Chapter 29 - Chapter 28

***

Neugieri,

Just over a week later,

"Scree~!" With an almost offended screech, the bird the size of a donkey maneuvered away from the firebolt, and, throwing one last look their way, scrambled to fly higher and higher along the mountain cliff.

Neugieri tracked its ascent with a somewhat unsure expression, gripping her staff tightly.

"Is this really all it takes?" she asked, turning towards the man with a bow, who was watching the monster go, "I could have hit it quite easily… or killed it for that matter."

She wasn't exactly boasting; it would have taken little effort to mess with the monster bird's head and make it plummet to its death. Just altering its sense of direction would've done it. Not to mention that she wasn't terrible with the more conventional attack spells either. 

"No need for that," Revier answered just loud enough to be heard, as he met Neugieri's own eyes, "This monster is called Wicked Hawks, despite the name, they aren't known to attack humans, as they rarely share the space with us." He pointed towards the cliff where the aforementioned Hawk was flying. "It's nesting here, so it is acting territorial. Now that it knows that it can't scare us off and that we can hurt it back if we have to, it won't cause problems," he explained simply. "If you wounded it or killed it, however…" He pointed, and Neugieri traced his finger.

She saw… a dozen or so similar birds flying between rare clouds, way up atop the mountain.

"This is absurd," the mental mage complained after a couple of seconds of watching the beasts, when she finally found words, "It… it didn't look like a hawk! And why are they even called Wicked Hawks then if they live in a flock?!" she gestured wildly towards a cliff, turning to another man for support, "This isn't how hawks are, is it?"

Hanseln chuckled good-naturally, as he stood to the side with his hands folded on his chest.

"Normally no, but that's what makes those ones Wicked, I assume," the man said wisely, which earned him a gentle bonk on the top of his head from Neugieri's staff, much to the amusement of the other two men gathered around.

The group traversing the mountain wasn't large. There was Neugieri herself, who was here to fulfill her obligation, there was Revier, a hunter who was here to guide Neugieri to the actual spot where she was needed… and there were Hanseln and Schwätzer, who were assigned specifically because they were relatively well-trained combatants, and could assure Neugieri's safety on that mission.

Of course, it wasn't explicitly stated that way, but it didn't take some special political talent to read between the lines; the hunters of the Valley were experiencing huge manpower shortages after the incident three months ago, so making some of the Guard's strongest accompany Neugieri… was pretty much a statement from the Commander that he wasn't treating people loaned to him as a given.

"Ahem," Schwätzer said, coughing into his fist a bit theatrically, "I believe we should proceed?"

Now, Neugieri knew that Schwätzer was a good friend of Hanseln and, apparently, quite a decent fighter himself; at least he and Hanseln were sparring partners for years at this point.

Neugieri honestly tried to get along with the somewhat flamboyant man, but Schwätzer just acted so… awkwardly around her that it took effort for her not to act awkwardly in turn.

It didn't help that Hanseln never really invited her when he spent time with the man, which Neugieri knew to just be a 'men thing', but it did irk her somewhat that she wasn't really able to get to know one of Hanseln's best friends… much less to get along with him.

"Follow," Revier offered, before once again leading the group from the front.

The path wound between slabs of grey rock that jutted from the mountainside at odd angles, narrowing as it climbed. Twisted pines grew out of the cliff face wherever they could find purchase, and the air smelled of their resin, sharp and cold. The small valley was visible below whenever the path turned, wide and green, with the dark pine forests thinning into what looked like fields and a faint line of road further down. Above them, the peaks were white and close enough that Neugieri had to remind herself they were still hours of climbing away.

"...where were we before the sudden bird attack?" Hanseln asked, his tone almost joyful.

Neugieri spoke up almost immediately.

"I believe you were sharing about the nuances of raising magical horses?" she noted half-turning to Hanseln, who was walking just behind.

"Ah, right," he replied, "Where was I… ah," the man took a breath, before speaking up once again, "As I was saying, Gaul is an odd breed, as they can be aggressive and very powerful, even with sufficient training, unless in specific circumstances, they are impossible for a non-warrior-trained man to handle," he explained, "They live much longer than normal horses and can use mana instinctively… so they aren't the sort of horse just anyone can raise," Hanseln stressed, ranting a bit in a way that Neugieri, if she was being honest, found a bit adorable. "A normal Destrier is the sort of horse a knight normally will grow up alongside… or at least raise the horse from a young age. The same is true with most war horses; a horse is very much like your own sword arm, it's up to you to make sure it's well-trained and acts in synch with what you intend," he explained, his voice serious, "It's incredibly important for the horse to be trained and know the rider intimately, it builds trust between a knight and steed, and lets both feel what the other intends. With Gaul… well, most knights will get mauled if they try raising one, and even when properly trained, they are just more difficult to build that sort of trust with, because of how much power they have… and because they know it," he explained dryly.

Hanseln sighed, as if recalling something genuinely difficult.

"It's actually one of the reasons why, even out of those who can afford it, not all nobles ride Gauls," he explained, "The breed is just that difficult to handle, and most prefer the bond they can form with their steed over a well-trained beast raised by someone else," Hanseln chuckled shortly to himself, "You've ridden Stahl with me, but my steed is incredibly good-mannered," Hanseln explained almost fondly, with a voice that the man reserved only for his horse. "If you want to know how riding an average Gaul back home goes, you can ask Schwätzer," Hanseln finished with some humor in his voice.

Neugieri paused for a moment, actually intrigued. She turned her head a bit towards Schwätzer, who was walking behind Hanseln, and seemed to be attempting to hide from her eyes behind the man… or perhaps she was just imagining things.

"This sounds like an entertaining story. Schwätzer, if you don't mind sharing…" she trailed off before correcting herself, "You don't have to tell me if you don't wish to; however, it is perfectly understandable."

Neugieri couldn't really afford to look back much, so she turned back towards the road and missed how Schwätzer weakly kicked Hanseln, who walked in front of him in the shins.

"No, ahem, I wouldn't mind sharing…" the man spoke up, sounding not enthusiastic at all. If anything, he sounded a bit defeated, "But… It's a bit of an embarrassing story, is all."

"You don't have to tell," Neugieri offered again, a bit more firmly, and as genuinely as she could, "I know Hans can be a bit mean with his jokes sometimes…"

"No-no it's…" the man let out a sigh so loud Neugieri could hear despite the distance, "Okay, so it was five years ago, give or take. There was this woman, a stablewoman in Way Back Inn, who had amazing as…cent, ahem," the man paused briefly, "She was, ugh, very invested in horses, you see, knew a lot about their breeds and such, and loved them to bits. Maybe a bit too enthusiastically…" The man shook his head, "So I convinced Hanseln to lend me one of his family's Gauls to… well, impress her, for just a single date, you see?" he explained lamely, "I mean, a magical muscular warhorse that costs like a manor, wouldn't it be amazing to see? And maybe for us to ride on for a bit?" the man sighed again, loudly, "So, Hanseln tells me that he'll lend me a horse as long as I can ride one out of his estate…"

"That isn't what I said," the other man corrected, "I said that if you take the horse over by reins to the city, or tie it to a cart, it will legitimately kill you and the poor lass when you try to get her to ride it, so I asked you to try mounting it with me around first..."

Schwätzer interrupted the knight.

"Yeah-yeah, you were looking out for me, I know…" The man shook his head, "In any case, I tried to ride the damn demonic abomination, it tried to bite my head off, quite literally, after performing a somersault to get me off its back and on the ground." The man sounded dead inside, "It didn't even have to go for the bite, it could've tried to just stomp on me, but no… it wanted human flesh."

"Schwätz, you kicked him when you were climbing on him," Hanseln sounded oddly defensive, "And then managed to poke his eye with your glove. A Destrier would've made it its life goal to murder you after that; this is no different."

Judging by the fact that the other man didn't argue, Neugieri figured he didn't really disagree.

"Wasn't your point about how dangerous those horses are without proper handling?" Neugieri asked, half-turning to Hans, "What's the point of bringing up Schwätzer's story if he poked the horse in the eye by accident?" she questioned.

"To be frank, because even if he didn't poke it in the eyes, the horse performing a somersault or similarly insane stunts to shake you off is a relatively normal behaviour for the breed. That is how they test their riders." The man explained drily. "The temperament is such that the Gaul will attempt this at least once when being trained and seriously pushed. Actually trying to bite him was probably the revenge for the eye, however. They do, however, bite in combat when they get into the frenzy. My own Stahl once bit a wolf in half," he concluded conversationally, but with some underlying gravity to his tone.

Neugieri couldn't even imagine a horse doing something like that… it seemed she had work to do, if, as a mage, trying to visualize such a thing gave her a headache.

"I believe I begin to understand why you are so enthusiastic about your stallion-" Neugieri offered, but trailed off, seeing the hunter slow down in front of them.

As she slowed, and the two men behind her did as well, they saw the hunter turn towards them.

"This part is the same as before," Revier said, throwing a wide glance across all of them, "Focus, don't chat, and be careful. Shouldn't be too hard to cross." The man stepped aside, letting the two guard's men and Neugieri take in the next obstacle.

The path narrowed as it curved along the cliff face, and someone, hunters most likely, had carved rough steps into the stone at some point in the past. The edges were worn smooth in places and crumbling in others, and iron pegs had been driven into the rock at intervals to hold a guide rope. The rope itself was newer than the steps, thick and coarse, and Neugieri was grateful for it as the path tilted upward.

The wind was stronger here, funneled between the rock face and an outcropping that jutted over the valley below. She kept her eyes on the steps and her hand on the rope.

When the path leveled out enough to walk without watching every footfall, she glanced back at Hanseln.

"You mentioned your father mostly handles the breeding now," she said, "Is he managing alone?"

"He has hands, so for the most part, he does," Hanseln replied, adjusting the strap of his pack, "But he's getting older, and the work hasn't gotten any easier." He paused, in the way Neugieri had come to recognize as him thinking about how to phrase something rather than what to say. "He sent my younger brother to the Academy, actually. About half a year ago," he admitted somewhat reluctantly.

Neugieri raised an eyebrow, glancing back at him.

"Your brother," she said, curiosity slipping into her voice.

"Nerding, I think I told you I wasn't the only son, didn't I?" Hanseln said a bit helplessly. "He's ten. Father figured that if someone in the family actually understood the magical side of things, it would help with the breeding work in the long run," he sighed a bit, "He also visited one of Albert's lectures about this chimerology. Bought some books directly from him, I heard, and was very interested in the bestiaries the headmaster worked on. He had some bright ideas about expanding the family craft, if we can breed more than just steeds, but…" Hanseln shrugged helplessly, "That would require a fully trained mage," he explained.

Neugieri gently put her hand on his shoulder.

"First, don't move too much," she chided, gently taking the man's other hand with which he gestured, and bringing it back to the rope, "And hold the rope tighter, I am not in the mood to try to catch you," she told him firmly, "Second, don't tell me your father confused monsters with a core that the Headmaster and his chimerology explores, and the beasts that the folk call monsters." Neugieri couldn't help but let some emotion into her tone.

It's true that until relatively recently, apparently, there wasn't much of a distinction between the two. Between mere beasts who utilized mana and genuine monsters with cores. She knew those to be separate things, as this is how she was taught, but apparently, both of those types of creatures were grouped together even in scholarly literature until relatively recently.

And Neugieri only knew of that because the Headmaster cited them being separated into different groups as one of the results of his work, and why categorizing things correctly in your research is incredibly important, even if new terms have to be invented. It was one of the opening lectures that he makes each year about academic integrity and proper research work.

"Oh, he knows," the man assured, "Father just thinks even those chimeras could be bred for sale."

This wasn't an unfamiliar statement; Neugieri has heard this opinion being voiced a lot, even in Äußerst. The truth of the matter, however, is that no one but Albert, and maybe Great Mage Serie herself, was able to produce a living, functional Chimera. And so far, the elf himself claimed that it's currently impossible to make a chimera capable of breeding.

"Does he know that…" she started awkwardly, only for Hanseln to smile at her knowingly, making her quiet down.

"Yep. He still believes it's a good trade to learn, and to have in the family," he offered, "It helps that Nerding himself loves it in the Academy."

Neugieri paused; the name felt familiar, now that she thought about it.

Soon, they were done with the difficult area, and Neugieri, finally walking without a rope, turned to Hanseln briefly, who gave her a brief hug, making the mage puff her cheeks a bit before he stepped aside, and gestured for her to walk first.

She complied.

"Nerding," Neugieri repeated a bit more loudly, now that to talk she had to address the man behind her again. Her brow creased for a moment before smoothing out. "I believe I know him?" she muttered questioningly, not sure whether she was asking herself a question or assuring Hanseln. 

She did know him, she believed. There weren't many children his age at the Academy, and the few who were stood out simply because most students were adults or near enough. Nerding was one of the handful of young enough that, given time, could be trained into a proper mage rather than someone who picked up a few useful spells later in life.

Of course, what people called 'a mage' and what Neugieri would consider the minimal requirement to be one… were completely different things.

But, in any case, the boy was one of the few who had enough promise to become a decent mage in a traditional sense, at least capable and skilled enough to use combat magic properly.

Unfortunately, Neugieri couldn't remember which of the children Nerding could be. She desperately tried to picture which one of them looked the most like Hanseln… and came up short.

She looked at Hanseln again.

"Why didn't you mention this earlier?" Neugieri asked, genuinely confused.

At the question, the man glanced away, scratching the side of his jaw.

"Because the boy is a menace," he said, "And I didn't want you to think less of me by association."

Behind them, Schwätzer let out a short, strangled sound that might have been a laugh suppressed too late. The man covered it with a cough.

It didn't stop the pair from glancing back at him.

"Don't mind me," he assured, bringing his hands up with a sheepish smile. "And eyes ahead, can't have any of you two to slip!"

Neugieri gave Hanseln a flat look, her lips pressed together, before turning back towards the path.

Ahead, Revier had stopped. The path here crossed a narrow gap in the rock where a section of the mountainside had split away, and a crude bridge had been laid over it: three planks bound with iron bands, resting on ledges carved into the stone on either side. One of the planks had cracked lengthwise, the split running nearly its full span. The wood bowed visibly when Revier tested it with his boot.

"This will hold one at a time," the hunter said, crouching to examine the damage, "But I'd rather fix it before we cross with weight."

He unslung his pack and pulled out a rope and a hand axe. Hanseln moved forward without being asked, and Schwätzer positioned himself on the far side, bracing the planks from beneath. Revier cut a section from a dead pine clinging to the rock nearby, trimmed it roughly, and wedged it beneath the cracked plank. Hanseln held it steady while Revier lashed the brace in place, pulling the rope tight and knotting it with quick, practiced motions.

It took several minutes. No one spoke much, aside from Revier giving short instructions.

When it was done, they crossed one at a time.

On the other side, the path widened into a flat stretch of stone sheltered from the wind by the ridge above. Patches of moss grew in the cracks, and a few scraggly bushes had found enough soil between the rocks to take root.

Hanseln fell back in step beside her now. For a while, he said nothing, and Neugieri let him have the silence.

"Honestly," he said, his eyes on the path ahead, "It's one of the first things I've seen him genuinely want to do."

Neugieri glanced at him but didn't interrupt.

"When he was younger, nothing stuck. Father tried the horses, the estate, and swordplay, even hired tutors so my brother could try his hand at magic, mundane, and the Goddess's. He wasn't great at any of it. Nerding did what he was told, but he never cared to really try." Hanseln shifted the weight of his pack. "Then he went to the Academy, and the letters home got longer. He asks about the animals now, but with different questions than before. Detailed ones. For something he called a re-search project, I believe? Father was incredibly happy, in any case," He paused. "I haven't had the time to see him properly since he went to study, so I don't know much more than that. But I know him well enough," he said, giving Neugieri an easy grin.

He was quiet for a few steps.

"I didn't want you knowing to change anything for him," he said, and the easy-going notes left his voice. "Even if by accident. Doing well in the studies… would be important for him. What he does now will be his trade. He doesn't need to be coddled and… I am just afraid to break whatever miracles make him enjoy what he does, if that makes sense?" he stopped, and Neugieri watched with some amusement as a faint colour touched the man's ears. "It's also that… I never told him of you just yet. And I don't want him to annoy you," he explained with some embarrassment.

"So you were overthinking it again," Neugieri concluded.

Hanseln opened his mouth to protest before pausing.

After a moment, he nodded begrudgingly.

"Probably." He shrugged helplessly, "In any case, it's not like father hasn't met with Albert or the Provost to make sure Nerding does well and is cared for, you know?" Personally, Neugieri found it adorable how defensive his grumbling sounded.

Ahead, Revier had stopped again, crouching beside a section of the trail where a railing had come loose from its posts. Two of the iron nails had rusted through, and the crossbar hung at an angle, swinging in the wind. Hanseln moved to help without prompting, holding the bar in place while Revier drove in fresh nails with the flat of his hand axe. Schwätzer braced the post from the other side.

Neugieri waited, leaning on her staff.

"Revier, excuse me if I am being insensitive, but," Neugieri hesitated for a moment before speaking, "Is it normal that so many things are… broken?"

The mage genuinely was confused; right now, it was winter, and even though they weren't very high up, and the weather allowed some of the snow to melt, they were still in an incredibly remote area without a single village for days of traveling in either direction.

All sorts of engineering being used to make the trail traversable was genuinely impressive, as they traveled, earlier in the trail, Neugieri could tell that magic changed the shape of some of the slopes they traveled by to make them safer to tread… yet now it was all in this condition.

"It's the wilds, things break around here all the time," the man said simply, as he took out a small hammer and started to hammer the nails back in place. "This whole area is the least habitable part of the region out of those where we still need to maintain presence," he explained simply, each word accompanied by a hammer strike, a pause, and another hammer strike, "Originally, all of it was built back when the Valley Guard first formed. Some adventurers were hired, including mages, and mapping out the deep mountain trails was the effort of the whole region; everyone did their part. Was a big thing in my grandpa's time, 'the final push to conquer the wilds' and all that." The man stood up, tapping both Hanseln and Schwätzer on the shoulders, making them release the railing.

"Nowadays, we have to make do with what we have. And what we have are things left by our grandparents," he finished grimly.

It took Neugieri, sparing a single glance at both Hanseln and Schwätzer, seeing their gloomy faces, to realize what he was referring to.

"So it's impossible to maintain the watch over high passes now?" Neugieri asked, her voice genuinely concerned.

The hunter's expression eased somewhat, and he gave her a small smile.

"'tis not quite so grim, lady mage. We can maintain what we have, as long as we use some stopgap measures here and there. Normally, it's not too much trouble," he explained simply, nodding towards Hanseln, "The Captain there probably hates us, we, that is Fährte's men, are thought of as wasteful by the rest of the folk in the Guard," he said with a joking undertone, yet with underlying seriousness. "We get to have the best equipment, magical items and potions, so a lot of the road-watchers and city-dwellers don't like us much… however, it's only due to all that expensive stuff that we can still maintain those trails and do our work," he explained.

"The ones who badmouth you are either idiots who don't understand what your work entails, or loudmouths who think they can take you in a fight, and that even if they could, that for some reason make them more valuable than you are," Hanseln spoke up, his eyebrows furrowing, "You get the most expensive equipment because your duty has you serve in uninhabitable wastes, sometimes stranded for months by the weather, and fighting for your lives against wild monsters all the while, all because you watch the high passes. Anyone with a brain wouldn't hold any resentment towards Fährte's men for the share of resources they require, Revier," he assured.

Schwätzer suddenly spoke up, without the awkwardness that Neugieri had learned to associate with him.

"If any of our guys actually try to stir something up, tell us who before we get back," he said simply, "The Bürgermeister busting our collective balls is no cause to take it out on your guys." Neugieri was still taken aback by the man sounding confident and reliable…?

"Peace, peace," the hunter said, raising a hand, palms up, "I was mostly jesting to make a point." The grim-looking hunter with a scar across his right eye scratched his beard awkwardly, "Your sense of humor gets progressively more fu…" He shot a glance at Neugieri before immediately glancing aside, pretending as if he didn't. "Messed up, that is, the more time you spend up here, where even mountain goats won't live." He shook his head, before once again looking at Neugieri, "My point here is that we were managing until recently. Until that Goddess-damned landslide."

Neugieri heard, of course.

The hunters of the Valley Guard had several different foreposts that served mostly as transfer camps. As Hanseln explained, they were strategically positioned to ferry supplies such as food, burnable materials, arrows, and other consumables between the actual forward camps where a hunter group, usually a trio, kept watch over a specific high pass.

It was one such forepost that was destroyed by a landslide mixed with an avalanche that no one expected.

Fifteen hunters died as a result, and the whole southern area became almost impossible to keep monitored for monster activity at the high passes.

Some of the passes could still be watched, but a few in the southmost part of the mountain range… simply had no easy way to access them. Not with the forepost that stood on the mountain path leading to them. There were longer trails to get to them, always were, but as Hanseln explained it, those were journeys that would take weeks there and back; any group heading there would at best be able to get to the place and immediately head back, either that or starve to death.

Worse yet, places untraversable by humans aren't an issue for many monsters. Which was why Neugieri was here.

A mage who could simply send an animal to do a scouting from a safe distance, without climbing all the way up.

"I've heard of it," Neugieri said quietly, "You have my sincere condolences. What happened was… a tragedy."

"A fuck up, that's what it was," Revier said with a sigh, looking exhausted, and waving it away, "We have procedures to look for the risks of landslides and avalanches over our camps, we fucking inspect the area each season… yet somehow everyone missed that."

Neugieri had nothing to say to that.

In silence, the group soon continued its journey.

In just a few hours, they reached the forward camp.

***

"Mhhhm~!" Neugieri moaned in delight, stretching her hands and legs, as she threw her head back, staring into the stone ceiling, "This is heaven!~"

She couldn't really help the sing-song tones, as she genuinely couldn't remember herself happier.

The hot water in the bath moved with her body, and Neugieri wrinkled her nose from the smell from under her own armpits.

It couldn't be helped, of course, the journey up here took them three days. Three days during which she slept and walked in the same clothes that got wet from sweat under the sun and almost froze over in the shadow. Neugieri wasn't a stranger to travel, not after her journey from the Northern Lands to here, but it seems the hunter lifestyle was too difficult for her.

She couldn't believe someone as meticulous about his appearance as Albert would willingly do this for decades, if not centuries.

"I owe him something nice…" she mused, glancing towards a grimoire to the side of the room that Albert gave her before she went on this journey.

The elf approached her out of nowhere, placed a hand on her shoulder with a strangely knowing (?) look, and handed her this book. When she asked what she would need an earth-shaping combat spell for, he merely said 'you will understand in time', which back then greatly annoyed Neugieri, much like most of the elf's attempts at humor.

Those were always terrible and made her feel as if she was speaking to some emotionally dead golem rather than a fellow human… well, elven being.

Anyhow, while mastering a combat spell was impossible for Neugieri in such a short time, casting a spell with a grimoire, outside of combat, was still very much doable. Which was what she did to make herself a nice granite bath.

Acquiring water was also not an issue in a snow-covered mountain, as was heating it with magic.

The hunters staying here before couldn't afford luxuries like that, and merely wiped themselves clean with wet cloths that they heated over a bottle of self-heating alchemical liquid; they didn't exactly have the food to burn to heat water enough to bathe… at least according to Revier.

But for Neugieri, all of this was an issue of expending enough mana, which, after the hell of the last few days, she was more than willing to do.

She took her time bathing, mostly enjoying the water, but she did take some honest time to scrub herself clean with the soap she brought.

Afterwards, it was a matter of bringing the stone bath outside and levitating it to the side to freeze.

Neugieri considered simply pouring the water down, but she didn't know what sort of trails might be below, and if the hot water might cause any problems if it washed over them on its way down.

Finally, the woman approached the crude hut made mostly out of logs and clay, and entered this time from the main entrance.

What she saw would stick with her for a while.

All three men were still undressed, sitting shirtless around the small lounge. They weren't openly sweating anymore, which was quite a relief, but still seemed to be in no hurry to put any clothes on.

For Neugieri, this was painful to look at, as those three were always like this during the ascent and at their temporary rests; somehow, they got hot ascending the mountain. Neugieri? If not for her ability to conjure firebolts, she would've been freezing much more than she did already.

When they arrived at this hut today, which also served as the foremost base to the area she was brought in to monitor, all three men looked like they were about to die from heatstroke, while Neugieri herself was freezing and shaking like a leaf.

It was because she couldn't bear smelling their sweat as they undressed that she decided to organize herself a bath instead of trying to cuddle Hanseln for heat.

"Ah, Neugieri," Hanseln said, a cup with dice in hand, "Sit where you like! Some tea?"

"I would rather not," she said pointedly, not wishing to bring up that the men also do need a bath; instead, she positioned herself some distance away, taking out one of the books she took with her. "The bath is free, just so you know. I've heated up some water for you in the buckets there, just as Revier asked."

"Appreciate it," the hunter waved at her easily, sampling something from a waterskin that Neugieri was convinced wasn't water, "We'll probably have to go wash up soon before it gets cold." He offered it to the others.

"Hot water sounds terrible. I barely managed to cool down," Schwätzer complained lazily, as he yawned, half-lying across what looked like an animal pelt, dice cup at hand. He accepted the waterskin, took a sip, gaped, his eyes visibly rounding, but held whatever hellish concoction that was in, passing the skin back to the grinning hunter.

"Shush, you," Revier replied without any real anger, "You don't know how rare it is to get hot water for a proper bath while in the mountains. When the others get back, they will kiss the ground our lady mage walks on."

That did attract Neugieri's attention somewhat. She pretended to ignore Hanseln slowly creeping closer.

"Did you learn where they went?" Neugieri asked, glancing away from the pages of the novel.

She was referring to the active trio of hunters who were supposed to be operating in the area and who would be acting as the additional guides for her. They were apparently the ones who knew this segment of the mountains well… some of the few who remained, along with Revier.

"Sure did. They left a note on the back of the door that we didn't notice at first," the hunter pointed towards the door in the main lounge. "Said they are out to track a weird pack of monsters."

"Weird how?" she immediately clarified.

The hunter just shrugged.

"How would I know? It's been over two weeks since I've spoken with the others, and we've had a whole bunch of foreign monsters pass by, even when I was on duty. It's the season. The damn bastards have been trying to migrate into our mountains for years at this point," he grumbled, "All types of them, constantly. It's as if something was spooking them down South."

"Maybe they are afraid of the tax rates, now that the civil war is over?" Schwätzer joked… Neugieri assumed.

"War's been over for a while," Revier offered back, "Didn't stop 'em from sneaking in anyway."

The man paused, as if trying to catch a thought again, as he turned back to Neugieri.

"My point is, I don't know what group of monsters had them move out. Might have been a few out of those I know. Might've been someone new. They didn't exactly write much," the man said, picking up a piece of paper from the table and waving it around in the air. Neugieri could spy two lines of words there, "They said they'd be back in three days from now. If they aren't well… that's when we get worried. For now, we wait."

By that point, Hanseln, the vile ambusher that he was, sat behind the mage and hugged her. The proud, delicate woman didn't resist the warm embrace, even if she did huff and puff to show her disgust at how he smells… before just relaxing in his arms, grumbling.

"They better be back soon then…" she said reasonably and articulately, and not grumbling this out into one of the two hands that were embracing her from behind. "How is it alright for me to stay here for so long if my job is to look over the passes?"

"Because we don't look over the passes all the time," the hunter said with some amusement, "Once a week is more than enough. With the right tricks, you can pick up if anything crossed over. We aren't city guards; we aren't detaining monsters on entry and watching their carts, but we do need to know when they crossed. We've been scanning the passes around here once every three weeks… so you getting on the job a bit later wouldn't be too much of a problem, our whole section of watch leaks monsters constantly." The man said, looking a bit uncomfortable, "Because we don't have many people… we also have a lot of foreign monsters in this area of the mountains. We did our best to exterminate the most dangerous and hostile ones, but… we don't have the people to properly handle them all. Going to the passes without the others will be too dangerous for just the four of us," he explained.

That put… a little bit of a damper on Neugieri's mood, before she realized that… it didn't really matter overly much. She didn't mind spending a few days here.

"So for now we wait," Hanseln concluded.

Revier nodded.

"Ay," he confirmed, "For now, we do."

***

Hanseln,

There were many things one could derive enjoyment from, but out of all of them, watching someone else work was one of Hanseln's favourites.

It's not that he enjoyed watching others suffer through mundane labour, truly, it wasn't so; it was just that he very much enjoyed his own moments of peace… and could appreciate them all the more when someone else had to do work next to him.

With a thunderous crack, a boulder the size of a grown pig fell to the ground not far from Hanseln, making him jump a bit.

He glanced at Neugieri, who was inspecting his laid out form with genuine annoyance, a slight pout he so loved that he knew the woman wasn't even aware of was on her cheeks.

"I am aware that you can perform folk spells, you realize that, don't you?" she questioned, throwing her head back, and letting her long, wavy green hair flicker for a moment, "You can, no, should be helping me right now, like a knight proper."

Hanseln nodded along to the argument, making sure his expression looked wisened and enlightened enough.

"I see, I see. That is true, I should be acting like a proper knight. Want me to dock your pay for getting distracted on the job?" he asked, shooting her a smile.

Neugieri huffed.

"Dare I remind you that you aren't paying me," she said, to which Hanseln couldn't help but nod.

"Indeed. However, I also told you that volunteering your services to Revier to expand their base with your earth magic would end like this," he reminded her simply, causing the woman to sigh and glance back towards the rather sizable cavity she was digging into the cliffside.

"This can't possibly be safe in the first place," she commented, for the umpteenth time.

Hanseln, hearing the actual concern in her voice, grew serious, throwing away the meaningless tongue-sharpening they usually engaged in when bored.

"Just make what Revier wants. No telling when will be the next time they can get a proper mage here," he said quietly, bringing up his own hand clad in a gauntlet. The knight slowly clenches his fist, feeling the enchantment flare briefly across his plate armour, allowing him to lie on the snow without freezing over, as he channelled some visible mana out of his palm, for Neugieri to see, "Most hunters are trained like me, we can cast a folk spell or two, maybe, but digging something like this out with a spell as complicated as the one in this grimoire… what you did in the last four days would've taken us months of work, from dawn till dusk, with our stamina completely exhausted," he acknowledged simply, "Sure, some things can be done with a pickaxe and some work, but unlike us you can just make the rock denser to reinforce what you build. This is properly the safest shelter they can hope for. They will also probably get an adventurer mage and a few miners here over the following year to check your work," he told her softly and smiled at Neugieri reassuringly.

Neugieri nodded a bit unsurely at his word, but gave him a beautiful smile back, before sticking out her tongue briefly.

"And still I know you are saying all of this just to get out of doing work!" she accused, returning to the grimoire, and once again making the stone start to rumble and move.

Hanseln closed his eyes.

"No way, I would pay any price to take part of your burden, if only I could," he claimed dramatically, raising one of his hands towards the sky, "Alas, my hands are tied…"

"You know, you could use your sword to just cut the stone," she added drily.

"It will ruin it and will cost a fortune to sharpen afterwards," Hanseln claimed with a straight face, even though the enchantment on his sword would actually prevent that.

In truth, despite both of them playing out a role, Neugieri didn't have to do night watches, unlike the rest of the men. And yesterday, Hanseln was helping her; it's just that today, due to being on his feet most of the night, he was far too sleepy.

It didn't help that no matter how physically powerful he was, while Neugieri was working with the magic, he was pretty much just in her way, physically obstructing her from moving the stone around much faster than she could do it herself. Yesterday was the last day when she tolerated him trying to help, and forbade him from interfering with her work 'out of manly delusions alone'.

Now, he couldn't help but just… watch her work; he couldn't sense the flow of her mana, but could see her gesture and the stone obey. It looked so rhythmic and meditative, even if Neugieri claimed she was far from mastering the spell, and had to check the grimoire constantly, it was a peak of fluidity with magic Hanseln could never achieve himself in his wildest dreams.

Now, thinking on it, Hanseln doesn't even remember how exactly their exchange of barbs led to her chiding him for not doing the work. Not that he really cared.

There was a reason he was head over heels for the woman, and it wasn't because she was an exotic northern beauty to die for, nor was it because of her scary competence as a mage; that, he saw personally, had some adventurers humbled.

It was mostly because he just clicked with her like he never did with a woman before.

Of course, it did help to have someone genuinely amazing in an area he understood little in share her passion, Hanseln always found it interesting to listen to real masters of their crafts talk about their work, be they tanners, blacksmiths, hunters, or even merchants.

Once again, their banter paused somewhat when Neugieri disappeared deeper into the cavity where she worked. Hanseln briefly considered accompanying her, but… he really was a bit exhausted, and some nap time sounded just perfect.

Unfortunately Hanseln wasn't fated to enjoy the peace for long.

"Hey there, lovebird," Schwätzer spoke up, making Hanseln's eyes snap open, as he turned his head to the grinning friend of his. "Enjoying your extended date?"

Hanseln snorted despite himself, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, greatly. I only wish I didn't have to freeze my ass off at night staying on Vigil for monsters." Which was pretty much just his honest feelings at this point, as he glanced back up, towards the bright blue sky, where the clouds lazily swam past, "I swear, it feels like I am getting older each day, I can't even pull a full night watch anymore without feeling like I'll fall apart."

"True that, true that," Schwätzer nodded along, chuckling, "Well, at least rotating around with Revier makes this easier. But still," Schwätzer threw a glance at the clearing on the mountain cliff where the hut and the base itself were located.

It was wedged between two mountain cliffs with very, very steep cliffsides, which made it surprisingly well defended from any monsters who could potentially try to attack from above, flying or otherwise.

The base also had a rope lift going all the way down into the uninhabitable valley below. Reaching it is much easier, and that's how they usually get their supplies every week.

"Makes you uneasy, doesn't it?" Hanseln nodded in understanding.

After all, one landslide could potentially bury them, which was a scary thought considering what happened to the other forepost in the area.

"Hanseln!" Neugieri's voice suddenly rang out from the deep, seemingly augmented somewhat by the magic, "I think I dug out some… quartz? I need your help to get it out!"

"Coming!" the knight responded, getting up immediately with a single push of his palms against the snow that propelled him to standing position. Mentally, he did regret his nap time greatly, waving him goodbye, "Let's go, Schwätzer."

The man just waves his hands in front of him helplessly.

"No, no way, you go have fun with your mage lady," he offered easily, "I would rather not get any more work today, I am on a cooking duty as is..."

Hanseln just measured his friend with a look.

"Schwätzer…" he trailed off, shaking his head.

The aforementioned man just winced.

"Listen Hans, I know myself, alright?" he said, looking into Hanseln's eyes seriously, "I know that I speak before I can think most of the time. This got me in trouble with higher-ups more times than I can count, and you know all about what it usually gets me with women…" Hanseln opened his mouth to interrupt, but Schwätzer just gestured for him to stop. "I see how much you enjoy being around each other, and I just don't want to ruin it… Nor do I want to stand there awkwardly holding myself back all the time."

Hanseln just raised an eyebrow at that.

"Schwätzer, my brother in all but blood, I can tell that you are both incredibly envious, and also just trying to dodge the issue," he accused simply.

The aforementioned valley's guardsman just nodded with a straight face.

"Yes."

Hanseln just lifted a single eyebrow.

After a while, Schwätzer sighed, and a small joking smile disappeared from his face completely.

"Listen, Hans, I know. I know what you probably want to say. I just don't want to mess this up for you. I'll… get around, when we aren't high up in the mountains with stress running high and all of us nervous from the other group being late, alright?" he promised, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, "You know that I wish it works out for you, right? It's just that I already messed things up between you and Rosette and-"

Hanseln merely brought his hand up, interrupting his friend.

"You know that I've forgiven you for that. Listen, Schwätzer, I-" He started, but…

"Hans!" The voice from the cavern rang out again, "If you are pretending to sleep, I will dump a bucket of snow on your face!"

The knight hesitated briefly, but Schwätzer just smiled at him, giving him a thumbs up.

"Go get'er mountain lion," he said with an easy smile, "Don't worry, I promise I'll stop acting constipated around your girlfriend when we get back." He winced a bit a moment after, "Well, I will try to."

Hanseln just chuckled, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder and giving it a brief squeeze.

"All I ever asked," he said simply.

The work in the proverbial mines took the knight another few hours with frequent breaks, until a rather excited Schwätzer called them from above.

The pair exited the cavern only for the man to lead them into the hut, where they immediately noticed the presence of the new people right at the entrance, by a bunch of new winter clothing left to dry on a gigantic cauldron filled with heating liquid.

Revier was leaning over the map with two dwarves and one human.

The first of the dwarves was broad even by his kin's standards, with a rust-coloured beard braided into two thick cords that hung down past a boiled leather cuirass scarred by what looked like claw marks. A heavy crossbow rested within arm's reach against the table leg, and his hands, resting flat on the map, were missing the last joint of the left little finger.

The second dwarf was leaner, almost wiry, with ash-grey hair cropped close to the skull and a beard kept short enough to be practical. He was dressed in layered furs stitched with bone toggles, and a pair of long knives sat crossed at the small of his back. He was the one speaking when they entered, tracing something along the map with the blunt end of a charcoal stick, his voice low and even.

The human was the youngest of the three by a wide margin, perhaps in his late twenties, tall and rangy in a way that suggested he'd done most of his growing recently and hadn't yet filled out the frame. His dark hair was tied back with a strip of leather, and a faded scar cut diagonally across his cheekbone, pale against skin weathered red by wind and sun. He glanced up as the door opened, and his eyes, a startling pale green, caught on Neugieri for half a heartbeat before turning to Hanseln.

Obviously, the other two also immediately paid attention once they entered.

"Greetings," Hanseln said instantly, not intimidated by the attention in the slightest as he glanced around those who gathered, receiving a small nod from Revier, until his eyes met the eyes of the grey-haired dwarf, "Kratzer, I assume?" he remembered Revier saying he was the leader of the group up here, "I am Hanseln." He offered a hand.

The dwarf considered it for a moment before striking his palm with his hand and shaking it firmly.

"Good to have ya for this, Captain," He said, sounding genuinely glad, "'Been a fuckin' while since I've asked that fart Fährte to send us someone who can help us clean this shit up."

Hanseln slowly blinked, but nodded slowly.

"I am technically here to escort the lady over there," he reminded, stepping aside a bit to let the dwarf inspect the mage.

The dwarf just scoffed.

"Same fuckin' difference if ya ask me. The 'technical' stuff is for the blacksmiths," the dwarf offered with a crooked grin, "We need 'em passes watched, that's that, but we also need to clean up some of the happy 'ucking farm we have settled in the area," he explained, gesturing towards the map, "Fährte, the marasmatic ol' cunt ain't sending us enough men to clean this up, and each year it's gonna be more difficult to clean the infestation because the fuckers breed," he said, stressing the word, as he looked up into Hanseln's eyes, "Captain, I know you aren't here for that, but we need you to help us clean up the most dangerous packs and individual beasts. I'll be losing a lad a year if we don't. Please."

It wasn't often that Hanseln saw a dwarf being a step away from begging for anything, and now, he believed, he did.

He glanced unsurely at Neugieri. To his confusion, she stepped forward.

"Master hunter, we are here for a month," she said, her voice firm, as she met the dwarf's own surprised gaze, "For this month, use us as you think best. Your other Captain isn't here, and we will do what may help," she offered earnestly.

Slowly, the dwarf grinned as he glanced at Hanseln to confirm that he stood by the mage's words, to which the man nodded.

"Now that," he said slowly, "Sounds fuckin' promising. Come, come, let me show ya what I've been thinkin'…"

Hanseln gave Neugieri a concerned glance, which the woman didn't notice, already being focused on the map as she was.

Hanseln, meanwhile, was deeply anxious. He knew full well what a motivated lower rank that just got his hands on some resources could start doing, and he strongly suspected that Neugieri had no idea the extent of the work she signed herself up for…

Then again, knowing her, even if she knew how difficult it would probably be, she would still agree as long as it would save some people's lives.

When Kratzer started introducing the other men on his team, Hanseln reflected that choosing a woman with such strong morals did have its downsides.

***

Neugieri,

Late during the very same evening, they lit the fire in the fireplace, using up some of the ever-burning alchemical concoction they had saved up, as they were cooking the meat over the fire, and sharing the drink that the hunters called 'Glühwein'.

Apparently, a speciality of theirs, an alcoholic beverage cooked over fire?

They sat on carpet made out of some titanic furry beast, each with a cup and five dice each.

The game of liar's dice was ongoing.

"...and so I am telling 'em, there is no shame in becoming a hunter!" the youngest of everyone present, Brav said, scratching his scarred cheek. His ears were a bit red, and he was a bit more open from the alcohol, but not yet drunk enough to truly entertain his older compatriots.

He was a human and a man, younger even than Neugieri herself by a good five or so years.

"...sure, it's not a glamorous job!" he said, glancing around, "We sit 'ere, freezing our butts off, but we keep everyone in the region safe! Gotta be worth something!"

The one who responded to him was Offenbar, as he stroked his rusty beard, and looked mightily amused.

"They'll never take ya seriously if ya say stuff like that, lad," the dwarf said, taking a sip of his own wine.

Neugieri believed the drink to be relatively strong, but none of the dwarves seemed to even notice.

"...see, thing is, ladies need romance. A story!" he saluted Neugieri with his own cup, "Ya still gotta be honest, of course, leadin' ladies astray ain't a proper thing." The mental mage tried to pretend she didn't notice a wink the dwarf gave the younger human, who was all but looking into the dwarf's mouth as he spoke, "But ya gotta be romantic about it. Our duty? Sure, it's important… but the true reason we come here is that the mountains call."

To Neugieri's surprise, both Revier and Kratzer echoed his words with 'Ay'.

"What…" Neugieri paused as everyone turned to her. She dug herself further into Hanseln's chest, where she sat in his embrace, "What do you mean by mountains calling?"

The hunters exchanged a glance.

"Ain't a way to explain," Kratzer spoke up, sounding earnest, "It's just something some of us feel. There is a mountain, you look at it from below… and one day you don't want to do that anymore. You want to climb." He closed his eyes, letting out a small breath, "And then, when you are at the zenith, looking down at the world below? You stand above any officer, politician, or king. There is one thing above you - it's the sky. That," he said, lifting a cup of the hot wine, "Is the sensation many of us never forget, and keep chasing till we die."

Everyone joined the toast, and so did Neugieri with some confusion, taking a long, good sip.

…the spices in the wine made it delicious, as did the heat and the mixed-in berries. Too bad it was so strong.

"I like climbing, I like some of the alone time," Brav said simply, glancing around, "But none of us are doing this for the coin or just because we want to feel some thrill," he said simply.

He was clearly the youngest among them, and yet, everyone listened.

"What I am trying to say…" the lad said, glancing around, "Is that all of us… we do want to help, don't we? Protect the home and the people. Like people like Berg and the Hermit did." Brav glanced down awkwardly, absent-mindedly fiddling with his dice, "I've grown up outside the towns, in a village. We've had some cattle, and I could've settled to be a hunter there after training with the old man. But I knew the Guard needed people, so I went, cuz even the monsters that do get down into our valley can hurt my family, and it would be so much worse if the Guard fails," he glanced around, "If I just wanted to climb mountains and money… I'd have become an adventurer."

"Ay lad, peace," Offenbar said, gently punching the younger human on the shoulder, "We weren't laughing at you or your conviction. All of us here are idiots like that."

"Some more than others," Kratzer chuckled into his grey beard, shaking his head, "You know, back in my day, working for the guard and making good coin wasn't a mutually exclusive thing," he grumbled.

"Back in your day, my hairy ass!" Offenbar objected, "Stop pretending to be the elder of people here, you thirty-year-old brat!"

Kratzer actually flushed red in embarrassment from that. Neugieri whiplashed, hearing the number '30', she was sure this fierce-looking dwarf might have been older than the legendary Berg!

"Shut up, you aren't much older yourself!" he blurted in embarrassment, taking a swig of his wine, "Not my fault, I'm handsome, and my hair is what it is!"

"Children, children, please be at peace," Revier said, with an expression of a priest talking on a difficult sermon, "As is the oldest dwarven tradition, as a senior to you both, I shall assume leadership to resolve your troub-"

"Shadup!"

"Out!"

Revier broke down laughing when both of the dwarves, looking like offended kids, threw their dice into his head.

"Gentlemen," Hanseln spoke up, "Gentlemen!" His second exclamation seemed to attract the attention of the dwarves, one of whom was holding a laughing and non-resisting Revier in some kind of chokehold from behind, while the other was theatrically rolling back his sleeves.

Hans brought up his cup with the wine in a clear invitation for a salute.

"For the next glorious generation of our beloved guard," he offered.

Everyone did get back to their place, picking up their own goblets, cups, and mugs.

"...and for those who come after!" Hanseln finished.

The sounds of clicking cups and mugs rang out across the hut as the small celebration continued. As soon as the weather would stabilize, they would all head out, but for now, for just one night, they enjoyed the moment of rare tranquility.

And so the chorus echoed back;

"For those who come after!"

***

Neugieri,

The mountain pass they were crossing wasn't very far from the actual 'high passes' they were supposed to monitor from afar.

Neugieri couldn't help but find some irony in this. Especially considering that it took them five days to even get here.

Here she was, a mage brought in to avoid precisely this detour, making said detour.

The humor, however, she couldn't quite appreciate, mostly due to the sheer difficulty of mountain climbing to a spot that didn't exactly have a well-worn trail.

The wind on the pass was unlike anything Neugieri had encountered before, even back home in the North. It searched for any seam in her clothing, any gap between glove and sleeve, and where it found purchase, it bit. Were it not for the enchanted bracelet she wore now, or the heating alchemical liquid she had stuffed in her clothing before during the ascent, she was certain she wouldn't have lasted the first hour up here.

It didn't help that breathing here was so difficult she felt like she could barely force herself to move at all.

The hunters dealt with the cold similarly. Hanseln's plate carried its own warming enchantment, and Schwätzer wore an enchanted chainmail, apparently, which is why he had his hands under his coat half the time.

The seven of them moved in a formation that only looked loose. Two hunters walked ahead, one with his crossbow uncovered, the other reading the snow in front of his boots with the utmost attention.

Hanseln followed, hand resting easy on the pommel of his sword. Then Neugieri herself, with one of the dwarves close beside her. Schwätzer came behind, and the last two hunters walked at the rear, one of them half-turned for most of the climb, watching the path they'd already crossed.

They were all silent unless it was necessary to speak, as they were already close to the nest of the monsters they came to exterminate, and no one wanted to alert them.

The path itself was little more than a suggestion left in the rock by previous crossings; a faint scuff here, a notch carved into a boulder there, the occasional iron peg driven into stone where someone had once needed an anchor and left it behind for whoever came next.

Three times the path gave out entirely, and they had to climb in earnest, hands and boots both, with rope strung from above by whichever hunter reached the next ledge first. The worst of them was a stretch of ice-glazed stone perhaps fifteen meters tall, where even the dwarves took their time testing each handhold before committing any weight to it.

Her arms ached in a way that promised to make the next few days miserable, and in general, Neugieri found a newfound respect for anyone willing to ascend this high.

This was utter madness. It felt like the air itself was trying to kill you. Neugieri could scarcely imagine people subjecting themselves to being here willingly.

Kratzer, who was walking at the head of the group, gestured for everyone to stop all of a sudden and crouched low.

He glanced back towards Neugieri, and beckoned her with his finger.

The mage complied.

As she approached, she saw the dwarf crouch next to a rock that… seemed completely ordinary to Neugieri.

"Mage," he said quietly, looking at her, "They should be close. Got your birdie?"

Neugieri nodded, gently relaxing the sack on her back, and extracting from it the enchanted metallic cage. Inside, there was a bird that was sleeping despite the roaring wind and the commotion, an eagle, to be exact.

The cage was enchanted with a heating spell, and the bird's mind was completely under Neugieri's thrall; she had extensive mental lace all but woven across the animal's fragile mind. She did her best to prepare the bird as well as she could to control it with magic.

The bird itself has been caught up here, as the avians living further down in the mountain probably won't fare well in this wind and temperature. This little one, however, should… according to their tests, in any case.

"Kratzer, you sure it'll work?" Brav asked, the young man, seeing her unimpressed gaze, seemed a bit embarrassed, "I am just saying that we can barely see the damn things when we use hunter techniques, even if it's an eagle…"

"It's an eagle, Brav," Offenbar offered, "It's a good thing you younglings are believing in yourselves and your techniques, but it's an eagle we are talking about. We cheat with mana; they are born with those eyes."

"Can you both shut up?" Kratzer asked curtly, before glancing back at Neugieri.

The mental mage, meanwhile, had the eagle awaken, meet her eyes, and stare into them, enthralled.

Neugieri brought up her right hand, the one on which she wore her ring. It was her second foci, but unlike her staff, created for a much more delicate work.

A lot of spells could only be cast safely and quickly once channelled through a focus, and that created difficulty, such as having to actually bring your foci close to the target when casting a spell. Especially if you were doing delicate work and your foci of choice was a staff.

There was a reason Staffs were the foci of choice for mages in the last few centuries; they could simply safely deal with bigger amounts of mana and could hold bigger mana fluctuations without burning out.

But with that said, enchanters, alchemists, and other such magical professionals often used much smaller foci.

Neugieri heard it was the Zauderns' idea to gift each professor a custom-made ring-shaped foci. Making a foci this small required an extremely competent enchanter, yet Zaudern took it upon himself and his guild to produce those for the Academy for dirt cheap, even arguing with the headmaster that those would, in fact, greatly help their image.

Why exactly the enchanter went to such lengths - Neugieri wasn't sure, but now she had a perfect foci for using mental magic, so she couldn't possibly complain. It also helped that the physical ring was commissioned from dwarven jewelers and was incredibly beautiful.

"I am… in," she said quietly, and now she saw two things at the same time.

"Good," Kratzer said, stepping aside, "Launch when ready."

Neugieri reached into the pouch at her belt and retrieved the potion. It was a small spherical glass, the size of a very large tomato, filled with a clear liquid, with two thin leather harnesses bound around it for the bird to grip.

She opened the cage. The eagle stepped onto her forearm without resistance, and Neugieri, who was now looking at herself through the eagle's eyes just as much as she was looking at the eagle through her own, offered it the orb. The talons closed around the harnesses neatly. The doubled sensation of feeling the weight shift from her arm and feeling her own arm from above at the same time made her stomach turn briefly, before she pushed past it.

She wasn't truly in control of the bird's body, but she was connected to its senses, and gave it short commands that it would understand. The beast's critical thinking was also suppressed to the point that her commands were the most important thing in its perception.

A small nudge, and the bird was off.

It climbed in tight spirals along the cliff face, riding the wind up the ridge of rock that had been blocking the group's view. Neugieri had to remind herself which of her two bodies was the one still kneeling in the snow, as the eagle cleared the ridge and banked wide over what lay beyond.

At first, she saw nothing but snow and stone.

Neugieri was told that the monsters looked something like leopards the size of two and a half men, that had been made to stand on two legs, tall, heavily muscled, with fur thick enough to disappear into any snowbank… if not for whatever magic they used, that turned them completely invisible, and made them practically disappear.

Kratzer had described them, back at the base, as something genuinely terrifying. He had also said that his men couldn't spot them at any reasonable distance, even when alert, which was half the reason she had been dragged up this cliff in the first place.

He and his men accidentally managed to notice them when they were being watched, and turned things around on the monsters, choosing to follow them back to their lair after one of them returned to grab more supplies. They tracked them to this very spot, where the pack migrated to, and all those monsters needed to die tonight.

If those things bred, and if they continued to stalk hunters like they already did, people would start dying. It didn't help that no one knew what those monsters were called; they were some foreign species that invaded from the outside of the region.

Kratzer's words were proving true so far, as far as Neugieri was concerned.

Even with the eagle's eyes and the eagle's mind directing those eyes, she could barely make the creatures out. A ripple in the snow where there shouldn't have been one. A shadow moving against the direction of the wind. The faintest outline of a shoulder, a head turning, and then gone again.

She counted slowly, twice over, before she trusted the number.

"Six," she murmured, not daring to speak any louder, "Spread across the bowl beyond the ridge. Two near the far end by a tall rock, two on the slope to the left, one under the closest boulder, one near what I think is their den." It sounded almost like they were keeping some sort of watch.

Kratzer gave a small, tight nod beside her.

"Not a den, no caves deep enough around here," the hunter corrected her quietly, "They weren't supposed to be quite this close. Last time we tracked them," the grey dwarf pointed upwards, and to the right, "They've been positioned there."

Neugieri nodded slowly, her brows furrowing further.

"If there are any others… I can't spot them," she admitted weakly. Which wasn't good, as the last time the hunters counted eleven, according to Kratzer.

"There is a shelf above the slope on the left," she continued, keeping the eagle circling, "Wide enough for all of you. You can reach it from the far side of the ridge, out of their sight."

The dwarf was quiet for a moment, his jaw working once.

"The wind is blowing towards us," Brav offered, "Doesn't sound like the worst idea."

"We'll still get swarmed by the others," Offenbar said seriously, "Those things have very good hearing; it's only because of the wind and our techniques that they didn't notice us yet. Once the fight breaks out? The rest of the pack will come running."

"So let them," Hanseln said, his voice serious as he met Kratzer's eyes, "You wanted your cavalry; we are here. As long as we know that they are coming, we can still kill them all."

Kratzer nodded slowly.

"We can wound one," he said slowly, "Make it scream for a long time, really howl its throat out, so the rest would come to help." The dwarf exhaled, "It's… it's bad gambling with monster instincts you don't understand like that," he explained softly, "They could rush us as you all hope, or they can run away. Both are valid. And we didn't study the prey enough."

For a while, the silence lingered.

"I don't think we will get a better opportunity," Neugieri offered quietly, "I don't see anything else that can help us."

Kratzer considered the mage for a moment, then nodded sharply.

"If that's the best we've got, that's what we'll do," he agreed simply, before glancing at Hanseln, as if checking that the knight didn't oppose him.

Hanseln didn't. They agreed at the start of the operation that Kratzer would be in command, mostly because he was the hunter who actually saw those monsters, and because he knew those areas and was more experienced in dealing with monsters in general.

Getting into position took the better part of an hour.

The far side of the ridge was a slow climb around wind-scoured rock, with Kratzer leading them up and the eagle circling high above to keep watch over the bowl. By the time they crested the shelf, Neugieri's legs were burning again, but the shelf itself was as wide as she had promised, a long slab of stone tucked beneath an overhang, with enough cover from the ridgeline that the monsters below would see nothing so long as no one stood up.

The seven of them spread out along the edge, readying themselves without a word spoken. As agreed quietly before the ascent, Hanseln, Schwätzer, and Kratzer stayed nearby, while the other two hunters flanked the monsters from other sides.

Neugieri closed her eyes.

Through the bird, she looked down and pinpointed the monster in the very center. The one attacking which will cause all the others to snap their attention away from their own unprotected backs.

She turned the eagle's circle wide, bringing it around on the wind, letting it drift once overhead to feel the pull of the air beneath its wings. The wind was steady enough to account for. She corrected, came around again, and brought the bird into a clean line above the target.

She sent the command through the lace, and the eagle clamped its talons hard around the orb and jerked them twice in short, sharp motions as it flew. Through the bond, Neugieri felt the liquid shift and catch inside the glass, and an instant later, the orb began to warm with its own light, a small, cold point of brightness that grew more certain with each heartbeat.

Then it ignited into a bright, blue light that was still impossible to see from the ground unless you looked directly up.

She made the bird let go.

The orb slowly fell.

Neugieri watched it drop through the eagle's eyes, a tiny gleam descending in a clean line against the grey of the stone, and below it, the faintest ripple in the snow where the monster leaned, unaware, his outline almost nothing at all. The light flared brighter once, just before it met him.

Then the world below went white.

The sound caught up a breath later, a dull wet crack of a detonation, and on the heels of it, a scream that wasn't human and wasn't anything Neugieri had heard before. It rolled across the bowl, high and ragged and loud enough to carry for kilometers, and she felt more than saw the other shapes in the snow twist toward the source of it, their camouflage breaking for a heartbeat as they turned.

Through the dust and snow, Neugieri had just enough to spy that she hit just right; the creature's legs were torn off, but it was still alive, screaming its throat out.

"Go," Kratzer said.

Hanseln was already moving. He dropped from the shelf with a push of his boots that carried him past the edge and down to the snow, sword high, and the first of the slope monsters caught his downward cut before its camouflage had fully broken.

Schwätzer landed a breath after him, lighter, quicker, and opened the second one's throat in a single clean pass, using a curved sword of his, and a strange, light stance.

Neugieri's firebolt left her staff with a sound like tearing cloth, crossed the bowl in a line of heat, and took the monster beneath the closest boulder square in the chest, punching a sudden dark hole through the snow and through its camouflage at once.

Beside her, Kratzer's heavy crossbow spoke, and the second monster at the far rock pitched backwards with a bolt through its eye before it had finished turning toward its dying packmate.

The last two hunters went over the edge somewhere to Neugieri's left and struck the remaining two monsters. Neugieri could only blink as she heard a howl, and one that was, apparently, lying under a rock before rushing towards Hanseln, so quick it was almost impossible to react…

Only for the knight to explode into a flurry of motions, his sword igniting blue briefly as it first parted the creature's clawed arm from its torso, and then cut it into five pieces so fast Neugieri wasn't even able to count the strikes.

Six breaths, perhaps seven.

On the far end of the bowl, the one she had bombed was still screaming, though the sound was weaker now, broken, coming in shorter and shorter bursts. Below it, what was left of its legs painted the snow in a wide dark arc. Neugieri made herself look, once, through the eagle's eyes, because she was the one who needed to see the rest of the pack coming in.

However, her connection to the eagle's senses was deteriorating rapidly. To participate in the attack, she had to give up on maintaining that spell, and applying it remotely was impossible. She could still give the bird commands, and even receive brief flashes of what it sees when she requests… just not a constant, uninterrupted feed.

She winced.

Then there was the howl. Terrifying, loud, and coming from their right.

"Form up," Kratzer called, already moving. "They're coming."

The group shifted.

Hanseln, Schwätzer, and surprisingly, Brav formed the vanguard of sorts, with a knight, a warrior, and a hunter who wielded a savage looking hunter knife and a one-handed crossbow.

Revier and Offenbar positioned themselves with the bow by Neugieri's side; the mage could feel them doing something with their mana, as the dwarf and a human both looked focused.

Kratzer stood not far off with his crossbow.

To Neugieri's surprise, Offenbar, the dwarf, let out a nervous laugh, looking somewhere towards the snow that was moved around by the wind en masse.

"Seems like we miscounted after all, Krat. It's at least ten more," he offered with a jolly tone.

"No chatter!" Kratzer cut him off, "Don't shoot yet! We want as many of them here as possible before they realize they are outmatched and try to escape!" The man shot his crossbow, it sailed high, and fell some distance away on the snow. "Shoot them only when they are past the bolt! Use techniques! Focus on supporting our front line first!"

After that, a few agonizing seconds of silence, broken only by enraged growls and howls, and the wind.

The monsters crossed Kratzer's marker bolt somewhere out in the blowing snow, and Neugieri didn't see it, but the hunters did.

"Past the line!" Revier snapped.

Revier and Offenbar loosed at the same instant, without needing a word between them. Their arrows left the strings trailing thin cords of red light, and Neugieri watched one of them bend around a snowdrift in mid-flight and take something through the throat, the shaft burying itself so deep that only the fletching remained visible against the white. The second arrow found its mark a breath later, lower, and whatever it hit tumbled forward into the snow and didn't rise again.

Neugieri had never actually seen a hunter work before.

Two down. Kratzer's heavy crossbow spoke once, and something folded around the bolt at the waist, driven backwards by the force of it. The dwarf was already cranking the mechanism for another shot, his hands moving with a speed Neugieri hadn't thought possible for a weapon that size.

And yet, something was wrong, Neugieri's gut told her.

"Left flank, three close!" Brav called from his outcrop.

"I see 'em," Hanseln answered, and then the frontmost of the beasts reached the vanguard.

Hanseln moved into the melee first, as he always did, his cloak flapping behind his armour like some mythical hero, before he was amongst the enemy.

His sword flared blue along its edge as he stepped forward to meet the lead monster, and the first cut took it through the shoulder and clear down to the opposite hip in a single pass, the halves falling away from each other before the thing had finished its final stride.

He didn't pause.

A second shape resolved out of the snow on top of him, and he pivoted low beneath its swipe and came up with a cut that opened it from belly to jaw, and a third, flanking, caught the backswing across the neck and lost its head in a wide arc of red that the wind carried halfway across the bowl.

Beside him, Schwätzer also exploded into action.

His curved blade moved in long, looping cuts that seemed to chain into each other without pause, one strike rolling into the next, and he never stopped moving his feet.

A ripple in the snow lunged at him, and he wasn't there anymore, already inside its reach, his sword carving a deep diagonal from shoulder to ribs in a single stroke that opened it like a split log. Another came at him from the side, and he stepped around the swipe of claws he could barely see, ducked beneath a second swipe, and came up cutting, and the beast's arm came off at the elbow, and its throat followed half a heartbeat later.

"Two on you, Hans!" Schwätzer called without turning his head.

"Busy!" the knight responded, as he absent-mindedly backhanded one of the monsters who tried to sneak up on him from behind.

"Make time!" the other man shouted, having to practically backflip from the two monsters, as he still managed to cut one of them across the leg, and kicked the other to increase the distance of his jump, and land safely somehow, like a cat.

Brav was a little further out, half-crouched behind a small outcrop of stone, his small crossbow in his off hand and his hunting knife in his teeth. He shot once, let the crossbow fall on its cord at his belt, took the knife in hand, and then something was on him, and he slid beneath the claws on his knees across the snow, came up behind it with his knife already driving up under the base of its skull, twisted once, and the thing dropped.

Neugieri saw all of that briefly, mostly in her peripheral vision, but she was focused on her own job.

The closest monster to her, if the faint wrongness in the snow fifteen steps away could be called that, was closing fast, and she caught its eyes through the flurry and held them.

It wasn't a spell she used often, and certainly not from this range, and the creature undoubtedly was a monster with a core… yet, her research proved fruitful as she weaved the templates of the spell.

Her spell slid across its mind like a blade across silk.

The shape in the snow pitched forward mid-stride, and Neugieri put a firebolt through where its skull should have been, and the snow burst in a gout of red and steam, confirming that she estimated right.

Another was coming from the left. She didn't bother with sleep for this one. She reached into its head and turned, and the charge bent sideways as it lost track of where it is for the brief few seconds and its eyes reported its packmate as the threat; two ripples in the snow collided in a tangle of claws she couldn't quite see, tearing at each other in a fury loud enough to hear even over the wind.

Revier's next arrow found one of them through what must have been an eye, and the struggling ended.

"Right!" Offenbar barked suddenly, "Right flank, mage, right!"

Neugieri turned, and Schwätzer was already moving.

He must have caught the call a breath before she did, or perhaps he had been watching the flank the whole time. He pushed off with both feet, a single hard leap that carried him backwards and up over the body he had just left on the snow, and he landed between Neugieri and whatever was coming for her with his curved sword already swinging. The first cut caught something across what must have been the chest on its forward lunge, and the second, continuing from the first without pause, took its head off just below the jaw, and the camouflage broke as the body fell, and Neugieri finally saw one of them properly at her own feet.

Schwätzer didn't look at her. His eyes were already moving, checking the angles she couldn't check herself, his sword held low and loose at his side, his breathing hard but steady.

"Stay on me, lady mage," he said.

Neugieri, lifting her staff and blocking a swing from another barely visible monster with a rotating shield that cracked like glass… only to receive Kristallspeer that pinned it to the ground like a bug with a needle.

"Stay close, I can't project the shields too far away," she warned, catching a brief look of surprise on the man's face, that morphed into a smile.

The rest of the fight happened in front of them.

Hanseln had found his rhythm by now, and the ripples in the snow that kept charging into him were being reduced to parts at a rate Neugieri's eyes couldn't entirely follow. Two of them tried to rush him at once, and he took them both apart in the same motion, his sword leaving a thin blue afterimage across the air.

If Neugieri didn't have to occasionally sling spells at creatures all around, she would've stared more.

"They aren't that scary in a direct fight, are they?" Schwätzer asked with some amusement, standing not too far from Neugieri herself, but he was keeping an eye peeled to the surroundings.

"Makes sense," Neugieri said, letting out a barrage of exploding orbs of mana around Hanseln, to briefly lift up the snow, making monster silhouettes more visible, "The hunters were afraid of their potential to ambush them at any time… not of their power."

"Mhh-…" Schwätzer said nothing, merely did a few dance-like steps forward, and with a few swings killed a monster that Neugieri didn't even notice.

By that time, the fight was clearly ending, as everyone was just finishing off the stragglers.

"Someone kill that screaming bastard, will ya?" Kratzer complained, pointing towards the howling monster without its legs… that was still trying to crawl towards them.

Revier gives the dwarf a short, joking salute.

"As you say ser, give me but a moment ser," he said, casually pulling a string of his bow, and shooting the creature in the head.

Neugieri stared at it because… the wounded one was visible, and she could tell that it truly looked like a leopard, if someone made it to walk like a man and turned its front legs into arms.

"Seems like those are the sort of monsters who are completely focused on killing humans, after all," Schwätzer said next to Neugieri, making her blink and glance at the man, who smiled at her, "Now I may not be Hanseln, but I've attended some of the talks your headmaster holds, you know?"

Neugieri chuckled despite herself. She couldn't tell why, but for some reason, the man's easygoing attitude was incredibly funny to her now, even as the crimson blood with which he was all but covered started to dissipate into grey matter that dissolved into mana.

"I would've never assumed you to be the kind!" she admitted through her giggles, before shaking her head.

Schwätzer grabbed his heart theatrically.

"You truly wound me, dame," he said flatly.

That too, Neugieri found hilarious, as her body shook slightly.

"But… but really…" She shook her head, trying to get her thoughts in order. She knew what it was. Stress was leaving her body after a real battle. This wasn't her first. "Those couldn't have been monsters who are inherently focused on killing humans… or they wouldn't have stalked our hunters without attacking," she explained, lifting a single finger up, before pausing, and glancing down in confusion at a creature that was crawling towards them even while dying and in pain… "But then why did they…"

Neugieri would never forget what happened next for the rest of her life.

It felt like time slowed its passage for a brief moment. Like a wave that reached its crest, when it first starts to foam and hovers up

She could see Hanseln talk with Kratzer about something, as they checked a small handmade map, even as Revier was collecting the arrows, and Offenbar bandaging some sort of wound on Brav's shoulder.

She saw a smiling face of Schwätzer, genuine and without the usual awkward distance.

Then she saw the terror that started to grow in his eyes. And she saw him explode into motion.

Then the wave crashed.

"Dodge!"

She felt the impact as the man pushed her; she might have cried out, and for a moment, she must have lost awareness from the sheer pain of the impact against her chest.

When she could see again, her ears were ringing, and she saw… she saw…

A person. A person with horns and terriffying mana.

A person with horns and terriffying mana, who had his sword through Schwätzer's chest!

Neugieri attempted to glance around, to the left, Brav's face practically sticking out of the snow. Another demon striking over and over at the… armless Offenbar.

For a moment, a sense of complete surrealism won over.

Demons. They were being attacked by demons, here, in the middle of nowhere. This was impossible, surely…

"-iri! Neugieri!" Through the ringing in her ears, she heard.

The mental mage blinked slowly, only to see Hanseln trying and failing to pass by a demon, who seemed to have been holding even with him.

With great difficulty, Neugieri reached out with her mana, and she sensed… she sensed…

Dread.

"Now-now, there is no need for any of that," a female voice, sweet and flowing, and a figure dressed absurdly lightly for the weather. The female demon approached Schwätzer. Initially, Neugieri didn't even register what happened next.

Only when the pink-haired demon with a pair of ponytails bit off a chunk from the bloodied, torn-off arm in her hand, did she realize.

She vomited.

"You!" Hanseln roared, and so did his mana.

Neugieri could see him dying next. Because the demon who was… who was eating Schwätzer…

Must have been a Greater Demon. Neugieri remembered, back when she asked her master, he spoke of them.

"Neugieri, Greater Demons are creatures beyond human comprehension," her master Serie explained with a disturbing smile, "For a mage studying magic and pushing its boundaries like you… They are the incomprehensible existences that break the rules of magic as you know it." The elf looked her in the eyes, her expression devoid of any amusement, "Unless you are prepared for the battle and know exactly what you are dealing with, and have allies to match… your only choice is to run."

This was a Greater Demon, Neugieri knew in her bones.

She didn't have time to wonder how or why. She merely reached out with her mana and imparted a number of images into its head.

Academy. Albert's face. Find.

She couldn't give the bird more complex instructions - its mind wouldn't understand. She couldn't give it an object or a message. Neugieri could tell she was on the verge of passing out, and the demons around won't…

"Oh, how curious…" A warm, almost gentle hand took hold of Neugieri's chin. She looked up and froze, like a rabbit before a python, as the demon was holding her, "You do have quite some mana. What spell did you attempt to cast?"

"Let her go!" Hanseln roared.

The demon smiled. It wasn't a malicious smile; it didn't promise pain, nor did it speak of triumph; it was a friendly, kind smile.

"But of course!" she said pleasantly, walking behind Neugieri, "You just have to lay down that sword of yours first." Neugieri could feel the other hand of the demon lay on top of her head, while the one below gripped her chin tighter. "There is no reason for us to lose our heads, is there?"

Neugieri looked towards Hanseln. Their eyes met. She knew it. Could feel it.

She smiled at him.

In her head, ringing and confused, she knew one simple thing: she couldn't have the demon use her to have Hanseln surrender. He is the only one who could run. The only one who could survive.

Then, she tried to cast the firebolt from her ring, and saw no more.

----

Author's Notes: Here is the chapter. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Man, it feels good to write characters who aren't a biorobot like Albert.

Important question, who do you guys think won in the GolemWarrior tournament? Anyway, nothing really important is happening in this chapter, but things sure are picking up. 🫠

Jokes aside, has been sick, chapter got a bit delayed.

Good news, I made Discord for people to come together and discuss the story in one place:

https://discord.gg/wsFzh3V5

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