"Are you sure you guys really wanna come along for this?" Matthew asked
"Of course!" Z replied "Actually a lot more of us wanted to come as well so we drew lots to see would join you!"
Matt stood at the front gate of the Sakura Keep, looking down at the group that was supposedly joining him on his latest excursion. It had been a few days since the demonstration and the fight between Rainghar and Rem. Since then a few things had happened that ultimately led them all to this current point, standing in front of the gate as Matthew was getting ready to head out for a while. After the fight, and on the way back towards the city, both Aida and Z had persuaded Rem to let them take a look at at least one of their firearms to study it. Matt was a bit reluctant about letting the two of them study the weapons at first. Even though it had been both Rem and Matt that showed them off in the first place. He had wanted to at least expose them to firearms, especially since it was likely that both Matt and Rem would probably end up having to use them in the future at some point around them. Matt realized that he should have known better that both essentially artificers would be highly interested in new technology. In the end, Matt didn't even get a chance to voice his concern when Rem simply handed over her Glock 19 to them after she had summoned it from her bracer. Luckily she had unloaded and cleared the weapon first and told the two mad scientists that she'd let them have the bullets afterwards for testing once she had had a chance to actually teach them proper gun safety first.
Matt hadn't seen much of either Aida or Z for the next few days, however strangely enough he did see a lot more of Rainghar. It seemed the elf had somehow gathered a new found respect for humans after his little fight with Rem. At first, both Matt and Rem had caught Rainghar spying on them the day after the demonstration. At first they thought that maybe he was doing a terrible job at planning their demise but they soon learned that Rainghar had something else entirely in mind. The next morning Rainghar had managed to corner Rem while the others were getting ready to head into town. He had practically thrown himself to his knees in front of her, begging her to train him how to fight like her. Rem had been understandably hesitant at first, but it was actually Flow of all people who spoke up for the elf and asked Rem to give him a chance. Matt had no idea why Flow would do such a thing, as he thought the two couldn't stand one another, but he decided it ultimately wasn't his business. For the next two days after Rem had worked Rainghar into the ground both day and night, making him go through rigorous training that would normally break anyone in the first few hours.
"So? Are we going or not?"
Matt looked over the group once more before he let out a heavy sigh. He had planned on heading to the adventurers guild alone that morning, giving him some time to himself before he ultimately went back home to pick up both Rem and Akira. He had spoken with his wife the night before and expressed to her that he wanted to at least go on a single quest before they got married. They had a few more days until the wedding and some downtime that he wanted to kill. She had seemed a little hesitant at first but ultimately Akira gave him her blessing under one condition. He had to bring not only her along with him, but also both Rem and H. When Matt asked why, she responded with wanting to spend more time getting to know her future sister- in law, and there was no way in hell she was leaving her best friend behind either. Matt knew that his wife and the commander of the proctors were close but he had no idea that Akira counted her as one of her best friends. Matt accepted the terms and told her that he'd go to the guild alone in the morning to gather a quest suitable for them and then come back to pick up the ladies. Akira hadn't actually replied to that with any actual confirmation, but her mischievous grin she wore should have been the sign to him that she was up to something.
Now Akira, Rem, H, Z, Flow and even Rainghar stood in front of him with their gear strapped over their shoulders looking like they all wanted to join him before he had even gotten a chance to go to the guild. Pyre was also nearby, leaning against the inner wall of the tunnel leading into the Sakura Keep from the front gate. However Matt couldn't tell if he was looking to join the already rather large party or if he had just been simply standing there all along on guard duty or something. Matt let out a heavy sigh as he turned his attention back to his wife, half expecting her to still be wearing her mischievous grin but instead she gave him a simple shrug and slight shake of her head as if to tell him that she had no idea what was going on here. He didn't know if he fully believed her and raised an eyebrow at her. That was when her mischievous grin reappeared on her face as she continued to shrug.
"This is a little… big for an adventuring party no? I thought it was just supposed to be us four?" Matt said and motioned to the three women he had originally agreed to bring along with him.
"It's partially my fault," Akira openly admitted as she took a step forward and grabbed onto her husband's arm as she looked up at him. "I had originally only invited just Flow to join us as well. Believe it or not she actually hasn't gone on an actual guild quest before and I thought it would be a good idea to have her tag along with us. I don't know why the others are here though."
"Yeah, no. That's partially on me as well." Rem said as she looked away a little and rubbed the back of her neck "I told Rainghar to accompany us so that we could keep up on his training and maybe get him some better experience fighting alongside us. Totally my B there big guy."
Matt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose a little with his free hand that wasn't occupied by his wife. It made sense by both the women's explanation as to why they had invited both Flow and Rainghar along. Though Matt doubted Rainghar really had much of a choice in the matter in the first place. They'd probably be an abnormally large party but Matt also didn't want to hinder the others' chances for growth either.
"And what about you?" Matt said as he looked down at Z.
"Who me? I just saw you guys all getting ready to go out on what looked like an adventure so I decided to tag along" Z replied simply while adjusting his backpack straps.
"Fucking wonderful" Matthew muttered to himself as he gently pinched and rubbed the bridge of his nose under his sunglasses "Alright well, I'm going to assume there's no point in arguing with any of you at this point. But I'm sure we all can't sign up for the same quest right? There's just too many of us now."
"Actually I don't think that'll be a problem at all," H said, speaking up from the rear of the group. "A group like this is actually perfect for an extermination quest of monster colonies that have grown too large. Venindale province has many thick forests and lots of other places where monster colonies can grow at an alarming rate. Some of these colonies grow so big in fact that oftentimes the Adventurers Guild will only put out such extermination quests to larger, higher ranking groups of adventurers."
The others nodded in agreement with what H had said but her explanation caused Matt to frown a little.
"Wait a second. So you're saying that there are just massive hordes of monsters roaming around the region and all the guild does is send some high ranking adventurers out to deal with some of them occasionally?" Matt asked.
"I'm afraid so. And more often than not, the very few high ranking adventurers Venindale does have are usually pretty busy and often have their hands full with other high level quests in and around the region and they usually aren't able to get to such quests in time before the colonies just grow too big." Herelda explained with a heavy sigh.
"What happens when a colony grows too big?"
"That's when we get called in. If a colony grows too big for adventurers to deal with or for the reigning aristocrats army to fight off, then we as the Proctors must step in and deal with the threat. Mind you, this isn't a problem souly unique to just this region though. It's an issue all across Tytaura really." Herelda answered and shook her head "Honestly, if only we had better numbers to bolster our ranks then maybe we could come up with a better solution to better deal with the monster problems."
"Hmm, well then hopefully we can at least help you deal with one or two of these colonies that may be around then." Matt replied as he folded his arms over his chest and gave a nod to both H and Rem, as she too was a Proctor like H.
"Right!" Rem replied, punching her own open palm with the other hand "So let's get our asses down to the guild and go crush us some mob skulls already!"
"Yeah!" both Z and Flow chorused along
"Hold up" Matt said, raising his hand and stomping their enthusiasm a little "I can understand why the rest of you are joining but, is there any particular reason why you're coming along Z?"
"Of course there is! I imagine both you and Aunt Rem are going to be using more of your gadgets and such and I want to document it all! The weapons you showed us at the field were amazing but I want to see what they'd do against real live targets!" Z announced rather enthusiastically.
Matt looked to Rem to see how she reacted to being called Aunt Rem, but she looked rather unbothered by the name. She instead nodded along as if accepting Z's reasoning for tagging along or even for the name itself. Matt sighed and shook his head before he looked back down at Z who looked back up at him with a slight gleam in his eyes.
"Do you even know how to fight?" Matt asked the teenage boy.
Z placed his hand on his chest and reeled back a little as if Matt's words had somehow actually physically struck him in the chest.
"D-Do I know how to fight? Good sir! I'm appalled that you'd even ask such a thi-"
"Nope!" Flow said rather cheerfully, interrupting Z
"Ah ha" Matt said flatly and raised an eyebrow.
"That's…not true! Just because I don't fight up close like you guys doesn't mean I'm not useful in a fight. I have my own gadgets and such too!" Z said, folding his arms over his chest and turning away from Flow with a pout on his lips.
Flow then began to openly tease the poor boy like a big sister would tease a little brother. She was in fact older then he was though she didn't always act her age and Z often seemed much older then he really was with his vast knowledge. However, Matt couldn't help but smile a little as he watched Flow poke Z in the cheek and make small halfhearted apologies in baby talk while Z tried to swipe her away.
"Alright. Alright. You can come along too but you're in the back line with us. Understood?" Matt said, raising his voice a little too so that the two could hear them over their antics.
"Yessir!" they both chorused in unison and snapped a hasty salute.
Matt shook his head and sighed a little before he looked back at the rest of the group.
"Alright, let's move."