambush, I have no intention of fighting over something as meaningless as the position of leader for such a short operation and not much time to think about."
"I would love to hear your plan and information about our target, after all I don't know this region or the route they take."
"I appreciate you being so open to my idea, Ulric. We have a lot of information about our targets, during my explanation feel free to ask questions."