“Kwee!”
“Oh yeah, this is my baby basilisk. His name’s Basil. Don’t worry, he’s a good boy. Aren’t you, little dude? He won’t bite.”
“Y-you’ve got a b-basilisk?” asked Camulla.
“That’s right. He’s, um, a basilisk. Basil the Basilisk. Get it?”
“Gweeee!”
“Um, p-pleased to meet you, Basil.” Camulla stammered.
With Basil wrangled, I finally got a good look at the guy: He was a handsome middle-aged man, equipped with your standard chainmail armor. With his cobalt blue eyes framed by chiseled features and capped by brown hair, he had the face and the grace of a Hollywood actor, maybe even movie-poster material.
As soon as we shook hands, I got an inkling of how capable he’d be. Even as we greeted each other, he was mindful to keep his stance open, his body half-turned, ready for any situation that might arise.
Now, I used to build sets for a comedy theater. More than half the people working there were either part-timers like me or young folks chasing a dream. One of the guys was a boxer. He worked during the day, then clocked out to hit the gym and pursue his true passion. I remember how hard he worked every single day in pursuit of his dream to win an Eastern championship or some other title.
One day, while he was waiting at a light to cross the street, I saw him unconsciously drop a foot back to open into a half-turned stance. He’d almost been in a traffic accident at some point, he said, so he was careful to always be ready to respond to anything.
Just a couple days later, he proved it. The guy was working on building a portable platform and dropped the planks for the base on his leg. He could have broken his leg, but he instantly pulled away and managed to get out without a scratch…at which point he got a girl pregnant, got married, and traded boxing for play-fighting with his five-year-old. Maybe he could still play pretend Eastern champ?
The handsome Camulla had that same readiness (and hopefully wasn’t trying the pull-out method). We were lucky to land such a great guy to help our little village.
“Now let me introduce you to the settlers. Gimul asked the adventurer’s guild to ready provisions and whatever else they might need on the trip. That’s all been taken care of.”
Hollywood hunk Camulla, Nishka, and I followed the receptionist as she showed us our wards for the trip.
When it was time to get underway, I whispered to Nishka, “What do you think of this guy?”
Nishka’s response was unexpected. “Which one of you’s got more talent, huh?”
“Come on, are you already thinking about that? I’d guess we’re at around the same level. Though Camulla probably has me outright beat on combat experience.”
“Hmm. You think so, huh?” Nishka crossed her arms over her breasts and fell into a thoughtful silence.
With our six guild adventurers acting as escorts, we departed from Bulka.
Out of the one hundred or so applicants to move out and become settlers, we wound up with eight families totaling about forty people, plus a couple of young guys. Adding in the goblin laborers and enslaved former criminals the guild arranged for us, plus the one hunter, our party came to about eighty folks total. The receptionist who headed up the project coordinated all of it, and I felt bad for all the work she had done on our behalf.
“I’m so sorry we couldn’t get all the applicants organized ourselves,” I said, bowing my head to her. But she promised that she would keep putting out calls for settlers every so often and send them out to us.
I couldn’t judge whether the number of settlers we were bringing back was a lot or not, but it seemed like a pretty big caravan.
As we wound our way to the eastern gate of Bulka, that same yellow-cloaked guard was waiting for us. He confronted us with an annoyed tone. “Not you again. When you first came to Bulka, you were a backwater hick, then I see you at the western gate and you somehow managed to get enslaved. Now here you are, marching out of town leading a parade of immigrants. Could you just sit still for one second?!”
“I’m just glad we were able to get this many people together. I’ll be proud to report this to our village chief. Thank you so much for your kind attention. Truly, you have my deepest appreciation.”
I handed the guard the list of settlers’ names and their papers, and also showed him my two adventurer tags, just in case. One tag was the one I always carried in lieu of ID, and the other was the one that was supposed to be kept at the guild where I was registered.
Nishka and I were residents of Apegut, whereas Camulla the hunk and the other escorts would be basing their adventurer operations out of Apegut for a bit, so we all recovered our second tags from the guild and were bringing them to the new branch office in the village.
“Once I finish checking your documents, you better get outta here, and I mean it.” Then the guard paused, leaned in toward me, and whispered. “I, uh. I don’t like the way that long-eared savage glares at me.”
I smirked but bowed, then jogged to the back of the retinue where Nishka and Hunk Hollywood waited.
“All right, everyone!” I called out. “We’re ready to go! We’ll take it slow, but I want you to listen to any instructions the escorts give you. If anyone feels unwell, please don’t hesitate to let one of us know.”
At last, we departed with our new settlers. We advanced toward the village at a leisurely pace, going back down the road we traveled so long ago in the other direction. We planned for a journey of five days total. It was longer than we’d taken on our way into Bulka, but we needed that much extra time for the huge number of settlers. Plus, our caravan included people traveling on foot.
There were families with household goods loaded onto horse-drawn carts, but the majority of the settlers pulled their carts themselves. Elders and children took turns sitting in open spaces in the carts. The goblin laborers and the slaves were helping out, but that wasn’t going to speed things up much.
“So, Shooter is it?” Camulla spoke up, some time after we left Bulka. His teeth glistened in the morning sun; he really was the Ferrari of people. “We’re making this trip with settlers who aren’t accustomed to travel. I think it would be best to call it a day and set up camp soon.” It was a good observation—he paid attention to how the caravan was moving, and clearly knew how to handle a large group of people.
“I think you’re right. Staying at an inn would be ideal, but that’s obviously impossible.”
“It would be tough to arrange with this many people. No inn would have enough rooms, and the cost would be obscene. You and I are adventurers; we’re used to such things. But not these folks.”
I spotted farm workers and traveling merchants on the road, marveling at our long train of immigrants. If they were villagers from Apegut, I could understand them watching this line of strangers so warily, but traveling folk should have been more worldly.
“What’s their problem? I wish they’d quit starin’ at us,” Nishka muttered.
“There’s been a lull in immigration to the frontier lately, so it’s probably unusual to see such a large group heading in this direction. Not to mention, we’ve got a certain beautiful, long-eared young lady with us, so we have to expect them to take notice of such an angelic figure.”