The carriages reached the nearest town which had a small teleportation port, a maximum of 6 people could go at once and it cost another small pouch of coins.
Though costly because of the usage of mana stones, it was very convenient.
This technology had emerged from the demons who had an abundance of mages, due to their innate mana abilities.
While they could just employee low rank mages, it was not so simple for the other races. They didn't have as many mages, after all.
So an alternate method of using mana stones instead of mages was found.
But mana stones remained costly, being exhaustive resources and hard to process. Thus, the high cost.
As the team left the teleportation hub, they finally returned to Bani, boarding a bus from the nearest city.
As Bani was an isolated refugee town, it didn't have the big teleportation hubs, but the city did.
"Finally back home!!" Lily exclaimed as she got off the bus.
"It feels like we have been gone for years! I missed this...scenery"
Matt also said in excitement, though his voice trailed off at the end, seeing more number of refugees than he had ever seen in his life.
"Where will they even stay?" Kyle also voiced her concern.
As another group passed, Ray walked up to someone he recognized.
"Hey pal, how are you? You look much better than before!"
He had slapped a weak looking man, who was as thin as a skeleton, causing him to turn.
'Is he really better?' Tidlen worried inwardly.
"Ray! You are back! Nice to see you safely back. You know what, you won't believe this!!"
"Why? What happened?"
" The mayor. He announced that they are creating charity camps. I even got a job as a laborer."
" Congrats!! It's my treat tonight then."
" No. Let me save up a bit more, then I'll be the one to treat you."
" Hmm? Okay then! I am counting on you pal."
As they talked, the rest of the party were honestly surprised by Ray's connections.
He had only been there for a month!
Returning to the Adventurers Guild, the receptionist lady was presently surprised, then worried then shocked as she heard their story.
She then immediately directed them to the branch master.
Each branch of the guild had a branch master, and he was in charge of managing the branch and anything abnormal.
Then the guild master was a brawny looking man. His skin was darker shade of brown. And he had a gray beard and mustache. With a bald head, he looked like a worker. Especially as he wore a worker's attire, simple linen shirt and pants, very unlike his status.
As he heard the story, he didn't question much. He knew the habit. He was once an adventurer himself and a S rank.
These were all easy, the pain full part was yet to come.
The complicated procedures, then took three whole days to complete. Throughout which the group had to repeatedly complete paperwork, then interview question and answer sessions, then other assessments, mental checkups, physical checkups and more.
The result was that Kyle was officially promoted to S-rank, making the party an S-rank party.
They were somehow allowed to keep most of their earnings, especially the artifacts, which could have been "confiscated", no, "shared" with the guild, but as apologies for the discrepancy in danger, that particular ruin, the guild let them have complete ownership of it.
And about the dragon king?
After much discussion before coming to Bani, the group had decided not to tell anything about the Dragon King or his message.
They knew that talking was a bad idea. The best case scenario would be them signing a confidentiality agreement. A worse outcome could possibly be assassination and they didn't want any part of it.
"Haa...they'll make you regret coming back to them!" Lily said irritably.
"What are YOU saying?!! You guys made ME do ALL the paper work!"
Tidlen stared angrily at the group who had all 'coincidentally' turned their heads away from him. Including Kyle.
After days of grueling paperwork, they have could finally take a breather.
---
In a nearby restaurant/bar in Bani. The five friends sat around a table. The food was good. It had Bani's specialty spices and cooking style.
They settled on various things as they ate their food. The elf village of Srotah, the increasing amount of refugees, Tidlen's rants on the unfair distribution of paper work and everyone's reasons for why they couldn't help him
"Haha.." "Haha.." "Haha.." "Haha.." "Haha.." After another round of laughs, Ray asked,
"So, what do we do now? We have earned plenty. I vote that we all take it easy for a while."
'Honestly speaking, I don't want to go into a dungeon anytime soon.'
This was a bit surprising for them to hear from Ray, but they could understand. After all, just imagining another adventure caused them to silently shiver.
After such a traumatic experience, anyone would be scared of doing something similar.
A silence hung in the air, while many drunk adventurers, citizens, laborers, and all kinds of other people chatted, chatted loudly in the background.
This particular table was very quiet, unusually quiet.
After that long silence, Matt slowly opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again. Once again, he opened it and after a sigh, he said,
"I'm...I'm thinking of quitting adventuring. I will return...return to my hometown...I don't know what exactly I will do there... but it is something... it should be something related to runes. I will try becoming 'something' back in my hometown again"
Everybody looked at Matt. Another silence.
They knew that it wasn't an easy decision. Matt was already around 30, and as dwarves and humans only lived till a 100 years...It was already the age for him to have a stable earning, adventuring cannot promise that.
They all knew the risks and they all had similar thoughts before.
Then Tidlen gathered courage and spoke.
"I...I am also thinking of taking a little break. I want to join the researchers. Basically...I want to learn more about the ruin we just went and...basically... I want to learn more about magic...So I'll be returning to my family.
Tidlen was a part-time researcher. Ray had learned of this quite late and only heard it from Tidlen on the journey of the cart.
It wasn't supposed to be a huge secret, but there was no context to talk about it before, just like many topics. Sometimes they just don't come up.
The one most affected by all of this was Kyle.
She had finally found a trustworthy group after long years of adventuring, and now it was breaking apart. She didn't know what to say.
She could only stare with a blank look on her face.
Her whole life had mostly been adventuring and she didn't know many other skills to do a regular job. She was deep in thought.
Lily was also surprised, but it was that...that she kind of expected it. She didn't know why, but she had gotten certain vibes from her three teammates. Lastly,
Lastly, with Lily in the lead, the team looked at Ray, who was smiling softly. An ambiguous smile with some deliberation, he said, "I am also thinking of taking a break and continuing my travel."
They had no expressions. The five, no, the four had blank faces. They kind of knew, they kind of expected this. After all, Ray was a solo adventurer.
Through this journey, they had bonded and made lasting friendships, but they would not and could not hold each other's freedom. So they had expected it, but now they didn't know what to say.
They had also previously learned from Ray that he traveled from town to town, staying at a single town for not more than two months.
They had asked him why and he said that he just liked travel and wanted to see different places, their cultures, the people, the ruins. He said that he just wanted to see the world.
Kyle could understand his sentiments somewhat, but not strongly enough to do the same.
Another awkward silence was added to the streak of silences.
Then Ray's face perked up and a bright smile appeared on his face. Enthusiastic and excited, he slammed the table. He looked at his team and said, "If we're all taking a break, let's go to the festival."
"The festival?" Tidlen asked in puzzlement.
"Yes, the festival."
Immediately Tidlen remembered and asked, "Is the Demon Lord's birthday festival close?"
"Yes, it is. It should be less than a month from now. Let's go there.
"They have a lot of new events from arena fighting,"
as he said this he looked at Kyle and passed her,
"from sports and archery competitions, even technology, exhibitions.
His gaze shifted from Kyle to Lily, Lily to Tidlen and Matt.
"And most of all, they have amazing food, he exclaimed, new and different kinds, vegetarian, with all weird those unique spices and different flavors!"
From the way he said it, the people who were having dinner, all felt a slight wistfulness to taste those delicacies.
The faces of the group slowly started to mirror Ray's excitement.