The next morning I was up at first bell, enjoying breakfast before heading to the guild.

The place was getting busy as I arrived, but as I walked in, I realized that I’d been told to come to the guild but not what to do when I got there. Should I wait down here, head to the GM’s office?

My quandry was quickly solved as a man approached me. I was wary at first, since a good number of people tried to recruit me, despite my stating openly that I preferred to work alone.

“Good morning, you’re Rynn, correct?”

“Yes? Can I help you?”

“I’m Karl. The chief said you’re coming on the expedition with us. We’re meeting upstairs. I was told that you hadn’t been given specific instructions yesterday and asked to grab you.”

“Ah, I was just wondering about that. Thanks.”

We headed for the stairs. There were meeting rooms up there that were used for briefings or when multiple parties had to meet to discuss things, like disputes. I’d never been in one before.

Karl opened the door for me and I entered the room. It was packed. There had to be at least twenty people here. Most of them were clad in identical armor, so the army’s commander must have been amenable to swearing himself and his men to keeping secrets.

Karl introduced me to his party. There were six of them.

Karl was a human, swordfighter, though he could use a bit of wind magic.

His wife, and the holder of the party’s purse strings was Susan. She was an archer with rogue-like tendencies, able to use tracking magic as well as find, disarm, or set traps.

The party’s tank was the dwarf Thilgad. He was a capable blacksmith as well as an Earth mage. He carried a massive shield and a mace.

Teryll the elf was their mage. While he had an item box of decent size, it was the only space magic he was capable of, being otherwise capable of using elemental and plant magic.

Leticia was a wolfkin axe fighter. Incapable of using magic, she was still fast and had the best senses, able to sniff out creatures almost as quickly as Susan was able to find them using her magic.

Jerry was their tigerkin spearman. Carrying spears both for stabbing purposes as well as a trio of shorter ones designed for throwing. Not that throwing all of them would necessarily prevent him from throwing them again. He could use telekinesis to retrieve spears if they weren’t too deeply stuck in something and reuse them. Plus he could use it to add a bit of extra force to his throws, though that usually resulted in being unable to retrieve the thrown spear until after the battle had concluded.

I greeted them, introducing myself as we’d planned yesterday as being an expert in Space magic, with a long range portaling ability and immense storage. I did not state that I specialized in it. I didn’t. Earth magic was actually my best magic, since I’d used it the most, including when I was working with metals.

The soldiers, knights? Kept to themselves. There was fifteen of them, most of them younger, though there were a few older faces present. They didn’t seem to be happy to have to be working with adventurers. Snobs.

We waited for a while, chatting in our two groups until a trio of men entered the room, Raiden and two other men dressed in the same armor as the soldiers. One of them was as old as the GM, while the other was younger, but still older than most of the soldiers. I’d guess that the older one was the commander who Raiden had been complaining about, while the other was his subordinate. Maybe the one who’d be in charge of these guys?

I was right.

We all gathered around and got a briefing. Raiden gave it, using the information I’d given him. He didn’t say who’d gotten the information, but since I’d be getting us there, it was obvious that I was involved somehow.

The soldiers were coming along, since there was the possibility of the place being a threat to the country’s safety, even though evidence said it was unlikely. There was also the fact that the presence of a dungeon would likely lead to a settlement being built nearby, so they were going to survey the surrounding area and protect the camp we’d set up while the adventurers entered the dungeon.

The commander wasn’t able to go, much to his regret, and so had assigned the lead of the squad that’d accompany us to one of his captains. While we were out there, the commander would be taking the rest of the troops and clearing out a bunch of the villages I’d located for them giving the troops some training and experience.

Given that it’d take three portals each way to get between dungeon and here, as well as to do an initial sweep of the dungeon, the expedition was estimated to take between two and three weeks. That was about the same amount of time the other troops would be spending on their task.

We’d be able to stay in contact using some enchanted notebooks, and could return early if something cropped up, or rendezvous with the troops if need be.

The notebooks were quite interesting, and I’d like to get my hands on a linked set to study them. What was written in one of them appeared in the other. They had nothing apparently different than any other notebook, so unless you knew they were enchanted or noticed the increase in text there was nothing to give it away.

A few logistical things were discussed, which is where I came in. There was a pile of gear and supplies in the warehouse downstairs that I’d need to collect on our way out. Karl’s group had theirs stored in magic bags and Teryll’s item box, but the soldiers lacked any space magic users, so I was carrying the majority of their gear.

Each of the soldiers was equipped with a backpack with essentials in case something happened and we got separated, but hearing there’d be someone along who’d be able to bring plenty of supplies, they prepared for the worst and brought a lot. If they were traveling light, they’d have been left sleeping in light bed rolls under the open sky or small waterproof cloths, but with me around, they could sleep in tents.

However, they were warned to not take advantage of my capabilities or disparage me. Those who did so would be left to find their own way back to the city.

This was put in such a way as to make it seem like the warning was in regards to the other adventurers as well, since soldiers and adventurers didn’t tend to get along very well. We’d seen the signs of this as we’d waited for the leaders to show up. The soldiers were coming along not because they had to, but because the higher ups in the government would want their people to go check the place out, and I was able to shorten the trip greatly.

If they didn’t join us now, someone would have to go on their own eventually anyway, and the commander would get berated for not taking advantage of the situation and dealing with it while he could save time and effort. Since he was able to do so, he was likely to get a commendation… provided his men didn’t piss us off.

The commander thoroughly warned his men, while Raiden did the same with us, that we needed to do our best to get along. Conflicts would only make things more difficult.

It wasn’t until halfway to third bell that we actually got a move on. There’d been a lot to discuss. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’d be able to make it farther in a minute, the maximum time I’d hold a portal open, than we would hiking all day, we’d have already wasted almost half the day. But I was there, so after the meeting ended, I was taken down to the warehouse to grab the pile of stuff, including a large amount of fresh food, and then we were on our way.

Because of the city’s defences, I couldn’t portal in or out of the city without wasting a lot of mana, so we were walking until we got beyond the range of the things. Most people wouldn’t be able to port at all, so that I could, even if it was difficult was something I kept to myself. I’d accidentally set off the alarms by forcing a teleport too close to the city shortly after I’d arrived here and had to escape before they caught my mana signature. I hadn’t done it again.

Raiden was the one in charge, with the captain and Karl as his seconds, in charge of their respective groups. I answered only to Raiden. At least officially. I’d play nice if treated with respect.

Like the others, I was kited out in adventuring gear. As I was playing mage, I was wearing a sturdy hooded robe with leather guards protecting my vitals. A dagger hung at my hip, while a staff was used mostly as a walking stick. In case something happened, I had a magic bag with emergency supplies on my back. If I was injured and unconscious, I couldn’t very well heal myself, so there were potions and other supplies to deal with the crisis.

We had to walk two miles away from the city before we cleared the wards, but we walked a bit further, getting away from prying eyes before my turn came.

Checking our position and how much mana I had, I calculated how far I could take us and looked for a good place to open the portal in my memory. Finding what I wanted, I got ready to cast, warning everyone that they needed to move through the portal quickly and orderly. If they fucked this up, the party’d be split until my mana recharged. A minute should be more than enough for the twenty-four of us to get through.

Then I started casting. Teleporting took maybe five seconds, but opening a portal could take much longer, depending on the conditions. I was actually rather quick at it, only taking thirty-two seconds to pull it off. It’d taken me several minutes back when I was first learning to do so.

“Go!”

I shouted as soon as the portal opened, and they went. I’d given them a lecture on the best way to do so efficiently, lining up and taking off at a run as soon as the portal appeared and I gave the word. Karl’s group led the charge, spreading out as soon as they got to the other side and checking for danger. I had told them to do so, even though, I’d found nothing nearby when I was preparing to open the portal.

It was important to use clairvoyance to check your destination before opening a portal, but things can change between the check and the portal opening, so the vanguard needed to be careful.

Everyone else made it through, and I followed them, closing the portal when I was through. We’d come a little over a hundred miles at once. I was actually rather pleased with the group, since it’d only taken us forty seconds to get through. Not bad for a first trip. It saved me some mana, so I could protect myself easier.

It was barely noon, so although we’d already come several days worth of distance, we didn’t stay there. We started hiking.

As the valley where the dungeon resided in was about 250 miles away from the city, there was the possibility of reaching it in two days, and we didn’t want to waste time just sitting around, we were walking towards the place.

Every little bit helped, and would lessen the distance and mana cost of the final portal. We’d definitely be there by the morning of the third day regardless, but since I’d be joining the adventurers in the dungeon, the more mana I had available the better.

While us adventurers weren’t exactly quiet as we moved through the forest, the soldiers were damn loud and attracted monsters to us, making us fight more than we’d hoped to. I could have killed them all in a single hit, but I’m a cheat. The fighting was left to the others, while I relaxed and enjoyed the show.

As expected, Karl’s group of experienced fighters was efficient and quickly dispatched their foes. The soldiers on the other hand… they got the job done, and without significant wounds, but they were sloppy. Well, they hadn’t had much experience against monsters, mostly fighting people, and then nearly all in training or in the city where they played guard.

Most of the soldiers weren’t too happy to be shown up by mere adventurers, but they did grudgingly take the advice offered and did better as we traveled.

As the sun approached the horizon we found a clearing and set up a temporary camp for the night. I dropped the gear so the soldiers could set up the tents and kitchen, then set up my own place for the night. It looked like a tent, but was made almost entirely of stone. I’d covered it with fabric to hide that fact.

I’d made this after I heard that the rank up quest would require me to be accompanied by an examiner. I could have sped things up had I been to the village before, or flown, but I hadn’t and didn’t want to show that off. Or my spacial magic either. That meant I’d needed to be prepared to camp out, so I’d made this thing.

I’d had something similar in the past, but it’d gotten destroyed and I hadn’t remade it before I’d chosen to leave Valla. It was the size of a decent sized tent, enough for a small bed, table, and stove. A pipe came out of the roof to let the smoke out, but otherwise it looked like a normal tent from the outside. Inside was different, but I didn’t intend to let other people inside.

Since I was pretty much done with my setup by dropping the thing, I got started on dinner.

The soldiers and adventurers had their supplies separate, so each group was responsible for feeding themselves. I was needed so the soldiers could bring fresh goods along, but after giving them what they needed, I was done. They didn’t openly disparage me, but I could tell they didn’t think I was important or useful outside of my portals and item box. A pack mule. But they didn’t say anything, so I let it go. For now.

My dinner was some wyvern fried rice. It was delicious, and I noticed the smell drew the attention of some of the others, though they didn’t ask for anything. My fellows might have had Susan not already been cooking dinner as the others set up their tents.

I’d made enough to feed ten, but since no one said anything, the extras all went into storage. I’d eat it eventually. Or share it. Either way, it wouldn’t go to waste.

After dinner we had a quick meeting regarding watch rotation. There’d be four sets, with two adventurers and four soldiers on each. I got teamed up with Raiden for the last watch. Since one regained mana best by sleeping, being assigned either first or last was a given for me. Though, I was actually at around sixty percent mana right then.

We could have gotten a good amount further had I said that before we set up camp, but I didn’t want to give too much away. I had skills and blessings increasing my mana regeneration, so even if I was reasonably active, while not using mana, I could go from empty to full over the course of about twelve hours. Sleeping three hours did the same thing.

Normal people could usually only have a significant amount of mana regeneration by sleeping, though mages could do a bit better and get maybe twenty percent over the same twelve hours it took me to recharge. They also needed more sleep than me to recover their spent mana, though the amount varied from person to person, likely due to sleep patterns.

Since I had nothing to do, I retired to my tent and went to bed.

---

Karl was the one who woke me up for my watch, rapping on the pole that played a part in disguising my hut as a tent.

Watch was boring, but I knew how important it was from the war to save Valla. Nothing happened, during any of the watches, and as dawn approached, I started preparing breakfast.

Unlike last night, I’d talked to Susan, so her group came to me for their breakfast rather than make it on their own. The soldiers got to make their own, though I gave them the requested amounts of supplies from my storage.

As soon as everyone was fed, the campsite was disassembled and we were ready to move on.

Checking and calculating, I found the best location to open a portal to and verified it’s immediate vicinity to be safe, though there were some signs that something had been in the area, so I gave a warning to the vanguard.

Like before, everyone was lined up and ready to pass through the opening, but the soldiers wanted to go first, so we let them.

And of course they fucked it up.

After going through, the leading people didn’t move far enough away from the portal to allow everyone through. By the time they fixed themselves and the rest of us had gotten through, I was running on fumes and couldn’t light a candle, much less defend myself magically.

Raiden took the soldiers to task, and while they apologized, they didn’t actually seem very repentant, considering the fact that I was wavering on my feet unimportant.

After we got going, which took a while since I was so drained from having to hold the portal open so long it’d started draining my health, not just my mana, I had a whispered discussion with Raiden. I’d needed a break, but the soldiers seemed to not care and insisted we get a move on.

“Hey Raiden, I don’t think they’re actually sorry, or behaving as instructed by the commander. I could barely stand, let alone walk and they wanted us to move on. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Write to the commander. If anything remotely similar happens again, I’m leaving them behind.”

He nodded and did as requested. It’d be a while before we got a reply, since the only indication of a message being received was when it appeared, and we couldn’t keep an eye on it constantly. We had three times of day to check for messages, and the commander would do the same. Dawn, noon, and dusk. Easy times of day to tell due to the sun.

We’d left a message with our progress when we set up camp last night, but hadn’t expected or received a reply. This time, we did.

The commander wrote a warning that if the captain and his men didn’t shape up, he wouldn’t complain if the soldiers were left behind. They’d have to proceed to the site, check it, and return all on their own, without the benefit of me and my abilities.

They should have heeded it the first time, because by the time this message came through it was too late.

At lunch, we’d stopped and they made some sandwiches from the supplies, treating me like a servant. I was done with them. Not that I let them know it yet.

Raiden found the message, but having seen the rage in my eyes, wrote a reply, about the current situation. The commander must have been keeping an eye on the notebook after sending his reply, as he responded promptly.

I was to keep the large gear, returning it to the army after we returned to the city, but as to the rest of the supplies, the soldiers could carry what they could and the remainder would be returned with the rest.

We didn’t do anything then, not letting the soldiers know our plans, but that evening as soon as we reached a good campsite, and they ordered me to give them their tents and gear, they suffered my wrath.

I dropped supplies and told them they had ten minutes to take what they wanted from among them, and that the rest would be returned to the army. And that they were on there own from here. Raiden was in communication with the commander, said they’d further angered me, when it’d been obvious I was already pissed at them.

We were done with these fools.

As soon as time was up, regardless of whether they were done or not, they weren’t, thinking I was bluffing, I picked up the crates of supplies and us adventurers left the soldiers behind. Disbelieving, they went so far as to draw their swords and try to threaten me into obedience.

I silently flipped them off, a gesture that had the same connotation here as it did on Earth.

It might have become a fight, but while they’d been only grabbing a few things from the supplies, I’d told my intentions to the others, and we had been preparing to leave. I’d taken a peek at a distant location, and taken the time to prepare my portal.

I’d done it the slow and silent way, so it’d taken a couple minutes, and I hadn’t been able to speak as I did so, hence my gesturing. It was ready and opening as I flipped them off, so my group moved through it, and I quickly followed, leaving the soldiers gawping behind us.

While I’d taken quite a hit this morning, I’d mostly recovered, so I’d been able to do what I’d intended anyway, getting us the last little bit, about fifteen miles, from where the soldiers were to a ridge overlooking the valley the dungeon lay in. It was still a couple miles away, but from up here, we were safe from any monsters but those who could fly, not that I’d seen any of them.

The area around the dungeon was strewn with bodies, but it was obvious that while many had died, plenty had escaped, leaving only the victorious species, which seemed to be lizardmen. There were a couple hundred of them down there, some with different colored or patterned scales showing them to be advanced species.

This wasn’t the location I’d set down at to check out the dungeon the first time, and we’d had to use a magic tool in order to view the scene. It was a bowl we filled with water that allows the user to use a clairvoyance spell like I could, but shared with any who looked into the bowl.

Not wanting to attract too much attention, we forewent fires and ate some of the meals I already had stored. While we were a couple of miles away, and theoretically safe, there were no certainties, so it was best to be cautious.

We used the same watches as before, so I went to bed and didn’t get woken up until a couple hours to dawn. Sadly, when I was woken up, my hut’s true nature was discovered. Susan, who’d been on watch with Karl, came to get me and smacked the side of the tent as she called out to me, but since the side was fabric covered stone, hitting it was rather painful, causing her to give a short cry of pain.

It woke up some of the others, who woke the rest, thinking we might be under attack.

Susan apologized, and I had to show off the inside of my hut, and the fact that it wasn’t the tent it appeared, before everyone but Raiden and myself went off to their tents. The situation had made the old man laugh, which made me pout.

During the watch, I removed most of the cloth, not caring anymore what anyone said about the thing. It wasn’t pretty, being a stone hut, but I liked it and had spent a good amount of time making the thing and getting it the way it was.

It had a bed, with space underneath for stuff to be stored, a desk built into the wall, with a cushioned chair to sit on, and the stove. There was an aisle between the bed on one side and the desk and stove on the other. The desk also doubled as a counter for preparing the food. Shelves were built in above the desk and stove where items could be placed, though they stood empty right now.

The only cloth that remained, besides the sheets and blankets on the bed, was the canvas playing door at the entrance to the hut. Since I’d given up, I’d eventually be changing the thing a little and installing a door in the near future.

The sun broke the horizon and with it everyone greeted the morning. While the night hadn’t been quiet, with plenty of cries from monsters in the distance, as well as the incident involving my shelter, none of them had come close to us. With the light of the sun, there was no need to break into the prepared foods, so Susan and I cooked breakfast.

Fed, we got ready, making sure everything we needed was readily available and in the best condition, weapons honed, tools readied, armor tightened.

Then we descended from our ledge and made our way towards the dungeon. We just needed to wipe out a bunch of lizardmen to get to it, how hard could that be?

Yes, that was factitious.

Lizardmen were much nastier to fight than goblins or orcs, especially with as many advanced species and variants there were. We could assume certain things based on what we knew of the species from studies and experience. Certain colors could indicate elemental affinities, like red being fire related, but the problem was that the colors could have multiple possibilities, or be nothing but a visual.

A solo Lizardman was a rank five opponent, but that was a normal one with no special abilities or anything. As they were able to work together, their rank rose quickly as numbers grew.

While we had six fighters that had ranks near the top, it’d still be a hard fight. Karl’s group was all rank eights, Raiden was a ten, and I was S-class, since that was a higher rank than my current fourth rank.

I could solo them, but would be playing a smaller role so as not to give myself away. There were attack spells in space magic, so I was going to use them.

We did our best to pull only small groups at a time, as well as to take out the roving patrols and hunting parties, but we’d only killed thirty of them before the rest of them realized something was wrong. That was when the fight got difficult.

For the others, not me.

I was standing at the back taking pot shots at the enemies who looked the most dangerous as well as intervening when it looked like one of my allies was in danger. I thought I was being subtle, but I was later told that it was obvious that I was holding back, a lot.

After we’d killed half of them, the rest started getting nervous. At three quarters, they were scared, but their instincts were telling them they needed to kill us, so they kept coming.

It took until late afternoon before the battle was finally over, and if it weren’t for me grabbing the corpses and throwing them into storage we’d have been surrounded by large piles of the things. It was really nice that I had worked out how to ‘touch’ things with my mana to allow me to put things away from a distance. Running round the front lines to collect them wasn’t something I wanted to do.

Tired, both mentally and physically, with plenty of wounds, though nothing too bad, and covered in blood that was mostly not our own, well the frontliners were anyway, us rearguard were perfectly unbloodied, we found places that seemed comfortable to us and relaxed. I broke out the potions Raiden had brought along in his supplies, not to be mixed with the army’s, and the wounded used them to heal themselves.

That had been a difficult fight…

And this was when the others asked why I’d been holding back. They were really unhappy with me. While I hadn’t let things get too dangerous, there had been times where one of them had been in real trouble while I was dealing with something else.

Even Raiden complained, though he was the one who suggested I pose as a complete non-combatant, which earned him plenty of glares himself when I counterattacked.

I told them my story, the simple one I’d told Raiden and Jacen. I didn’t want to stand out too much and get involved in politics or have anyone trying to force me to do something. I just wanted to live my life freely.

They agreed with the premise, but still said that nothing is certain in combat and it would have been my fault had anyone died when I’d been barely trying.

“Well what did you want me to do?! Swing my arm and take them all out?! I could have done it, but I didn’t … want, to… I shouldn’t have said that… Please forget what I just said.”

I got a bit heated and may have gone overboard in my response.

Then Raiden started laughing. It was a light chuckle at first, but it developed into a deep, bellowing guffaw that echoed off the cliffs nearby.

“You always try to seem so calm, but you still lose your temper and give yourself away too easily. Even if you are older than you look, you still act your apparent age.”

I glared at him, but was told that the pout just made me look cute, so I dumped a bunch of water on his head… and gave away that I could use water magic. Fuck.

I gave up.

After extracting promises to keep my secrets, with a threat that I would find and punish any who broke their word, I used magic to record the promises and would know if they did, I cleaned all of us up and healed what wounds hadn’t already been dealt with using the potions. They’d only used them on the worst, using salves and bandages of the lighter ones.

Then I pulled out my current sewing project and went to work on it. It was squirtle. If I hadn’t just finished the charmander line I’d have chosen something else to do, they’d have reminded me too much of the fight.

There was no way we were in the right shape to enter the dungeon right then, so it was decided we’d head in tomorrow morning after we got a good night’s rest.

This time we did get interrupted after setting up camp, but as we’d done so while there were hours to go till sunset it wasn’t surprising. Lizardmen, who’d been off hunting and gathering, came back as the sun was setting, and attacked us. Compared to the earlier fight, they’d have been nothing, but as soon as I spotted them, they fell over dead, their heads separating from their bodies.

“What? I told you I could wave my arm and kill them. That was nothing.”

There was only one group who returned after night fell, but since it was before we retired for the night it was swiftly dealt with. The others also told me to leave it to them. Maybe they felt they needed to redeem themselves after I’d shown off by killing ten in a split second.

I laughed, then went to bed after storing the corpses.