"...Hey! Wake up!...Wake up!"

This early in the morning? I'm awake but I don't plan on getting up so soon.

"....uh...ah?..."
"...I...am...wake..."

*shing* *thunk*

"Who!?"

This tent is reserved for all the blacksmith students both genders so its a bit crowded. You need to do a lot more than that to wake up everyone else. You also have to watch out for our class's belladonna since she sleeps with a forging hammer and a dagger.

"...Get up. We need to assemble quietly early in the morning. The next part of the journey has more danger so we need to prepare you all for what might happen."

You won't wake them up like that. They would just roll over and ignore you. Everyone here does work inside a noisy workshop hammering metal with metal for long periods of time so something like that won't be enough.

"Good morning teacher. I will wait outside while you knock these idiots awake."

The only lady in our class is disciplined as usual. The honour student didn't get her status for sleeping in after all. It can't be helped I also need to help out.

"Victor, drag chatterbox outside. Don't forget to plug up his mouth."
"Got it."

If they want to call us this early then this might be important. If we are heading to a danger filled area, then I want to be prepared as much as possible.

The academy knows what will happen for this trip and made plans for our route towards the central island. They should have countermeasures and back up plans for what might happen and I want to be part of the plan where I will live. Although I haven't tested it, I might be semi-immortal so I won't say something dumb like 'I only have one life so I will take care of it' but I want to lay a foundation for the next few lives I might have. When you go to a NG+ you want as much leveling gear as possible to speed up your growth after all. MinMaxing on my first restart would be tedious but it would be easier as I level up my skills and raise my mana.

"Wake up!"

*kick*

"Uh? what?"
"Wake up the one beside you quietly. We need everyone to assemble outside. We need to listen to this or we might get more damaged goods to fix everyday."

The biggest worry of our class these past few days is the ever continuing work we have to do every night. This should be enough of an incentive to get them moving. It is safe to assume that they would wake up soon, I guess I will go ahead and eat breakfast.

"Morning you two."
"...uah..."

This is what happens if you don't have a proper sleep and exercise. You get all melty when you wake up. I will ignore you for now, hope you sober up as soon as possible since we want as many alert minds as possible.

"Morning brill. Looks like we are finally jumping into the dragon's mouth."
"Oh? The teacher also mentioned it to you?"
"No, Every traveler knows of that place. My family tries to avoid taking escort jobs through that place as much as possible. When we do accept it, we leave the young ones and ask help from other companies. I was too young the last time the family had to go through there but I heard from my parents that the merchant they were escorting had to surrender a quarter of their cargo to avoid a huge battle that could have wiped out half of their force."

So the bandits aren't the 'Loot all, kill all' type. They actually keep the amount of money they take to a certain amount that doesn't bankrupt the merchant. This makes the merchant know how much they need to earn to make money on the trip. The bandits won't suddenly run out of targets, the merchant earns money and there would be less casualties on both sides. Everyone isn't that happy but they aren't exactly miserable.

"Will we be ok? I assume that when your family escorted a merchant, you had a lot more people. We only have 25 military students as escorts and even though we have 3 teachers and 5 combat healers, the rest of us are fresh graduates from a production course."

Except the miners but I guess we can add them to production class since I heard some of them can sculpt rocks for masonry, or at least that is what they boasted to the combat healers.

"We will probably be ok. The academy is part of the reformation the hero made and even though most of them are students, the army is the army. If something happened then the council would send in a force to prove that you can't mess with them. We won't have to worry about the big groups since there is usually someone smart enough to know what would happen but smaller groups will take the risk since they can easily disappear and leave the blame for others."

If they are part of the army then this little trip of ours should be recorded and approved by the higher ups. The threat of sending an army to exact revenge for us is nice and all but I would have liked the actual army instead of the fearful consequence.

"So, do you have any idea on how we will proceed from here on in?"
"I couldn't contribute from this part on so I wasn't allowed to participate on the meeting. My girlfriend also can't say anything because of confidentiality."
"I guess we have to wait for the teachers' instructions."

This feeling of uncertainty is the worst. I always try to have some kind of plan whenever possible but that doesn't mean I can't adapt to the situation. I doubt the army students guarding us will give up without a fight and if even one of them dies, the council will send in a whole brigade of soldiers to establish power. This means they won't allow even a single one of us alive in case we remember their faces.

"...huh? hah? Oh, Good morning victor, brill. Why are we up this early in the morning?"
"Eat up and make sure you are ready to defend yourself from now on. Me and victor can't look after you for what will happen."

You bought the most bombs so use it when necessary. Wait, it might actually be better for this guy to just sleep through it. He might make too much of a commotion that might provoke the bandits. No, its better for him to be awake than to wake up in the middle of a confrontation and flip out.

"Me and brill were just talking about the dragon's road. Right now we are almost at the mouth."
"I see, are we already prepared on which items we can use for negotiation?"
"I'm amazed, you are actually quite composed. I thought for sure you would have started to lose your mind over the potential danger."
"I'm a merchant! Wild animals and monsters aside, as long as we can negotiate with the other party there is nothing to be scared off."

I am honestly amazed. I guess she is a merchant after all.

"Besides, their main target are the goods and food we have. Money is good but its not practical since you need to go into town to buy stuff. There are some black markets but everything there is too expensive. They would take it but only the gold."
"If we loaded all the goods inside storage bags we could have ran faster evading this place."
"Storage bag can't load that much. There is a limit on the size of object you can insert into it. The best storage bag can only carry 50kg and it is very expensive. Even merchants like my family only use storage bags to hide coins so they don't clank during travel."
"Also, if a merchant travels without carrying anything, the bandits would know they are extremely wealthy. Its like putting a huge target on you making every bandit you encounter to rob you clean. That's why when guarding merchants we ask them to show a minimum a mount of luggage to conceal the storage."

I guess that makes sense. Storage equipment are not that rare but the limit they have are ridiculous for their price. Showing off that you can afford multiple of those shows how much money you have. If you are in a procession of a battalion then maybe its okay but some people will still risk it since they only have to steal a single bag and not a crate. They could escape easily if they get pass the defense and just snatch it.

"Everyone finish up breakfast and assemble."

Time to see the grand plan of the academy on how to pass through this danger.

"First of all, we will now enter the dragon's road. Calm down and listen to our guidelines and everyone should come out alive."

That was a threat to your students. Well, I guess we graduated and some level of tension is needed so everyone won't let their guard down.

"We will proceed in the usual manner but I want everyone to stay quiet throughout the rest of the travel. It would be until we pass through the dragon's road. The army students are wearing their insignia so that should deter most bandits to let us pass."

So far it followed the guesswork me and victor discussed. I hope you have more than that.

"We also ask everyone to ready your weapons. However, don't take action until we give the signal. The combat healers will be in charge of you so listen to them. If we are stopped by bandits, don't provoke them and leave the talking to us teachers."

If you want us to be ready to fight at least let us use the shields from the cargo.

"There might be times when we have to surrender some cargo to them but that would depend on the negotiation. If you don't want your stuff stolen then hide the valuables under your seat in case they get greedy. If a fight breaks out, first protect yourself, next protect your fellow students, then protect the carriage."

I appreciate that they give priority to our lives than the carriage. It shows that they care for our basic safety. However, if a battle did commence, I want them to first run away and to do that we need the carriage so that is the priority. The faster we run the more safe our group would be. They may ambush us on the trip home but we can delay it until its time for the next group to arrive at the entrance. If they are still waiting to ambush us then we will run until we meet the other group and fight them off. If we run into a big horde then we just have to call in reinforcements from the army.

"We have many backup plans laid out for different scenarios that might happen. Everything should be alright as long as no one panics. If you see something strange and think it might be bandits scouting us then tell the person in charge immediately. However, don't be suspicious of everything and report every thing you see. It would just annoy others. If you don't know what you are looking at then don't bother reporting it. We want the observative and perceptive to do the lookout so if you are only reporting because of anxiety, shut up and keep yourself in check. That is all, everyone start boarding, we need to leave early since bandits are known to be lazy and late risers."

The basis of us leaving early is from a bandit stereotype? I want to refute the idea and tell them to do a better job but the image I have of bandits fits that stereotype so well. They are bandits since most of them don't want to or can't do a normal work. They live to do what they want and I don't know see a lot of people wanting to wake up this early.

Even if they don't appear in the morning, they would still appear in the end. I just hope we can get through this with as little friction as possible. If the school really wants to maximize their morning laziness then I suggest entering during the night since no smart bandit would set up an ambush right at the entrance. The proper ambush is to lure them in not to block them from going in so we probably won't encounter any ambushes near the entrance. If we enter at night then, even if its the perfect time to ambush, we won't encounter them since we are still close to the entrance. This would mean that by the time its morning we would have covered a lot of ground while taking advantage of the safe morning time.