Chapter 31: Chapter 16 – Expedition

"Take a look at this, sir Zach!" The teenaged, scholar-like young man said with an excited grin as he showed me the strange blue flower that he'd picked up earlier in the day.

Sighing, I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. "Young master Alex, now is really not the time for this," I told him. Unfortunately, today was obviously not going to go my way.

"What, are you kidding? It's the perfect time for it! Do you have any idea what this is!?" Alex insisted, cradling the flower carefully. "It's a Frozen Jade Flower! They're worth hundreds of gold back home!"

I held back the urge to slap the ignorant child, knowing full well that my career might as well be forfeit if I dared do so, and instead, I turned back to face the rest of my men as they set up camp.

When the second prince had begun organizing this expedition, I'd been amongst the first to sign up for it. In hindsight, I should've probably thought it through a bit more.

Don't get me wrong, this was a massive opportunity for a newly-minted royal guardsman like me, but that didn't change the fact that this whole thing had been miserable.

I'd heard tales of the northern wastelands. As I'd understood it, the north was an endless expanse of snow where monstrosities roamed, and where tribes of savage Inhumans lived.

And, surprisingly enough, it turns out that the rumors were quite close to the truth, even if they failed to do justice to the sheer harshness of this place.

Our expedition had come with 200 men, and already, we'd lost over 30. Thankfully, nobody actually important had died yet, which was something I dearly hoped would continue.

After all, as the leader of the expedition, the blame would fall squarely on my shoulders if something were to happen.

"Sir, we've got a problem!" One of the said important people suddenly walked over towards me, Ulysses.

"What's the issue, mage?" I asked him, feeling a pit already forming in my stomach. Ulysses's eyes flickered over to the young master next to me, who was still caught up in examining the flower in his hands, before returning to me.

"Well, one of our scouting parties just came back, and, well..." He trailed off, rubbing the back of his head while grimacing.

"Well?" I insisted, glaring down at the man in front of me. Sometimes, it felt like I was herding cats when managing this expedition, despite the fact that they were all supposedly veterans.

Which, honestly, was something that I was starting to doubt more and more the longer we stayed in this fucking frozen wasteland.

"They, uh, didn't quite all manage to return..." He said, his grimace only worsening.

I remained silent for a moment, closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath. "Okay. That's not good, but it could be worse. What happened to them?" I asked.

The mage couldn't quite meet my eyes. "They... defected, sir."

And, once again, there was silence. A few of the men nearby that had been working on setting up the temporary camp glanced over at the two of us before quickly resuming work when they noticed the thunderous look on my face.

"They... defected," I repeated, tasting the word. The mage shivered at the tone of my voice. "Very well. Bring the men who came back to me for a reward, they deserve it for their loyalty. I'll make a note of the traitors." I told him

The mage sighed in relief and quickly fled. I shook my head at his cowardice - Make an example of a few men and suddenly they look at you as though you're a demon. Ugh.

"Why'd they defect?" The young master asked from beside me, finally looking up from the stupid flower in his hands.

"Hm? Oh, they were cowards." I said simply, not really wishing to bother explaining to the young master that the conditions of our expedition were piss-poor and only getting worse. Because honestly, this was turning into more and more of a disaster in the making.

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"I see." Alex nodded, not too bothered. "Anyways, I'm going to go back to my place. I'm kind of sleepy, so please don't disturb me." And with that, he sauntered off towards the nicest tent we'd managed to set up.

I didn't even deign to glance at him as he left. The useless brat was only here because his daddy demanded he be, and said daddy just so happened to be one of the five major kingdom's dukes.

I only had to wait for five more minutes before the mage came back, and with him, the two scouts that hadn't fled.

I stared at them with half-lidded eyes, watching as they fidgeted in place, torn between excitement and fear.

"You two." I finally spoke, startling them both. "Have made the correct decision. Tell me everything that happened."

And tell me, they did.

In essence, the other three men in their company had decided to flee once they were far enough from the rest of the company, hence their decision to volunteer as scouts. And when they finally did reach far away enough, they'd tried to kill these two to take their stuff, but had failed and the two had managed to flee back here.

I listened silently as the two recounted their experience, only interrupting occasionally in order to ask a few pointed questions.

Still, by the end of it, I was left fairly satisfied that they weren't pulling my leg. "Good job, the both of you. If you two are still alive at the end of the expedition, I'll add an extra 20 gold coins to your pay." I nodded at the both of them.

They grinned like loons, exchanging excited glances. "If you've got nothing else for me, go back to work. I need to get back to work." I grunted, already prepared to turn around and leave.

"Uh, actually, sir..." One of them spoke up, causing me to pause and turn back to face them. The one who'd spoken gulped slightly, but quickly continued. "On our way back, we actually spotted what we're pretty sure is one of the savage's camps."

"What!?" I exclaimed, my eyes going wide. "Where!? Did you see anyone there? Were you spotted?!" I demanded quickly, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest.

There was a reason for my excitement. Sure, the north had quite the valuable ingredients and beasts lying around, all of whom could turn the poorest peasant into a rich man in an instant, but to the truly wealthy, such things weren't of much interest. No, the biggest find in the north was in its humanoid inhabitants.

And, our mission just so happened to be to find and capture one of said Inhumans, the Snow-Elves.

I wasn't fully aware of all the reasons of the why we had to capture one of them, but from what I'd managed to uncover, it was supposed to be because of some sort of rivalry between our patron, the second prince, and his genius brother, the exalted fourth prince.

"U-uh, I don't think we were spotted?" The man meekly answered. "And, uh, no. We didn't see anyone there, but we're pretty sure someone lives there. It was full of footsteps, and it looked inhabited."

"Do you think you can lead us back there?" I insisted. The two glanced at each other before nodding back at me.

I couldn't help but grin. Two whole months in this shithole, and finally, we found a clue about our targets. "Great! Go and get ready. I'll need to gather some men to come with us." I nodded at both of them before hurrying back to the central tent where the young master had left to.

I could hardly believe my luck. Sure, chances were we'd fail to find the damned elves and we'd need to get back to searching, but still. I'd expected it'd take at least three more months before we could find any sort of clue about their whereabouts.

In less than thirty minutes, we were ready. Fifty men came with me, while the rest remained in the camp to continue working on it.

"Let's go, men! Our goal is in sight, so don't you dare dally." I shouted. "March forth, proud warriors of Asturias!" I commanded, and they obeyed.

If only I'd known of the calamity my eagerness would have brought upon us, I would have turned around and fled at that very moment.

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