"Haaah… Hargeon again. I have been running this route since I was young. No matter how pretty the scenery is, I am sick of looking at it."
Old Sandy grumbled as he flicked the reins, complaining to the companion beside him, who sat with arms folded and eyes closed, pretending to rest.
At his muttering, the man finally opened his eyes with a helpless look.
"Who isn't? I have been following this caravan for almost five years. If the boss did not pay well, I would have done what all the young guys in the village did already, joined a proper guild, taken jobs freely and roamed all over Ishgar."
From his words, and from the long sword at his hip and the armor he wore, it was obvious he had some fighting ability. Clearly, he was hired as a guard for the caravan.
"That is not quite right, Uncle," a young voice chimed in. "Sure, joining a guild sounds free, but the daily pay is not guaranteed at all.
Forget all those new guilds popping up and stealing work from you, even the employers you meet on jobs are always a pain.
If you look at the whole picture, a steady job with fixed wages like yours is actually more appealing."
Koma and Old Sandy both nodded without thinking. They agreed.
It was precisely because he knew how unstable guild life could be that Koma had never done more than talk about it.
But after nodding, the two of them suddenly realized something was off.
There were only the two of them on this wagon. Where had that extra young voice come from?
In an instant, cold sweat broke out on their backs.
Koma was just about to draw the sword at his waist on reflex when that young, slightly childish voice spoke up again.
"Anyway, Uncles, do you have any water? I have been on the road for so long I am about to die of thirst."
"On the road…?"
Confused, the two of them leaned out in the direction of the voice.
Very soon, they spotted its owner beside the wagon's wheel.
Once they got a good look at him, however, their expressions grew even stranger.
It was a kid who looked about eleven or twelve years old. And what he called "being on the road" was keeping pace with the wagon by frog jumping alongside it.
Anyone who saw such a bizarre sight would be stunned, and Old Sandy and Koma were no exception.
"Y–you, kid… you are, uh… traveling?" Old Sandy stammered.
He received a perfectly matter-of-fact answer.
"Yeah. I have been on the road the whole day too, hopping over from Magnolia. Uncles, which caravan are you from? What do you trade?"
Hearing the casual question, Old Sandy and Koma were completely dumbfounded.
People like them, who ran trade routes year-round, were extremely sensitive to distances between places.
From Magnolia to here, even taking the shortest paths and all the little shortcuts, it was still more than forty kilometers.
And this kid was saying he had spent one day, frog jumping, covering over forty kilometers.
Their brains simply could not accept that.
Kabe, on the other hand, did not care whether they believed him or not. When they fell silent, he could only ask again:
"Uncles, do you have any water? Let me borrow a sip."
"O–oh, here, take it."
Even if they thought the brat was bragging, they were not about to refuse such a small request.
Koma turned, grabbed a bulging waterskin from inside the wagon and tossed it down.
Kabe caught it in one hand, lifted it to his lips and drank greedily.
"Haaah, that hits the spot."
His throat had practically been smoking. He could not help draining the waterskin in one go.
He caught up to the wagon again, then tossed the empty skin back up along with a small, rarely used coin worth 500J.
"Thanks, Uncle. You saved my life."
Koma put the waterskin away and stuffed the coin casually into his pocket. Five hundred J was not much, but the child's thoughtfulness made him like the boy a little more.
Since there was nothing else to do on the road, Koma struck up a conversation.
"Kid, from what you said, you must be a mage from a guild, right? Which guild? There are not many mages your age who go out on jobs already."
Kabe did not answer directly. He only tugged up his left sleeve, revealing the guild mark on his shoulder.
Koma had seen enough of the world. The moment he saw that black, leaping fairy emblem, he grabbed the backrest and shot to his feet in shock.
"Fairy Tail?! Kid, you are a mage from that famous Fairy Tail?!"
Old Sandy, hearing the shout, could not help glancing back as well.
"Are you serious? What happened around here that made Fairy Tail send someone?"
"It is not that dramatic. We will take any job, no matter how tough, sure, but we also do regular work, you know."
Kabe chuckled and let his sleeve fall back down. His eyes gleamed slightly as he smoothly shifted into gathering intel.
"Uncles, my job this time has to do with a mermaid. You two have been back and forth to Hargeon for years, you have seen a lot. Have you heard any rumors about mermaids?"
"We are just a coachman and a guard, that hardly counts as 'seen a lot.'"
Old Sandy gave the modest answer, but his proud expression said clearly that being asked for information by a Fairy Tail mage was doing wonders for his ego.
He and Koma exchanged a glance, then thought carefully.
"Now that you mention it, I do think I heard some friends in another caravan talking. A few days ago, one of the fleets on their way into Hargeon said they saw a beautiful mermaid on the sea as they were about to arrive at port. But rumors like that pop up every year. After a while, no one takes them seriously anymore."
"We do not know much more than that. If you really want to dig around, kid, you should try the taverns near the docks. The sailors like to go there after they disembark. You might be able to pick up something useful from them."
-------------------------
Patreon Advance Chapters: patreon .com / ElvenKing20