I learned quickly that Arsted was true to his word. I spoke with guards and people at the guild. Not one of them had anything bad to say about him. They vouched for his identity as a Demon, along with his trustworthiness. It seems he is well known in many regions.

  I also learned there were three Demon clans, with the Zoderia tribe being the biggest one in Dracaena. Like humans, there were good and bad demons. I was surprised to not see any prejudice against them. At least here, maybe it was different in another city or nation. Whatever, so long as we could get our families back.

  “All right let’s have our first team meeting,” I said. We were in our room. Arsted booked a room in the same inn as us. Luckily, his room was next door. “Firstly, we need to keep taking jobs to get enough money to hire someone to find the prisoners from Alcion.”

  “I know someone who is good at finding people,” Arsted said.

  “Great! So, all we need to do is focus on getting money, right?” Renna asked.

  “About that, right now there aren’t many good jobs that pay well. Arsted, do you know why that is? I would assume a fortress like this would have lots of high-paying jobs,” I said.

  “Hmm, that is likely due to the focus on military recruitment. The military has been taking care of most monster threats in the area. There hasn’t been anything big of late either way.”

  “Which brings us to our next problem. Most of the jobs are looking for missing people. I’m all for helping find people, but I’m no tracker. The monetary rewards aren’t worth the time it would take us to find someone, assuming we ever did.”

  “What are we going to do?” Renna said.

  “Let me talk to my contact. I’m sure they’ll take a portion of the payment upfront and the rest when your families are found,” Arsted said.

  “That doesn’t sound cheap,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be able to afford it. As for the money problem, there was a mana storm near Mahl that created a dungeon. That would be the best way to make some money,” Arsted said.

  My parents told me about their dungeon dives when they were adventurers. From what I recall, dungeons created by mana storms had lots of valuable items. From crystals to magic items or weapons. With a newly-formed dungeon, there would likely be other adventurers interested. It was risky, because a new dungeon meant nobody knew how dangerous it was.

  Normally that would worry me. If we didn’t have Arsted, I wouldn’t go. Watching Arsted fight was something else; he could probably solo almost any dungeon based on his speed and strength. Sure, he’d killed six criminals who likely weren’t very strong but only a blind person wouldn’t have seen how strong Arsted was. I didn’t know what rank I’d equate him to, but he surely had to be at least Sentinel. Since I’d never seen a Sentinel or higher in action, I couldn’t say for sure.

  “What if another party gets all the treasure first?” Renna asked.

  “Dungeons are large. Nobody can get all the treasures in one trip, let alone three. I wouldn’t worry about it,” Arsted said.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “The only question is the danger,” I said.

  “Don’t be such a worrywart. We have Arsted with us, we’ll be fine!” Renna said.

  “We’ll be fine. I’ll be sure to keep you both safe, I swear with my life.”

  “See? What else do you need?” Renna said.

  Arsted could be the strongest warrior on the planet. That didn’t mean he could keep us safe all the time. Battles were unpredictable. All it would take was a second and one of us could get injured or worse. That wasn’t going to stop me. We were going to be putting our lives on the line no matter where we went.

  “Okay, let’s do it. Arsted, go talk to your contact. Renna and I will stay here until you return.”

  “Very well.”

  With that, our first team meeting came to an end. Not the most exciting meeting. At least we had a plan. I won’t lie, going to a dungeon made me a little nervous. If the rewards were as good as Arsted said, then it was worth the risk.

  “What did your parents tell you about dungeons?” I asked.

  “My parents loved going into unknown dungeons. They told me one of their main goals was to find mana storms and see if a dungeon was formed. If there was, they’d go right in.”

  “My father once told me the more dangerous a dungeon, the better the treasure.”

  “It’s true. It’s not always worth the risk. My father lost a couple of fingers, and my mother has a nasty scar on her back.”

  My parents hadn’t taken any serious injuries from dungeons. Then again, Zena was a healer. That must have made dungeon dives more worth it. My parents didn’t talk much about dungeons when they were adventurers. The main one they talked about was how they met, with Damon saving Zena’s life.

  It was a shame I couldn’t ask either of them about dungeons. The next thing we would need to do was get supplies. If Arsted was giving his contact some money, he must be doing it with his own money because he left without us giving him anything.

  If that was the case, we’d owe him. We already owed him for saving our lives. So long as Arsted didn’t mind, I wasn’t going to tell him not to. I’d be sure to pay him back in the end. I wasn’t one to leave a debt unpaid after all.

  I walked up to the window and looked toward North Ornea. Across the ocean, not even a day’s boat ride away was North Ornea. Somewhere, my family was imprisoned or being sold as slaves. It made me feel guilty because here I was, staying in a comfortable inn, eating decent food, and doing jobs as an adventurer.

  Stop it, you know this is how it must be. If I go running into Ornea without help, I’ll get us killed. Don’t forget that.

  Hopefully Arsted’s tracker was good and could find them in a reasonable amount of time. If the tracker did, maybe we could have our families back within the year. It was a hopeful thought, one I wanted to cling to. For now, I needed to focus on the dungeon. Worrying about my family wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I needed to be one hundred percent focused, or else I could get myself or Renna killed.

  Arsted didn’t return until nightfall. He knocked on our door. Renna opened the door and let him in.

  “He accepted the job. I was also able to get us two horses.”

  “What?” Renna and I said at the same time.

  My first thought was, how much did Arsted pay to get two horses? It made me feel guilty and thankful at the same time. That would make our journey to the dungeon much quicker.

  “I should reiterate that I’m borrowing the horses. We’ll have to return them after the dungeon.”

  That made me feel less guilty. It was good to know there were people who would lend horses. Perhaps it was something I should focus on finding, surely, it’d be a lot cheaper than buying.

  “How far is the dungeon?” I asked.

  “About a three-days ride.”

  “Well, thanks. We owe you for this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Are we planning on leaving tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, unless Renna wants to wait a little longer?” I couldn’t help teasing her since I knew she wanted to go into a dungeon more than anyone.

  “Ha ha, very funny,” Renna said and poked me in the ribs. I hated it when she did that. “We leave bright and early!”

  “Understood. You two should get some sleep. I’ll be ready when you are.”

  “Sounds good, see you in the morning,” I said. Arsted left and it was back to me and Renna.

  “See you tomorrow, Thorian,” Renna said and crawled into her bed.

  I was more than happy to do the same. Though I hadn’t done much today, I was extremely tired. All the planning and stressing how to do things was exhausting. Even though I was tired, I couldn’t help tossing and turning. It was a restless night, and in the morning, we left for the dungeon.