The morning after the Cockatrice incident, we quickly had breakfast and departed, wanting to make up lost time as soon as possible in case anything else slowed us down. I spent the entire day on top of the carriage, paying close attention to the movement of animals and monsters in the area. I managed to hunt a few rabbits and a boar while I was at it, in an attempt to stave off boredom. For the most part, the day went by without much trouble, the only odd thing being that some monsters were in the wrong areas, most likely due to the roaming Cockatrice.

That night, even with the monster warding barrier up, the adventurers ended up killing a few monsters that had gotten close. I stored the monster's bodies when I got up in the morning, and we once again rushed through breakfast and took off. Today we would have to be on alert more than usual since we would be passing through a forested area. We would be going through a shorter stretch of forest tomorrow as well, but we would have forest on both sides of us for most of the day.

I was going to be riding inside the carriage today to prevent unnecessary troubles. While traveling along, I was playing card games against Livia, chess was too difficult to play in a moving carriage, hence the card games. Currently, we were playing a game of Gin Rummy, and Livia was in the lead. We had taken a short break for lunch and were taking frequent short breaks to keep the horses in good shape, not wanting to stop for a longer period.

As we were getting close to the end of our game with our scores quite close, there was a slight reaction from presence detection. Thinking there was no way my luck could be so bad as to run into 2 higher ranked monsters capable of stealth in one trip, I focused on my presence detection. I soon realized it wasn't another tough monster, but I wasn't happy about that result at all this time.

*sigh* "Looks like we caught ourselves some bandits this time." I said to Livia, placing down 3 5's, bringing my score to 92.

"Seems this isn't going to be a boring trip." She replied, placing down 4 Jacks and smiling deeply. "Gin."

"Well played, congratulations," I said to her, then used wind magic to send a message to the other 3 carriages about the bandits.

We continued down the road, having made already made a plan. I used my stealth skill to move on top of the carriage giving out the numbers and locations of the bandits as I located them. There didn't seem to be any really strong members in the group, but there was a decent amount of them. When the caravan was mostly surrounded, I jumped into a tree and found a good spot to launch a counterattack.

I wasn't so naive as to think that we could win this without killing anybody, but from a practical standpoint, I wanted to keep some of them alive. To accomplish such a feat, I was to move to a good position and paralyze the ones we were going to keep alive, using poison and enchanted arrows. I soon located the boss of the group, and the next strongest people, targeting them and the 2 who seemed closest to the boss.

Predictably, the bandits fell a tree in front of the carriages and most of them jumped out, yelling instructions to the carriages. As soon as the adventurers jumped down from the carriages with their weapons in hand, causing the bandits to attack, I began shooting the important people, starting with the boss. The bandits that were in hiding weren't ones that I had planned to keep alive, so I didn't waste mana or poison on them, choosing to shoot them directly.

I was more glad now than ever before, that I didn't keep my memories or sensibilities from my previous life. I guess living in a world with such a high mortality rate, affects how much one values life. I won't claim that I didn't feel anything when I shot the hidden enemies and felt their life force extinguish through presence detection, but it didn't feel much different from killing monsters, both are enemies that want to kill me after all, I could look at them mostly the same as orcs or goblins.

After my targets were paralyzed or killed, I began using area-of-effect magic on the bandits that weren't near my targets, along with my bow. In the end, more than 40 died, and 7 were captured alive, some ran but none managed to escape. The adventurers then dealt with the bodies, while I dug a large hole using earth magic, after which the corpses were tossed in the hole and lit ablaze. This was standard practice to prevent them from becoming undead, I came back and filled in the hole afterward.

The captured bandits were disarmed, tied up, and thrown on the rear carriage to be brought along for questioning. I cleared the road using magic to cut up the tree into manageable sizes and stored them in my item box. We then proceeded through the forest, moving faster than before thanks to the unscheduled break. I sat on the roof, making a scaled map based on my memory of the territory map combined with everything I have seen on this trip, marking where we fought the bandits.

Due to the effects of the poison, the bandits were either completely paralyzed or asleep until the next day. When we were preparing to leave, I made the suggestion telling the bandits that if they don't want to run beside the carriages with a noose around their neck, the other end tied to the carriage, they needed to tell us about their group, and their hideout. I was able to get some good information from them this way and was able to mark on my map the general location of their hideout.

The rest of the 4th day went on without any more surprises, except the surprise that only 3 of the bandits ended up running next to the carriages that day. We had dinner, giving the bandits only a piece of jerky, hard bread, and some water. Then an uneventful night passed, and we continued toward the capital. Today we let the bandits ride in the carriage until lunch, then attached by noose running next to the carriage after.

In the late afternoon, we made it to Parth, turning in the bandits at the gate, and having to answer some questions. Fortunately, I had made the map and continued filling it in, all the way to the city, so it was rather detailed. Since I had my unique skill Perfect Memory, I would have no problem recreating the map after handing it to the guards. Everyone seemed quite surprised by how detailed the map was, but I simply said it was easy to do while sitting on top of a carriage.

We left the guard station and went to the inn we would be staying at, before the adventurers and I went to the adventurers guild. The guild in the capital was quite busy, probably more so considering the time of day we arrived. We eventually got to the front of the line and explained to the receptionist the situation, and she filled out a report that the adventurers signed. We were then going to turn in the materials and would have to go into the back to drop them off due to the amount.

Before we left the counter though, I asked the receptionist if she could ask the vice Guildmaster if I could speak with them in a private room, and used Revna's name in the message. In the dismantling room, I removed all the materials, and a few whole monsters from my item box, getting the materials appraised on the spot. The guy quickly completed the appraisal and wrote the results on a tag for us to bring back to the counter so we could be paid.

On the way back, I was called to meet with the vice Guildmaster, so I split with the others saying I'd meet back up with them in a little bit. I was then led to a room on the second floor that I assumed was the office of the individual in question.

*Knock knock* "I've brought the child that left the message for you." She announced the reason for the knock in a very professional way.

"Come in." Came the reply from a tired male voice.

"Excuse me," I said as I entered the room after the receptionist opened it for me, after which she closed the door and left without saying anything.

"Have a seat, I'm almost done with this document." Said a skinny middle-aged man with a dull-silver almost steel-gray hair, and cloudy purple eyes with dark circles under them. He was quite possibly the palest human I had ever met.

I quietly took a seat, not wanting to disturb the quite obviously overworked man in front of me. I sat for a bit as he continued reading, occasionally making a mark on the document. He then added that page to a small stack and moved the entire stack to a different pile on the desk before letting out a long sigh and looking up from the desk toward me.

"I apologize for not being able to greet you properly, the Guildmaster is out of town so I have been swamped with work. My name is Otto, and you must be Cero, the one who knows Revna." He said to me in a near-monotone voice he was so tired.

"Yes, I'm Cero from Gale, and I have spent quite a few days in the guild since I was 5, so I am well acquainted with both Revna and Warren, among other members of the staff there."

"How is she doing? Is that muscle-brained Guildmaster doing his work over there?" He seems to have a thing against Guildmasters but I could understand where he was coming from.

"He seems to be doing his work for the most part, even if Revna still has to look over them to make sure he didn't mess up. That being said, you seem rather busy, and I asked to see you for something more important than small talk. Would you like a stamina potion before I continue?" I was a bit worried he would pass out or simply keel over at any moment.

"That would be lovely, though I'm not sure how effective it will be considering how many I have taken recently." His tone didn't change at all, despite seeming happy to be offered a potion.

"My potions are of the highest quality, so hopefully it will have a little bit of effect, though it can't replace actual sleep, and is quite hazardous to your health when used over extended periods of time," I warned him while pulling out a potion and handing it over. Once he drank it, I continued.

"You probably haven't heard yet considering all these documents, but I came in with 2 parties of adventurers and reported running into and subsequently subjugating a Cockatrice, between 6 and 7 hours carriage distance from Gale," I told him, not mincing my words since he looked a little more alive.

"Hm… that is definitely strange, an A-rank monster that close to a town, and near the main road at that, is quite unusual. Thank you for reporting it, but I'm not sure why you are telling me this." He seemed concerned but didn't seem to find it too important.

"I was wondering if you get reports from all the other guild branches in the duchy due to this being the capital. If so, over the past few years, how many reports of wandering high-ranked monsters have you gotten from the east side of the duchy? Could I see those reports and a map of the duchy?" I decided not to waste any time.

"We do get those kinds of reports, but I don't memorize all the reports that come in, and I can only show you documents that have been disclosed. Why do you want to see those documents and a map?" He was now getting interested because of my questions.

"About a year ago, most of the Royal Bees and similar honey bee-type monsters were eliminated from the Honey Meadow, a bit south of Gale by a wandering high-ranked beast. About two years before that, there was a sudden appearance of a large group of orcs led by an orc king or lord, outside of Reginston. Now, I've read a lot of reports in the guild's reference room, and this does not sound like a normal situation, nor does it sound like a stampede situation.

However, on the way here, I read a research book on dungeons that described a similar situation of an undiscovered dungeon spilling out monsters causing mass migrations of local monsters trying to avoid the higher-ranked one. I wanted to see the reports and a map so that I could try to trace the direction these supposed wandering monsters came from, to narrow down where there is likely to be an undiscovered A-rank dungeon." I laid it all out for him, not skipping or sugarcoating anything.

"If what you're saying is true…" he muttered under his breath with wide eyes.

"Then there is a possibility of a dungeon stampede, which could easily wipe out the duchy. Fortunately, to my knowledge, these so-called wandering monsters only started showing up 4 years ago, so it would likely take a minimum of 1 more year before it reaches that point." I finished his muttering and added to it.

After that, he tasked every available staff member to find any reports of strong, wandering monsters, on the east side of the duchy for the past 5 years, just to be on the safe side. He also began writing something before suddenly stopping and looking at me. "Why only on the east side?" He asked all of a sudden.

"That's because the Cockatrice came from the East, the Royal Bee I found on the verge of death the year before that escaped to the northwest, and two years before that, the monsters escaped to the west and southwest from the forest where the Orcs were. The obvious conclusion is that the dungeon is located somewhere east to northeast of Gale, and any monster that would affect the duchy would have to pass by populated places in the east first." I replied matter-of-factly.

"I see, that is good reasoning." He immediately went back to writing as if I wasn't here after he said that.

Shortly after, a staff member knocked and came into the room, setting some documents and a map on a coffee table while informing Otto and then leaving. Without waiting for permission, I stood up and moved over to the documents, reading them and marking on the map the location and direction of travel for each incident involving a B-rank or higher wandering monster that seemed to be coming from the east. Separating the documents into two piles as I worked through them.

"You're quite good at that, want a job as an assistant?" I heard from behind and above me. It seemed that Otto had finished what he was doing and walked over behind me while I was focused.

"Not particularly, it sounds like a horrible job. In the future, if you are going to give people such an offer, you should probably try to look less like an undead." I replied, not giving him any room to argue. "I haven't finished, but it looks like I was right. All of these monsters are coming from the same general direction. The others are likely to be actual wandering monsters. Most likely the dungeon is in this area." I pointed out an area as I circled it on the map.

If one traveled by carriage or at a similar speed, they would be able to reach the area I believed most likely to have an undiscovered dungeon within a day from Gale. It was neither a great nor horrible location for a dungeon, but it was a bit worrisome that it had been releasing monsters for at least 4 years based on these reports.

"Hm… alright, I'll take care of the rest, you go ahead and go take care of whatever you came to the capital for." He seemed to imply that this was the job of the adults and that I should go back to doing whatever else.

"Alright, but I'll check in from time to time while I'm around. Make sure to get some sleep, the more tired you are, the less productive you are, so it is more efficient to get proper rest. Besides, I don't want to hear that you died due to the overuse of stamina potions." I replied, hoping to guilt him into taking care of his health.

Upon exiting the office, I went downstairs and quickly noticed the two adventurer parties waiting for me. After meeting up with them, they asked about what I was doing as we headed back toward the inn. I dodged the question, saying I'd tell them later when we split the money for the rest of the Cockatrice materials. They had also gotten an award for both the killed and captured bandits, so we would have to split that as well.

When we got to the inn, we all met in one room, where I cast a sound barrier and told them about the potential A-rank dungeon, while they handed me my share of the material sale price. I specifically did not mention the potential for a dungeon stampede, wanting to reduce the chance of the information spreading among the public. Then we all had dinner and I looked for Livia to inform her of the situation, using a sound barrier just like before.

Livia not only understood the potential from a merchant's perspective, but also seemed to put 2 and 2 together, and directly asked about the likelihood of a stampede. I told her that the furthest back incident I saw, was from 4 years ago, and I had not seen any mention of a dungeon causing a stampede in such a short time. That seemed to make her feel a bit relieved, though it was also obvious that she was calculating the risk.

After my talk with Livia, I ran into Jay in the hallway near my room. It seems that he was just looking for me to go over the information for tomorrow. I had a short meeting with him, finding out when we would be meeting the duke, which was happening after Livia met with him. It would be a less formal meeting according to Jay, where I would be expected to introduce myself and explain my plan in detail so that the duke would choose me and build what was needed to make baseball a success.

I told Jay that there wouldn't be any problems, that I already know what I was going to present to the duke, and that I was almost certain I could get the contract. Whether I wanted to contract or not, was a completely different story. After we ironed out the details, which weren't all that complicated, Jay went back to his room and I stayed up for a while thinking about the potential dungeon.

A dungeon stampede on its own is not very dangerous, because usually there aren't that many monsters that come out of a dungeon. However, the monsters that come out during a dungeon stampede, or overflow if you will, tend to be higher-ranked individuals. These monsters then cause monsters in the area surrounding the dungeon to flee the area in fear, and if there are enough, that can cause multiple stampedes heading in different directions.

Assuming this is an A-rank dungeon and has been having monsters leaving it for 4 years, most likely there would not be a stampede for 1 to 6 years based on historical accounts. If there turns out to be a dungeon in the area I circled, then business would certainly pick up in Gale. The duchy would work with the adventurer's guild to build a dungeon town around the dungeon, and even after the construction was finished, Gale would still be where most people stopped on their way to the dungeon town.

At some point, while thinking about such things, I fell asleep, apparently more tired from the trip than I had assumed. The following morning brought along a bright clear sky, not at all reflecting the storm of thoughts I fell asleep with. Not wanting to waste such a beautiful morning, I shook my head to clear the lingering thoughts and focused on starting a new day, the day I would have to meet the duke.

ShadowWolfGuild

A special thanks to Yeuromain for the support