With the mysterious woman by his side, Viktor walked through the streets of Daelin, the town where Claire and Quinn had lived since their childhood.

  The siblings’ parents were both proud Bronze-ranked adventurers, who spent their days taking on glorious missions like chasing down petty thieves or breaking up tavern brawls. Every now and then, the father tagged along with a passing caravan as a guard, but Viktor heard the toughest thing he had ever fought was a particularly aggressive raccoon, and when real trouble arose, the guy often vanished at precisely the right moment, leaving the mess to someone with better pay to sort it out.

  When Claire turned fifteen, the couple had the brilliant idea of trying their luck in a newly discovered dungeon in the North. Obviously, that was something much more dangerous than whatever rabble they had handled before, but the allure of fortune was too great to resist. If they struck gold, the family would be set for life. So, they made their choice. Leaving their children behind, they embarked on their journey.

  And they never came back.

  Fools! Viktor snorted. Idiots like them becoming food for the dungeons was just the way of the world.

  “You said that Jeanne was your sister’s friend,” said the woman striding beside him. “Is your sister also an adventurer?”

  He shook his head. “No, she works at the Guild. She’s a receptionist.”

  “I see,” Lahmia said, glancing at him quizzically. “How about you? What do you want to do when you grow up?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “How old are you? Twelve? Thirteen?”

  “I’m twelve.”

  “You’ll be an adult in just a few years,” Lahmia said. “You should start giving some thought to your future...” The woman paused, looking around. “Well, I don’t mean to speak ill of your hometown, but I doubt there are many good opportunities here. If I were you, I would leave as soon as I could.”

  “I can’t just leave the town as if it’s nothing,” Viktor replied. After all, his dungeon was here. “But I see your point about Daelin.”

  After his reincarnation into this body, he was quite surprised by the sorry state of the place he found himself in. Why was this area so desolate? When he was the Emperor, this was the heart of the Empire. As it turned out, once he had done a bit of investigation, his enemies had ravaged the entire region after his death. They gutted it thoroughly, then left it to rot.

  He couldn’t fathom such actions. Why? Why didn’t they claim the territory for themselves? Why couldn’t they just fly their banners from his towers and become the new lords of the Central Plains? Why let good resources go to waste? Unless... they were aping what he had done with the “punished regions”?

  If that were the case, it would be utterly ridiculous. The castle, the city and the surrounding settlements were neither built by him, nor were they ever part of his homeland. He had conquered them just as he had conquered everywhere else, and he chose this spot as the capital simply because it was conveniently located and came with a nice river.

  Regardless of the reason, the fact remained that the region had been devastated and abandoned for a very long time. What was once a thriving land had become a wild, forgotten place. Farmland had been swallowed by the forest, towns and villages had crumbled into piles of broken stone, and his once-proud Imperial Roads were now buried deep under vines and moss.

  But there was one more thing, the final nail in the coffin that sealed Daelin’s fate.

  In the last three hundred years, not a single new dungeon had emerged in the area, and their absence meant the town stagnated while other places thrived. It remained a backwater even a century after its foundation. No heroes were going to be forged here. Should someone with potential be born in this town, they would soon depart in search of better opportunities. What remained were the dregs of the adventuring world. Mostly Bronze, a few Iron. Now and again, a Silver would pass through, usually accompanying a caravan.

  “Are you an adventurer?” Viktor asked, still wondering what a Gold was doing in a place like this.

  “I am.”

  “I don’t see any weapons. Are you a mage?”

  “Good observation, Quinn,” the white-haired woman replied with a grin. “Yes, you’re right.”

  “What kinds of spells can you use?”

  “Can you guess?” Lahmia teased. She leaned slightly closer, looking at him mischievously.

  “How am I supposed to know?” Viktor pouted.

  Actually, he was just feigning ignorance, since he already had a guess. There was a good chance this woman was a pyromancer. Because when she gave him the silver coin, their hands briefly touched, and he noticed a sizable scar on her palm, most likely a burn scar.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Even though fire bent to the pyromancers’ will, that didn’t mean it would forgive their folly. One single mistake, and the flame would punish. Thus, most of these mages carried scars from their early lessons, marks of their first fumbling steps. Viktor recalled that Jeanne’s hands had the same scars. They were proof that fire was indiscriminate. Pyromancers or not, anyone could burn if they were not careful.

  “Let me show you then,” Lahmia said. With a flick of her finger, a small flame erupted, dancing in the air.

  “Wow,” Viktor exclaimed, pretending to be impressed. “You can control fire!”

  With another flick, the woman made the flame vanish in a puff of smoke. She gazed at him with amusement, clearly pleased with his reaction.

  “So, why did you come to Daelin?” Viktor asked.

  “Work, of course.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “It is...” Lahmia said, a playful smile on her lips, “...a secret.”

  Damn it. Of course, she wasn’t going to tell him the most important part.

  “How long will you be staying here?” Viktor asked, not willing to give up so easily. Every bit of information counted.

  Lahmia shrugged. “Hmm, I’m not sure. It depends on my work, but it could take a couple of weeks.”

  They continued to chat on their way to the station, discussing the town, the locals, the cuisine, everything. Lahmia seemed open and friendly, but whenever it came to something actually important, she gave him nothing but vague, noncommittal answers. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pry anything useful out of her. Meanwhile, the woman also attempted to probe whether he had noticed anything unusual happening around here recently, to which he, of course, feigned ignorance.

  Before long, they arrived at the caravan station, sitting right next to the intersection of two of the old Imperial Roads.

  This was where Daelin came into existence a hundred years ago, starting as a small outpost in the middle of a dense forest. As time passed, the town grew, and so did the station. It was now a complex, with multiple buildings surrounding the main loading area where wagons came and went. To the left was a long, weathered barn where pack animals rested before beginning their next journey. To the right were several large storehouses, crammed with all sorts of goods.

  A grand building stood on the opposite side of the entrance, its stone walls a stark contrast to the wooden structures that made up its neighborhood. The building served as the administrative office for the complex and the seat of the Overseer, the head of the station and the most influential man in the town. After all, before there was a Mayor, before there was a Guildmaster, there was already an Overseer in Daelin.

  “That’s where you should go if you have any questions about the caravans,” Viktor said, pointing at the edifice. “I think Jeanne is inside at the moment.”

  “Why is she there anyway?” Lahmia asked as she began to walk across the courtyard. “Is she looking for a job?”

  “No, she’s like you, trying to find out what happened with Jake’s party. I heard their last job was to escort a caravan.”

  Lahmia looked around. “This station is pretty big for a town this size,” she said, her voice nearly drowned beneath the din of people barking, wheels creaking, crates and barrels clattering to the ground.

  “Yes,” Viktor said, or to be accurate, shouted. “The caravans provide the bulk of the town’s income. They’re also the main source of employment for adventurers.”

  The white-haired woman giggled. “You’re very well-informed for someone your age. Have you ever considered becoming a clerk here?”

  “I’m just repeating what my sister told me,” Viktor said, skirting a pair of oxen plodding past. “She often complains that too many adventurers come straight here looking for work instead of going to the Guild.”

  Without any dungeons nearby, the caravans were indeed the town’s lifeblood. Abandoned and desolate as it might be, the area still lay at a central crossroads between many prosperous regions. Before long, someone had figured out that establishing an outpost here, a station where caravans could rest in the middle of their journey, was a good idea. That was how this town was founded in the first place.

  However, it was still not enough to make this place flourish. Daelin was the only settlement in the area, while the rest was a dense forest full of monsters and bandits. The adventurers in these parts were not strong enough to confront the threats, so many merchants chose to take a longer but safer route.

  The main trade good that flowed through Daelin was oil, much of it produced in the sun-soaked groves of the South, while its biggest consumers were in the North, where people loved burning stuff in the name of religion. They worshipped something they called the Eternal Flame, and great fires were kept roaring day and night within their shrines and temples. Private homes also lit their own fires, tiny eternal flames in bronze bowls, burning through oil and coin in equal measure. The bigger the flame, the heavier the purse. In a way, it functioned as a display of status for the rich. Viktor found the whole concept ridiculous, but it was what kept Daelin’s economy afloat. The day the people of the North stopped their silly rituals, this town would suffer greatly.

  As they approached the stone building, Viktor spotted the red-haired pyromancer standing outside, talking with a stout man with a thick mustache.

  “That’s Jeanne,” he told Lahmia. “She’s also a fire mage, by the way. Just like you.”

  “Oh, I think we’ll get along then,” the woman said with a smile. “Thanks for your help. I’ll be fine by myself now, so you can go home.”

  Lahmia lifted a hand in parting before heading for Jeanne. Viktor remained in place, his gaze fixed on her back.

  Now, what should I do next?

  He still hadn’t learned anything worthwhile yet. All he knew was that the woman and her partner were here on a secret mission, one that could take a few weeks or so to complete.

  Which means they’ll have to find accommodations in town.

  There were several lodgings in Daelin, but he couldn’t imagine someone like Lahmia tolerating a worn-down, bug-infested room in a shabby establishment.

  The Emberwood Inn, then.

  It was the best this town had to offer. A “luxury” inn, by Daelin’s standards of course, that catered to the richer sort of merchants who passed through here. Still, since the two adventurers were Gold-ranked, and Lahmia had no qualms about tossing a silver at him earlier, they probably wouldn’t be short on money. Thus, chances were high they would end up in that place.

  He could keep watch outside, wait for them to leave, then follow to see what they were up to. Or he could even sneak into their rooms while they were away, digging through their belongings to uncover the secrets they were hiding.

  Viktor recalled the lockpicking skills he had acquired during his adventuring years. Time to find out whether three centuries, with a bit of death and reincarnation thrown into the mix, had left him rusty.