Chapter 109

 

 

We panic and are running around for an hour trying to find Rina. The dwarves got into it too and are searching all over.

The whole time my heart is beating like crazy. With each passing minute we worry more. Where could she be? Was she taken off by the goblins to become one of their breeders? It’s a fate worse than death and I’m in so much neck deep stress that I’ve got a cold sweat.

“We’ll find her. I promise you I’ll try to find her,” Asakura gives me an empathetic hug. But I break off the hug because I’m frantic.

But then Svinn comes to see me looking sober. I can tell he wants to say something very difficult.

“I think we need to expand the search for your Rina to include under the building rubble,” he said.

A lot of them look grim, even the dwarves who have lost people are empathetic because they know we’ve contributed more than anyone to saving their town.

“M-make it so,” I whispered hoarsely.

The search continued with only bad news for another hour. We found some of the dwarves’ sheep had been culled, and some of their goats too. There aren’t very many other bodies but the damage to their agriculture can hit them pretty hard when winter comes.

Suddenly Svinn comes running up to me. “Come quick, Shun! We think we’ve found her!”

Asakura and I are jumping up and down while crying in happiness. She hugs me so tightly in relief that I fear my ribs will break.

So we follow the dwarves towards some of the worst damaged areas of their town.

We found Rina trapped under and behind the water canal flow gate sopping wet and shivering with terrible cold. She’d hidden there when goblins had breached the wall, just out of sight under some pond lilies while waiting out the fight. But she was trapped there when rubble covered part of the grate and she was afraid to call out for help because of fear of being taken away. It was really a close call to because she had a breathing hole only about three inches from being submerged completely underwater.

I’m surprised she even managed to find it because of being underground and it’s somewhat dark still even though the keep has a lot of lighting beacons and enchanted torches.

By now she’s got a cold and shaking badly. I have to hold her between me and Asakura to warm her up while the dwarves throw blankets on her. My heal doesn’t always take the sting off viral infections and things like exposure, though it will ensure someone lives through them.

Strange…I thought the heals would work on those things too. Is it because it’s a sickness and status ailment rather than a damage?

Everyone’s a lot happier now that the fighting has ended, but they are still aggressively searching for any hidden goblins in the area both within the small keep and without.

By now it’s almost time for evening to begin.

Everyone has chipped in to make a homemade rock pile wall in the hole in the keep wall. It won’t keep stuff out if it really wants to get in, but it will slow everything down enough to shoot stuff to death that gets close to the gate.

“Hurry! We need to close that up fast before they send any scouts back!” Svinn cried out to the men working on it.

Asakura and I are warming up around a big fire, near Rina who is now cowering in as many blankets as she can. We’ve gotten her settled and have Deinan, the servant girl watching over her. Deinan is now feeding her soup much like she would a child, which is kind of funny since the girl is a dwarf and much smaller than she is.

“Hey are you guys warm?” a voice called out to us.

Svinn is here waving at us and he has a couple of odd looking dwarves with him. Their uniforms are completely different than the others. Where most dwarves have a strange medieval or steam punk medieval like look in their clothing, these two are clearly mages and in robes instead. I can feel the energy on them even while they are studying me and they can probably feel the same. But there are marked differences.

It’s still a bit subtle but I think my impression of magic was right even though I’m tempted to second guess myself.

One is dressed in…strange…robes made and woven from metal thread. I didn’t even think that was possible but it is and it gives the clothes a very nice rich shiny look and the feel of someone important. The other has a look almost like a plain clothes dwarf but is carrying a huge backpack and lots of tools, which I don’t recognize. Perhaps his look is designed to blend in with the crowd and normal people instead, much like a travelling craftsman kind of flavor. He doesn’t seem less powerful than the other, but just less showy.

This close up they can tell I’m one too and there’s like an instant staring contest and I feel my hair stand on end. Are they trying to read me? I don’t feel them trying to break into my mind but why is my hair feeling like it’s standing up end? There’s also a problem that they don’t have the language enchant, which is kind of bizarre in a way. Not everyone gets it, it seems.

Why wouldn’t the mages have the language enchant?

“I’ll be the interpreter for now,” Svinn said to confirm for us. “Also our men are going to share some good home brew with you all for saving our town.” He points to where the dwarves are gathering near us.

Around us in the background the dwarves have also busted out huge barrels of dwarven beer and they are having a victory celebration. It’s starting to get really rowdy and lively but they are happy and feel safe so I don’t mind, even though I’m not used to the noise. They are cheering suddenly too, and their young woman are standing on tables dancing for the crowd showing off. That’s got them really excited now.

I was a bit distracted, curious what dwarven girls looked like. I didn’t want to separate from Asakura or have interest in them over her but its my first time seeing young dwarven girls that aren’t old men. They look similar to human girls almost. In a way they resemble short teenagers, but unlike human culture, they dance fully clothed in clothes similar to a barmaid. They do show off a little cleavage but other than that there isn’t much skin showing.

I feel Asakura’s hand take mine. She’s probably hoping I won’t forget her and be interested in other girls. I turn towards her and feel her eyes looking deep into mine with a mild smile.

Then I turn back to Svinn. He wants to get this discussion going with those two other mages. I’m curious what they want too.

“Is this going to take long? We’re tired and need to rest,” Asakura said. I still get the feeling she wants me to avoid looking at the pretty young dwarven girls too. Rina is making a sour puss face at them too, and sometimes glancing at me worriedly. Asakura stretches out her arms and yawns. After which she tried to lean against me from behind, pushing her chest up against me but I shook her off.

I was worried about what the mages would want first. She sees her trying to make me look at her boobs didn’t work and looks at me a little bit annoyed but not mad.

“I think we have time…” I started to say but Rina had come up from the other side and elbowed me in the gut. “Oof.” It’s just like Rina to want to push me and make me look at her.

“We’re short on time. We need to rest,” she said cutting me off. Wow, she’s being territorial today.

Svinn gave me a confused look. “You’re looking more lively lately, miss.”

I shrugged.

“How can they be mages and not have a language spell?” Asakura wondered aloud finally voicing both of our thoughts looking to Svinn.

He chuckled. “It happens sometimes. Dwarven mages also rarely if ever leave dwarven territory. So they will usually already know a few Dwarven dialects and not be interested in leaving our lands. So there’s less pressure to have something like that, compared to other races since our people have a distinct racial trait of seeking out our own people and wanting to be with them. The dwarven creator made us like that to foster unity and cooperation. Also they are more likely to spend the time and energy on something offensive related that will have immediate military gain or protection instead. With what I’d mentioned about dwarves being more…nationalistic in a sense towards our own people and nation than others are and the fact that we’re in constant war it makes sense really. Then they can let someone else fill that role instead.”

“That’s weird. How are they going to talk to us if they don’t have even a basic skill?” Asakura demanded; she’s a bit annoyed still. But she’s actually annoyed that we can’t go back to our bedroom.

“Well there’s also the fact that, the dwarven military gives dwarven mages a financial credit allowance subsidy for having personal body guards. They want to make sure that the mages are protected since they are crucial to our national defense. They usually out source interpreting also to the bodyguards as incentive to promote permanent relationships between mages and close combat fighter types to get them to work together more. They also want to put to use hiring people close to and around them that are reliable, for job creation potential too and promote skill growth in not only the mages. The last reason, job creation is very important for dwarves,” he grunted putting his thumb over a silver belt buckle and lifting his chest up with pride.

“Demihumans that have ideas about economy and jobs? This is getting interesting. I wonder where they got that idea from,” Asakura mused aloud stroking her chin. Her other hand was playing with her her that had silvery white streaks through it, much like what I’d seen on the skill window for the familiar description for her the first time.

It’s a reminder she’s changing slowly.

“We got that from ourselves. We take care of our people!” Svinn reaffirmed.

“So is that how you got started as a sheriff?” she asked.

“There’s a title like that?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. I had been worried about so many things I hadn’t gotten a chance to see the different dwarven titles and study their hierarchy better.

“Seems like the dwarves have something for every situation,” Asakura also noted.

Svinn nodded back to confirm that too. Of course this whole time he’s also stopping to translate everything to the other mages at intervals. They occasionally nod to him to make sure they are getting it right.

“Actually it is how I got started. But then after I was given the region title for ‘goblin killer of the year’ award I moved on to bigger and better things after holding it for a few years in a row. But I do still put in a strong ranking for that award every year even though I’m not competing for it anymore,” his cheeks swelled red.

It looks like he’s trying to impress Rina, and is sometimes trying to catch her attention. It annoys me greatly, but we need him so I don’t show it. It’s also lucky that Rina seems to be only looking at the flames of the fire near us because of still being cold.

Asakura looked at me. I’m sure I was thinking the same thing that she was silently wondering too. He didn’t exactly look like goblin killer of the year. We would have never guessed.

“So what’s this about anyway? What do those guys want?” I asked nodding at the two mages.

He finally frowned. “Sorry…I bring bad news.” He then said something to them.

The dwarven mages were scowling furiously at us or in general, and it’s hard to make it out so far; but I couldn’t tell why. I’m sure Svinn will explain it better.

“What?” I asked.

“They think their shamans will do some counterattack tonight for nearly killing one of their top four. They have to, there’s too much honor and pride on the line and the want to save face,” he frowned.

“Ah dang it. I was hoping for a good night’s rest,” I said.

“Crap. There goes my relaxing night in bed with Shun,” Asakura swore in frustration. She looked pretty angry and was biting her lip.

“Careful what you say,” I said softly under my breath to her.

“Sorry I didn’t catch that?” Svinn said.

“Never mind, it’s nothing,” Asakura said, her cheeks flushed slightly.

“It kind of makes sense though. If they think they are winning and have an advantage, of course they’d try to strike back if something went wrong. I should have foreseen this,” I sighed going back to the original topic.

“Any chance of additional reinforcements in the area?” Asakura asked.

Svinn acted like he didn’t get it. He just shrugged, “sorry. That looks doubtful.”

“So what do we do?” I said.

“Well we prepare a trap obviously and make sure they don’t get their way,” Asakura said.

“Yeah I know that, but do we even know how they got in last night?” I wondered.

Svinn turned to talk to the other two. After a minute of some kind of dwarf banter he turned back to us.

“Rijvein says he tracked their mana using a pulse tracking high sensitivity device all last night but he’d had to keep a few others from joining the big four and didn’t get back in time with too many to engage at once.”

“Oh I see. Err…so which one is Rijvein again?” Asakura asked.

Svinn translates it and about five seconds later of chatter the rich looking metal thread robed mage raised his hand.

“OK, thanks,” Asakura said.

“So you tracked them? And then what happened?” I asked.

“Wait, what? It sounds like you implied that there are more than four of them? But I thought you were saying the big four like those four are either the only ones or the ones that mattered,” Asakura gave me a nervous look.

Svinn nods. “Yeah I’ll explain that, too. There were three other shamans coming this way that aren’t really at the top yet but are a serious danager and two others were killed by Rijvein and Fror, here,” he said.

“Fror? That’s his name?!” I asked skeptically. My emotional reaction was picked up Fror, who is now looking at me angrily. He’s the one dressed like a normal dwarf. I didn’t realize he was watching our reactions, but I didn’t mean to offend him, nor was I scoffing or making fun of his name.

“That is a weird name,” Asakura’s face tried to swallow her smirk.

“Sorry,” I looked as low and humble as I could.

“It’s good if their shaman power pool is being hindered though. That might be what it takes to get them to turn back their invasion wouldn’t it?” Asakura bowed slightly. When it was translated they looked a bit smug with themselves.

The dwarves silence finally broke after they said a few other things to Svinn. Svinn coughed…” as I was saying, they want to set up a trap to get these guys. With your help I’m sure that we can do that. You are probably right about putting their shamans down first to get rid of their invasion force too.”

Asakura’s look was a bit in shock. “That’s good, but…a trap with us as the bait sounds like a shitty deal. And that’s what it sounds like you are implying. Isn’t there any other way?”

Svinn shook his head no. “We think they are coming already anyway. They’ll be hitting us tonight whether we prepare against them or not. Our scouts are already picking up an increase of activity in their camps, which is a good signal for this sort of thing.”

“We didn’t actually kill him, and your two guys there killed two of the shamans on the next leadership tier down from the top right? So why would they come after us instead of them?” I asked nodding at the two dwarf mages.

“I was about to ask that same thing,” Asakura nodded affirmatively, giving me a high five. Her hands feel good and reassuring too. We stay having our hands held, fingers interlocked, not caring what the dwarves thing. After a few seconds Asakura starts scratching my back in some kind of massage therapy mode.

Oh that’s nice.

Svinn looked apologetic but it changes to something like being jealous once he sees I’m getting a back rub in the middle of the discussion, “the problem is that the three they engaged and the others killed were small fries and low power. The one you engaged and nearly killed was not. The guy you went after was some kind of big cheese leader. He has to retaliate to keep their army marching. If he lets it go his men will have low morale and want to quit the war or start evading from thinking the enemy has more troops in place. We also believe the big four also have their own shaman power pools each, which is probably where the other reinforcement shamans are coming from.”

“Crap.”

“So why can’t we fake them out?” Asakura asked.

Svinn frowned, “we’ve tried it before. Also Fror explained it to me that the goblins have their own magic sensors that are identifying and feeling out targets that produce mana signals. They figured out which buildings had mana signals last time. That’s how they burned alive that whole family.”

I’m so glad right now that Fox taught me that stealth magic skill. Without it, I’d already probably be dead.

“Dang. We had a close one didn’t we Shun?” Asakura noted nervously. Seems that Asakura has noted that too.

The dwarves then ask how I evaded them last night but we play dumb. I’m not sure they bought it, but I don’t cough up skills for free. My survival rests on keeping some secrets to myself too.

I didn’t say anything in response. I didn’t want to tell them about my stealth magic skill to mask mana that Fox had taught me and that I had been using. But the problem was also that I didn’t know all the limitations of the stealth skill and it must have many. It could be related to range or the strength of the caster in relation to the strength of the one hunting the one using the skill.

It would be good to go over this with Fox, I think.

“So we’re going to have to deal with this together,” Svinn seemed apologetic and was looking at me, noticing my sullen behavior.

“Yeah, double crap,” Asakura toned after me. “But that’s only any good to do a trap for them if we know how they got in last time.”

“We did that. We think we can have something workable as a plan for when it happens,” Svinn replied quickly.

“But they will have changes won’t they? Do we know what they are bringing at least? They have to have expected that we’d do right what we’re doing now,” I said.

The dwarves were going back and forth for another minute or two.

“Also do you guys have a way to neutralize the fire shaman’s ability to set a stone building on fire?” Asakura said.

Reminders of that guy sort of freaked out Svinn. But he relayed the concern to the two dwarf mages, who are discussing it amongst themselves.

“That’s going to be a big problem. All the protection and healing in the world isn’t going to help me much if we’re all trapped in a building that’s melting an fiery inferno,” I said dourly.

The dwarves are still talking, while we’re looking very serious and dour.

“I don’t like it Shun. This setup is too convenient for them,” Asakura said in a low voice in my ear. She leans in close to me so only I can hear her. Svinn and the other two dwarves aren’t right next to us and also going over something. I’m not sure what they are talking about and their body posture doesn’t tell me anything either positive or negative yet.

“You think so?”

“Well from their point of view it’s a win win. If they win then the goblin shaman or shamans are dead. They will have lower risk of exposure with someone else as the bait and would have been looking for a shot like this.”

“OK, and is that all they’d gain?” I asked.

She shook her head again. She also leaned against me so tightly that she’s squeezing my arm between her boobs…on purpose again of course. “If the goblins lose fighting us, they will still have a chance at snatching up whatever loot we. If we’re dead they will try to get our stuff, like the dwarves believe you have that energy sword still. They also believe you may have had a chance of gaining loot from the goblin shaman and with you dying they’d have first dibs as well as some of the goblin shamans loot from their next tier of leadership under the big four. That might not be much but doing that over time would give them access to a lot of power. It would be acceptable in dwarven law and politics as well since we’re like illegal aliens to them and not part of their actual citizens. Plus with either choice they get more insurance hitting back at this common enemy that they’ve been fighting since probably forever with less chance of getting hurt on their own, on top of the higher mission success chance.”

“Your so smart. You deserve a kiss,” I said.

She blushed, “thanks. But I’ll hold it for later. Remember what I said. For now let’s cooperate but be vigilant,” she said.

“But they can’t know about that,” I started to say.

She’s already shaking her head, “think about it. That guy is some kind of magic tracker. They didn’t exactly hide that. They should have noticed a change in your…I’m not sure what you mages call it. Radio signal? I’m sure it’s something like that. A magic radio signal from your auras or whatever it is when the flow of mana is released?”

“That makes sense,” I said, watching Svinn and the two other dwarves. They look like they are concluding discussing something among themselves soon. We’re also lucky there’s still a lot of background noise from the dwarves partying around us and the eye candy of their dances on tables that are out here.

“OK, you’re right. So say they did notice a change. Would it have been from the necklace? Is that what you are thinking?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what to make of this yet. Also does that mean Asakura could smell magic too or not or did she just deduce this with her overpowered brain? If other people besides mages could have a skill to detect mana or magic then I’d have to be that much careful but I wasn’t sure if that was the case yet. I didn’t want to ask her the limits of her abilities in front of these guys either since there clearly was some form of competition at stake.

In short, I needed a lot more training with Fox. She’d know about this kind of stuff.

“You said you felt like he was carrying a well of magic. The dwarves would have noticed something like that if that guy is really a mage tracker of some kind. You felt that without any special magic tracking skills and that guy is supposed to be a pro tracker of some kind? It would be like a heavy and wide oscillating radio wave instead of a thin and sharp one maybe? I’m guessing some of that was whatever was in that necklace,” she asked.

So did Asakura also study radios or sonar back home? Or maybe that was the part of math about waves…? Radio signals weren’t exactly hard to figure out how they worked though.

“Let’s clarify this. We may have to negotiate this,” I said.

“You are right. Let’s do it. Don’t worry I’m always with you Shun,” she rubbed her hands together mischievously while pushing more swollen boobage into my arms. I didn’t think a complex move like that was possible but it is. She’s good at it. Plus only with magic and demon genes involved could you have such a slim waist and body to go with it.

Svinn frowned and has a wild eyed look in his eyes as he breaks from the other two dwarves. But despite our current topic, I don’t think it was relating to the conversation. I think he saw Asakura’s giant boobs being pushed into me and suddenly felt very poor…

He shook himself out of it.

The dwarves are still talking for a bit and we signaled them.

“Are you guys ready? Let’s go over the plan,” Svinn said excitedly.

“Hold up. We have a few concerns,” Asakura said diplomatically, raising her hand to be the first to speak. Of course that would be a teacher’s type of reaction to get their attention. They give her odd but fascinated looks.

Wow, turns out being with someone that is overpoweredly beautiful beyond compare really does make other men near you insanely jealous. Even though they are the good guys I can see a look in their eyes like, ‘why is she with that little human kid’?

Actually…I didn’t realize how much trouble Asakura had been around the dwarves. She’s been beautiful all her life even before coming to this world so she’s used to people noticing her, but doesn’t see that this is like more extreme than it used to be. I’d been keeping so busy that I’d been neglecting how much the male dwarves stare at her. I also had this idea that nothing they could ever do would interfere with the pheromones and my relationship with her. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try something and I feel very exposed suddenly. And her boobs are borderline on being too big to be normal and at the extremes of barely within the realm of being possible and bigger than many of the heads of the dwarves so they are forced to notice.

Maybe Fox will have an answer later? But I have to bring it up in a way that won’t make her jealous.

Still it looks like Svinn is trying to resist those feelings…

There are other things to consider too. With two full blown mages here that are battle tested and powerful suddenly I feel a little bit nervous. They wouldn’t tempt her, I’m sure. But would they spot or notice the pheromones because of being mages? The pheromones are basic and very small and subtle. Also they are competition in a sense in that they have a lot of similar skills that I have. I hadn’t realized until now that there’s the possibility the pheromone might be track able if someone were to be actively looking for it.

I shake myself out of my own doubts, flexing my fingers and fists. I need to keep my mind on the present. For now I should conclude this meeting quickly and separate us from the two dwarven mages quickly, even though part of me wants to befriend them to try to exchange skills.

I resume going back to the discussion, in which Svinn and Asakura are working out possible options. It’s mostly bickering about pointless stuff at this point.

“But we’re in a war. We can’t just stop to talk it out. Plus their goblins! Goblins don’t talk things out!” Svinn objected with a look like we’re nuts.

“But there’s potential for misunderstanding and deception here and we don’t mean talking things out with the goblins. We mean in regards to possible misunderstands with us. No offense,” I said.

He looked puzzled. “We all want the same thing don’t we? Dead goblins…safe place to live…prosperity…chance for a family? A future?” He gave us a what’s up attitude shrugging look.

“We don’t know what the specialty of these two guys with you is. We also don’t want them to try to profit from our deaths,” Asakura said boldly.

Svinn stiffens a bit but masked his emotions just then. “We don’t want you to die. You are valuable to us.”

“The concern is it’s too easy for us to end up taking all the problems and your two guys getting to scavenge our…leftovers …if something bad happens to us. We don’t have any guarantee you will try to pull us out if it gets bad or relieve us if we’re in a compromised position,” I added.

Long silence…

“Valid concern. Let me see what I can do,” Svinn said after relaying back to them.

“As an officer of the dwarven community I can put you on our protection under the seal of the governor of this territory with official papers,” Svinn said raising the chips on his side of the table.

“But how does that help any? Human leaders always have empty promises. How will this be different?” Asakura contested.

Wow she’s good at this negotiating thing. She’s not being greedy either, but just to the point. I like it.

One of the dwarves whispered something to Svinn. They stopped and Svinn is looking up while the whispering continues. He nods every now and then. Then he looks back at both dwarven mages with wide eyes.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Then he turned to us, taking a deep breath and shaking his head. “Rijveinn and Fror are apparently willing to offer you a mage apprenticeship under their tutelage. I can’t believe they are doing this…” he muttered under his breath.

“Is that good?” Asakura asked me.

“It’s as good an offer as any that we could find here in the dwarven kingdom. Actually I kind of understated it. According to Fox this is like a really big thing and special,” I said.

Asakura’s eyes widen a bit as she thinks about it. Of course she’s still staring into my eyes. Whenever she looks at me, she does that. She’ll stare at me a bit too often and too long to be normal. “You need to tell me more about Fox later, too,” she added.

“At any rate it’s a good offer,” I reiterated to get her mind off thinking about Fox. I don’t want to hide anything from her so I don’t hurt her, but I don’t want her to dwell on it either.

“Wow,” she answered back.

I’m so completely shocked that ten seconds ago my mouth is hanging open. It’s a really rich offer actually.

But then I noticed one of them is clearly staring at Asakura. That’s so not good. I don’t know how much of that apprenticeship offer is really a want to keep my assistant with them or close by. It’s not a good situation. I could be sent to do errands while he’d create an excuse for her to stay with him alone.

Suddenly my stomach is twisting. I don’t like this anymore.

Before I could respond Svinn answered for me. “It’s good offer, but there’s never been any dwarven mages taking a human for an apprentice in our kingdom with legitimate documented precedence before. I’m not sure how the Royal House would react if they heard it. But I was honor bound to translate the offer as I heard it.”

“Yeah that probably wouldn’t fly,” I said guessing how that would sound. It’s like when your parents find your sibling brought home a new puppy that was ‘found’.

“I had an experience like that bringing a puppy I found home to surprise my dad. You should have seen the look on his face,” Asakura nodded, admitting it openly with a smirky smile.

“Me too actually,” Svinn said tugging at his beard and looking down at his feet remembering something funny in his own mind.

“So dwarves like dogs too?” she asked.

“Heck yeah, we love dogs. Anything that can bite a goblin in the ass or help us in our war for sure,” he cheered.

That kind of response seemed so stereotypical for dwarves that I find it funny.

“Sounds like dwarves aren’t that different than we are,” I noted.

“I have a master actually,” I quickly added. I feel bad telling them, and don’t want them to feel upset but I have to tell them.

There’s a stupefied silence as the dwarves are floored hearing the translation from Svinn. They look really crushed. They have clearly been talking about this idea and seem intrigued by it. But at the mention that I already have a master they both have a very forlorn and sad look to them; particularly the one that was staring at Asakura looks like he just gave away a winning lottery ticket away and can’t get it back.

Yeah…it’s probably good that I have some distance with these guys.

Svinn shrugged disappointedly back at us. “Apparently in this world as part of the various treaties over the years mages are only allowed one master. Sorry.”

Inwardly I’m actually a bit happy. Having someone else trying to steal my woman isn’t worth the risk. I can find another master or someone to help me like Fox I’m sure.

“Should I have made you lie?” Asakura asked me in a whisper. She looks worriedly at me, and seems afraid that she’s let me down somehow. “I’m sorry, Shun.” She squeezed my hand for comfort.

“It’s ok. I actually had some doubts about it. Not worth the risk,” I said.

“Are you sure? Like what kinds of doubts?” she asked it with a lot of empathy and innocence.

“It’s cool. I’ll explain later,” I said.

“Yeah you are right. What was I thinking?” she shook her head.

“Well what are their specialties?” I asked Svinn.

“Well we already know one is a mage tracker type,” Asakura said looking Svinn in the eye.

Actually the magic tracker job is more use to us right now than any offensive skills. It would be more useful in the long run to know how to avoid being tracked and being able to find enemies with more pinpoint precision. I’m guessing that type of mage specialist would live longer than the others but I can’t prove it.

Such is the nature of gain…there’s also always some sacrifice somewhere.

Svinn coughed. “Rijveinn is an expert combat mage, including having received the Dwarven Starr medal, our country’s highest honor for his role in the last war as a strategist’s advisor and not just for his personal offensive abilities.” He’s also referring to the one with the finely made metal threaded clothes that looks fancier than the other one.

We’re actually a bit floored, “he’s a war hero?” Asakura is openly awed and accidentally interrupted.

“That’s cool,” I admitted openly. It’s also cool that he’s not flaunting it but being humble about it.

“Yeah, but they are a team so let me finish. They both work as a team. Fror is no less than he and has been support with him, setting up a lot of their combat situations and acting as his bodyguard and stopping assassination plots against him.”

“So Fror would be like your country’s version of an intelligence officer?” I asked.

“Wow,” Asakura said right after me.

This is unexpectedly a good situation in some ways. But it’s complicated in others. They have real skills and abilities but the problem also is that we’re way escalated into a bigger situation than we wanted to be in. If we’re caught up in a big league game that’s way over our heads then it could easily get us killed, all while we’re being ‘protected’.

“So now we’ve laid out our cards on the table. There are no secrets here,” Svinn noted looking at us that was innocently hopeful. “So I’m hoping you both can help us.”

“So what’s your decision?” Asakura asked. She was giving me a funny look.

“Well…what do you think we should do?” I asked looking at Asakura. I was going to do the final say of course, but I wanted to get her opinion still. I will decide on my own and have a firm determination already of what I think is good.

I didn’t ask Rina though because she was still figuring out how to be mature and I’d be afraid of what she said, not to mention she’s still recovering from hypothermia.

Asakura suddenly giggled and ruffled my hair. “Haha, I knew you’d ask me! That’s good! I’m not just a pawn or an assistant!” She shook her fist in a victory motion. Of course it also makes her giant boobs jiggle and shake. She gives me a kiss. The dwarves’ faces melt in poverty seeing it.

“Of course you’re not a pawn or an assistant. We’re together,” I reinforced. She’s a lot happier now from just including her. I totally gained huge faction points with her just now.

“I just wanted you to ask me, not actually have me decide” she confirmed. Her smile twisted into a fervent determination, “I’ll go with what you think is best.”

“Fun…” I looked down sighing. I just wanted to keep my team alive.

“Is there even enough time to rest up before those guys try to counterattack and still get my mana back up?” I asked. That was the other remaining loose end.

Svinn gave me thumbs up, “good. I knew you had it in you. We got that covered. Dwarves can see courage a mile away.”

“If we do it, Svinn stays with us as the dwarven liaison, while the others are in other team formations as appropriate,” I reasoned.

The experience with Oleg awhile ago has told me Svinn has the most sense of honesty, and honor here although he does get tempted like others. If something bad is going to happen I’d be able to tell from Svinn, who doesn’t hide his feelings well even if he wanted to.