“Our mission is a relatively simple one,” Rodrick explained as they walked towards the southern gate of the city. The party had retrieved their equipment from the inn, and everyone was fitted for combat. Well, Carla and Valar had already been ready already, but the others hadn’t been carrying their armor or weapons for breakfast.

  Ciel was still brooding, but she was always brooding anyway. The pale rogue was dressed in her battle gear but had covered her body with a loose robe, citing lecherous idiots as the reason for her modesty. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared, but today… there could be some dead bodies in the city sewers if she got annoyed.

  “As my mother said, our target is a den of voltaic badgers—reportedly a mix of iron and bronze rankers. As always, there’s a slim possibility of an unreported silver ranked pack leader, but it’s highly improbable this time around.

  “What do we do if a silver ranked one shows up?” Valar asked.

  Rodrick shrugged. “Run. There’s really nothing impressive we could do against it. We’d just die painful deaths.”

  “Do we go into the burrow or are we smoking them out?” Carla asked as they neared the gate.

  “I was thinking of ice walls on all the other entrances and smoking them out of the main one, but your ideas are welcome as always.”

  “I could just go in and butcher them,” Ciel muttered. “I’d certainly like to.”

  “Too much risk and no one else is progressing like that. We don’t want you to die or hit silver rank half a year before anyone else, so you’ll have to play nice with the team.”

  “I know… I know. I just want to bash some skulls in.”

  “And you’ll have plenty of chances to do just that,” Rodrick growled. “Was meeting my parents really that bad?”

  “Your mother is a Justiciar and I’m a dark mage! Of course we don’t see eye to eye on things!”

  “Did she attack you? Demean you?”

  “No, but that look…”

  “Both of you, stop!” Arthur butted in. “Ciel, Rodrick’s mother isn’t going to come and slaughter you in your sleep even if you’re a dark mage. Rodrick, Ciel is allowed to feel bad about how your mother glared at her. You know what… You two will talk it out right now.”

  “We have a mission…” Rodrick started.

  “Nope, right now!” Arthur snapped. He pointed at an empty bench near the gate. “Sit down there and talk it out or I will drop out from this mission.”

  Ciel and Rodrick looked at Arthur, then each other. Both adults let out deep sighs and meandered over to the bench, dragging their feet like students at school when they were told to go inside after the lunch break.

  “Fucking hotheaded fools… It’s not that big of a deal when you just talk it out and don’t stew on it for hours,” Arthur muttered. “Let’s go grab a snack or something while those idiots argue.”

  Valar looked at Carla who just shrugged, “A snack would be nice.”

  He tended to agree.

  …

  “The snack was a mistake,” Valar grumbled as he held his stomach. “That was a terrible idea.”

  They had walked down the street to an alright looking bakery and grabbed some chocolate filled pastries that they could eat while they walked back. There was only one problem with this idea: Everyone had forgotten that they had eaten a lot just an hour earlier.

  “Finish your pastry, soldier!” Arthur mumbled through the flaky bits of pastry rich chocolate ganache filling his mouth. “These cost a lot!”

  “Ten coppers per pastry,” Carla moaned through her own mouthful of chocolaty goodness. “Who even pays that much for simple snacks?”

  “Us!”

  “Right… But the taste is worth it!”

  They arrived in front of the bench where Rodrick and Ciel had sat down to argue. Luckily, they had seemingly managed to come to an understanding and were discussing the church and its methodologies.

  “-opinion isn’t that negative,” Rodrick was saying. “It’s just that people like my mother have trained themselves to be wary when they sense dark mana. I’ll talk it out with her, but I sincerely believe she doesn’t have any personal issues with you.”

  “That’s hard to reconcile with when I feel like she could smash my head in with a giant warhammer at any point…”

  “So could every high ranker,” Rodrick sighed. “Besides, she uses a gavel and shield. She even trained with Bastion for a short while.”

  “Do you think the weapon that crushes my skull matters to me?”

  Rodrick shook his head in frustration. “The whole point I’m trying to say is that you are under no threat from my mother. Even if she is a paladin-”

  “Justiciar.’

  “Still a paladin… She won’t slay you, I promise. The look you got was one from a veteran of war who heard the trumpets blaring once again. No more, no less.”

  “Are you two ready to go kill some badgers?” Arthur asked, mouth still full of chocolate. “Slaying some beasts will improve team morale!”

  Rodrick looked up at Arthur. “Oh, you’re here already.”

  “Yup. Are you two ready?”

  The warrior and rogue looked at each other questioningly. When the staring contest dragged on for way too long, Ciel sighed and spoke up. “Yeah, let’s go. Erin got us a good contract, even if she may smite me in my sleep.”

  “She wouldn’t smite you in your sleep. Daylight, however…” Rodrick chuckled ruefully. “Let’s go. There’s badgers to kill.”

  The way to the badger den wasn’t a particularly long or arduous one, but it was made difficult by one thing.

  “Why did we eat the pastries?” Valar asked as he jogged in line with Carla and Arthur.

  “They looked tasty!” Arthur grunted.

  “They were tasty!” Carla yelled. “But there can be too much good for one morning! I don’t want to jog for one minute longer!”

  “Eating pastries while members of your team were discussing important topics was certainly a choice,” Rodrick yelled from ahead. “But a choice with consequences!”

  “We’re not waiting, and if you don’t participate, you don’t get loot!” Ciel shouted from Rodrick’s side.

  “I’m not missing out on loot,” Arthur muttered as he sprinted to the front of the pack.

  “We’re gods damned mages!” Carla screamed. “It’s not fair.”

  “Yeah!” Valar raised his fist. “Loot rights are equal rights!”

  Fortunately for the two mages, the rest of the way to the site of their mission wasn’t long. Although caravan travel had its upsides, fast short term travel wasn’t one of them. Caravans were all about long hauls without breaks, large amounts of cargo and safety, but certainly not blazing speed.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Having an iron ranked mage with them made team Cookie Sandwich slower than most teams but still wildly faster than the slow moving caravans. Valar was still awakened and had even accidentally physically enhanced himself, making him a significantly better endurance runner than a boy of his age should’ve been.

  “Thank all the gods!” Carla’s relieved exclamation made Valar stop in his tracks and look around. Finally, damn near an hour later, the three people ahead of them had stopped running and were looking at tracks on the ground.

  “The den is nearby, that’s for sure,” Rodrick said. “Now we just need to find all the entrances.”

  “Can we at least stop running now?” Carla was breathing heavily. “Not for me, but for Valar, you know…”

  That bitch… Valar pointed at Carla accusingly. “She’s more tired than me.”

  Carla grinned deviously. “Then why are you breathing so heavily? You’re clearly worn to the bone!”

  “Mages…” Rodrick grumbled. “It seems like I need to get you two started on physical exercise.”

  Both mages’ eyes snapped up to Rodrick’s, their faces reflecting their shock. “You wouldn’t!”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Rodrick grinned down at Valar and Carla. “You’re not magical combatants, but physical training is useful even when you don’t empower your body magically. Magical empowerments are essentially just a multiplier on your natural aspects, so training matters, you know?”

  “But-”

  “No buts, we’re starting physical training for you two as soon as possible. Do you think elite mages like the branch leader have neglected physical fitness? I don’t think so. Now rest up while Arthur and Ciel scout for the den’s entrances.”

  Carla and Valar fell on their asses and laid down. The others spread out, but they just looked at the sky. A very good day had just turned to a very bad one.

  “We’re fucked,” Carla eventually said.

  “We are,” Valar nodded. “Even the orphanage didn’t force me to work out. This is torture.”

  “We could just say no.”

  “Could we?” a sliver of hope entered Valar’s voice. “Perhaps they would-.”

  “Probably not,” Carla’s words crushed all hope. “If he thinks it’s best for us, he’ll work us to the bone even if we say no. Arthur and Ciel won’t help us either, those sadists.”

  “What’s a sadist?”

  “Someone who enjoys others’ pain.”

  “That sounds like Ciel.”

  “So it does…”

  “Carla, you’re up!” Rodrick’s shout echoed from the distance.

  I guess it’s time for work. Oh, to be a healer like Valar…

  Upon further consideration, Carla didn’t want to actually be a life mage like their newest member. Part of what she liked about having access to an affinity like water was the fact that she could actually defend herself, and the mere thought of being defenseless against practically any threat made her stomach lurch.

  Still, he somehow managed to kill an umbral terror all alone. Carla shook her head as she rose from the grass covered ground. Viktor told us that it was alchemical fire but that just doesn’t make sense… Maybe I’ll ask Valar once we’ve gotten to know each other a bit better. Yeah, that’s probably best.

  Carla was somewhat sure that the other team members hadn’t even considered that Viktor could have been lying, but she certainly had. Maybe Ciel… no, she’s more concerned with her own secrets than others’.

  Carla reached Rodrick and the others after a short walk. The warrior was standing over a large burrow with a frown on his face. “If we’re correct, this is the main entrance to the den. Arthur and Ciel found three others, and those are the ones that you should block out with ice.”

  “If you’re correct?”

  “I said we found three additional entrances, and they’re all smaller than this, but we can’t be sure that we spotted them all,” Rodrick tapped the hilt of his axe anxiously. “You should prepare three spells and do the entrances in quick succession so that the beasts don’t have time to retaliate. Bring Valar here too; His fortifying spell is actually pretty useful for this.”

  Carla walked up to the teenage boy to inform him of the plan as she prepared her spells. Considering the size of the entrances, an iron rank version wouldn’t be enough, so she needed to prepare three bronze rank Ice Walls and hold onto them for a short while. Challenging, but manageable. Much easier than a spell like The Faint Whisper of The Queen of Ice.

  Still, the spellcasting required quite a bit of her focus, so her instructions to Valar weren’t particularly verbose. “Rodrick, fortify. Fighting soon.”

  The boy looked at her weirdly, then noticed the runes glowing on her skin and nodded. He ran off towards Rodrick and started speaking with him.

  I need to focus on my own spells. Carla admonished herself. As she turned towards Arthur, who was waving her over to one of the entrances the team had found, the first spell’s lines froze solid and part of her mind was freed to work with the other two. After that, the process of preparing the two other Ice Walls was elementary.

  The two other spells froze solid and Carla let out a sigh of relief. Getting rid of them and freeing her mind once more would be great, but she had a duty to accomplish.

  “I’ll run over to the third entrance,” Arthur explained. “You’ll freeze this one at Rodrick’s command, then run over to me, then Ciel.”

  “Why you first?” Carla asked.

  “Because if things go wrong, Ciel can handle her entrance just fine,” the archer let out a nervous giggle. “Underground burrows are not ideal for an archer, so you’ll have to relieve me of my watch fast.”

  “Yeah, that tracks,” Carla sighed. “Run over to your spot so we can start.”

  Missions like this one were always uniquely stressful. The team could prepare as much as they wanted—bringing all kinds of equipment, artifacts or even things like alchemical fire with them—but they couldn’t truly guarantee success. In part, the stress came from the ease of the mission. It felt like if something went wrong, it went straight to depths of shit that were hard to even imagine.

  Still, these missions were often the most important ones for their rank. At bronze rank, teams like Cookie Sandwich could still afford to make mistakes and wade neck deep in shit, but once they ranked up to silver, mistakes would be much more deadly. Making an error against a bronze rank beast resulted in injury—against silver rankers, it was death.

  As Arthur reached his position and signaled his readiness to Rodrick, the man turned to Valar. The young mage had already prepared a Lesser Fortify and cast it on the warrior immediately. Smart boy… man? No, he’s a boy, no matter how early he awakened. Still won’t call him that, as I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like being treated as a child.

  Rodrick’s signal to Carla was a soundless one. He simply lifted his greataxe and swung down through the air, declaring the hunt’s start.

  “Ice Wall,” Carla’s first spell was a whispered one. She simply pointed her finger at the burrow, cast her spell and started running. Even though they had tried to start without alarming the beasts, they were running against the clock. As soon as even one of the badgers noticed their den being disturbed, they would be in trouble.

  That’s why Carla ran to Arthur as fast as she possibly could. It wasn’t martial fighter fast, but it was bronze rank fast, and that was enough… at least for now.

  She cast the second Ice Wall just as she had the first one and continued her run. Similarly, Arthur took off towards the main entrance, bow in hand and ready to slay some badgers.

  Just before Carla arrived at the entrance Ciel was guarding, the first badger sprang out towards the rogue. As the bronze rank guardian of the den and dark mage started fighting, Carla cast the last Ice Wall, blocking out the last escape tunnel that was available for the beasts.

  “Every entrance is walled off!” she screamed towards the rest of the team. Her announcement was unnecessary, as they were already fighting against the tide of furry creatures seeping out through the main entrance.

  “You need help?” Carla asked Ciel, who was parrying extremely fast claw swipes from a very angry badger.

  “No…” Ciel grunted. “Go help the rest!”

  Carla took the advice to heart and sprinted to the rest of the group. She was out of prepared spells, so her utility for the team would be lessened, but they needed everything they got.

  Who would have guessed that badgers with a lightning affinity would be fast? Mages with the rare affinity weren’t usually any faster than their contemporaries, so the badgers zipping around the battlefield was certainly an interesting development.

  Valar had placed himself behind a small hill a little bit away from Arthur and Rodrick, so she didn’t need to protect him just yet. Good… that’s good. She had been readying herself for the role of a defensive mage, but it seemed like she could go on the offensive after all.

  The burning question of the day was twofold. How much time did she have to cast, and what spells would be the most useful for this particular fight? Unlike their iron rank healer or even Ciel, Carla’s repertoire of spells was actually quite diverse. If she was completely honest to herself, Carla knew that she was addicted to learning new runes. As a mage, that was of course good, but…

  Maybe learning 50 different ice runes at bronze rank was a bit too much. The funny thing was that most of those runes would become redundant once she ascended to silver rank, but she at least hoped that the learning process would be easier if she knew the simplified versions beforehand. That’s a worry for future me… I have a lot of spells to use right now!

  The regular options like Ice Lance, Frostbolt and Shardstorm were brought up and dismissed within her mind. She wanted something more beautiful. Unfortunately, her best spell wasn’t useful in this situation, and it would have taken ages to cast anyway. Rodrick and Arthur didn’t have that much time left…

  Even though voltaic badgers were pack beasts, they were strong for their rank. The raw speed they got from their lightning affinity body enhancements made the badgers hard targets to hit, and their attacks proved to be more than an annoyance as well.

  Rodrick, who could normally take hits from creatures like the longhorn ravagers, flinched and spasmed with each hit that he took. It turned out that the team's issue wasn’t with the badgers themselves, but their affinity.

  “Damned danger noodle!” Rodrick roared as he swung his axe, the badger he was targeting contorting its body so that it just barely avoided the strike. “We NEED to slow them down, Carla! Ouch!”

  Carla flinched when she saw the man spasm in place for a second. That can’t be good for him… At least we have a healer!

  Fortunately for Rodrick, that moment was when Ciel joined the fray, her previous opponent lying dead on the ground. She was quite a bit faster than Rodrick, so she at least seemed to hit the badgers more often than Rodrick’s axe. However, unlike Rodrick’s war axe, Ciel’s daggers didn’t kill the badgers in one clean swoop.

  Finally, after tens of missed swings, Rodrick’s massive axe cleaved a bronze rank badger in two. And even better, Carla was ready with her spell.

  “Winter Wind.”