Chương 307: Bufort

The missions posted by the Bufort Adventurer Association left much to be desired. Even as a B Rank there were no missions that held any interest to Damion. Just simple trader escort missions and a few requests for team members for the city dungeon. Unfortunately, Damion was too powerful for the Bufort dungeons. The city only had two, an E Rank and a C Rank, this left him with little to do outside of starting up his artifact upgrading business again.

He considered posting a mission advertising his services again, but unlike in Saung he had no place to work privately here. If he wanted to conceal his method, which was just asking the Magic System to do all the work for him, he would need to rent a space. Instead of going through all these steps, Damion headed over to the Justiciar Order's compound near the city gates. Renting a room to work in would not be too much of a hassle, but Damion doubted how many adventurers in Bufort could actually afford his services.

The Order, however, would be able to easily verify the quality of his work in Saung and could provide him a workspace without issue. And of course, they would not have any trouble paying his fee. The idea of helping the Justiciar Order grow stronger was slightly dampened by Justiciar Straus' actions. But the man was not a representative of the Order as a whole and Damion felt it would be shortsighted to pass up the opportunity to earn more credits.

"Mage Wells," the local Justiciar commander, Clyde Moss, greeted. The knight was only C Rank, but with Bufort so close to Saung, which had B Rank knights and A Rank mages, C Rank was enough to ensure order in the Yellow Zone city.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You know me?" Damion questioned. He could not recall meeting the man before.

"You are somewhat of a local legend in Bufort. After all, you started the cascade that led to the fall of Falks Guild. And a few short years after that, shone brightly during the last Saung beast wave and you even got to go to Silver Spire Magic Academy."

"I thought most people had forgotten most of that," Damion said, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Not among the common folk around here. So, what can I help you with?"

"Well, since you are aware of my exploits, are you familiar with my recent work in Saung?"

"Upgrading artifacts?"

"Exactly."

"You are here in Bufort to upgrade the artifacts of adventurers?"

"While there might be some adventurers that can afford my price here, I was thinking of limiting my services to the Justiciar while I am here."

"Really? That is excellent news."

"My rates are the same as back in Saung," Damion told him while transferring the service contract to the Justiciar's tablet.

"All I need is a private place to work and stay." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"We can certainly accommodate you," Justiciar Moss eagerly said.

"How long will you remain in Bufort?"

"No longer than a week. I intend to set out to the Crimson Order outpost at the Red Zone border and see what missions they have available."

"A week?" Justiciar Moss said, sounding somewhat disappointed. He did not know how many of his garrison's artifacts Damion could do in a week.

"I'll do twenty artifacts a day. A week should be enough time to do all of your officers' armor and weapons." The Justiciar thought for a moment before he reluctantly agreed with Damion's assessment. Twenty artifacts a day was essentially three sets of gear for his men. A week should be more than enough time for all his men to have their artifacts upgraded.

"Let me show you to our artificing room. None of us here are artificers, but it is the standard practice of the Order to have a dedicated artificing station. This makes it easier for repairs to be done. The Order just has to dispatch an artificer or hire one to go to a garrison and all the tools and materials are already available for them." When Damion looked around the artificing room he was rather impressed with the set up.

He did not need any of it, but it was good to know the Justiciar Order had such a room in each of their garrisons. The Magic System could upgrade artifacts for him, but unless a damaged artifact was being upgraded to the next Rank, it could not repair artifacts.

"This will do nicely."

"Will you be needing any lodgings while you are here? If so we have several spare rooms at your service."

"I think I will camp outside the city. My bond familiar is outside the city and I would like to spend some time with it during the night."

"I appreciate you not causing a panic by bringing the Ferocious Beast in the walls." Damion did not feel the need to spread the word his familiar had evolved into a Demonic Beast. Word would spread on its own given time. If this knight found out Phil was now a B Rank Demonic Beast and could probably destroy this entire city, there was no telling how he might react.

"I'll return in the morning and start work."

"I will arrange for the artifacts and appropriate payment to be supplied first thing." With his task done, Damion headed back through the city gates and called out to Phil through their bond. After walking a short distance from the city, he set up his camp and waited for Phil to return. By setting up his camp outside, he would be able to exercise in the morning before heading in and working on the artifacts for the Justiciar.

When Phil got close enough, Damion connected his tablet to the auto-mapper and started to review where his familiar had been. In the few hours he had been in the city, the Blizzard King had managed to cover quite the distance. Of course, it helped that after the Magic System upgraded the artifact it had a range of 25 kilometers. As Phil flew around the area, the auto-mapper had charted the location of several small towns near Bufort.

On his tablet, Damion could see the roads connecting these towns and he guessed these were the same towns Ethan's family traded with. What Damion found truly interesting, was that these other towns were laid out in a half circle pattern on the opposite side of the Benault Forest around Bufort and the roads connecting them to Bufort made it look like the spokes on a wheel. At first Damion did not understand why these half dozen towns would be spaced out like they were, but then he realized why. They were buffers.

These towns were built up around old outposts and they were intended to warn the larger city they surrounded of any impending beast waves. The people of those towns had no chance at fighting a beast wave, they could either hide in a shelter or try and flee. Even without fighting the beast wave, either choice would buy time for Bufort to ready itself by slowing the wave down.

Bufort was still a Yellow Zone, but in recent years they had not suffered too greatly from beast waves, largely in part to the Crimson Order outpost that was set up in recent years. The Crimson Order brought patrols to the region and the culling of Ferocious Beasts and Demonic Beasts in the Red Zone. Still, even with those efforts, it was only a matter of time before another beast wave occurred. After looking at the map for a while, Damion found what he was hoping for. Three Realm Breaches.