The Tales of Draconic Warlock

The Caravan was supposed to leave two days after we took the quest. These two days were enough to prepare for the travel.

Yeah, we are, after all, moving from one place to another place, and that means we have to prepare enough food, water and other items required for the travel.

Our destination is the city of Emberfall.

As the name suggests, the area around the city is full of volcanoes. There are a lot of fire resources and dire-based monsters present here. It would be a haven for fire elemental mages. From the information we acquired, indeed, there are a lot of fire mages in the city.

Even the person in charge, the baron of the city is a Fire Mage.

Emberfall is not like other areas that are under the control of nobles. No, this was directly ruled by the empire. There are many areas like this, which are important enough not to give away to others.

The empire would appoint some court nobles as the rulers based on their merits. While they rule, they have to pay some taxes and enjoy all the benefits that the region has to offer. Once they died, the area would go back to the empire, which would appoint someone else as the ruler of the area.

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Anyway, the travel was supposed to take ten days of travelling outside and two days of rest in towns that are situated in between, totalling the number of days before the quest to complete to twelve.

These twelve days, we have to be on guard, even if we are inside the towns, and of course, these twelve days are estimated numbers.

If there are any attacks in the travel or for someone unknown reasons, the travel time may extend a bit. So, it's best to bring materials for outdoor survival for a minimum of three weeks.

These were my thoughts. Whether any delays would happen or not, I can't predict but if there are no dangers, then no one would be hiring us to guard the caravan anyway.

It was best to be prepared well instead of crying later.

The supplies included not just weapons, armor and food but also clothes. They were very important as we may not have a chance to clean and dry our clothes every time something spills on them or if they get torn.

So, new clothes were required.

This was not new to me as I spent a lot of time in the wild as it was a custom of our family as a youngster before joining the academy. So, I always have plenty of clothes to change into, but now I have two girl companions, who allocated a day to buy clothes for the travel.

When I asked why, they said that they had to look good.

I don't understand it at all.

We would be on guard duty and would be travelling through and living in the forest, except maybe for two days, when we would go to some towns to rest.

Why would they need so much time to pick up some disposable ones?

They said I wouldn't be able to understand, and I didn't.

Whatever the world is, girls seem to love shopping.

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Two Days Later...

The three of us arrived at the west gate early in the morning, half an hour before the appointed time.

Emberfall is, after all, west of the Crystal City. Well, it is a bit to the North but the entrance from the west has a path to the city that we were going to.

When we arrived the caravan was already present, and also a few other adventurers that we saw at the guild along with a fat man and some guards around him.

The fat man should be the merchant. So we approached him and showed them the quest scroll.

This is a caravan quest, not a quest to collect some materials. So, proper documentation was needed to go along with the caravan. Without the identification papers, one would not be allowed to join the caravan.

This was done to protect the caravan from bandits and other freeloaders.

It was quite common for bandits to get entry into caravans, which would make it easy for them to steal the goods from the caravan.

If they could get into the caravan, they could leave hints for their members who can follow the caravan from a distance and know what was happening inside without getting caught.

Moreover, what goods the caravan carries no one but the owner knows about. Yes, one can see his movements and estimate what was being transported, like grains, spices, ores, etc... but not all bandits would attack every caravan that goes through the path.

Not all would be worth the risk.

It was not just that. The caravan has personal guards of the owner, and then there are adventurers who took the caravan guard quest posted by the caravan owner. It would not be so easy to defeat all of them.

Knowing about the adventurers would be easy. Most of the details, they would get drunk and give that themselves by self praising for doing great deeds.

Even if most of those details are wrong, one can easily gauge their strengths from those stories. Moreover, it would not be so difficult to know the guild rank, which could tell the strength of the adventurers easily.

The guards, on the other hand, were personally groomed by the merchants and, knowing their prowess, would not be so easy.

So, having a member inside the caravan would make it easy to know about these details, and if they decide to make a move, then they can plan accordingly.

If the guard strength is too much and the profits that could be earned from the risks, many bandit leaders wouldn't be too interested in looting the caravan.

As a bandit, profits are the sole purpose of their profession. They can't accept losses. they can't afford to.

"You are good", the guard returned the scroll to us after checking the details, allowing us to join the fray.