22 Introductions

The next day, in the adventurer association a little earlier than noon.

Alex stood with his eyes closed, leaning against a wall while he waited for the arrival of Raymond and his entourage.

'Raymond seems more trustworthy than the other adventurers I've met before, but I still shouldn't let my guard down.'

Raymond didn't tell Alex anything specific about the mission since there were so many people around, but it wasn't hard for Alex to find out which one he was talking about.

There were very few missions asking to wipe out a beast hive, and only two at the level where Raymond's group with the addition of Alex had the ability to complete them.

One of these missions required over a month of travelling through the wilderness to arrive there, so that ruled that one out. Which only left one.

[Mission: Eradicate the beast hive

Description: A neighbouring village has suffered frequent attacks from a number of Mantis beasts over the last few weeks. Several people have died and the villagers are too scared to even leave their houses now. Nobody in the village is strong enough to take out the leader of the mantises, so urgent help is needed if they are to survive.

Mission goal: Find the location of the Mantis hive, kill the leader and any other Mantis you find.

Reward: Minimum guarantee of 1 E- rank beast core; rewards vary depending on number of beasts and their strength.]

Normally, only Mid E rank adventurers were allowed to take on E- rank beast hive missions due to the danger the high number of beasts represent. But exceptions were made for Early E ranks who gathered a team of F ranks to tackle the F rank beasts while they themselves would deal with the leader. 

Many Early E ranks used this method as rewards from hive missions were much more bountiful than normal single beast missions. However the only drawback for them was that they had to pay their recruited F rank teammates out of their own pocket, but the cost was worth it for the chance to earn an E- rank beast core and increase their strength.

Naturally, since Alex was able to find the mission details without much effort, others should also be able to do so. Raymond's actions in keeping the details to himself therefore confused Alex.

'What was the point in hiding it if it was so easy to find out anyway?'

He didn't have much time to think about it though as he opened his eyes reflexively and saw Raymond and 7 other unknown people following him, they were obviously his teammates for this mission.

Raymond noticed Alex was already there, patiently waiting for him to arrive.

"Brother Alex! Did you wait for long? I'm glad to see you came so early, we can set out for our mission earlier now that we are all together." Raymond smiled amicably as he placed his arm over Alex's shoulder.

"I just arrived a few minutes before you, so I'm guessing we're doing the mission to wipe out the Mantis hive?"

Alex got straight to the point and asked about the mission, everyone's time was precious and the sooner they could set out, the sooner they could complete the mission.

Raymond however had a glint in his eyes as he heard what Alex had said.

He looked at one of the other 7 people around them and although he didn't open his mouth, communicated with him using another mysterious method.

'Just go with it. Got it?'

The woman he communicated with looked like she was in her early thirties, with light brown hair and bright blue eyes. She couldn't be considered a 10/10 beauty but she was still stunning nonetheless.

It seemed she didn't have the same method of communication as Raymond as she gave a slight, unnoticeable nod without looking in his direction.

"You guessed right. You're strong and you have a good eye for detail, I'm starting to like you even more, Alex."

However unbeknownst to the two of them, Alex noticed the subtle changes in Raymond's Expressions.

Raymond shifted the topic and started to introduce the other members of his team one by one. He started it off by introducing the only woman, the one he secretly communicated with, first.

"This is Joanne, she's a close friend of mine and an F+ rank adventurer. She's on the verge of breaking through to E- rank!"

Raymond then went on to introduce the other six adventurers on the team, but Alex didn't pay them as much attention as he did to Joanne as she and Raymond were the only people from the team of nine that knew each other.

Everyone else, including Alex, met for the first time after Raymond invited them into his team to complete this mission.

'Something smells fishy about this, but what is it?'

Although Alex had a favourable impression of Raymond, it was almost like it was designed to be that way.

Right from the beginning Raymond had been acting overly friendly with him since they first met each other in the mission hall the day prior.

But even though Alex felt Raymond and Joanne were suspicious, he still went along with it. The rewards for this mission were just too desirable to give up on just because of some unconfirmed suspicions.

***

A group of nine adventurers cleaved their way through the dense overgrowth of the forest, with the man in shining armor at the front swinging his sword to slash away any bush, branch or tree that blocked their path.

Alex stood towards the back of the group while Joanne and Raymond never left each other's side.

By now, the group had been travelling for hours through the forest and it became more like a jungle the farther they travelled.

The annoying thing about the mission was that it didn't specify the exact distance this neighbouring village was to Valentis, only that it was to the west and that it would take 4 days to get there.

It was noon when they set off, and by now the sun was falling over the horizon and visibility only became worse the more they walked.

"We should set up camp here for the night!" Raymond shouted from the front of the group and pointed his sword at a clearing a couple dozen metres to their left.

One of the other members of the team, Brutus, spoke to Alex with a sigh of relief.

"Phew! I was beginning to think we would continue travelling all throughout the night." Brutus was the only member of the team other than Raymond who went out of their way to speak to Alex.

Most of the time everyone just stayed silent and kept their awareness up.

They were there on a mission, not to make friends.

Along the way, Alex had a few chats with Brutus here and there when things just got too boring, and he felt that he was very similar to himself. He felt a lot more genuine than Raymond in the few interactions they had.