After turning in all the quest materials and handing the report to the quest manager, my group finally breathed a sigh of relief. This trip was a bigger approval than either of us expected.
But are we finally safe or not, after leaving the tent we went back to the headquarters we had left about twenty minutes ago to ask the person in charge, if there was anyone else arriving today, but to my surprise we were the last people to arrive here.
I guess that means I was right, Officer Pine was using his position for his own gain and not following orders from his superiors. It makes me a lot calmer, but I still feel like this idiot is going to try to get in trouble with me in the future, there's no way he wouldn't want to get back at me.
I just hope next time he won't be able to use his position to fuck with me, this time I was able to leave easily because I'm a student, I didn't even have to show respect for the idiot and I could insult him freely. If I were part of the army, I would have already been punished for being rude and rude to an officer, but I hope that the next time I see him I will already be part of one of the groups that are going to be formed, if I am in a unit with a good rank I will not be below Pine in the ranks of the kingdom's army.
Without that advantage, he'll have far fewer options for getting into trouble with me.
My team gathered outside the camp after we confirmed we weren't being followed, we moved away from the camp and I had Zephyr use large scale spells to make it difficult for anyone curious to hear us accurately and approach us.
These are very useful spells, a sphere of silence that prevents sound from passing through it and another sphere to vibrate the air to register if someone tries to sneak close to us or even pure aura, mana or elemental energy is captured by the barrier, this is a very effective alarm, but it uses a lot of mana and is not able to be hidden so anyone knows we don't want to be spied on now, without these flaws this would be a very high-level spell.
"Are you going to tell us what just happened? I'm pretty sure we just escaped through the rune matrix."
"Yes, and you're right we really ran, Gloria. Do you think it would be better to stay there and find out what our enemy had planned for us?"
Silence, the voice of a defeated person.
"An officer who goes by the name Pine is after us, to be precise he knows but he can't prove that we work with the smugglers, but that's not the real problem, he's after something and must be the elemental fairy who has been with me this whole time. He would probably pass out with rage to find that the fairy was only a few feet away from him for almost an entire hour."
"How does he know about the fairy? The smugglers on our side didn't know about faerie."
"I have no idea, but he wouldn't risk his job over a common smuggling caravan. The second alternative is him being after the smugglers on our side, he knew about the merchant who made the contract with me, but I doubt that's it."
"He knew a lot about the merchant he should have been under surveillance for a long time, if they were his target, it would have been over long ago. The officer knew about the smugglers' plan and our route, he and the warrior with the mental element that was watching us."
"For real?"
"We are screwed."
"Don't be so dramatic, Zephyr."
I thought it would be Gloria panicking and not Zephyr, and Gloria's panic would be her wanting to hit me to take out her anger. Zephyr can be a problem.
"Relax, he's acting outside of his unit, he's doing it for his personal profit and he's already broken some army rules and probably even kingdom laws. Since he didn't follow us, he must be solving the problem he caused at the military base with the real responsible for it, I have no idea what his rank or his name is to send a fruit nap as a thank you, but I know that he must not be happy with Pine who messed up the order and discipline of his base."
"The name of the person in charge of the border area is Major Deer, he is not only in charge of that city but his authority covers the entire frontier of the realm on that side of the realm, but I doubt he would waste his time with a low-ranking officer, he should end up sending one of his lieutenants to solve the problems that were created by Officer Pine."
"So, he's more fucked up or less fucked up?"
"It depends on the lieutenant, but I doubt he'll go easy on an officer from the internal investigations division who shouldn't be there. Nobody likes these guys."
"Okay, now we know he's screwed, but the point of this conversation is for everyone to know they should stay away from this guy. He is a warrior with the mental element and he wants to fuck with us so he can steal from us."
"Don't talk to anyone about what happened and if anyone asks about what happened at the base, ignore it and avoid making statements about anything. OK?"
"But if we can't avoid answering these questions."
"Say we made the way because we had fang and the matrix is working, the soldier who was looking after it was crazy when he stopped us from using it."
"But that's not going to make them ask why we were in a hurry."
"Okay, if someone asks why we're in a hurry, tell them we did it because I was in a hurry because I needed to go to the bathroom. If they don't believe it, fuck them."
"This is going to be an interesting conversation."
Hilda is too excited to insult a superior or examiner.
"Better come up with a better excuse."
"I think this excuse might work."
Gloria always gets into trouble and didn't expect Zephyr to agree with my strategy, which I don't think is very good either. I just told them to send a supervisor to fuck off, it could go very wrong.
"I think we're done here; everyone must be in the mood to clean themselves to get the sand off their bodies, I may not hate sand like Hilda, but I'd rather not feel it inside my armor again. Go rest because after that we have to discuss what mission we are going to do next, there is still a little more than two months to do missions."
As we headed inside the camp, Hilda pulled me aside and we went to her tent.
"Seriously now, how bad is the situation? Should we ask my family or the headmistress for help?"
"I don't think it will be necessary, I may have pissed off Officer Pine a little too much and that will make him seek revenge on me in the future, but I don't think we're in danger right now. That whole mission was well executed in the theatrical part, which is extremely important, because in the rest it was a huge mess, both from the fight and the cooperation with them."
"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough, if that idiot Pine has a friend or family member who's a first lieutenant or a higher rank in the internal investigations division, he could get us into trouble. Although it's unofficial to two lists they make that aren't good to be on, the list of people dangerous to the kingdom, and the list of people with the potential to be a threat to the kingdom if he puts his name on one of those lists. you will have a lot of trouble living in the kingdom."
"Even if it seems absurd to do something of this level for a gray core warrior who is still in the early stages and possible for it to happen, you shouldn't have pissed Pine off that much. I even find it very amusing to hear how you pissed him off by winning that battle, but if Pine's actions were being watched and recorded you are part of an official report and if anyone wishes an unofficial investigation can be launched into you."
"I think you're exaggerating a little, Hilda. You seem to be the paranoid person now and not me."
"I'm not kidding, the people in the internal investigations division are extremely vindictive and don't always have to follow the rules. You must promise me to try to stay away from them and out of their eyes, I wouldn't be surprised that if someone realizes your name has been needed in big events, you've been involved in a lot of bad and big events, Ulric."
"Now that you put it that way, it's really possible for someone to connect that I've been involved in a lot of shit in the last year, but even if they create a folder about me, they don't have much reason to do surveillance on an unlucky young man like me."
"I hope you're right; I'm going to take a shower and get this damn sand off my body."
"Want company?"
"No, idiot."
What a pity.