Travel was wonderful, Nina thought. Working at an estate was wonderful too, of course, but both could be true at the same time.
The events in the Yupiter Empire’s capital had rubbed salt in the still-unhealed wounds in her heart. The betrayal, aspersions, and refusal of anyone to believe her had caused her real pain. But the members of Maid & Co. (Nina still wanted to do something about that name) did believe her. She knew that no matter how much trouble she was in, they would help her. Knowing that she had friends who would never break her trust was a balm for the sting of betrayal.
Thanks to Emily, Astrid, and Tien, Nina had quickly got back on her feet, and now they were on their way to Côte Sud, a beach resort south of the empire.
“Look!” Emily called out from the driver’s seat. “We’re about to leave the forest!”
Nina hurried up to join her. Over Emily’s shoulder, she saw the edge of the trees, and beyond them were the brilliant blue sky, white clouds...and the glitter of sunlight on water.
She let out a sigh of amazement. This was her first ever glimpse of the ocean. Her heart fluttered as she breathed in a scent unlike anything she’d encountered before. Summer was approaching, the air was damp and earthy, and mingled in there was something fishy and almost sweet.
“So this is the ocean...”
Truly, travel was wonderful. This was a sight she’d never have seen if she’d stayed working at an estate. Her unpleasant memories from Thundergard were rapidly fading away, and it was all thanks to Emily, Astrid, and Tien, who’d brought her on this journey.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nina, love!” called a gruff adventurer. “Gimme another helping!”
“I’ll be right there!” Nina hurried over.
“Don’t bother with him,” Emily told her. “He can get it himself!”
“Aw, don’t be like that. The grub tastes better when Nina dishes it up.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want you taking advantage of one of my party members. Anyway, didn’t we agree to sort out our meals separately?”
“If that’s how it is, how about joining our party? What d’ya say, boys?”
There was a rumble of approval.
“How many times do I have to say this?” Emily snapped. “No thank you!”
The whole trip had been like this. The other adventuring party was here on the same job as Maid & Co. Emily, with a stroke of genius, had taken up a merchant house’s request for protection on the way to Côte Sud. This way, they didn’t need to organize a coach or pay for anything—in fact, they were getting paid.
At first the other, rougher adventurers had poked fun at them. “A bunch of kids on guard duty? Oh yeah, real scary,” they’d jeered.
But as it turned out, Tien was faster than anyone at noticing and taking down monsters, and Emily could pick off any aerial threats or monsters that Tien missed with her magic. Meanwhile, the head of the merchant house that owned the caravan had jammed it full of magical devices, and whenever anything broke down, Astrid was on hand to fix it.
Between the three of them, they left the other adventurers with nothing to do, and that wasn’t even counting Nina, who whipped up such a feast whenever they stopped to camp for the night that she had the other adventurers salivating. The head of the merchant company had brought his own cook, but even he couldn’t resist Nina’s cooking. She’d ended up cooking for all of them.
Now they kept saying the same thing:
“We’d love for you to work for our company!”
“C’mon, join our party!”
Emily’s answer was always no thank you.
“Ugggh. I was worried about this,” Emily muttered. She, Astrid, and Tien sat around their party’s campfire. They’d stopped for the night on a hill overlooking the ocean. Nina, meanwhile, was hard at work serving dinner.
“Oh, come on, Emily,” Astrid said. “You knew she’d had an offer from a merchant before.”
The offer in question had come from Firth of the Vick Merchant House, with whom they now held a strong bond after running into him again in the Werther Duchy.
Emily groaned. “This is such a big caravan that I thought we could stay incognito.”
“Well that was silly. Nina can’t help but stand out.”
“Hey! What about you, huh? If you go bibbidi-bobbidi-boo fixing magic items, people are gonna notice!”
“The malfunction was causing the caravan to overheat. It was going to catch fire. I would’ve left it otherwise.”
“Hmph...”
“You are both too careless,” Tien declared, causing them both to round on her.
“You stand out the most of all of us!” Emily retorted.
“Yeah, you’re one to talk,” Astrid agreed.
That day, Tien had gone hunting. Her catch wasn’t a monster, just a wild boar, but the creature had been so fat that there was more than enough meat on it to feed the fifty or so members of the caravan. After that, Nina worked her magic to serve up wild boar stew for dinner.
Boar meat was usually especially gamey in summer, but she eliminated this through clever use of herbs. Despite the season, it was chilly after the sun set, making the warm stew extra delicious. The merchants and other adventurers had also agreed to pay for their meals on top of the fee for the protection job, so their purses were comfortably heavy.
“Well, either way...” Emily said. “I reckon we should stop taking protection jobs after this.”
“Probably for the best,” Astrid agreed.
“Chi thinks so too.”
They concluded their emergency meeting by updating their name to the Keep-Nina-from-Getting-into-Trouble-and-Also-Watch-Out-Ourselves Alliance.