"well then let's head to the west gate"

"sure... but why are we so early isn't first at 9 the caravan leaves?"

"well Chloe that's because I like to be early"

"...fine"

Mars, Victoria and the girls walked through the morning city and found several merchant caravans lined up in a plaza waiting for the gates to open, there was also several merc's around waiting with their a.s.signed caravan

"now what was it again.... ka something"

"it's the Karven caravan Mars"

"oh thanks Varvei, let's find the Karven caravan"

after asking around for a bit Mars and the girls located the Karven merchant caravan, the caravan was made of several carriages that was drawn by giant lizard magic beasts, as for their names and cla.s.s Mars could not care less since they weren't for 'eating'

"are you guys mercenaries?"

Mars turned and saw a little girl around 10 years old, she wore a white one piece dress and had green hair and eyes, Mars squared down to match her eye height and gave a nod

"yeah, we are here to protect the Karven caravan"

the little girl gave a nod before she turned and yelled

"DAD!"

soon a middle aged man with green hair and eyes arrived, he had a avage build

"what is it sweetheart?"

"theses guys says they are here to protect us!"

"oh I see"

the man looked over Mars and the girls before he gave a approving nod and reached out his hand to Mars

"my name is Karven, I'm the leader of this caravan and this is my daughter Eliza"

"nice to meet you, my name is Mars, I'm silver ranked and this is Chloe, Elsa and Varvei they are all steel ranked"

"oh a silver ranked at your age, that certainly is impressive! I am very glad to have you on board Mars... since you guys are so early why don't you all come into my carriage and enjoy some tea while we wait for the time to hit 9?"

"sure why not"

Mars and the girls joined Karven and his daughter in the main carriage, while it was a little cramped with so many people in the carriage it wasn't really a problem since Mars was used to sticking close to the girls, the time pa.s.sed with Eliza talking most of the time, she seemed to have taken quite a liking to the girls and over the cause of a hour she went from calling them by name to calling them big sisters.... eventual the time arrived and the group left the carriage and Karven walked around and introduced himself to the other mercenary groups

"hey kid, we meet again"

Mars turned and saw a mercenary was calling out to him, it was a demon man with pale horns and black eyes, he wore leather armor and carried a spear, Mars looked at him for some time until he recognised him from yesterday's farce with the other mercenaries that tried to take the request form him, this demon man was one of the first to begin clapping when Mars had beat them up, Mars gave a smile and reached his hand out to the demon man

"it's not kid, my name is Mars"

the demon man also gave a grin and took Mars hand and shock it

"my name is Casper.... do you mind if I ask what your rank is?"

Mars shook his head and pulled out his sliver tag

"I might be newly promoted but I'm still silver"

"oh, that makes us the same rank"

Casper also pulled out a silver tag with a grin on his face

Mars talked for a bit with Casper until the caravan started to move, besides Casper and his group another 4 groups had taken the a.s.signment to protect the Karvan caravan for a total of 6 groups including Mars' group, all the groups spread out and covered the caravan in a tight formation that left no gaps as the caravan slowly moved west...

3 days later the caravan entered the first 'dangerous' area a forest road were orks had been spotted before, orks were cla.s.s 3 humanoid magic beasts with the head of pigs and a body that was mostly shaped as a mans with five fingers on each hand they could and was know to use tools and weapons which made them a danger to face in close combat, but their inability to use magic and born dislike of bows made them easy targets if one kept them at a distance just like now, a group of close to 20 orks stormed the caravan but a hail of magic and arrows later there was only one left, they were simply too easy targets

"I call dibs on the last one!"

one mercenary yelled out as he drew his great sword and ran towards the ork to face it in close combat, the reason why the other merc's let the one slip though was simply that they had been bored during the last 3 days and watching a fight was a good way to pa.s.s some time and improve their moods, this was also approved by Karven that stopped the caravan and watched the show

"here I go!"

the mercenary raised his great sword and slashed down on the ork which responded by meeting the slash with its own club, Mars gave a yawn seeing this slow paced fight and walked out into the killing field and gathered the magic beast cores from the orks he had killed, some of the corpses was still smoking after being hit by Mars' fire magic but he simply cut them open and removed the cores, when he was done there was a loud applause so he turned and just managed to see the final orks head hit the ground, the merc that had killed the ork let out a loud and proud laugh, Mars gave a sigh and walked back to the caravan, Chloe stood and waited for him

"did you get some cores?"

"yeah but I don't know why I bother they are only a drop in the lake at this point..."

"oh.... so there's a difference in the cores too?"

"yeah the higher the cla.s.s the more I get from them"

"I see..."

Chloe looked like she fell into deep thought, this caused Mars to give a sigh before he laid his hand on the top of her head and ruffled her hair

"Mars?"

"don't worry so much about"

"but you want to get stronger right?"

"yeah I do, but I'm plenty strong right now"

"okay..."

Chloe still didn't look entirely convinced but still gave a nod...

as the days traveled turned to weeks some changes happened, first the group of mercenaries got a lot closer, even Mars that usually couldn't be bothered knew most of the other merc's by name secondly the terrain changed from mostly being fields and forest to a more... dead appearance, Mars looked out over the dry ground that stretched for miles on end only dotted by a few large boulders and withered trees, there was also a few tumble weeds which Victoria found great joy in chasing around, also the things attacking the caravan had changed, at the start of the trip it was mostly magic beasts but now it was mostly bandits that attacked the caravan

"how many times have we been attacked this week anyways Casper?"

"hmm... 3 times, no 4 times, there was that one time were your magic beast sprung an ambush and killed them all before we had a change to do anything"

"oh... yeah, that's right... well then 4 times it is... well it's about to be 5"

"you sense something?"

"yeah a group of 16 hiding behind a boulder about 700 meters away.... on the right side of the caravan"

"man your hearing is amazing as always..."

"thanks.... ENEMY ATTACK!"

upon hearing Mars' yell the caravan stopped and the mercenaries spread out around the caravan looking for any signs of an attacker, but after sometime of nothing happening one of them called out to Mars

"where are they?"

Mars pointed to the side as he drew his sword

"right side 700 meters, 16 of them, behind that boulder"

the first time Mars had made a call like this one the other merc's had doubted him which caused some to be injured, but that was all in the past, now they followed Mars' orders with blind faith. The mercenaries spread out and approached the boulder were the enemies were said to be hiding, soon they reached the boulder and circled around it and found... a group of demon travelers resting in the shade of the boulder, the group of demon travelers was frightened seeing the group of armed mercenaries suddenly appear, but the group of mercenaries quickly lowered their weapons and explained the situation with slightly awkward looks on their faces