The mission was pretty simple, all things considered. We just had to protect a caravan from any monster or bandit attacks that might occur. What was harder, however, was finding said caravan. According to the poster, they were near the road that lead to the capital. Obviously, that did not help us in the slightest because we did not know where that was.
We eventually settled with just running a p around the vilge until we found our clients. It took a while, but we eventually found a group of merchants loading stuff into horse-drawn wagons.
While walking up to then, we were greeted by a well-dressed human man.
"Ah, are the both of you here for the quest? I apologise, but you look a bit too young for adventuring." (merchant)
"We are both C-rank adventurers." (Dragonfly)
I simply showed him my guild card as proof. I wasn't some defenseless kid that couldn't handle myself, seriously. Still, I refrained from saying anything else to not let my annoyance show. I didn't want to start a conflict with our client, despite what my instincts seemed to want.
"Oh, alright then. If you are C-rank, you should be able to handle protecting the caravan. Besides, we have hired a few more adventurers already, so you won't have to do everything by yourselves if we get attacked." (merchant)
He was seriously underestimating us, wasn't he?
'No, bad instincts, I do not need to start a fight with him.'
"What's your name? I'm Nix Vulpes." (Nix)
"Ah, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. You can call me Hander. I'm the one in charge of this caravan." (merchant)
"My name is Dragonfly." (Dragonfly)
With the introductions out of the way, I was fairly eager to go do my job without having to talk to anyone other than Nix. Social interactions with strangers were just exhausting, really. There was no way to know what someone truly wanted under their polite appearance.
Nix and Camity were an exception to that, of course. I could actually trust them not to backstab me.
"Oh, the other adventurers that we hired are currently over there, by the way. You should go greet them." (Hander)
Great, more talking. I was already beggining to regret taking this mission. Thankfully, I was able to push through the discomfort and headed to where Hander had directed us.
There was a party of three male elves sitting down on a couple crates. Their outfits seemed designed to be as stereotypical as possible. The warrior was wearing light leather armor and carrying a sword that looked too rge to be practical, the mage was wearing robes that were way longer than what is practical and the cleric had so many holy symbols in his clothes that I wondered how they could even fit. To be fair with them, it wasn't like Nix wasn't wearing a cssic witch outfit.
I decided to just let Nix do most of the talking.
"Hello!" (Nix)
"Run along kids, this isn't a good pce to py." (warrior)
First, we were 13, not 5 years old. Treating us like small children was just rude.
"Hey, we aren't here to py!" (Nix)
Unfortunately, Nix's pout didn't help those annoying adventurers take her seriously.
"Come on kids, move along. You shouldn't be here." (mage)
"We are adventurers! We are here for the quest." (Nix)
When the mage stood up to try to get us to leave, I was ready to show him what happens to people who insult Nix and me. I was about to speak up when the elf slipped and fell straight to the ground due to an inconspicuous yer of ice under his boots.
Now, sure, I may or may not have had an idea as to who was responsible, but those three sure didn't. Unfortunately, I kind of had to intervene as I didn't want a certain fox to prank people we had to work with too badly.
"We are both C-rank adventurers. We are here for the mission." (Dragonfly)
By some miracle, I managed to stay calm and show them my Guild card without letting my annoyance show through. For some reason, however, those elves seemed to think that if was fake and ignored it.
"This is serious business kids, go bother someone else." (cleric)
That was the st straw. Who did they think they were? No, seriously, it was fine the first time, but what part of us being adventurers did they not get? I was unable to hide how angry I was at that moment.
Surprisingly enough, they backed off as soon as I showed my annoyance.
"A-alright, it's fine, you can stay." (mage)
"Y-yeah, what he said." (warrior)
That was nice, but why had they reacted like they were scared? Oh. My "Dragon of Camity" title had an effect that helped with intimidation, didn't it? That was useful, so I decided to just use it next time I had to deal with annoying fools.
Unfortunately, the other adventurers seemed to have decided that they should stay as far away from us as possible, so we were unable to properly introduce ourselves to them. Oh well, I didn't mind that much. I just settled in a wagon near the back of the caravan with Nix and waited for us to get moving.