"What, you want us to split up?" Ian asked Kell, who nodded at him. Currently, they are in their living room, where they are currently having a strategic meeting.
"Yes, this is to allow us to no longer be in our comfort zone. After all, none of the C-rank missions is hard for all of us, but for some of us, it might be a different story," Kell tell them his reasoning.
To be honest, Ian find merits in his suggestion. After all, all of them need to improve, not just as a group, but as individual fighter.
"For now, we will go with two teams. Maybe latter down the line, we will send one person for one commission, once we area sure that person is ready," he said.
"True, though you and Ian probably can do the one man one commission thing," Lisa said, to the agreement of the others.
"Maybe so, but we need to do it to find out if it is possible. But for safety sake, we go with two teams for now.
There will be one with three members and another with two members. For the two-man team, they will have free reign of the type of commission they want to take. For the three-men team, however, they will be taking the escort commission in Midar Range," Kell explained his plan.
"I see. The escort commission will require us to protect the miners, and having more eyes will be helpful in case some one miss something," he guessed, earning a nod from Kell.
"So, how are we going the teams arrangement?" Ian asked, the others nodding.
"I already make a guideline for it," Kell then took out a book filled with rules of the team's arrangement.
He read it and could not help but raise his brows.
"Fiona should not be alone with Lisa if she is in the 2-man team.
Kell and Ian should not be in the same team,"
Of course, there are more but he will browse them latter.
"So, what do you think?" Kell said proudly. Ian and the girls exchanged look before nodding.
"It's good enough," the bigger man nodded before quickly telling them,
"We will do it tomorrow, and see if we need to make any changes," the others nodded, before they call it a night.
-x-
"So, you want to take the escort commission?" the receptionist asked.
"Yes, well the three of us does," Ian pointed at the group behind him, which consist of Ana and Fiona. Lisa would be teaming up with Kell for the day.
"If you say so," the woman shrugged before approving their commission.
-x-
They soon find the miners they have to escort. "Is this your first time doing an escort mission? Then make sure to listen to me when we get into the mine," the miner told them.
"There could be some danger you never discover inside the Darna forest so don't expect you will be able to breeze through it without suffering any damage," the older man warned them before leading the way, the trio following the older man.
-x-
It took them an hour to reach the Midar Range, with the mines thankfully located at the foot of the mountain.
"This is the place, but we will not be going here," the man shook his head, making him wonder what the mine is all about.
As if able to read his mine, the older man quickly told them, "This mine is for experienced miner like myself, with adventurers with experience in escort commissions in the Midsr Range. You need at least 10 commissions of that kind to get permission to escort the miners in deeper part as there is a lot of monsters that call the inside of the mountains their home,"
"So, where are we going?" Ian asked.
"We will be going on the mountains. While there are deposits in the depth of the mountains, the excess mana would case some mana crystals to form on the mountains itself. And it will never die out. As long as there is ambient mana here, mana crystals will always form in three months duration," he explained, earning a nod from the trio.
"Let's get going then, the crystal will not mine itself,"
-x-
Soon, they find themselves trekking up the mountain. Thankfully the mountain path itself is not too steep, so they could easily traverse it. The distance though.
"This is really far, isn't," Ana commented. Even she, the one with the most stamina in the group starting feel tired by the long trek.
"Unfortunately so. I and several others already clear some of the closer deposits. So, we need to head deeper into the mountains. But we will not get any higher than this, I assure you," the miner said.
"Why?" Ian asked, curiosity gnawing in him.
"There are powerful monsters, one that even Silver-rank adventurers would find themselves having trouble with. We do have one gold-rank adventurers but he is not here at the moment, so there is no way to deal with it.
So, we don't plan on causing trouble. Though, even if we kill the monster at the peak, there will be another one to claim the empty throne of the Midar Range," the older man told them, as they make their ways to the mining area.
"We should be getting close now, and here we are," the old miner said, revealing a relative flat area on the mountainside with no slopes. On it, several crystals gleamed with thermal blue coloring, teeming with mana.
"Alright, your youngin job is to watch for monsters and deal with them, while I mine the crystals," he told them. The trio nodded as they began to take different spots around the mining area, making sure so there will be little blind spot as possible between their chinks.
-x-
"Does every escort commissions this safe?" Ana voiced her doubt, as they had spent 3 hours on the mountains, not including the journey to the top, and yet, they did not spot any monsters so far.
"Would be a good thing if that happens. But no, either the monsters here are just inactive, which is not true, or they are going for something else," the man reveal as he mined the crystal.
"Really? What will they go after?" Ana asked.
"Other humans in the area, and we not in their menu just yet, and I would prefer it this way,"