When they simply passed Halfpoint with their wagons and carriages, Ioha wondered why he switched from carriages to marching earlier this spring. Half a day later he had his answer. Two dozen adventurers on wheels required far less space than hundreds of students, despite the extra wagons for equipment and consumables. He’d forgotten how bad the road got, or maybe he just didn’t notice the last time, since they were on foot, with only hand-drawn carts supported by aura extensions.

  They reached the border zone after another two days.

  Some things were the same, but Ioha felt the difference in the air, one that held more than just the difference between spring and summer. The smell of rotten sugar, or rather sweets gone bad, and the too-strong scent of roses simply wasn’t there. Memories of loud voices and forced laughter mixed with the tired and silent determination around him. This was no school trip, not even an armed one, but a job to be done for money. Most of the adventurers had been here before, and Ioha noticed how they prepared for days of boredom rather than exciting events.

  He did ask.

  Just before they arrived at camp, less than an hour from his previous first night here, he turned to his companion, facing him from the other side of the carriage.

  “Excited?” he asked.

  “Rookie question,” came the answer, and the other four grinned or smiled. They weren’t unfriendly, and now, a week later, most of the pointed questions aimed at a newbie were over and done with. “Look, Ioha, we don’t want exciting. A long training holiday, back to Isekai and a week of good food and drink. That’s all.”

  A sense of disappointment spread in him, but he wasn’t truly a teenager any longer. Not exciting meant not dangerous. “The shares?” he probed.

  “Good thinking. E-rank is good enough for me. Maybe a D-rank or two, so I don’t get lazy.”

  “We’re on patrol,” a girl, barely old enough to graduate, had she been a student at Spellsword Academy, added, “not subjugation.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  All five nodded. “Nanami brings the last party with another medic and our support for subjugations,” she said as if that was an explanation.

  “Subjugations are hard on our healer,” the man facing Ioha added when it was clear Ioha didn’t fully understand. “We want him to keep his aura if something goes wrong.”

  The carriage came to a stop.

  “Unload!”

  Ioha grabbed his backpack above him, opened the door, swung his legs out, and jumped. It was easier and faster than handling his luggage while slowly climbing out of the carriage. He’d regain what little aura he burned when he extended some extra power to his legs.

  “Show-off,” someone said behind him.

  They had two carriages, each with a driver and six passengers, and four wagons with two drivers each. Nanami, their company captain, and her vice captain rode horses. Two dozen adventurers, four parties. They called it a company, as most did, but in truth, it was an oversized platoon, including the last party earning their part on an escort mission somewhere. Ioha knew they were called guilds at first, but with the influx of locals, the outworlder concept never really caught on. As companies went, this one was of middling size, and by now Ioha had learned the reason he got recruited was that they lost a member to a larger one and ran into trouble finding a replacement.

  So inflexible, he thought. A party of five or seven should do just fine, as long as you knew what you were doing.

  The campsite must have sprung up after the academy returned from the excursion. It looked prepared and lived in. A poorly built barn dominated the premises, and Ioha had his answer to why tents never gained popularity here. Barns went up in an absurdly short amount of time. They were standardised, and almost everyone learned how to build one from childhood. They were everywhere. Marching armies simply didn’t need to carry their own lodgings unless they were huge, in which case they didn’t carry them anyway but built barns of their own instead. Creating semi-permanent camps had been a thing back on Earth as well.

  He walked inside. No, this wasn’t good enough back home. But back home didn’t have magic to convert a rickety disaster into a half-decent home for a night. His backpack went down by what passed for a bed during their stay here. There was even a frame for a scarecrow he could use for his armour, but his backpack would have to do for a wardrobe.

  Around him, satchels took the place of his backpack. They were cheaper and, honestly, more suitable for marching when wagons and carriages were available. Blankets and cloaks for bedding were just like in school. Sleeping bags would be warmer during winter, but, like tents, they also represented unwanted weight and volume for people on the move. He put his helmet on top of the frame and leaned his partisan and shield against the wall. They were too unwieldy for camp work. Scabbard with broadsword he fastened to his belt, though.

  When he got back outside, one party put fireplaces in order, and he met another on their way into the barn he just left. He heard them exchange small talk and looked for someone to tell him how he could become useful.

  Half an hour later, he helped pull wagons and carriages into a partial Bohemian wagon fort with their barn as anchor. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but better than nothing while their already exhausted logistics mage churned the ground where the last of the trench was supposed to be dug. It wasn’t fast, and they had to move dirt manually to keep their mage standing.

  “Want me to set up traps?” Ioha wanted to know when the progression got too slow for his tastes.

  “Traps,” Nanami asked.

  He explained.

  “So, an alarm rather than traps.”

  “Yes.” He downed a bit of salted jerky with the help of some water. “I can do defences as well, but even those wagons would hold up longer.”

  “Defences? Mind showing your display?”

  Ioha shook his head. Among adventurers, showing your display was a matter of trust. He was employed, but not really a part of the company. “I can tell you what I can do instead.”

  Nanami frowned but accepted his unwillingness. “So, those shields of yours?”

  “Stay up around eight hours, if untouched. Lasts two or three attacks from a D-rank monster.”

  “C-rank?”

  He shook his head again. “Never seen one.” He had no reason to feel ashamed. The mission was listed in the D-rank section, after all, and should only involve numerous E-rank beasts and a few D-rank ones.

  Nanami scratched her head. Sensibly short-cropped hair to accommodate a helmet was easier to keep clean in the long run, but sand and dirt got caught in it more quickly. The company seemed well run, but hygiene fell behind a bit.

  “They said it was a breach,” she probed.

  He hadn’t told her about the aborted school excursion in any detail. “Lots of D-ranks.”

  “Lots?”

  “Over two-hundred lots.”

  This time he received a hard stare. “Two-hundred? That’s borderline B-rank.”

  Ioha shrugged. “Lots of students as well. Three hundred combatants.” That was a lot, and the third and fourth years were as good as an average adult adventurer. Less experienced, though. “But yeah, it was pretty bad, especially for our seniors before the attack on our camp.” That part, which Ioha only heard chaotic reports from, had been the real borderline B-rank event. Of the two-hundred seniors, just fifty remained in a state where they could fight off the last attack on the camp.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Why no C-rank monsters?”

  “There were, but I never saw any. The older students went to clean them out. We were supposed to subjugate the weaker ones the day after.” He met her eyes. It had been bad, but they made it out in the end.

  “I heard about Spellsword Academy. I just didn’t know you were that good.”

  The conversation petered out after that, and Ioha returned to his job with strengthening defences. Before sunset, they were able to move away both carriages. They offered less protection than the wagons.

  During a break, he decided to see how the zone meddled with his display. Last time he couldn’t trust the information, but what their teacher had said about no interference with their actual abilities held true. He opened it.

  Now that’s odd. It looked just like normal. I haven’t done anything that… Oh… oh. He had. Cleaning magic was a cute divine ability, more than cute, Ioha admitted. Battle standard and all the associated abilities were the very reason he was supposed to keep silent about his sainthood. And those abilities grew stronger at a faster pace than his others. Maybe the zone couldn’t really interfere with gifts from a god. Whatever the reason, it was enough for him to continue his work with a sense of satisfaction. Heimdall wanted him stronger. He wanted to see for himself if he progressed. Good deal.

  He settled into the hard work and was struck by the sheer normality of it all. It felt strange being back here with fields to his south and a thin line of forest north, with mountains climbing up behind it.

  The stench of wrongness was the same, but the people were entirely different. Where students once bragged about what they would do, these men and women spoke softly about what they had done. Ioha listened to the conversations while they strengthened their defences, and the smell of cooking took on a fuller tone, signalling that a meal was approaching.

  Dinner was a silent affair. They ate with their parties, with one party on guard duty. The night Nanami split into four two-hour-long parts, allowing them to get six hours of sleep each. She had a rotating schedule, so no party would have its sleep interrupted two nights in a row. The remaining one or two hours of sleep each member had to solve individually during the day, whenever there was time.

  After he had his meal, Ioha decided that his cleaning magic wouldn’t give him away. To make himself look more like a real adventurer, he haggled a little with Nanami and squeezed out several coppers extra per day in exchange for a promise to keep her company cleaner than she had ever seen it on a mission. That effectively doubled his awful salary, and he settled for a very clean company. The vice captain went first.

  “Done.”

  “Damn, I’m clean! And all my clothes! Nanami, where did you find this guy?”

  The rest of the company quickly lined up after that, and Ioha received twelve coins. After he disinfected both barn and camp ground, he received twelve more. He’d have to exchange them for silver from time to time. Nanami muttered, but her vice captain was a local. What Heimdall had said about soldier deaths was his reality. Magic hygiene was a godsend for the older man. A godsend for Ioha as well. The ability to know about the unseen, literally microscopic danger, either spread from Isekai or came naturally if you had trained in certain magic. The main problem with the latter was that more or less only certain artisans ever did. If they called it bacteria or very-small-monsters didn’t really matter – by now they knew, dirt was dangerous. He blushed at the thought. He hadn’t, and apparently neither did Nanami. Outworlders took hygiene too much for granted.

  Ramparts went up and trenches down. One of the parties included a mage who could make flares that worked better as lamps than Ai. They also burned a third of the aura hers did, but in her case, Ioha suspected, maybe it didn’t matter. When the last of daylight finally gave up, the company turned in for the night. Ioha’s party went on guard duty first. They were the least experienced, and Nanami wanted them to learn the ropes while some of the others didn’t sleep yet.

  After a few days, life in the border zone settled into routine. First camp chores, strengthening defences, preparing food, and camp patrols. Then the real daily patrol in the trailing party. That translated into a four-hour-long circular trek. They never saw anything interesting in difference from the primary party, who returned with a few carcasses each time. After the external patrol, standing guard and camp patrols once again, until it was time to turn in for the night.

  Standing guard and camp patrols were boring beyond measure. The greatest risk was falling asleep. Fires were out. They killed your night vision and allowed anything incoming to see you just that much better. Ioha didn’t care. His senses, already unnaturally enhanced since he established his contract with Heimdall, received a companion ability from the spellsword training. Cats moved too fast to function properly, unless in perfect daylight, so of course they could burn aura to sense their environment in all but utter darkness. Being the slowest of his fellow cats, he didn’t improve it much, and it still hovered in the low teens, but it wasn’t the kind of ability where you could fail. His already unnatural perception simply didn’t get vastly better, but it got better.

  When someone moved from one part of the darkened camp to his position, he recognised the girl he spoke with in the carriage on their last leg here.

  “Ioha, is that you?”

  “It’s me, Louise.” Louise, with an audible ‘e’ this side of the gate. New rules became routine faster than he expected, and they even stuck to the local language rather than the Swedish they both shared.

  “Odd gear,” she commented. He knew her abilities included even better night vision than his. No cat, but she must have pushed that ability really high. Nanami picked her for scouting purposes.

  “How so?” This side of the gate, her features were oddly Asian, especially as he knew where she came from. What she looked like in Sweden, he couldn’t even begin to guess, but Asian probably wasn’t it.

  She stared into the darkness and turned to him after she made certain there was nothing to see. “Heavy armour, according to Nanami, so why no plate?” Then she giggled. “And that thing looks like crap!”

  He didn’t even know her actual age, and avoided any comment that could be misconstrued as anything but professional interest. “This is heavy armour. Brigandine. Inside’s all overlapping steel plates. Goes on top of my gambeson, but anything padded underneath should do. Some people even wear mail under it as well.”

  “Didn’t know. Medieval?”

  He nodded. “Well, steel’s made with our knowledge, but I’m not sure how much of it can be produced without proper machinery.”

  “You’d be surprised. Expensive? I mean, someone must have dyed it and all.”

  Well, he couldn’t really blame her for the colour. It was a disaster. “Horribly, but a plate cuirass would have been worse. Besides, that kind of plate has to be made for me personally.” And it would be less flexible. Rust, however, shouldn’t be that much of a problem with his cleaning ability.

  Louise nodded. “Why the Viking shield?"

  This time he smirked. “Not Viking. It’s Wergaist. Strapped to my arm and even has a sling. Think Bonnie Prince Charlie if you need to put it in Europe. Bit too large for that, though.” Ioha scanned for movement outside the camp, but there was nothing. “Helmet, spear, sword and shield are early modern rather than medieval.”

  “Spear as well?”

  “Partisan. Designed to do bad stuff to cavalry. I bought it to use on monsters that try to chew my face off. A standard winged spear might break when stuff moves sideways. Anyway, a sword was pretty bad for that kind of work, I found out, the hard way.”

  “I still can’t see that as heavy armour,” she protested. “Your arms and legs are unprotected.”

  It was objectively correct, but he cheated. “I know a lot of defensive magic, and I can sustain some of it for hours when extended.” He flexed his arms, raised one leg and smiled. “Look at my invisible greaves, vambraces and pauldrons.” Nothing on his lower-left arm, of course. A circular flat piece of protection already covered that part.

  She patted his shoulders, and her eyes widened. “You’re not joking.”

  “Not joking and… what the hell is that?”

  She had turned even before he paused. Something loud headed into camp, six of them to be more exact. “Are you shitting me? Sorry, gotta tell Nanami we have AaFs incoming.” With that, Louise quickly ran to the barn.

  Ioha stared at the apparitions entering their camp. Armed and Floundering. Yep. The perfect description for outworlder E-rank newbie adventurer parties. Dear gods! How the hell were they even allowed out here?

  The leader staggered inside in full plate armour, gripping an arming sword in his right arm and a heater shield strapped to his left. An oversized backpack threatened to push him to the ground with each step he took. Behind him followed a young man carrying a longbow he probably didn’t have the strength to draw properly. Two daggers hung from his belt, and he was clad from top to toe in what was called soft leather armour in some circles, which translated into a horribly sweaty set of no armour at all. The gigantic backpack crowned his attire as well. Behind him, a girl leaning on a staff with a crystal ball attached to the top. Despite her pointy hat, her rather revealing clothes were more sensible than the archer’s. Her backpack was a little smaller, most likely because she simply lacked the physical strength to carry the full-size monster. After her, another girl in the same attire followed, but she didn’t even have the help of a staff, but waved in the darkness with a short wooden stick. A little bit behind them, a man and a girl. The man carried the largest shield Ioha had ever seen in his entire life but no weapon at all, and the girl lugged around a huge tome for some unknown reason.

  “What the hell?” Nanami’s voice.

  One by one, the arriving party collapsed on the ground.

  “What the actual hell are you idiots doing here? This is a border zone. Are you insane?” And she was not happy.

  Shit. That’s a real-life anime adventurers party. That’s hilarious! Ioha forced himself to stare into the darkness and almost managed not to burst into hysterical laughter.

  After an epic display of heroic panting, the knight in shining armour sat up. “I’m Hiro, guildmaster of the Black Flaming Dragon guild. We are here on a subjugation quest.”

  I’m dying over here!

  “We are the vanguard. Our two main fighting parties should arrive soon.”

  There are a dozen more of the morons out there in the night? It was hilarious, but poorly geared maniacs stumbling around in pitch black was a tragedy waiting to happen. What the… Half a dozen lanterns waved in the distance, and behind them shadows moved, more than a dozen.

  “Nanami, we might want to man the ramparts.”