Homesteading in a fantasy world

As I walked to the quest hall, the implications of getting Arabella to be in my company started to truly sink in. While she's still rank two, she has incredible potential.

Of course, the best part is that I need to do a lot less time-consuming management stuff. If I were in her shoes, I think I'd accept that trade. Getting out from under people who wanted to kill you, even if they weren't willing to do it openly, was worth doing some paperwork.

The first thing I did in the quest hall was pick up my assigned quests, but all of them were worth just one contribution point. They weren’t the worst quests but also not the best, and would take some time to complete.

Currently, what I was looking for was something quick I could do that others wouldn't want simply because they didn’t have Goose, who could fly them quickly to the edge of this fort's territory.

I looked in disappointment towards the crowd of people as they acted like animals, trying to trade with each other and trying to get new and better quests for themselves.

Going closer didn’t change my mind. I thoroughly dislike the whole situation. I kinda wish things would be a bit more civilized, but this is not my fort, so who am I to say how things should be run?

The quests that were being offered by the quest hall workers were actually quite good, but the bidding war to get one of those was quite competitive. It also looked like rivals would purposely try to raise the price of any quest so whoever receives it would get less overall compensation.

There were also quite desperate people in the crowd trying to sell the quests assigned to them that were less than optimal for their team setups.

Those people almost seemed like sharks in a swarm of smaller fish. There was an area around them that was always clear of people. Some of the quests they were trying to sell off made even me wince.

They were waving the papers around, so sometimes I caught a glimpse of what was written on them. One was to kill a mole-type beast. I could just imagine how hard it would be to find and actually kill one of those.

My curiosity about these quests, which were so disliked that people actively avoided those trying to trade them, actually helped me find a perfect quest for myself. It was another bird-type creature extermination quest and seemed to be worth 5 contribution points.

"You there, with the blue helmet and the bird extermination quest, come here!" I projected my voice, aiming mainly at the person I wanted to hear, but those nearest to him also looked towards me.

The person I was addressing looked towards me, confusion in his eyes. Then, a spark of hope was lit in those eyes, and he began to push himself through the crowd, which parted for him until he made it in front of me. "Show me the quest," I said to him, and he quickly showed me the quest slip.

It was as I expected. Another bird-type monster had collected itself a flock, this time a little closer to the Fort but still too dangerous and difficult for most guilds to handle.

"A medium Mythryl coin and I will take this off your hands," my words made the man stop smiling. Desperation returned to his eyes. "Wait, no, what? You want me to pay you to take this quest, and so much? That's too unreasonable?"

"That's the offer; you aren’t going to get any better ones." He obviously didn't want to pay me so much, but it was a quest that almost no one wanted to do and something his team definitely wouldn’t be able to finish by themselves.

"Fine then, take it," he said while handing me the quest slip and producing a medium Mythryl coin. I took them both and made them disappear into my tattoo storage.

Fortunately, it only took about half an hour to finish getting what I needed from the quest hall, so I returned to the company headquarters. There, I found Arabella trying to convince Goose to take her with him when we were going to fly back to Connection.

"Goose, it's time to go. We have a mission to do. It involves more fighting and it's against flying creatures." After I finished saying that, Goose looked questioningly towards Arabella. "No, she won’t be joining us on this mission, and it won’t be a long one."

Those seemed to be the magic words, as Goose seemed to move faster than he ever had before in a building, and I only had enough time to wave Arabella goodbye as she stood dumbly in place, not understanding what had happened.

She truly was a bit rusty, but nothing that some good training wouldn’t fix. That made me smile. One thing that was good was that she had excellent gear, and I wouldn’t need to make anything for her. The flight didn't take too long, especially because Goose was getting better and better at managing the extra weight of me. It was good training for him.

The fight was a lot easier than the last time. This time, the rank three flock leader didn't have any cold-type abilities, only wind ones, and it wasn't stronger than Gooses. Honestly, it was a joke of a fight, and Goose let out some of the frustrations of not getting a good fight by hunting down almost all of the birds who were in the flock.

The whole mission took about seven hours. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything interesting along the way, not even some interesting beast to fight. It seems that this pathway was a bit more used as it seemed to lead towards the mountains where, if I remember correctly, there were some mining outposts.

It was already dark when we made it back, so Goose and I slept on the ground floor while Arabella slept in the cleaned-up room she had made for herself while staying here.

The next morning, before Goose woke up, I went and turned in the quest. I got a bit of money from the quest, but it wasn’t going to change much. I would still be a long way off from affording the best of the best wagons.

While I was gone, Goose had woken up, and somehow Arabella had managed to convince him to take her with us to Connection. I had hoped she would be able to convince him. This way, things became simpler.

Outside of the fort, we mounted up. "Climb behind me and hold on tight; Goose can accelerate quite fast," I said to Arabella, who quickly climbed up and held on tight to me. I gave the signal to Goose, and he quickly started to fly upwards.

I enjoyed the acceleration, and it looked like Arabella did as well. Then Goose communicated with me, wondering why Arabella weighed so little because he had expected he would need to struggle a lot more.

I had hoped that Goose would connect those dots, but he was quite clever, which I actually liked, but right now, it was a bit detrimental. Goose never liked flying with heavy loads, and honestly, he could easily handle my weight and not be bothered if I wasn’t making myself weigh more when he was flying with me.

Perhaps it was not a nice thing to do, but because of this, he has been constantly getting stronger. While he did say that he wanted to train similarly to how I did, he wasn't really into it.

He did the bare minimum, so I think it’s just better to keep him in the dark for now. I communicated back to him using our bond, "It’s an elf race thing; they just weigh less." A small little white lie to make him stronger. I hope he won't be too mad at me when he finds out.

Flying with Goose was incredibly convenient, so we made it to Connection way faster than anyone would if they were walking or even running. When we made it to the company compound, it was basically the same as before. I was pleased to find that four people were currently inside and were taking their guard duties seriously.

"Rich, you're already back and with company?" The person guarding the front door asked. "Only for a moment. This is Arabella; she's a new member of the company and currently holds the position of Vice Commander."

His eyes went wide at that statement. "What, how, and why? Actually, never mind, I don’t want to know." I smiled at him while we walked past and patted him on the shoulder.

I showed Arabella a bit of the place and introduced her to the rest of the members who are currently here. Apparently, the rest of the members had gone on a mission to kill some beast and should be back in a few days.

They were working fast, but I like that. "Okay, now that you've had your tour, let's go to United Freeholds so you can go and register yourself as a citizen, and I can find out how strong Francis actually is."