Rise of the Blood Sovereign

69  Joining the Caravan to Orsvald

"Hey, you two, ready to go?" The leader of the caravan asked as he saw Lyle and Adam coming toward him. The duo shook his hands and put their backpacks inside a carriage. All the adventurers and mercenaries that had taken the job to escort the caravan, or the ones that paid to go together with them, had done the same.

There were in total about 8 carriages. Out of the 8, 3 were large carriages that carried a lot of cargo with them. There were many monster cores inside, and the carriages were protected by an array that not only strengthened the durability of the carriages but also made sure that the mana from the monster cores would not leak outside and attract monsters.

Lyle and Adam had placed food and supplies in the backpacks, although they didn't need to since they had spatial rings. But in order to not draw attention to themselves, Lyle decided to not use the spatial ring unless it was needed, and even when he would, he made sure to put on gloves and hide his spatial ring from sight.

Spatial rings wouldn't use any mana nor would they alert anyone during their activation, which made it very easy for somebody to hide it and use it without anyone noticing.

Lyle and Adam had signed up as escorts for the caravan, which meant that the two men would need to jump in and help the others during a battle.

Thanks to the dungeons evolving and more powerful monsters appearing on the roads, the caravan had spent a lot of money to get 3 Silver Knights to escort them. Each of the Silver Knights was a low-grade Silver Knight and although they were at the very bottom when it came to their realm, they were still powerful enough to defeat the whole caravan by themselves.

There were about 50 adventurers and mercenaries below the Bronze Realm that were escorting the caravan, 20 Bronze Knights, and the three Silver Knights.

It was a relatively large caravan and they needed a lot of manpower because they would have to travel for about 3 days to get to Orsvald. Monsters would definitely show up and attack them, and they would perhaps need to take care of bandits as well.

Bandits loved to lie in ambush and attack caravans right before they finished dealing with monsters.

Having so many people in a caravan would make them think twice about attacking, and the sheer number of Bronze Knights meant that they would be able to take turns when fighting against monsters, leaving them well-rested each time.

Bandits were usually not a big threat since they were rarely powerful, even large bandit groups only had 1 or 2 Silver Knights as leaders.

There were some that even had Golden Knights leading them, but those made their bases deep inside forests and they didn't care for such caravans as they wouldn't be able to get enough money for their trouble.

The main reason why the caravan needed a whole 3 days to get to Orsvald, even though the city was relatively close, was because they needed to take a road around a nearby mountain. The road was quite narrow and they would need to pass it slowly and carefully, otherwise, there was a big chance the carriages could fall down.

They needed about half a day to get to the mountain, going up the mountain on the official road would take another half while taking the road that went around the mountain would take a whole day as well.

They needed breaks, of course.

The three large carriages were being pulled by two Iron Oxen, powerful Bronze Core monsters that were impervious to normal weapons. Even though the oxen were not very strong in battle because of the lack of flexibility and the lack of being able to turn around fast enough to follow the movements of a smaller enemy, they were perfect for such manual labor.

The oxen, like other monsters that were useful for humans, were tamed by Tamers, humans that were talented in taming and taking control over monsters. They would then be forced to breed in order to make more of them.

The first generation of tamed monsters would only listen to the one that tamed them, and those that were in his group after they had spent enough time. They were unable to be used for manual labor since the tamer would always need to be present.

But their offspring would be a different story.

As the monster would grow up surrounded by humans, they would become familiar with them. That, plus the training they would receive from an early age would make them very tame and calm around people. They would follow orders well, and as long as one didn't act badly toward them, they would be perfect for pulling carriages or doing other kinds of manual labor.

There were stories of powerful empires even using monsters that were in the Titled Core realm and higher, but the Golden Lion Empire didn't have any tamers in such a realm, and even if they had, to breed such powerful monsters and train their offspring took a lot of resources.

Golden Core monsters were the very peak of tamed monsters that one could find in the empire, but there were stories of Titled Core monsters being seen with people and following after them, nobody was able to confirm whether those stories were true or not.

Lyle and Adam sat down on the roof of a carriage and started observing the surroundings after leaving the city of Linston.

Since the caravan had nothing to hide, they were able to get past the inspection after about 30 minutes. The leader did bribe the guards, but that was mostly so that they would finish the inspection as fast as possible so that they could be on their way.

The 5 smaller carriages were there to provide rest for the Bronze Knights and the people that had paid to go alongside the caravan. They would spend most of the trip inside, with some getting out to stretch their legs every time they stopped.

Lyle could sense that there were even some Bronze Knights amongst the people that had paid the caravan to go with them, even though they had paid and weren't supposed to fight, if an emergency happened, the caravan had the right to ask them to join them.

Even without the caravan asking, those Bronze Knights and other powerful people would get out and fight since they would certainly die if the caravan was to get defeated.

The first couple of hours passed uneventfully. The caravan was large and the sheer number of people escorting it made any nearby monsters afraid of attacking them as they knew that only death would await them.

There were some monsters, however, that came a bit too close and would get killed by archers, but that was all.

Nobody expected any problems or fights to break out before getting to the mountain. It was there that more powerful monsters resided, and that bandits could occasionally be seen.

Lyle and Adam were on the roof of a carriage because neither one had a horse and because Lyle had shown his prowess with throwing daggers and other throwing weapons, which made him eligible to get up and attack enemies from long range.

Adam wasn't as good and precise with throwing weapons, but his ability allowed him to increase the power of a throw tremendously. It was Lyle's idea for Adam to spend a couple of days practicing his ability and try to use it in such a way.

He knew how caravans operated, and he knew that being on the roof of a carriage was one of the best places to be. Not only would they not need to spend energy walking or riding horses, but they could also observe the surrounding area and see just how powerful any enemies were.

With that in mind, Adam trained and managed to control his ability in such a way that it was very useful for throwing weapons. With a controlled mana blast, Adam could throw a weapon with incredible force.

He would pour mana into his hands, and concentrate on only making a blast right before the weapon left his hand, with a small, but concentrated blast of mana, the weapon would be propelled and would gain an increase of double its velocity, making the attack much deadlier than usual.

Right now, the caravan had in total about 24 long-range combatants. Out of the 24, only 4 were Bronze Knights.

The caravan had placed 3 smaller carriages at the front, three large ones in the middle, and two small ones in the back.

Each of the small carriages was big enough for 6 long-range combatants to be on top of it and fight comfortably, while the big ones could fit 8 – 9.

It was after half a day, and without any fights, that the caravan finally came to the mountain.

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