Based on how the fight was going, fortifying Rodrick’s durability had been a truly wise choice from Valar. The warrior’s initial suggestion had been to cast Lesser Fortify on someone like Arthur instead, as the big man could face the hits of the badgers even without the magical enhancement, but Valar had disagreed.

  Sure, Arthur would be more injured if he got hit, but was he going to? Rodrick was going to get hit a lot, so Valar had actually made a choice and cast the spell on him instead.

  “I really don’t need this, but thank you,” Rodrick had said when he had walked to safety. Valar was pretty sure that he was now thanking all the gods for his healer’s great words of wisdom.

  Ciel had been only hit once. It had taken her out of the fight for multiple seconds, forcing Rodrick and Arthur to protect her until she gained control of her own body. Rodrick had been hit tens, if not hundreds of times by now, and he had lost control of his body for a second at most. Needless to say, Valar’s spell had been a valuable addition to the fight.

  Carla’s Winter’s Wind had been a godsend for the whole team, slowing down the badgers just enough that they were actually able to get hit. The spell slowed everyone in the area with icy winds and creeping frost, allowing her team members to actually hit their attacks against the slippery enemies, but it had a small problem. It slowed everyone down, and that included her team members. Rodrick was perhaps the most affected combatant overall, but if that meant that badgers were dying, he wasn’t complaining. Ciel darted in and out of the icy winds, managing to avoid most of the spell’s downsides, and Arthur… He was living the dream.

  One badger after another fell as the blonde archer with eyes that gleamed like pools of gold shot an endless rain of arrows into the storm of snow and ice. The manic grin he sported reflected each and every success, growing in its intensity with each arrow he let loose.

  “Seven, eight, nice, TEN!” Arthur’s gleeful shouts rang through the clearing. He ran around the area, dodging badgers that tried to attack him, but not a single one reached his form. The fight, originally abysmal for archers, had turned to his ideal battleground.

  As the battle dragged on and the badgers just kept coming, Valar started to feel a headache coming. An iron rank life mage just wasn’t supposed to hold a spell for this long. I need to keep it up… Rodrick’s getting a lot of value from it.

  In his focus, the boy didn’t realize a badger barreling straight for him before it got too close to dodge. Wait, wha-?

  An arrow struck the flying badger in the eye, diverting its flight just enough to miss Valar by a hair’s breadth. “Don’t worry, I’ll catch the stragglers!” Arthur’s gleeful shout echoed in the distance, bringing a smile to Valar’s face. I’ve got good teammates to rely on.

  After that small slip-up, the team tightened their control of the battlefield.

  In all honesty, the fight was essentially already over. The badgers weren’t getting out of the storm of ice and Rodrick’s axe cut down one after another with frightening consistency. He was still getting hit, the damage lessened by his own durability and Valar’s enhancement, and he would need a Lesser Restoration afterwards, but it didn’t matter for the moment. He wasn’t even close to done.

  But the badgers were.

  Soon, Rodrick’s grunt could be heard from the eye of the storm. “You can stop the spell now,” he spat blood on the ground and grinned viciously. “It’s done.”

  As the storm was dispelled, the field of carnage was fully revealed at last. Rodrick stood in the middle of a pile of badger corpses, the size of the badgers themselves ranging between a half a meter and two meters long. The giant warrior was breathing heavily as he held his massive axe in hand. Valar was quite sure the sight would’ve been a painter’s greatest dream.

  The amount of dead badgers was hard to count, but it was definitely over fifty and probably under one hundred. They would get an actual count once they skinned each one, but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was that the fight was over, and every member of the team was alive and at least somewhat healthy.

  “I…” Rodrick heaved. “Didn’t get to bash a single skull.”

  Ciel let out a fit of wheezing laughter. “You cleaved like twenty of those fuckers in half though!”

  “Lan… You know what, who fucking cares? Arthur, you alright there?”

  Arthur was kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily as he held his head with both hands. His bow was resting on the ground next to him, and the quiver on his hip was nearly empty. The fact that it was nearly empty was a testament to the fight’s length, as it had been enchanted to hold much more arrows than a normal quiver could.

  “My head hurts…” the golden eyed archer groaned. “But I think I’ll be alright.”

  “If you say so… What about you, Carla?”

  The ice mage walked down to the scene of slaughter with a friendly smile as she spoke. “I’m totally fine. No beasts got to me and channeling that spell wasn’t that bad.”

  “How did you even make that storm?” Ciel asked. “You’re not a wind mage.”

  “I didn’t create wind directly,” Carla explained. “I just moved tiny bits of ice and snow really fast around the area of the spell, and that created wind as a byproduct.”

  “Huh… Maybe I should delve deeper into the spells the dark affinity has to offer,” Ciel muttered. “All of my uses are quite straightforward and uncomplicated.”

  “If you have some book to research, sure,” Carla nodded. “Valar, everything fine there?”

  “Yeah,” the boy walked over with tired steps. “Channeling that spell for that long took a toll, but Arthur managed to save me from any physical harm.”

  “How so?” Rodrick asked with a confused expression.

  “Didn’t you see? A bronze rank badger escaped the storm and lunged for me,” Valar explained. “Arthur shot it down mid-flight.”

  Rodrick’s eyes widened for a second. “Huh,” he turned his head towards the archer. “Good job there, Arthur!”

  The archer with blonde hair raised a tired fist. “No problem, I guess. It was a fun fight!”

  “Fun…” Rodrick grunted. “Not for me. I’m cold, full of small wounds and I’ve been shocked too many times to count. At least we managed to do it.”

  “One of them hit me too,” Ciel said. “Wouldn’t want to get hit again.”

  “How much do you think we’ll make from this?” Valar asked. “The beastlore classes in the academy didn’t really delve into the finances of slaying beasts.”

  “It’s really hard to estimate at this point,” Rodrick said. “A lot of these sales depend on if there’s demand for them. I’m guessing this is a good haul though. Carla?”

  “The price of the hides probably ranges between 2 and 4 silver per hide if they’re in good condition. About half of these are in really good condition, and the other half are practically unusable, so one and a half gold at best. Add the price of the rare affinity cores to that, and I think we have around 2 gold for the whole team.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Valar’s whole wealth was under 10 gold, and even that much was worth years of work in a safe city job.

  Carla nodded. “It’s good, especially since we didn’t use any healing potions, but remember that it’s split five ways, and that’s after expenses. Rodrick’s armor, Arthur’s arrows and everything else costs money to repair or replace. I think we’ll all get around 30 silver for the beast parts in addition to the 10 silver from the contract reward per person.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “So a massive amount of money, but not a ridiculous one? Around three months pay for a regular Lyndale worker?”

  “Essentially, yes,” Carla smiled. “If we did a couple of these contracts per month, each of us could afford a nice apartment in Rhondell, but the detached houses and mansions are for silver and gold rankers respectively. We honestly can’t make that much money consistently.”

  “The contract rewards and beast sales increase with rank, but there’s also less missions to go around,” Rodrick grunted. “Even as an adventurer, it’s hard to become as rich as the nobility.”

  “And how rich is that?”

  “Even the smaller houses’ total worth is quantified in onyx, not gold, so they’re pretty rich….”

  No wonder they send all their kids to the academy…

  The process of gathering all the usable hides from the beasts was a lengthy one, taking much longer than the fight itself. The only ones who were useful for this part of the mission were Rodrick and Ciel, so…

  “Run to the forest’s edge, then back. After that do fifty pushups and fifty situps. Then repeat that until we are done.”

  “What? We just fought!” Carla shouted. “We can’t exercise here!”

  “Why not?” Rodrick looked around. “The area has been cleared. Go work out.”

  “But…”

  “Go. Work. Out.”

  And that was how the day of torture started.

  “Couldn’t we stop?” Valar asked breathlessly. They were running the same length of meadows to the forest’s edge for the seventh time, and he was getting tired out fast. To make things worse, Rodrick and Ciel still had quite a lot of work to do.

  “As shitty it is to admit this…” Carla wheezed. “But Rodrick is at least somewhat right,” she pulled in a lungful of air. “Physical fitness is important even for us mages, and at least I’ve been slacking off.”

  “I didn’t know…” Valar’s speech was interrupted by sickly coughing. “-it was even important, so I haven’t trained at all!”

  This torture continued for a total of two hours. At that point, both of the mages were ready to drop.

  Only then did Rodrick run up to them and told the pair to stop exercising. “We’re finally done with Ciel, and Arthur seems to be fine to go as well. Luckily for you, we are walking the way back instead of running.”

  “I can hear a but coming…” Carla muttered.

  “But… there’s a lot of hides to carry,” Rodrick grinned. “Luckily, we’ve tied them up in nice bundles that can be strapped to your backs. It seems that your physical conditioning continues until we get back to the city.”

  No…. “I give up.”

  Unfortunately, giving up wasn’t an option when there was this much money on the line. The only saving grace of the situation was that everyone had baggage to carry, not just the pair of pure mages in the party. Rodrick even carried two bundles while everyone else carried one, making the situation feel less like torture and more like slave labor... which still felt really bad. So, no, there actually wasn’t any saving grace. This day sucks.

  “I liked the caravan mission better,” Valar grumbled when they finally spotted the city gate. “This is way worse.”

  “You got injured thrice during that mission in addition to passing out!” Rodrick groaned. “Now you have to carry around valuable cargo that will make you money!”

  “When we were on the caravan, we could just store our cargo in the wagons,” Valar muttered. “Way better.”

  “Agreed,” Carla nodded vigorously. “Way better.”

  Ciel sneered. “Mages…”

  Carla raised her eyebrow. “Do I have to remind you that you’re a mage too?”

  “A mage that works out,” the pale woman shrugged. “It doesn’t count.”

  “Can’t even cast all spells in her own rank,” Carla muttered under her breath.

  “I heard that.”

  “Fuck.”

  Valar learned something very important that day. Spotting their destination didn’t mean that they were close to it... In his young mind, he had somehow expected to be at the city gates in maybe fifteen minutes or so, but the rest of the walk took an hour of their time. And then…

  “Oh no…” Valar said. “The line!”

  They had arrived at the gates just when day was turning to evening—the worst rush hour imaginable. To make things significantly worse, it was 4th day, the last day of the workweek.

  “The situation isn’t bad at all, actually,” Rodrick said as he started walking beside the line of wagons. “There’s a different line used by adventurers and travelers on foot.”

  “Travelers on foot?”

  “That means high rankers who can just run city to city,” Arthur explained. “Doesn’t happen often, but they can do it if they want.”

  “Silver rankers?”

  “Usually only gold and above, but some rare silver rankers can do it,” Arthur shrugged. “A silver ranker needs a very specific skillset based on speed and avoiding threats to make the journey safely.”

  “But you’re bronze rankers and get through just fine?” Valar wondered.

  “Let’s just say that traveling alone through the forests is quite a different experience,” Rodrick grinned. “Higher ranked beasts and especially the smarter ones avoid caravans because the reward is too small. A silver ranked beast doesn’t really get anything from killing a bunch of bronze ranked humans. A silver ranker on the other hand…”

  “So don’t go into the forest alone,” Valar nodded to himself. “I got it.”

  “Were you about to go?” Ciel looked at him quizzically. “Last time you went alone to the forest you got attacked by a bronze ranked umbral terror, almost lost your life and received permanent scars.”

  “What’s wrong with the scars?”

  “That’s what you got from what I said? The scars look plenty cool, but you almost died!” the pale rogue turned to the team leader. “I think hiring the boy might’ve been a mistake. He might be another Arthur…”

  “I’m not a boy!”

  “Yes you are,” Ciel said flatly. “Being an adult isn’t all about your rank. I will call you a boy as long as I think you still are one.”

  That shut Valar up fast. He didn’t really have anything to say to Ciel, other than that her words felt unfair. But yelling that to her face would just prove her words right. He knew the right, adult way of dealing with the rogue would’ve been to simply not care. To not get provoked. But it was easier said than done.

  Still, he didn’t yell. Brooding was a far superior option, even if it wasn’t the ideal one. Valar couldn’t let it go, so he just shut up, crossed his arms and stood in line.

  The mind of a thirteen-year-old boy was a peculiar thing. The subject of early awakenings was a largely unresearched topic, so its effects on the development of that mind were almost completely unknown. What the researchers of Aldun knew was that the mysterious quirk in teenagers' development that made them hard to deal with did not disappear with an early awakening. Some even theorized that the mood swings and unexpected behaviour could only increase with magical enhancement, but that wasn’t public knowledge.

  That meant that team Cookie Sandwich, a group full of young adults in their late teenage years and early twenties, had essentially adopted a life mage at the very start of his teenage years. In other words, they were fucked.

  Valar didn’t talk to anyone for the following hours; not when they passed the gate, nor when they left the badger hides at a market stall in the western district. He didn’t even talk to anyone at the guild when the team retrieved the contract reward.

  The first words that he spoke were when they got to their inn. “I’m hungry.”

  “That’s what-” Ciel started.

  “As am I,” Carla interrupted as she glared at Ciel. “Let’s eat, and then we can divvy up the rewards.”

  “Sounds good,” Arthur nodded.

  Rodrick looked at his teammates, finally landing on Carla. They seemed to have a silent discussion with just their eyes. After that small staring contest, he spoke. “It’s fine with me. Go order something from the counter. I’ll pay with team funds, as always.”

  Maybe the day wasn’t that shitty after all.

  As Valar ate, Carla looked at the boy from the chair beside him. He’s just like my younger brothers, just awakened. That’s all. The other members of the team, especially Rodrick and Ciel, seemed to not understand that Valar was at an age where every single teenage boy turned difficult. She had learned just that living with her many brothers and sisters, who seemed to turn difficult at a way younger age than the boys.

  Carla had heard some adults discussing how girls were gentler, easier to deal with and so on, but she disagreed. In her opinion, teenage boys were the easiest idiots in the world. While girls swooned over boys, each other and everything in between all while scheming the downfall of everyone around them—she knew, as she’d been a girl in her early teens too—boys really only desired a couple of things.

  First of all, they were horny. Carla couldn’t really help Valar with that, but it wasn’t usually something that they needed help with. Her job as his teammate was to just prevent him from getting into trouble by thinking with his dick instead of his brain. That was easy enough. Besides, Arthur was way more difficult in that regard.

  Secondly, teenage boys desired improvement. With her numerous brothers, that desire had manifested itself in many ways. Some worked out, some researched magic before awakening and some trained themselves in social settings. That last option had quite a bit of overlap with the horniness, and those siblings of hers had been the most difficult cases for the household staff and her parents. Mostly the household staff, really.

  Carla wholeheartedly believed that that would be a total non-issue with Valar. By awakening early, he had a direct avenue of improving himself endlessly, and as long as he was with the team, the boy could be watched so that he wouldn’t take needless risks. In addition to that, Rodrick had made a genuinely smart move by forcing physical exercise upon Valar and herself. Only if that had been just Valar… Well, at least I can keep him on track with that.

  The last issue was the most easily ignored one. In her opinion, her own parents had missed this one completely. Every single teenager, boy, girl or whatever else, needed to win. Arguments, fights, tests and everything else boiled down to winning and losing, and the teenage mind just couldn’t handle taking a loss. The important thing with this issue was that she hadn’t needed to actually let her siblings win, she had just needed to make them feel like they won.

  A prime example of this issue had been today’s short argument between Valar and Ciel. The rogue had challenged the boy and hadn’t let him get even a token win, so he had started brooding. Honestly, she was surprised that Valar hadn’t started screaming—that’s what her siblings would have done.

  Carla sighed to herself. She would need to talk with the other members soon. Especially Ciel. Gods damned teenagers…