Chapter 748: They Seem Interested In Me?
“Hi, I’m Aster. Currently a D ranked Dungeoneer at the moment. I’ll be in your care.”
One of them chuckled, “Are you sure we wouldn’t be in your care instead?”
Meela scowled at the girl who said that, “What was that supposed to mean?”
The girl shrugged, “She literally single handedly defeated the entire group of Dune Striders that we were having trouble with.”
The others around her mumbled in agreement.
Oof… I feel a little bad now since it looks like I’m showing them up or even stealing their work.
I coughed, “Umm… You don’t need to worry, I don’t intend to steal your work from you.”
The girl who said those words seemed to be surprised by my response.
“Eh? Oh, you misunderstood me, Miss Aster. I think that’s really hot. Do you want to come over to my bedroll tonight?”
…
Err… What? Is she really hitting on me?
Meela growled, “Ok, stop hitting on every hot girl that we come across damnit. Get back to your positions!”
The other girls grumbled but obeyed their leader and started the preparations to head out.
I turned to her, “So… Is it just me or is your entire group made of girls?”
She nodded, “Yes we are. There are some clients who would prefer an all female Mercenary party so that’s where we come in.”
Oh right, Linette was betrayed by a guy wasn’t she? And I think even her male guards were also in on it as well so I guess maybe that’s why she would rather an all female team.
Then I realised something, “Wait… There’s absolutely no males here?”
“Yes.”
“Futas?”
“Ah… None either. My group is purely females and I believe our client this time also only has females in attendance.”
Huh… Would it be a problem for me to be here then? Have I ever told her that I was a futa?
Meela then waved at me, “Anyway, we should go now. I believe you will be riding with Linette in her carriage, right?”
“Wait, I am? I was under the impression that I would be escorting the caravan alongside you all. That’s why I came to introduce myself, right?”
She blinked, “Err… I believe you are a guest instead of a Mercenary though? But I suppose if something else appears that we might need help with, could I trouble you to aid us? I know it is unbecoming of me to ask for help when we were hired by the client to escort them, but we’ve had an encounter with a wyvern earlier that basically crippled half of our team.
Otherwise we wouldn’t have as much trouble with those Dune Striders as we did.”
“Eh? You should have just told me that earlier, I could heal them for you.”
Her eyes widened, “You’re a healer too?! Wait, how many types of magic can you use?! I remember seeing you use Pyromancy, Geomancy and I think I also saw Electromancy too when you were fighting them?!”
“Oh… You noticed?”
“Kind of difficult not to with all the spells you were shooting out, but yes!”
“Ah… Err… Well… I can just say that I know healing too… So I can heal them if you want?”
“Ugh… How much do you want us to pay you then? I’ll pay you to heal our healers and they can take care of the rest.”
I gave her a confused look, “Pay me?”
“Yes. You’re not going to charge us for healing our party members?”
I waved my hand at her, “It’s fine. You can just take this as me healing your party to alleviate some of my responsibility in guarding this caravan.”
She chuckled, “Haha, I see, I see. Alright, then could I trouble you with healing them before we set off? They’ll take care of the rest once they’re back on their feet.”
Sounds easy enough.
She led me to one of the caravans and a few of the girls, including the one who was hitting on me, was guarding.
The girl grinned, “Oh hey leader. Did you change your mind about her or something?”
“No, stop talking Bev. Seriously. They’re in there, Aster.”
I peeked into the wagon and found that several of the boxes inside had been moved around to accommodate several girls who were laid down inside it.
Damn, she wasn’t kidding when she said half her team was injured… There were so many of them that the wagon didn’t even have enough space and some of them were practically laying on top of each other in there.
That wyvern that attacked them sure did a number of them it seems, since I see a few of them were even missing limbs.
“It targeted our healers first so we had been making do with our potions so far…”
“No intermediate grade ones?” I asked.
“We used them up during the fight with that wyvern. We would have lost a few of us if we didn’t use them then.”
I nodded in understanding before climbing into the wagon, “So who are the healers?”
She pointed at the five girls nearest to me so I started healing them with [Heal], making sure I chanted it before I cast the spell.
That seemed to work as the girls I healed slowly woke up though they were still clearly groggy and disoriented.
Obviously, my Iatromancy wasn’t good enough to regrow limbs yet but I could at least make sure they weren’t at death’s door.
Their healers should be more competent than I am so they should be able to save the rest of their party after I do this.
And if need be… I do have a good collection of Intermediate Grade potions that I would be willing to sell if they need them.
Once I was done, I climbed back out and I realised the girls were giving me odd looks.
“What?” I asked.
The one named Bev turned to Meela, “Leader? Are you not going to ask?”
Ask? Ask what?
I tilted my head at the leader and she seemed to be thinking about something before looking at me with a serious gaze, “Aster, would you sit with us when we make camp tonight?”
“Err… Sure?”
I’m guessing they’re impressed by my magic capabilities and want to ask about my experience as a Dungeoneer or something? I mean, I don’t mind sharing my experiences anyway so I don’t see a reason why not.
After leaving them to deal with the healers that were in the midst of waking up, I left them and went to find Linette to figure out whether I should be guarding the caravan alongside the Mercenaries.
I found her standing outside the only carriage in the convoy.
Interestingly, the wagons and the carriages have a peculiar design where they aren’t using wheels but some kind of ski attached to where the wheels would be and instead of horses, they were animals that reminded me of bison.
[Screened] also told me that these animals were called Dune Bison and they were almost as big as the wagons they were pulling.
They seemed pretty docile and actually kind of cute if you asked me.
Also, Meela was indeed serious when she said that everyone was a female here. The wagoneers were also all females as well and they weren’t part of Meela’s Mercenary group as far as I could tell.
Linette saw me walking towards her and smiled, “Ready to go now, Miss Aster?”
“Yep. So how do you want me to escort you?”
“Serious as always, Miss Aster. But you do not need to escort me as you are our guest here. Please ride with me.”
“Are you really ok with that?”
“Of course. How could I treat my saviour any different? If I do not even do this much, I would definitely get an earful from my father for mistreating you.”
I coughed, “Ahem… In that case, please allow me to ride with you, Miss Linette.”
“Oh please, Linette is just fine, Miss Aster. Now please, after you.”
I decided not to argue and climbed aboard the carriage as she had asked, settling myself inside the relatively comfortable interior.
It was by no means luxurious like Mother’s carriages but it was certainly comfortable and felt rather homely to be in. Though I guess the fact that we were literally out in a desert with sand dunes as far as the eye can see meant that anything pretty much felt more comfortable as compared to that.
I thought she would sit across from me but she surprisingly chose to sit beside me instead, the carriage driver closing the door after her before climbing up to the driver seat.
She then turned to me just as the carriage started to move, “Fufufu~ Now that I have you in here…”
Oh no… What does she want to do to me? Don’t tell me…
“Please tell me all the adventures you’ve had after you’ve met me, Miss Aster! Surely you must have seen many interesting things after we separated, right? I want to hear all about it!”
Oh… She’s one of those kinds of girls.
Alright then.
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