The expedition’s staging area was more chaotic than Alice had imagined it being – even though everyone knew what they were doing and where they were supposed to be, the sheer number of people involved still surprised her. Alice wandered around, since she had nothing to do, and wondered if there was some sort of task that required her assistance. Most of the people around here were simply helping to load up the covered wagons, with a plethora of Perks on display making the process safer, faster, and more efficient. Alice noted that there was less food than she had been expecting – and that, occasionally, a box of rations next to one of a few select people would simply vanish into thin air. Alice wondered if she was finally getting a glimpse of what a Perk that stored items looked like – she still hadn’t tried used her own {Sample Collection} yet, beyond confirming that it allowed her to store items as intended.

All right, for the expedition, I need to keep an eye out for monster eggs – I still want to test to see if monsters have any sort of ‘mana baptism’ or not, and having some spidercrab eggs might be a way to test for that. Not a conclusive one, but it might still be useful for generating more experiments later. Apart from that, I want to keep an eye on whatever is found near the place I arrived – while most people think that the Society of Starry Eyes summoned me here, there are also a lot of strange points about my arrival, and so it’s best to see if I can find out anything. Third, I want to see if I can get the second tier of the {Monster Slayer} Achievement – according to the Church’s records, the second tier requires 25 kills. I hunted 1-2 Spidercrabs a week while I was in the wilderness, and I was there for about 105 – ish days. That means, realistically, I hunted somewhere between 15 and 30 spidercrabs during my time there – but obviously below 25, because I didn’t get the second tier of the Achievement. I think it should have been 22 or so, but I’ll assume it was as low as 20, potentially. Anyway, I should be pretty close to the next stage, and there are no special requirements for the strength of each monster for the first three tiers of the Achievement. Finally, I should keep an eye out for potential danger – the Sigmusi Colonia’s agents might be skulking about, and with how much fanfare the Expedition is leaving with, I don’t doubt for a second that there’s some danger of them making a move. Come to think of it, the Expedition is taking along a good chunk of the town’s Mages and guards as well – is the town itself vulnerable? Well, Illa probably has some sort of plan for that – it’s not my place to worry about it.

Apart from that, I want to collect more information about the source of mana from my food experiment, and see if I can introduce myself to some of the other mages on the Expedition.

Alice nodded to herself, confirming her personal objectives in the expedition. After that, she started looking around, checking to see if she could spot any other people wearing the mage insignia on any jewelry. Illa had told her that she was to start working on becoming a more ‘public figure’ starting with the expedition, and had given her some more specific instructions for what Illa was looking for. In short, it wasn’t a problem if it was known Alice was learning from Illa, or that she was staying in Illa’s mansion right now – others would probably just assume Illa wanted some levels in [Teacher]. Even if they figured out that Alice was being paid to show her face around town, it actually wasn’t a huge problem – their reputation would be at risk regardless, as long as Alice’s hidden guard (who she had never seen, nor met) didn’t come to light. And, obviously, it also showed that Alice valued whatever Illa was providing her over the potential risk of staying in the south, which still displayed Alice’s confidence in the idea that Illa could protect her.

Since Alice hadn’t met the other mages in the town yet, she thought now would be a good time to introduce herself. Since she was expected to start ‘publically appearing,’ making some headway now would only make her job easier in the future?

It didn’t take her too long to find another mage. A man, perhaps in his early thirties, was wearing a copper mage insignia on a bracelet. Alice absently fingered her own silver mage insignia, provided by Illa’s maid last week to replace Alice’s stone insignia, and then stepped forward.

“Hello!” She said, trying her best to suppress her nerves.

The man turned towards her, before his eyes flicked to her wrist and then back to her face.

“Oh? I don’t believe I know you – ah, are you the new mage in town? I had heard there was someone new who came South and got mixed up in some sort of mess involving the Sigmusi hunting order. And something about Erik being confirmed dead? Damn shame. He was a good man. Glad to see that at least you’re unharmed. I’m Milo. Nice to meet you,” said the man, extending his hand towards her. Alice shook his hand, noting that even for an adult on this world, his grip was firm and strong. His body was also decently solidly – built, much more muscular than the average man. “So what brings a little lass like you on the expedition? That IS what you’re here for, right?”

“Ah, I…” Alice frowned. Now that she thought about it, Illa hadn’t actually told her if she had some sort of ‘backstory’ she was supposed to stick to around town. Obviously, saying she was an {Outworlder} was right out – on the slim chance the Society of Starry Eyes didn’t know about her, Alice had no reason to call their attention towards her. Perhaps Alice wasn’t supposed to rush into her first encounter like this? What if she messed up?

No, Alice needed to get used to working on her own a little. She couldn’t run back to Illa every time she had a question, and as long as she didn’t explicitly lie, it wouldn’t be too big of a problem either way. Alice just needed to avoid tripping any lie-detection Perks.

“I have some interest in the area we’re going to be studying,” said Alice. “I want to see if I can figure out more of what it’s like and what exactly caused it to form, and that means I need to go on the expedition. Apart from that, hoping to grab a few Achievements and levels, and it’s way safer moving as a group than individually.”

“Makes sense. Trying to get some levels in [Scholar] or [Adventurer] or something?” The man shrugged. “Anyway, if you’re looking for something to do, I wouldn’t mind a little help loading up some of the wagons. No sense in just standing around if there’s work to be done, right?” He gave her an easy grin.

“Sure!” Alice extended a few mana tendrils, picking up some boxes as she helped to load some of them onto the wagons. It was with some curiosity that she noted the man did pick up some boxes with his mana, but also did some of the work by hand, as well. The man looked at her, and, seeming to notice her curious gaze, hefted the box in his hands for extra emphasis.

“No sense in wasting too much mana, right? Gotta keep some for monsters if we run into any. Some of them are smart enough to avoid attacking big groups of humans, but some of them just charge right towards whatever the densest clump of mana in their surroundings is. Considering how much more densely packed mana is in the average living creature, especially humans, compared to the air around us, that means we’re going to be fighting a bunch of real stupid critters soon.” He gave her a grin. “Besides, I might as well pick up a level or two in [Laborer] if I can, right? It’s still one of my primary classes, after all.”

“Huh.” Alice… hadn’t expected to see a mage with a [Laborer] class at all, actually. The very idea struck her as bizarre – she was used to thinking of mages as people with long, pointy beards who sat in their towers researching, or people like Illa who could double as artillery. The idea of a Mage [Laborer] just struck her as… bizarre.

“How about you? What brings you on the expedition? Also, why [Laborer]?”

“I’m here because the pay is good!” The man laughed, as he loaded another crate. Taking a page from his book, Alice also began picking up boxes and loading them with just her physical strength. No harm in a bit of Stats training. “Besides, we’ll be travelling with Illa. As far as safety goes, I’m willing to bet that being within a few hundred meters of Illa is the safest place in Cyra right now. The woman is crazy strong, after all. Much better than getting my throat slit at night.

“As for why [Laborer]… well, I figured you also went through baptism instead of being born a mage, right? You act way too close to your physical age to be a ‘born’ mage, since most mages have a 10-20% reduction in aging speed. Around a quarter of the mages in Illvaria are baptized instead of born – and just like everyone else, we can only change one class every five years. In short, if you have some classes from a job you scraped by in previously, it’s only natural that you’ll still have some of the old classes laying around, right?” The man gave her a friendly grin. “Why? What do your classes look like? If you don’t mind telling me, at least.”

Mages get a 10-20% reduction in aging speed? What? Alice didn’t think anyone had told her about this before. On the other hand, there were plenty of things that might just seem like common sense to the people here, and so they wouldn’t bother mentioning it – much like how, on Earth, most people would just assume that everyone above a certain age knew that people breathed oxygen or that 2 + 2 = 4, Illa had probably just outright forgotten that Alice wouldn’t know this particular detail.

The fact that mages in particular got a huge bonus to aging speed reduction was fascinating, though – it was a possible reason her age remained firmly stuck at ‘15’ in her Status screen, even though she had turned 16 multiple weeks ago, and also gave a possible hint about why Immortals existed in this world. Or it might just be related to the way the System evaluated people, or something.

“My class composition is… personal. But they’re geared towards magic now, as well as a few other things. I’m probably going to grab [Enchanter] soon too.” Said Alice, neglecting to mention her [Survivor] class at all. “I also haven’t interacted with mages too much, but it’s my first time really getting to know another mage that was baptized. It’s good to know that we’re a bit more common than I had been thinking we were.” Especially with a survival rate of 4%. A whole quarter of mages in this country are baptized with that kind of survival rate? What the hell?

The man frowned a bit, his expression darkening. “There are a lot of kids, like me, who need to feed themselves and don’t have the resources. There are orphanages in some bigger cities, but they’re always understaffed and don’t have enough resources to go around. And frankly, most of them just can’t take care of all the kids on the streets. I have a sister to take care of, and [Laborer] just wasn’t paying for food and shelter when I was just 11 years old and didn’t have the Levels and Stats to do good work. Since I figured I had no way to feed my sister, I took a gamble and succeeded. Afterwards, I signed up for a mage academy, did my time in the army, and now I’m here.” The man smiled a little. When his expression softened, he looked younger than someone in his early thirties. “The mage academies are real good at taking care of the family of those who survive a baptism – it’s part of what they’re there to do, after all. Instead of seeing my little sister starve to death, I got to see her well fed, clothed, and happy. It was painful and risky, but it was worth it.”

“You went to one of the mage academies? What was it like?” Alice was genuinely curious, now – it had seemed like a topic that was too personal to bring up with Illa, but Milo seemed much more… approachable. “I’ve heard that nobles can be really petty and mean towards commoners. Is that true for mages as well? I would think that spending time in an academy with them might really suck.” Granted, Alice had mostly heard of petty nobles from stories at home, but lady Vallis’s behavior when Alice had arrived certainly hadn’t dispelled her opinion of nobles.

“That’s mostly crazy rumors – I kind of expected the same thing when I got there, actually, but it’s not that bad. You have to keep in mind that Mages are the lifeblood of the kingdom – and a quarter of those mages are newly baptized, which means they usually come from the lowest rungs of society. Slum-kids like me are the ones that usually get desperate enough to try for a baptism. Even then, while mages have a higher chance of having mage children, the odds are still pretty low. Most mages come from the common – class, and nobles need mages to help enrich and control their territories. Any noble house that makes an enemy out of all ‘commoners’ are also making an enemy of most common-born mages. And any noble house that does that is unlikely to have an easy time recruiting more mages, and so they’ll seriously struggle in the future. So most nobles adhere pretty closely to the idea that ‘mages’ are a social class of their own. Somewhere above commoners, but below nobles, basically. No one mage is super important to a noble house unless they’re high level, but the class as a whole is still critical to a noble house’s future.

“When I was in school, most nobles treated me… politely. They weren’t subservient or anything – their social status was still above mine, and I could definitely feel that in some places. Still, they didn’t rub my face in it, and they weren’t unkind. Just… distant. I wasn’t a very promising mage, either, so they just didn’t interact with me much.” Milo shrugged. “It wasn’t bad, honestly.”

“Huh.” Alice frowned, thinking over Milo’s words. They were surprisingly logical. The nobles of this world seemed pragmatic, despite what her first impressions had led her to believe. On the other hand, there was a reason Vallis was exiled to be an underling in a mage’s territory, after all. Perhaps she was just an outlier. “Thanks. That’s good to know.”

“Why do you ask? Were you thinking about joining one of the academies or something?” Asked Milo as he set another crate down on one of the wagons, and the crate vanished into thin air as a [Travelling Merchant] extended his hand towards the crate. Alice noted, with some curiosity, that the mana inside of the [Travelling Merchant]’s body lightly stirred and changed color right as he activated the skill, before reverting back to its previous color right as the crate disappeared. She put it into the back of her mind for now – another observation to add to the list. Alice turned her attention back to the conversation.

“Not right now – I want to stay in Cyra for a little longer. I was mostly curious because lady Vallis is a little…”

The man frowned. “She doesn’t seem too bad, although I admit I haven’t interacted with her much. Did you catch her on a bad day or something?”

Alice shrugged. “Who knows. I don’t want to think about it anymore. She isn’t coming on the expedition, is she?”

“No, she isn’t – claimed it would be too dangerous for her, and made a bunch of excuses. After that, she launched into a big speech about how the fact the expedition is happening at all is a sign of how incompetent Illa is, because splitting our defenses like this when the Sigmusi Empire is active is just asking to die. A couple [Orators] started arguing her down in public, and I hear she got really mad about it and started arguing with them until all of them were fined for being a public nuisance.” The man shrugged. “None of my business. Still, she doesn’t seem too bright, all things considered. Even the other mages that want to leave wouldn’t denounce Illa so publicly – she’s a semi-famous war hero, after all. Not a good target to try to incite public outrage against.”

“Huh. Good to know,” said Alice, as she dropped another crate of supplies into one of the wagons. She turned back towards the pile of crates, only to find that it was empty now. She turned back towards Milo. “Does this mean we’re done?”

“I think it does. We should be departing soon.” The man looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you want to ride in one of the wagons with me? It can be pretty intimidating to talk to the other mages if you don’t know anyone, and you haven’t been too publicly available ever since your baptism. There are plenty of rumors swirling around about you, you know? If you want, I could give you an introduction to the rest of the mages tagging along for the expedition. There are a decent number of us, and plenty of us want to get to know you a little better. Besides, having someone to talk to would be fun.”

“Sure! I’d love to have someone to chat with,” said Alice, doing her best to mime enthusiasm. In truth, she honestly would have preferred to read or conduct research – but both of those would be hard to do in a (presumably) bumpy wagon ride. Having someone to chat with wouldn’t hurt, and introducing herself to the other mages wouldn’t be a bad idea – since Illa was paying her a huge amount of time and some money to do a job, Alice would do that job.

Milo led her to one of the wagons, and the two of them hopped on board. Alice looked out of one of the slits in the side of the wagon, and noted with some curiosity that several of the people who had helped to load the wagons weren’t actually coming with the expedition – instead, they quickly leaving the area. In total, there were seven actual wagons leaving for the expedition – Illa, along with her maid, were boarding one of the wagons. A few other people, some of whom were wearing armor and some of whom were wearing guard uniforms, also got into the wagons. Finally, every wagon had a driver, as well as a guard riding alongside of them in the front of the wagon. As two guards squeezed into the wagon with them, Alice noticed that each wagon had around 6-7 people in it. In total, there were around 40 people on the expedition, give or take a few. It was a bit larger than Alice had been expecting – however, Illa had seemed to take the potential threat of the Society of Starry Eyes very seriously. Furthermore, Illa had hinted at the massive bubble of Broken Mana being close to the town potentially being a problem as well. The wagons each also contained a large amount of supplies, with an extra, unknown amount stashed in a variety of storage-related Perks.

With a jolt, the carriage set into motion. Milo and Alice were silent, and Alice watched out of the back of the covered wagon as Cyra slowly began to fade into the distance and the group set forth into the wilderness.

At last, the expedition had begun.