Chapter 57: First Meeting (Bonus Chapter)
The transit to the settlement was pretty quiet, but when they arrived at the settlement, the eyes of the adventurers widened. What they saw left them utterly speechless. Houses built in the middle of the forest, properly and beautifully.
"Whoa."
They could not hide their expressions as they looked around. It was beyond their imagination. When they saw the monsters that were handling things here as well, it stunned them even further. They froze, unable to even take more steps forward.
"Those are monsters," one of the men said. The fear in his eyes was real. He had never seen so many monsters in one place.
"We are going to die," he said a few moments later and backed down, but Gerald grabbed his shoulder.
"If we were meant to die, we would have died already," he said, then glanced at Ren. Ren gave him a cheeky smile and then kept walking.
"Come with me. No one here will touch you, but that does not mean they like you, so stick with me until I say otherwise," Ren said and kept walking.
The Lizardmen and wolves turned to see the guests that had come, but when they saw that they were with Ren, they turned their eyes away and focused on their work. There was no need to be worried when he was there.
Ragna and Remu spotted them and immediately came. They got on one knee and bowed their heads.
"Master."
"Hey, you guys should take it easy on the greetings," Ren said and scratched the back of his head in an embarrassed manner.
"Master, who are these guests?" Remu asked.
"Oh, these are human adventurers from the town nearby, I think. They came into the forest to find the dragon they saw, probably wanted to kill me too, haha," he let out a laugh.
The adventurers could feel their hearts leap into their throats when they heard that.
"No, no, no." Leon shook his hands frantically. "We were simply curious. We never planned to attack," he tried his best to contain the issue.
Remu’s eyes slid over to Leon the moment the words left Ren’s mouth.
"Really," Remu said.
It wasn’t a question. It was the kind of word that carried everything underneath it without needing to elaborate, and Leon felt every bit of it land squarely on his chest.
"We... it was... curiosity," Leon managed. "Purely."
Remu held the look for exactly one second longer than was comfortable, then turned away, which was somehow worse than if he had continued.
"Alright," Ren said, clapping his hands once. "I’d like to have a talk with a few of you. Whoever is willing to represent the group, follow me. The rest can stay here with Riker and Ezra." He glanced at the two of them. "Take care of them."
Ezra said nothing, which, in its own way, communicated everything that needed communicating about the experience the remaining adventurers were about to have.
The group looked at each other.
Nobody moved for a moment. Going in alone felt like walking deeper into something that common sense was strongly advising against. Staying behind with Ezra staring at them felt like the alternative that common sense was also strongly advising against. It was not a comfortable set of options.
Gerald was already stepping forward before the internal debate had finished running its course in anyone else’s head.
Leon followed. If Gerald was going, he was going. The healer fell into step beside them a moment later, the quiet kind of decision made by someone who had decided the safest place to be was next to the most capable people available. The tank and the mage followed as well. The only member of Leon’s party that stayed behind was the assassin.
The guest house was modest but deliberate, leather mats laid out on the floor in a circle, the space clean and intentional in a way that made it clear someone had thought about it rather than simply designated a random location. Ren dropped down onto one of the mats with ease. Remu settled to his right. Ragna took the left, and his presence in the enclosed space was considerably more substantial than it had been outdoors.
The adventurers sat down as well.
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable exactly, but it had weight.
Ren broke it.
"So," he said, looking at all three of them with the particular directness of something that had not yet fully figured out how to do casual, "I’m the dragon you saw."
Gerald stared at him.
The healer’s mouth opened slightly and did not close for a moment.
Leon, who had been carrying the suspicion since the moment Remu had bowed and called this human-shaped thing master, felt it settle into certainty with the quiet finality of a door closing.
"We had a feeling," Leon said carefully.
"Did you?" Ren said, sounding genuinely pleased about this. "Good instincts."
"How?" Gerald said, which was not a complete sentence but communicated the full question adequately.
"How do I have a human form?" Ren finished for him. Gerald nodded. "Not something I’m getting into right now." He said it pleasantly, no edge to it, just a clean redirect that made it very clear the topic was closed without making anyone feel bad about having asked. "What I am interested in is you."
He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, and the golden light in his eyes caught the dim interior of the guest house in a way that reminded all three of them, very briefly, of what was actually sitting across from them.
"I want to know about the kingdom," Ren said. "The one your town belongs to. Tell me about it."
Leon blinked. Of everything he had prepared himself for walking into this meeting, being asked for an information briefing was not anywhere on the list.
He gathered himself.
"We’re in the Vermilion Kingdom," he said. "One of the greatest human kingdoms on the continent. Your forest sits at its border." He paused, organizing his thoughts. "Raventown is the closest settlement to this forest. That’s where we’re from. Small town, but it’s positioned on a trade route, so it sees traffic."
Ren nodded slowly, listening with the focused attention of someone cataloguing rather than simply hearing.
"The kingdom itself runs on a nobility structure at the top, with the crown above that," Leon continued. "Below that, it gets more complicated. Guilds handle most of the adventuring and monster-related work, which is why we’re here. Towns like Raventown operate semi-independently but answer to whatever noble house holds the regional seat."
"And the fighters," Ren said. "The strong ones. What does that look like?"
"Mages and warriors mostly," Leon said. "The kingdom has both in significant numbers. Ranked by ability rather than just birth, though birth helps." He paused. "The military has its own structure on top of that. Special forces for high-priority situations. There is a lot when it comes to power in Vermilion." He gave the information like it was leaking out of him.
Ren’s eyes sharpened slightly at that last part in a way that Leon noticed and decided not to comment on.
"Tell me more about the mages and warriors," Ren said, leaning back now, the question carrying the very specific weight of someone who had just decided this was the part of the conversation they had actually been waiting for. "The power structure. How strong do they get, and what does that look like?"
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