Chereads / Archmage Support / Chapter 17 - Lucus Forest

Chapter 17 - Lucus Forest

"To think that man from before was the legendary Archmage… and he wanted us as escorts? I'm starting to get nervous", Ren, the archer of the 'Sacred Fang' party, was pacing around at the gate of the capital.

Leaning against the wall connected to the gate, the other two members were patiently waiting. One of them was checking over their resources and the other was analysing the condition of his great sword.

The leader, Tristain, attempted to ease Ren's nerves as he was performing his tasks.

"Just think about it as any regular job Ren, they are paying us for our services so all we need to do is perform our duty."

Rather than calmed, Ren was instead rather ticked off.

"How exactly are you so calm!? You realise its the Archmage- THE Archmage.

They say he used to journey with the sword king back in his day, they would tackle great foes of A-rank or possibly even above, every other day as if it was routine!"

Tristain and the other man with the greatsword, Turos, looked at each other briefly. 

"Ren, I'm pretty sure those rumours are exagerr-"

"You sure know your stuff archer woman", Tristain was cut off by a slightly high pitched, childish voice.

Tristain looked in the direction of the voice and immediately stood up to greet it. He bowed his head slightly, "We are the B-rank party 'Sacred Fang', thank you for choosing us as your escorts, Sir Archmage".

Turos also quickly picked himself up from the ground and walked next to Tristain. Ren was frozen in place for a few brief seconds but quickly snapped out of her trance and picked up her equipment.

"Yeah no problem, you were the only adventurer party we knew after all. What a lucky encounter for the both of us", Regal casually replied.

Behind him was a group of people, 4 of them seemed uncomfortable in their current clothing, clothing suited for travelling which tightly wrapped their bodies, leaving very little areas of exposed skin.

There were two others who were just wearing their regular clothing in comparison, Kendrick of course was wearing clothing as casual as it gets, one would believe he was a commoner out on an errand. Pamel was wearing his butler clothing, appearing the same as ever.

Regal's clothing? Well, if his original clothing could be summarised as your average noble attire under a black cloak, his current clothing could be described as an emerald green fabric wrapped fashionably around his skin. It was simple, it has no attached patterns or ornaments, however the fabric itself looked to be above noble standard and rested rather elegantly.

Above that fabric was the true highlight, a white cloak with golden highlights and patterns around its edges following down to his sleeves and back to a central blue ornament situated at the centre of his chest, just below his collarbone. 

The two precious fabrics were held together at the waist by a regular looking brown belt. Though it may seem simple, it didn't seem to hinder the unique outfit at all, it instead seemed to complement it somehow, causing the section of the cloak above the belt to slightly overhang.

Tristain began analysing the Archmage's group.

'...they didn't bring any food or camping resources', Tristain sighed.

He had luckily brought extra resources expecting this to happen, but he was slightly disappointed that the well known 'travelling Archmage' didn't have any such preparations.

"We can leave whenever you are ready", Tristain stated as he finished packing the last of his resources into a backpack and gave it to Turos.

"Really? I like you already, no need to waste time then", Regal said as he looked at Pamel.

A 6-layered magic circled was now located above the lot of them, appearing out of nowhere. The heroes were starting to get used to the sight, but were still bewildered by magic and the idea of teleportation. The Sacred Fang were not as prepared however.

"W-what is that!?", Turos exclaimed.

The lot of them recalled the time they met the Archmage at the outskirts of the Lucus forest. There was indeed a similar looking circle before they had suddenly appeared.

A moment later they all disappeared. The entire spectacle ended up drawing the looks of both the guards and the residents near the gates. But there was hardly anything they could do in response, the guards had already seen it so there was no need to report it but the guards themselves also had no idea what had just occurred. Though to most, it just seemed like something suddenly glowed in a bright light and then disappeared.

***

Near the outskirts of the Lucus forest, a group of individuals suddenly appeared out of a bright light.

Tristain wanted to simply stand around in shock, but recognising where they were he immediately gave out orders.

"Ren! Arm yourself and scout the surrounded area! Turos, you stay here with me in case anything in the vicinity approaches!"

The heroes were on edge from the orders and stood ready to arm themselves.

"Wow~ they're pretty careful, huh", Regal joked.

The two armed men got closer to the group and kept an eye out.

After a few moments, Regal and the group decided to compliantly stay still, and Ren had managed to scan the area around them.

"Nothing in the immediate area", she said to Tristain.

In response, the two armed individuals lowered their weapons and eased up.

"Please warn us if you're going to suddenly do something like that", Tristain said with a sigh.

Regal tilted his head in slight confusion.

"You seemed to overreact a bit. You do realise who I am, right?", Regal responded.

Tristain's first thought to that remark was 'arrogant'. But he apparently did forget that he was in fact dealing with the Archmage, the most powerful mage in the kingdom. He suddenly felt somewhat embarrassed by the fact that he reacted so seriously and had even tried to protect such a powerful person.

'Right... we are escorts. Our mission this time is to direct them into the forest and back, fighting isn't necessary, it wasn't asked of us.'

"Right, it seems that I did overreact slightly", he said and sheathed his sword.

"Hah, no need to feel bad about it, it's rather impressive that you reacted so quickly. It's obvious that you are someone who will survive in this world", Regal complimented as he walked towards the forest.

Tristain looked at the Archmage with admiration. It felt good to be complimented by a man who was mostly known to him through rather extravagant rumours.

Perhaps he was so calm to meet him because it felt somewhat... unreal, like he wasn't really meeting the Archmage, he was nothing more than a collection of rumours.

But perhaps today he was going to learn whether the rumours were as true as described, not just exaggerations like he believed.

He called out to everyone in the area, "It seems that there's a pathway nearby, it should lead to an outpost in the forest. It's not safe, but it's as good as it get's for navigating the forest."

There are human outposts dotted throughout the forest, placed there so that the kingdom can be notified of any movements by the demons or potential activity within the forest. 

They are also technically humanities first line of defence... but in name only. The small outposts can hardly defend themselves from the wildlife of the forest that attack on occasion, they stand no chance against a single wave of an attack by the demons.

They all followed Tristain's lead. The group was in a formation with Tristain and Turos walking in front, Ren slightly behind, closer to Regal's group. Regal and the heroes were just sort of clumped together, with no proper format.

Regal looked back at the heroes and noticed that they were just following along without a clue what to do.

'That'll be fixed before we get back', he thought.

"Hey Regal, can't you suppress your presence a little? Your going to keep all the monsters and demonic beasts away", Kendrick complained from Regal's right.

They had only just entered the forest, but there didn't seem to be any activity at all. If demonic beasts were even appearing outside of the forest, then they were sure to see a few groups pretty soon.

"You know it's suppressed, you can't feel it, can you?", Regal answered.

"I can recognise your presence even if you did everything to hide it to the extent of holding your breath, I can't tell regarding something of this scale", Kendrick shrugged.

"Just mind your own presence, this is going to get pretty boring for the both of us if nothing appears", Regal scoffed.

He then scanned the area briefly and once again affirmed that there was nothing nearby. They continued walking for a while with nothing appearing the whole time.

***

After walking for about 40 minutes, they were about halfway to the first outpost. The heroes were out of breath so Tristain decided that they should take a break.

"Here, pass this water around", Ren handed a flask to William. He took a few sips while catching his breath and passed it onto someone else.

"Thank you", William responded.

Ren smiled and sat down next to them.

She waited for all of them to finish drinking and the flask was handed back to her before speaking.

"So are you guys friends of the Archmage? Perhaps his students?", she asked with gleaming eyes.

They all looked at each other for a moment. They weren't really told what they could and couldn't say, but Regal mentioned that it doesn't matter anymore if they're known as heroes. They were unsure of what that meant, but it seemed like they could speak about their situation rather comfortably.

William decided to speak on their behalf.

"Sort of. He is responsible for us, so I guess we are something more than his guests, but not quite his friends."

The others nodded at the reasonable explanation.

"H-he is my master though...", Anne spoke with a low volume. 

She and the other heroes had become rather close after arriving at the Riverwood estate. They had a common point of interest about them and often shared stories from their old world. However, Anne still got nervous with a new individual, despite trying to be more confident.

"Whoa! You must feel very lucky to be a student of the legendary Archmage. I'm sure the stories about him must make you feel very proud of your master!", she said excitedly.

"Stories?", Eric asked in confusion.

It makes sense, someone like Regal, who even the king called upon, must be rather well known. But the heroes wouldn't know anything about it. They're from a different world after all.

"What? You don't know the stories about the Archmage?", she questioned with a baffled expression.

The looked at all of them, but each of them were just confused, without an idea about these stories.

"Um... We aren't really from this country, and ever since we arrived we were staying with Regal, so I guess we just never heard the stories since he wouldn't sing his own praises", Himari suggested as a reason.

"Ah... that's true. Of course the Archmage is humble, he wouldn't elaborate on his stories with every new person he meets.", Ren agreed.

"In that case, allow me to tell you a few!", she proposed.

She stood up as if she needed to act out the stories herself, she held the sheath of her dagger up as if it was a staff.

"There are many stories about the Archmage, but one of the most prominent is his journey's with the sword king! 

They say that they met as travellers, but instead of a regular meeting, they immediately wanted to test themselves against each other in a fight. Naturally they were both rather well known at the time.

The travelling 6th circle mage who fought without the help of a party and threw himself at all sorts of commissions and trials at the mere mention of them, aiming to better himself in magic, drawing closer to the peak of all mages!

The 1st stage Expert swordsman who adventured in search of strength, challenging all sorts of powerful individuals in his path and searching town to town for requests to defeat A-Rank or higher monsters!"

Regal and Kendrick were sitting nearby and overheard this abrupt storytelling.

"They seem to be talking about you", Regal said.

"You as well. Feels kind of embarrassing to hear our tales be told aloud", Kendrick brushed his fingers against his short beard.

Regal scoffed.

"You have no reason to be embarrassed. They don't even know who you are! You should've worn something better, and maybe even take something more than that piece of scrap of a sword"

"Hey! This sword is all I need! I wouldn't want to go all out, you don't have your staff for the same reason, no?", Kendrick retorted.

"You caught me", Regal shrugged.

Ren could be heard continuing with her story...