CHAPTER 12: MERCHANT CARAVAN

**A few days ago**

Back in yellowwood town a few days after the guys had left for the forest, a large caravan of people arrived.

The caravan consisted of over 70 large and small carriages and wagons and there were several merchants among them.

There were over 300 people in the group including the travellers, merchants, and the adventurers hired to protect them. There were even several beasts walking next to the caravan.

Most of the carriages were pulled by horses but there were some that were being pulled by tamed tier 1 and 2 monsters.

This group was on its way to a city and had decided to stop here for a few days.

The merchants set up several stalls to display their goods while the commoners rented inns and waited for the merchants to continue their journey so that they can follow along as they couldn’t hire their own adventurers for protection.

The atmosphere in the town grew much livelier with the arrival of the merchant caravan and they were warmly received by the townspeople.

The inns’ business was booming and the merchants sold several wares from the outside that were not sold in the shops in Yellowwood town such as local ingredients for food and alchemy from other places.

Of course, the merchants would not bring out their most precious goods out right now; those were for when they got to the city.

But the people would be happy as long as they took out even their most common goods.

“Hey brother Tom you were here as well?”

“Yeah, my wife made me came to the market to get some supplies for home. What about you?” Tom, the middle aged town guard replied to his younger colleague and asked him a question.

“Ah, I just came to see what our merchant guests were selling.” Tim replied

“I see, and? Did you find anything you needed?” Tom asked another question.

“Oh, they were selling a lot of rare items. They had weapons, armours, rare metals, ingredients for alchemy, high grade potions… There was even some really cool stuff like the higher tiered spell scrolls we can’t find here, ornaments made of cold iron, magic grystals, weapons made of...”

“…” Tom soon realised he had made a mistake by asking Bin that question.

He excitedly started telling him about the merchants’ stores and seemed as if he were going to talk about each and every single one of their items and even continued talking about it as they walked around.

‘What did I just get myself into? Tom thought to himself as he made a mental note not to ask Bin such questions in the future.

**Back to our boys**

The four of them had packed up their stuff and set out early in the morning again today.

They advanced much quicker than when they were entering the forest as they weren’t held back by the luggage they carried. And they had also completed their tier promotion, so they could move much faster.

“I wonder how the guild has been doing when we were gone.” Hikivi said as they walked through the forest.

They had walked through almost half the outer perimeter of the forest without stopping and had started to talk about random things as it was getting pretty boring.

Moreover, the strongest monster in the area would only be a 1st tier monster which they could easily take on.

“Man, why are you worried about them, they have adventurers stronger than us there you know?” Titus rolled his eyes at Hikivi as he asked a question himself.

“I just… miss them, you know?” Hikivi smiled as he continued walking.

“Yeah right, it’s the receptionists there you miss isn’t it?” Yimso who was walking in front, turned back and retorted immediately, breaking into a grin.

“!!!” Hikivi tripped his legs at those words, almost falling down.

“Alright, it is the receptionists that I miss. Hehe.” Hikivi scratched his hair after he steadied himself.

“Hahaha…” Everyone laughed as Hikivi admitted it.

“Wait, be quiet.” Suddenly, Puvi told the rest to be quiet and closed his eyes. He seemed to be concentrating on something. He had his hands on the hilt of his sword and looked as if he were ready to counter an attack.

The others immediately shut up and started looking around but they could not see anything odd.

“What happened?” Yimso asked Puvi after seeing him open his eyes again.

“Do you hear that?” Puvi turned his head and looked at Yimso as he questioned.

“What? Hear what… Everyone get ready.” Yimso seemed to be at a loss at first but suddenly told them to get ready as he tensed up.

“What happened?” Hikivi asked as he too tensed up.

“I don’t hear anything. It’s too quiet.” Yimso replied back as he looked around.

Hikivi and Titus too became serious at those words. Hikivi looked around while Titus closed his eyes and clapped his palms together which caused a light breeze to blow in all directions with him in the middle.

He did this a few times and seemed to be concentrating on something but soon stopped and turned to face Yimso.

“I… didn’t sense anything.” Titus said.

“Huh?” Yimso creased his brows.

“There was nothing… No living creature in a radius of at least 100 meters.” Titus continued, his face turning even grimmer as he said so.

“What!” Yimso was shocked. He knew that if there were no other creature in the area, a stronger predator must be close by.

But if there was no living creatures in a radius of a hundred meters, then there must be something else going on.

“What did you notice?” Yimso turned to Puvi and asked.

“I just… suddenly felt like someone was watching me. Even my ‘exquisite sense’ was automatically turned on, but the feeling disappeared immediately as quickly as it appeared.” Puvi shook his head, saying he had no clue either.

“Le- let’s keeps moving then.” Yimso said nervously, “Should be a better idea than staying here.”

No one disagreed with his suggestion. They all nodded their heads in agreement and continued moving forward; although a little slower than before as they were still cautious of whatever they had encountered before.

*****

Around half an hour later, which felt much longer to them, they finally started to relax as they started to hear the sounds of the forest again; the insects and birds chirping, flapping of wings from birds, small critters rushing about, the usual.

These sounds that they usually didn’t think much of suddenly sounded heavenly to them after the previous death like silence.

“Whew, at least the forest is back to normal.” Hikivi said as he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, it may only seem like it for now… And maybe whatever it was before is still watching us, waiting to make us put our guard down and bam; it attacks us by surprise and…”

Yimso: “…”

Puvi: “…”

Hikivi: “…”

Titus: “… guys? W-what happened?”

Titus suddenly stopped speaking and asked when he noticed his friends were looking at him angrily and looked as if they were going to launch an attack on him.

Hikivi: “…Fuck you, that’s what!”

Puvi: “Just, shut up for a moment…”

Yimso: “Try not to jinx us with those theories of yours would you!”

Titus: “…”

They all snapped at once. They were already looking out for any signs of danger and he had suddenly said such scary things so they immediately made him shut up, afraid it would actually come true.

“Uh… hehe, got a little carried away there. Sorry.” Titus nervously apologised as he wiped the cold sweat on his forehead.

**A few hours later**

Thankfully, Tito’s prediction did not come true as they safely made their way out of the forest with little to no trouble.

They faced several monsters that dared to approach them, including an adult rock chimp that decided to fall on them for whatever reason, but it was knocked out with a punch from Yimso as he happened to be just below it.

Yimso’s punch hit it right on its chest and sent it flying and slammed heavily on a big tree a dozen meters away.

Its chest was where it had the thickest layer of rock armour on, but with Yimso’s recently increased strength coupled with the velocity from the fall, leaving aside the layer of rocks, even the bones were shattered as it died almost immediately.

Its chest had caved in completely, looking horrifying with blood and flesh flowing out and the bones sticking out of it.

Amongst the monsters they hunted were 3 elite rank monsters. It seemed to be true that there has been an increase of strong monsters appearing close to the town as elite rank monsters were rare in the outer perimeter of the forest but they had hunted as many as three of them.

And coupled with their experience with the mysterious ‘entity’ they encountered in the forest, they could not help but worry.

“We’re out!!” Hikivi shouted out as soon as he stepped out of the forest.

“Whooo!!” Yimso joined in as well.

“Seriously, I have no idea what you two are so excited about. We only just got out of a forest.” Puvi shook his head and chucked as he looked at his two friends who were getting excited for no reason.

“…”

*****

Before getting close to the town, they took out their bags from the inventory space and started walking again with them.

They did this because other people in this world don’t get an inventory space from the system and they did not want people to know about their system being different yet, if ever.

“Hey, were back!” Yimso shouted as they got closer to the entrance of Yellowwood town.

“Welcome back, brats!” Tom shouted back as well. “Why are you kids back so fast? I thought you were planning to stay a little longer this time?” He asked curiously as he looked at them.

“We just happened to come across a den of goblins, first thing after we crossed the outer perimeters of the forest” Yimso said he recalled the time when they discovered the goblin den for the first time.

“A goblin den huh? How big was it?” Bin asked curiously as well.

“We thought there would be around 40 of them at maximum, but there turned out to be over 60 of the little fuckers inside.” Hikivi took over and told him.

“There were how many?! ‘You thought there were 40 but there turned out to be over 60’?” Bin exclaimed in surprise.

“Be it 40 or 60 of them, that isn’t a number that 1st tiers can deal with. It was a wise choice to escape, or you might have even died instead.” Tom slowly nodded his head as he commended them for their actions.

“Uh? Oh no, we actually ‘kind of’ decided to attack them instead.” Yimso said laughing awkwardly.

“And we even wiped them out.” Titus added with a nod. “It was very exciting.”

“Pffft… You brats did what?!” Tom almost chocked when he heard what they said.

“You wiped out a den… of ‘60’ goblins alone? As a party of 4 1st tiers? Bin exclaimed in shock as well.

“Oh, and there were 3 hobgoblins and a goblin shaman leading them. And we all reached tier 2 after the fight as well!” Hikivi added from the side.

“’Kind of decided to attack them’ my ass, ‘it was exciting’ my ass, ‘3 hobgoblins and a shaman’ my ass. You know what, I’m done with this. You brats are just too much to handle. Tom said exhaustedly as he rubbed his temples with one hand.

“Well, did anything happen here?” Yimso asked as he looked at the large crowd gathered at the market place curiously.

“Oh, yeah that’s right. Something did happen when you kids were gone.” Tom said as he slapped his head. “We have some visitors. A caravan was passing by and decided to stop here to rest on the way. They even had several merchants among them.”

“Yeah, you guys are in luck. They should leave in a few days time. You guys are really lucky though, you might have missed them if you had decided to spend a little longer in the forest. Bin said as he loked back at the crowded marketplace.

“Ooooh~ merchants. Did they have anything good with them?” Yimso asked.

“Yes, yes, they had tons of stuff you would almost never see in this place. They even had…”

“Okay that’s it, they can go and see for themselves if they need anything. You be quiet.” Bin had just started to speak excitedly when Tom suddenly covered his mouth with his hand to prevent him from speaking any further.

He had made the mistake to ask that same question and had to listen to Bin talking about the merchants’ goods for over 2 hours after that.

He didn’t want to go through that again so he quickly stopped him from speaking this time.

“…”

“Uh… well then, we’ll be going as well.”

“Take care.”

They bid the two town guards farewell and made their way inside the town. It was late into the afternoon right now and there were a lot of people in the streets going about their business which made it look very lively.

The four of them greeted the people they met along the way and soon reached the guild house.

*****

END OF CHAPTER 12: MERCHANTS