Chương 31: 13-1.Cooperation, Elves, and New Gear

The soldier's casual "just a moment" ended up leaving us to rot outside the command tent for the better part of half an hour. At first, I could grudgingly understand their situation. After all, they'd just limped back from beyond the borders with wounded men everywhere, and the entire makeshift encampment was such a chaotic hellscape that it looked like someone had literally dragged a blood-soaked corner of the battlefield straight into our nest.

But by the time my legs had gone completely numb from standing, and even Lucas Ponti had started nodding off while clutching his mysterious lead case, I began entertaining a rather different—and infinitely more depressing—theory: Are we seriously going to be standing here until the first bell rings at dawn tomorrow? The braziers outside camp crackled and spat like angry demons.

Black-armored soldiers hustled past us carrying heavy supply crates, while muffled groans and barked orders continuously leaked from the makeshift medical tents. Every so often, a sergeant completely drenched in his own blood would stumble past us, his footsteps so terrifyingly unsteady it seemed like pure, bloody-minded willpower was the only thing preventing him from face-planting into the dirt.

Under these grim circumstances, complaining felt inappropriate—but even so, leaving guests to dry out to this extent had long since crossed the line of basic human decency. Jessi shook her numb hands and muttered a particularly creative curse under her breath.

"Damn it all. With this much theatrical bullshit, this commander better not turn out to be some brainless, pampered princess." I immediately dropped my voice to a harsh whisper.

"You'd better keep that poisonous mouth of yours on a leash. She's the Border Marquis's daughter. One wrong word and you'll be swinging from the town square as decorative scenery by tomorrow morning."

"Oh wow. I'm so terrified. My knees are practically knocking together in fear." Jessi delivered this with the emotional range of someone reading items off a tavern menu. She didn't even bother pretending to fake concern. Looking at her utterly shameless "dead-pig-unafraid-of-boiling-water" expression, I suddenly realized that warning Jessi about her mouth was roughly equivalent to politely asking a pack of starving winter wolves to please consider vegetarianism.

Matthews Raven, who was resting against a wooden post with his eyes closed, let out a single cold snort at our exchange.

"If she were truly incompetent, she wouldn't have survived to see today." That was... disturbingly accurate. Just one look at Valdorin von Eberswalde's face—and by that I mean a visage that appeared half-sculpted from pristine glacial ice and half-forged in the scorching, merciless crucible of a battlefield—was enough to tell you that this woman had definitely not coasted to her current position on daddy's reputation alone.

After what felt like an eternity in purgatory, the messenger soldier finally emerged from the tent and gave us a curt nod.

"The Commander is available." I nearly dropped to my knees and thanked every god in the pantheon right then and there. We followed him through two rows of half-open medical wards before stopping at the largest military pavilion in the center of camp. The tent fabric was impossibly thick—some kind of weather-resistant material reinforced with iron hooks and lead weights along the edges.

The moment the flap was lifted, an assault of scents completely alien to the outside world hit me like a physical blow: overheated charcoal, cured leather, fresh blood, bitter medicinal herbs, and beneath it all, a faint but stubbornly persistent stench of rusting iron that seemed to cling to everything. The interior was far brighter than I'd anticipated. Several hanging lamps cast harsh, unforgiving light across a massive wooden table dominating the center.

Spread across its surface were detailed maps, leather-bound logbooks, measuring instruments, steel-tipped styluses, and several ominous metal devices whose purposes I didn't dare speculate about. Surrounding the table stood a collection of women in military uniforms of varying colors—their armor lighter and more streamlined than the black-plated grunts outside, clearly the gear of adjutants who handled logistics and command rather than front-line butchery.

They'd been conversing in hushed tones, but the instant we entered, their gazes snapped toward us with the synchronized precision of a firing squad. Being simultaneously assessed by a row of highly trained, obviously lethal military women was, honestly speaking, far more stomach-churning than facing down a squad of axe-wielding bandits twice my size. Valdorin stood behind the table like some dark monument to controlled violence.

She had shed her heavy traveling cloak, revealing a form-fitting dark uniform beneath a breastplate assembled from overlapping armor scales. The ensemble wasn't flashy—if anything, it was so ruthlessly utilitarian it bordered on austere—yet worn by her, it radiated an inexplicable aura of suppressed menace that made you instinctively want to avert your gaze.

The severe burn scarring along the right side of her face was even more pronounced under the lamplight, impossible to ignore, yet it didn't read as disfigurement. It read as something far more unsettling—a badge of honor earned in some unthinkable crucible, a testament to the kind of trials that break most people but only serve to forge others into something harder and infinitely more dangerous. She looked up as we entered and offered the barest suggestion of a nod.

"My apologies for the delay." Her tone was more measured than I'd expected—controlled, professional, with an undertone that suggested she could shift from courteous to terrifying without missing a beat. She raised one gloved hand, signaling her adjutants to step back, and dispensed with any pretense of small talk.

"Let's dispense with pleasantries and cut straight to business. Acceptable?" I made a gesture indicating she was welcome to proceed. Hey, after numbing my legs for half an hour, the fact that you're finally ready to talk is music to my ears. Valdorin lowered her gaze and placed one finger on the map spread before her.

"We are currently here," she stated with military precision. I followed her gesture to a tiny black dot annotated with impossibly fine script—a string of serial numbers and coded notations that spoke of bureaucratic thoroughness taken to an almost obsessive degree. —Border Fortress, Supply Base No. 144. I stared at the marking for several seconds before the words escaped my mouth:"... This map is absolutely insane in its level of detail." That wasn't empty flattery.

Compared to the garbage I'd purchased back in town—which looked like a drunken cartographer had taken a piece of charcoal and attempted geography while suffering from severe alcohol poisoning—the document spread before me was so comprehensively detailed it felt almost illegal to look at. Scale indicators, compass roses, comprehensive legends, topographical shading, supply cache markers, route designations, even suspected hazard zones color-coded in different inks.

If it weren't currently lying open inside a military command tent, I would have sworn I was looking at some impossibly advanced piece of cartographic wizardry that had no business existing in this era. Lucas Ponti practically teleported half a step forward, his eyes lighting up with the fanatical gleam of a man who had just witnessed the naked, unvarnished truth of the universe laid bare before him.

Valdorin glanced at his reaction with the weary expression of someone who had seen this particular brand of academic ecstasy far too many times.

"Detailed information tends to be the most expensive," she said with flat pragmatism. Then she lifted her mismatched eyes to study us.

"Before we proceed—what is your final destination?" I hesitated for barely a heartbeat before deciding honesty was the least dangerous option.

"The royal capital."

"Perfect." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Valdorin's lips twitched upward in what might have been a smile if you were being extremely generous with your definition. By her standards, that probably qualified as beaming with joy.

"It seems we can travel together." I blinked in confusion.

"... Hold on a second." She'd said it with such casual certainty that I'd nearly let it slide past my brain entirely.

"As you can observe," she continued with the kind of calm that suggested she was discussing the weather rather than conscripting a group of strangers, "we are critically understaffed at present. Since your destination coincides with ours, traveling together represents a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"No—wait just a minute." I finally managed to raise a hand in protest.

"I was under the impression we were here to negotiate terms, not to receive a unilateral announcement of our new employment status." Beside me, Jessi made a sound that was approximately seventy percent suppressed laughter and thirty percent pure, undiluted glee. Valdorin showed no signs of offense. If anything, she tilted her head slightly, as though genuinely reminded of a minor procedural detail she'd overlooked.

"Ah. The terms, naturally." She gestured with one hand, and an adjutant immediately stepped forward to place two impressively heavy coin pouches on the table with a satisfying thunk that seemed to reverberate through the tent. The moment that sound registered, I heard Jessi draw in a breath—not a gasp of surprise, but the sharp, predatory intake of a fox catching the scent of fresh meat. Professional. Calculating. Deeply unsettling. Valdorin's tone remained perfectly level.

"You travel with us from this point to the royal capital. The journey will likely involve exploration, and it will definitely involve combat. Three months if we maintain good pace, considerably longer if complications arise. In exchange, the Legion will upgrade your equipment to military standard specifications, and a substantial portion of your compensation will be advanced immediately." She paused, studying our faces.

"I trust these terms don't strike you as unreasonable?" She delivered this with such matter-of-fact confidence that for a moment I couldn't decide which part to be more shocked by. Military-grade weapons. Three months of guaranteed work. Advance payment. And those two pouches that definitely weren't filled with copper scraps.

I unconsciously touched the bronze adventurer's tag hanging at my chest, desperately trying to keep my voice from betraying just how much I sounded like a country bumpkin who'd wandered into the big city by accident.

"The terms are... generous," I managed.

"The issue is that we're a low-tier party." I lifted the bronze tag slightly. The implication was obvious enough that even a blind man could read it. Valdorin glanced at the tag and shrugged with brutal honesty.

"In a place like this, you don't get to be picky." Her bluntness could have cut glass.

"If you've got warm bodies that can hold weapons without immediately dying, you should count yourselves lucky." Harsh as it sounded, she wasn't wrong. I was preparing to respond when Jessi smoothly interjected, leaning forward with her elbows on the table and flashing a smile that was equal parts honey and razor wire.

"Commander," she purred, "since we're discussing traveling arrangements, perhaps we should clarify a few operational details?" Relief flooded through me. Finally. Time for the actual professional to take the stage. Valdorin shifted her attention to Jessi.

"What would you like to know?" Jessi's smile turned even sweeter, which somehow made it infinitely more dangerous.

"For instance—how exactly would profits from dungeon exploration be divided?" Of course. First question out of her mouth, straight to the money. But that was Jessi in her natural habitat. If she'd opened with questions about honor, mutual trust, or shared ideals, I would have started checking her for signs of demonic possession. Valdorin answered without hesitation.

"Any artifacts, materials, or pre-war supplies discovered during our travels belong to you, provided they aren't specifically flagged by the Legion for mandatory recovery." She paused, then added a crucial qualifier.

"Medical supplies are exempt from this arrangement." Jessi's eyes narrowed with predatory interest.

"Oh?" Valdorin tapped a specific marker on the map with one gloved finger.

"What we lack most desperately isn't steel or gold," she said grimly.

"It's the things that keep people from bleeding out in ditches. Medicine, bandages, antiseptics, hemostatic agents, cold-weather survival gear—anything you find in those categories comes to us first. Any surplus, I'll purchase from you at fair market rates." That was actually remarkably reasonable. One look at the horrific state of the medical tents outside was enough to tell you she'd probably trade a chest of silver for a single crate of clean bandages and consider it the bargain of the century.

Lucas couldn't contain himself any longer.

"What about intelligence sharing?" Valdorin turned her attention to him.

"Specify."

"Route maps, confirmed hazard zones, exploration logs, abandoned outpost locations, any documentation related to pre-civilization ruins." Lucas was speaking faster now, his eyes practically emitting visible light beams of academic enthusiasm.

"If this is a partnership rather than a subordination arrangement, then information access should reach some reasonable threshold of—" My head was already beginning to throb. There it is. The moment this guy encounters maps and ancient ruins, his brain bypasses all logic and starts aggressively negotiating for his own academic salvation. Valdorin didn't reject him outright.

She simply studied him with the measured expression of someone trying to determine whether they were looking at a brilliant scholar or a certified lunatic. After a moment of consideration: "I can provide partial route documentation and confirmed hazard markers. Deeper exploration records depend entirely on whether you prove yourselves worth the investment." That was already surprisingly generous.

Lucas looked like he was preparing to push for more concessions, so I quickly clamped a hand down on his shoulder before his next sentence could become "In that case, could I review your complete archive of ruin surveys from the past decade?" That's when Matthews finally spoke up.

"What about freedom of withdrawal?" The tent went dead silent. He'd asked it in his usual flat, emotionless tone, but the question cut deeper than any blade that had been drawn during this entire negotiation.

"I have zero intention of dying alongside your unit when it inevitably gets wiped out," he stated with clinical detachment. The expressions of several adjutants darkened considerably. Those were not pleasant words to direct at a military force that had just limped back across the border with heavy casualties. Yet Valdorin simply regarded Matthews in thoughtful silence—and then, after a long moment, she actually let out a soft laugh.

Combined with that half-scarred face, the sound didn't make her appear more approachable. It made her look exponentially more terrifying.

"You may leave whenever you wish," she said with perfect calm.

"If you want to run, I won't stop you. However, the moment you break formation, any remaining compensation is immediately forfeited. Don't accuse me of being unreasonable when that happens." As she spoke, her gaze drifted—briefly, almost casually—in my direction.

"After all, I'm undertaking this journey at the direct behest of the Border Marquis to deliver something to the royal capital. If we complete the mission successfully, the rewards from the capital's end should be... substantial." She paused, her tone flattening into something deceptively casual.

"There may even be a fiefdom involved." Something in my chest gave a violent, involuntary lurch. A fiefdom. Those two words hit me like someone had taken a rusty knife and deliberately dragged it across an old, half-healed wound. Matthews, for his part, completely ignored her loaded glance and pressed forward with the same cold directness.

"What exactly are you transporting that justifies that level of compensation?" Valdorin didn't answer immediately. Instead, she placed both hands on the edges of the detailed map and began to fold it with slow, deliberate precision. Her movements were steady and completely silent, yet they managed to inject a palpable atmosphere of this line of inquiry ends here and now into the tent. Then she raised her eyes.

"Classified." One word. Clean as a blade through rope, severing any further questions with surgical precision. I couldn't help but sigh internally. Of course. There was no such thing as free hot soup in this world, and there was definitely no such thing as free military-grade weaponry. Whatever required the personal escort of a Border Marquis's daughter—whatever came with promises of royal rewards and actual fiefdoms—was obviously not the sort of information they'd share with bottom-tier mercenaries like us.

Jessi, predictably, appeared entirely unbothered by the stonewalling. She simply looked down at the two heavy coin pouches, then back up at Valdorin, and let out a quiet laugh that somehow managed to sound both amused and calculating.

"I like your communication style, Commander." Valdorin's scarred brow shifted slightly.

"Which aspect?"

"The profitable kind." I came dangerously close to reaching over and physically clamping my hand over Jessi's mouth. How does this woman manage to make every single sentence feel like she's pressing a dagger tip against someone's ribs, yet somehow avoid giving them a clean excuse to flip the table? Valdorin, surprisingly, showed no signs of irritation.

"And your assessment?" she asked.

"Do you consider these terms worth serious discussion?" Jessi didn't answer immediately. Moving with deliberate slowness, she reached out and hooked her fingers around the coin pouches, pulling them just a fraction closer to her side of the table. Only then did she look up, her smile soft and absolutely lethal.

"Worth discussing," she said sweetly.

"Not quite worth me nodding agreement on behalf of the entire party just yet." Hearing that, I felt a massive wave of relief wash over me. If she'd agreed on the spot, I would have started seriously wondering whether she'd somehow managed to sell my internal organs along with the contract. Valdorin seemed entirely unsurprised. She simply nodded once.

"Acceptable." She handed the folded map to a waiting adjutant and glanced toward the tent entrance.

"You're free to return and deliberate among yourselves," she said with crisp efficiency.

"We'll be stationed here for several days before departing. If you decide to join us, provide your answer before the third bell tomorrow evening." Having delivered her ultimatum, she immediately turned her attention to a casualty report handed over by another officer, effectively filing our entire conversation away as completed business. The sheer efficiency of the dismissal was genuinely irritating.

It clearly communicated that while we were useful enough to merit her attention, we weren't important enough to warrant another second of her valuable time. I stood there staring at the money on the table, my mind churning with thoughts of military-grade weapons, impossibly detailed maps, protected passage, the right to retreat, and that casually dropped bombshell: "There may even be a fiefdom involved." My brain felt like it was trying to process too much information at once.

Then Jessi's voice reached my ear—pitched low, dripping with barely contained excitement, drawn out in a slow, theatrical whisper.

"Well, young master... looks like we might have stumbled onto a genuinely massive payday this time." I shot her a sideways glance.

"What I'm more concerned about," I said quietly, "is whether we're about to step into a pit so deep we'll never manage to climb back out." She blinked once, then her lips curved into that familiar, dangerous smile.

"Isn't that perfect?" she said with obvious relish.

"If you're going to be alive, you might as well pick the biggest, most exciting pits to jump into."... This woman is completely beyond saving. Yet somehow, inexplicably, after hearing her say that, the chaotic tangle of uncertainty in my chest actually began to settle. Because she wasn't entirely wrong about one thing. We'd already made it all the way to Nest No. 144. A battered, barely functional party like ours had long since forfeited any right to pretend we were walking some safe, predictable path.