Chapter 480: Supplies (1/2)

Supply depot number three was in the same warehouse district where Jason had carried out his big trade, not far from the main markets of Livaros. He portalled to the destination square in the market and made his way on a black horse with glowing white mane and hooves.

There were plenty of different means of transport in the city, from floating platforms to flying carriages to adventurers riding familiars, like Jason. One of the things Jason had learned was that permits were required for air travel in the city, so he stayed on the ground.

Riding past the warehouse belonging to Lord Casowich, Jason thought back to his expensive deal. He had no idea how much attention it had garnered but he now had the royal family looking squarely at him. He hoped the diamond-rank coin and all the crystal wash drew attention from the other materials he acquired as part of the deal. Now more than when he conceived it on the journey between worlds, his personal project could prove important should he need to flee the Storm Kingdom.

The supply depot was a city block worth of warehouses commandeered as a distribution centre for critical resources. Carts and wagons were rolling in or out the gates or taking to the air and flying away. It looked like everything was going to crash together any moment but Jason knew there was some pattern to the chaos as everyone and everything managed to careen around each other with no more incident than some angry shouts.

Jason had Shade dissolve his horse form, the familiar vanishing back into Jason’s shadow as Jason observed the activity. Standing out of the way, outside the depot yards, he closed his eyes and used his other senses to track the comings of the depot. He felt there was something to learn from the seemingly chaotic yet somehow organised tumult of activity and entered an almost meditative state as he studied it for several minutes.

“You lost, friend?”

One of the depot workers had noticed Jason and come to see if he was alright. Jason’s eyes snapped open and he gave the man a friendly smile.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.”

Jason set off into the depot. Especially after having studied the patterns by which the place operated, Jason found his aura manipulation skills extremely handy for navigating. The same skills he could use to blend into a crowd let him subconsciously alert rushing depot workers to his presence, while their focus allowed him to read their intentions from their auras. Despite moving at a measured pace as people rushed around him, Jason was always where the workers weren’t in any given moment, despite neither himself nor the people around him needing to move from each other’s way. Like a languid fish swimming beneath a boat, he passed through the depot unnoticed and unremarked.

Making his way into a warehouse, he saw essence users employing their powers to load supplies to or from wagons and carts. He saw telekinesis, superhuman strength and even someone teleporting crates. In a corner of the warehouse, someone summoned a golem and directed it to start loading goods.

Jason’s goal was a cluster of silver-rank auras with enough magical items on their persons that they had to be adventurers, although there were also core users amongst them. Most of them were smothering the magic items with their auras, a typical habit of stealth-focused adventurers, but that wasn’t an obstacle to Jason’s powerful senses.

Guild elites were too valuable to turn into delivery workers, so these were most likely disregarded adventurers like Jason. He wasn't sure about the core users, as they seemed more like ordinary people mixed in with actual adventurers, based on their mediocre aura control and lack of magic items.

Jason went through the warehouse to a small distribution area where the adventurers were gathered in several queues. They were waiting to be handed off goods for transport and it quickly became evident that they all had dimensional storage spaces. Jason joined the end of the shortest queue.

The adventurer in front of him was an elf with tawny, lightly-freckled skin. Her hair was cut short and practical, showing off a mix of autumn leaf colours. Like Jason, the beautification of silver rank had been immensely flattering without turning her into a Rufus or Sophie, who were absurdly attractive even at lower rank. There was a cute green frog with big eyes sitting on her shoulder.

She turned to give Jason an assessing glance as he approached.

“G’day,” Jason said. “Is this where we pick up goods for transport contracts?”

“That’s right,” she said.

“Jason Asano,” he said, offering his hand and she shook it.

“Autumn Leal,” she introduced herself. Jason’s eyes flicked back to her hair but he didn’t say anything about it.

“Is everyone here a portal user?” he asked instead.

“Don’t I wish,” she said. “If you can portal, these contracts are worth way more contribution points. Most portal users are on rapid-response duty, so most of us just have storage spaces and are here to be walking cargo holds. Some of us aren’t even adventurers and do storage space transport for a living.”

“I was wondering about the core users. You’re an adventurer, though, with that gear.”

Autumn had the typical load-out of a spellcaster. Her clothes were magically reinforced cloth, loose enough to be unrestrictive but not so much as Jason’s preferred combat robes. The colours were brown and green; not exactly camouflage but they would blend well into the local wilderness areas. She had wands strapped to each thigh and he could sense enchanted amulets, bracelets and anklets hidden under her clothes. Her boots were magical and practical. Around her waist was the magically shielded potion belt that was the most obvious giveaway for adventurers. Many wealthy citizens carried them as well, but they usually chose ones that were lower in capacity and higher in fashion.

“What about you?” she asked, looking Jason up and down. He was wearing tan shorts, a floral shirt, sandals and a straw hat.

“What?” Jason asked. “Don’t I look ready to spring into action?”

“If by action you mean a pitcher of ice tea, then sure.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea.”

Jason plucked a coconut shell cup out of the air, fruit leaves and a straw sticking out from the top. He took a long sip, letting out a happy moan.

“Oh, that’s the good stuff. You don’t know where a bloke can get little paper umbrellas, do you?”

“You’re one of those people that never takes things seriously, aren’t you?”

“Things take me seriously,” Jason said with a smile not quite as light-hearted as he intended. “I try not to encourage them.”

He put his drink away and pointed at the front of the line they’d been inching closer to as they talked.

“I think you’re about to be up.”

She turned her head to glance at the person in front of her. He was casually tossing crates into a black void on the floor as depot workers brought them to him and a supervisor checked them off a list.

“You know,” Autumn said, turning back to Jason, “you’ll never catch the attention of a guild like this.”

“I'm going to join a guild some friends are already in. It operates a long way from here, so I'm just looking to ride out the monster surge without getting killed or marrying a princess before I skip town.”

“Marrying a princess.”

“Yep.”

“You see that as a particular danger?”

“Admittedly, I’ve only done one of those things before, but you can never be too careful.”

“There is some easygoing charm happening here but I'm not sure it's enough to lure any princesses in.”