Awakening the Divine Spark-Chapter 93: A decent person.

"It's some kind of a special mission where only the higher ranked treasure hunters can take part." Tycen reported, "I doubt we'll be on the list."

"We might figure something out." Edward said, "But what's so special about it?"

"It's to a challenging mountainous region. They'll send people to gather wind sparks." Tycen said.

"What about humans? Do humans live there?" It was sad how obvious the princess's despair was. While she said the words in the usual prideful intonation, the urgency and the contents betrayed the mask she was under.

"Sorry, your majesty!" Thycen sighed, "The description of the natives in Haonia are kind of similar to us, but from what our guy in the office said, they are thinner and taller. And their skin is covered with bright scales ..."

"More fucking lizards!" Princess hissed, "Can we even trust this so called our guy? What good is he? We've been paying him for months, but we're still stuck here ..."

'Respect!' Lee couldn't hold back a praise, 'These guys are here for half a year and already have bribed a caretaker? That's what you get with the heirs of politicians! I've got to learn how to do that!'

It was baffling to hear how these guys got around while he was sweating in the fortress, learning to stab and charge. They even had a house in a good neighborhood, well, except it was in Ashland and everything about this place sucked.

Lee noticed another thing that was wrong. From the looks of it, Victoria was left only with three people – Edward, Deen and this Tycen guy. It seemed that the stay in this world claimed lives of her own men, not only those strangers that lie in Victoria's back yard, or whichever place she had buried them.

"Only Lunax decides the targets of expeditions. No one can do anything about it, even caretakers." Edward said, "Now back to more pressing matters! How to deal with the corpses ..."

"Leaxa! There you are! We've been looking for you all over!" Arax's worried voice immediately killed Lee's mood.

He couldn't immediately decide what he was more upset about – that he couldn't continue to listen to the conversation or that he was back in the damned treasure hunter squad.

Unfortunately there was no way to show it on his face – he mumbled few words of apology, explained that the crowd at the blacksmith's place was too much, and he only stepped away to take a breath of fresh air.

"Good thing Jiraxa could find you so fast, otherwise you would get lost!" Thorax said.

"How did you find me?" Lee asked.

Actually he was curious about it. Even if they were looking for him, their chances were slim to nothing.

"Turns out she has a really good nose!" Arax said.

"You ... smelled me?" Lee looked at Jiraxa in disbelief.

If he ignored her glossy, tiny scales, she was basically a human. And her nose didn't look much different than his.

"Mhm. Sorry. Your scent is ... peculiar." She said.

'For fuck's sake! How the hell I'm supposed to get away now?' Lee was honestly despaired.

If the two devils had a hound with them that could find him at the other side of the city, he had no chance of ever getting away.

"Sigh ... let's go!" Lee said, and got up.

For a split moment he noticed Victoria's ghost-like face somewhere at the back at the room, but it was dark and may be he only imagined it. Even if he didn't, the only thing he could do was to lead the group away, while noticing the closest landmarks to memorize where exactly she settled down.

***

"... the long version short – it looks like the upcoming special conquest will be difficult and dangerous. Even if our squad is selected because of your prior achievements, the four of us are too weak." Lee finished the quick recap.

He was still desperate about his chances of getting away from the brothers, but at least he intended to do his best to persuade them to skip the next conquest.

"So we need more members?" Arax asked, deep in though.

"Oh? Wanna join?" Thorax shouted towards the guy who kept stalking them since they saved him in Inferno Wastes.

"You ... you want to invite a random person?" Lee's jaw almost dropped down to the ground.

"Why not? He seems like a decent person?" Thorax said.

"Mhm." Arax confirmed, "Decent enough."

"So basically anyone can come and go as they wish?" Lee said in exasperation.

"Only come. No one is allowed to leave a squad after they formally join. Those are the rules set by Lunax." Arax said.

"Hello. I'm Mirax. Thank you for saving me!" The stalker with the long legs immediately accepted the invitation while Lee was still trying to process the implications of what Arax said.

"Welcome! Now there's five of us. Should be good enough!" Thorax said.

He was visibly uncomfortable empty handed, but Klavax promised the shield will be ready in five days. Thus there was plenty of time till the next conquest.

***

His new shield caused quite the commotion during the departure. In the wide field in front of the rift gate, there were gathered only around a thousand treasure hunters. Usually they tried to stack close to one another to be able to rush through as soon as possible.

But now the guy with the oversized spiked shield annoyed everyone around him.

Not only people had to keep the distance from him, afraid to get hurt by the sharp spikes that covered the shield, Thorax was extremely excited to go on the first conquest with his new weapon. He kept turning left and right, talking to his squad members, but the people on all sides had to constantly jump back to avoid the spikes.

After stepping through the rift, Throax's excitement quickly died down. It was immediately clear that they were about to do a lot of climbing in the surrounding mountains, and the pine forests that covered them were too thick to comfortably carry around the item of his shield's size.

The only passable option was to use the thing as an oversized umbrella, because at this altitude the rain was rather frequent.

Of course, there was no telling how high above the sea level they were. In fact, Lee wasn't certain there was any kind of a sea in Haonia. On the other hand, the air was thin, but fresh, and views were beautiful, thus he decided to spend the upcoming six days the most relaxed manner possible.

Out of all the people who crossed over, he was the only looking forward to making actual food. When the caretaker instructed the treasure hunters about the conditions, not only the devil brothers, all the other squads experienced moments of despair realizing they would have to live without the stew.

"Alright, let's have a briefing!" Lee said while every other squad rushed away.

His suggestion shocked the two newest members, while the brothers happily obliged. They considered Lee's calm approach as one of the main reasons for the success the last time, although had no clue what they were supposed to discuss.

"First things first." Lee said after they settled down next to the spot where the rift closed, "The terrain will be difficult to climb, and since we're supposed to hunt avians, I don't think there's a practical reason to bring your shield with us."

"No. The shield stays." Thorax said, and his tone cut off any objections.

"You'll be the one to carry it." Lee shrugged, "There are over thousand people scattered around the mountains to look for big birds, but I don't think anyone from Ashland is equipped to hunt them."

"You want to tell us to give up?" Arax was immediately displeased.

"No. I want to take a look how the locals do it." Lee said, "It's easy to rush and make stupid mistakes, right, Mirax?"

He tried to tease the newcomer, but the guy nodded with a serious expression. Last time a stupid mistake led to their squad being wiped out. They weren't weak or inexperienced like Jiraxa's buddies, but died nevertheless.

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

"But aren't they savage and hostile?" Jiraxa asked, "The caretaker said they can be aggressive. And we're not recruiters, we can't bring anyone back."

"Why would we?" Lee asked, and swallowed the kidnap children part, "If there are birds with sparks, so basically – big birds, the locals have to have means to deal with them, right? Why don't we learn from them? If they are really hostile, we'll avoid them."