FB: Chapter 57 – Adventurer Team

Winner! Standard 1v1: 480-0 Champion 1v1: 22-0 Tournament: 1-0
Please return to the platform to leave the arena.

“A message for Baroness Foxy Blight,” a messenger held out a scroll with the Adventurers Union seal on the outside. I had just finished another battle in the coliseum. I took the message and opened it. A team had come together to take on my quest.

“No reply is necessary,” I pulled out a gold coin and tipped the messenger quite well. Normally they got silver coins for delivering a message in the Capital. Better to keep in good relations with the masses whenever I could. The young man smiled at me, tipped his hat, and then rushed off to his next job. I hired a rickshaw to get to the Adventurers Union from the Coliseum while I set my status in the guild screen to busy.

Only officers would be able to see my status, and it meant that I was only to be bothered if it was a massive emergency. In my absence, large decisions were not to be made if possible, while everyone continued on with what they were doing. Henry my secretary would send daily updates, but beyond that everyone should be able to handle things without me for a couple of days.

If I needed to, I could pay the team a bit to take a break in the middle of the quest. Probably something like ten platinum per day, if I had to guess, which would be annoying. But if there was an emergency, then I could break off my poison collection.

As for logging off, I could activate my character to follow mode while occasionally logging back in the day before we reached the monster or one of the alchemists. It would be a massive pain to have to adjust my schedule like that, but it was doable.

I arrived at the Adventurers Union and an attendant directed me to a meeting room. For S rank quests and above, the team normally met with the client first, before officially accepting, due to the risks associated with such a quest.

There were five people in the room along with a representative from the Adventurers Union to handle any disputes. “Baroness Foxy Blight, I am Hans Herald, team leader of the Red Herald Questing Team,” a large NPC man introduced himself.

“A pleasure. Thank you for listening to my request,” I said.

“Of course. It is a decent S rank quest,” he said which meant that the pay was equal to the risk involved. “Visiting two reclusive alchemists where we act as your escort and then killing seven monsters?” he asked.

“Yes. I require nine legendary poisons and need to be escorted to collect them. The alchemists will hopefully be able to make one each for me or be willing to sell them. I also hope to recruit at least one alchemist to help process the monster corpses and extract the legendary poisons from the corpses,” I replied.

“Hmm, I don’t see any issues. What about the rest of you?” He turned his head to look at his team members.

“I am concerned about one of the monsters chosen. The Reflecting Prism will counter magic skills. Our usual tactics won’t work,” the mage of their group said.

“The alternatives aren’t much better. Here is a list, you can look over,” I handed over the list of legendary poisons to Hans Herald. His team got up to look over it as well.

“The other five that you didn’t pick would be even more troublesome. The Infinite Ooze is something we would refuse regardless,” he said.

“I suggest the Steel Serpent instead of the Reflecting Prism. More of a slog to get out there, but the final fight will be easier. Also, magic won’t be completely countered,” the mage pointed out.

“Snakes. You know my opinion about snakes,” their archer muttered.

“The Steel Serpent would be highly resistant to physical attacks, which would put the rest of us on the backfoot,” their swordsman said.

“I am more concerned about the poison. I won’t be able to counter it,” their cleric pointed out. I waited quietly while they went over the list of monsters, finally deciding to after the Reflecting Prism, since they had three physical fighters to the two magic users. Hans gave the list back to me.

“Thank you for giving us the option to look over the full list,” he said. I nodded at this.

“While I tried to make the best choices for the quest, your experience is something I will have to defer to,” I replied.

“Is this quest cursed? When do we get a respectful client, and a noble to boot?” their archer said.

“Let’s just be grateful this hasn’t already turned into a massive shit show. Ah excuse my language Baroness,” Hans said.

“It is fine. We will be traveling together for some time. I am ready to depart immediately if all of you are?” I asked.

“We are ready. Just need to officially accept the quest,” Hans said and signed off on the paper the guild attendant provided along with my signature a second time, officially accepting the team. Once that was done, we got into a private airship that the Adventurers Union had ready in reserve for high ranked quests.

“We will go to both Alchemists first. A bit of flying about, but that is the requirement. After that, I think this order would be best,” Hans then listed out the monsters one by one. He clearly wanted to go after everything inside the borders of the Human Empire first, before going after the three monsters outside the borders.

“Ah, I forgot to ask, do you have a Travel Passport?” Hans asked me.

“Yes. So, I can get back through the border checkpoints. We won’t have to sneak back,” I replied. There were smiles at that. Technically that would be part of what I hired them to do, but now that I had a Travel Passport, it made everything much easier.

One of the requirements to take on S ranked quests was to have a Travel Passport. Since these NPCs were over level 120, it was more about the expense and their quest history instead of anything difficult to get such an item. While the Human Emperor had the final say on Travel Passports, only really questionable individuals would require his approval. High level members of the Adventurers Union had no trouble at all.

“Cursed I say. This is too easy,” the archer muttered.

“Hey, maybe it is the fabled S rank quest that doesn’t stand for shit,” the cleric joked with a smile.

“The Reflecting Prism will be headache enough. I have read about it, and I will be focused on defense,” the mage replied.

“I will be resting now. Once we reach our destination, I should wake up,” I said and retired to one of the airship cabins and logged out.

When I logged back in, we were just above to arrive. A remote tower where the Bloodstained Alchemist lived and worked. He was considered a minor criminal by the Human Empire, but not worth the hassle of sending an elite team to arrest him with how dangerous he was.

Since the airship had been assigned for this quest by the Adventurers Guild, we were able to park a short distance away and approach on foot, instead of having to stop at a town. We reached the base of the tower.

“One step closer, and you will all be melted,” a voice called out.

“I want to make some deals. These are my guards,” I called back. “If I came alone, you would toss me in cauldron.”

“True. But have your guards step back and we can speak directly. No traps or poisons,” he said.

“Can you all watch from a distance?” I asked Hans.

“If you kill her, we are going to kill you Alchemist, since you will have cost us a lot of money. Your bounty will help ease our financial pain,” Hans called out and went back with his team. The door to the tower opened and a greasy looking man, with a shabby red robe stood in the entry way.

“So, what do you want?” he asked.

“I am collecting legendary poisons. I also require the Bleeding Eye Tincture. Also, my team will be killing monsters so I can get legendary poisons. I could use someone to handle the harvesting. I only need the poisons, the rest of the body would be free to take for a skilled alchemist,” I said.

“It is hard to get materials. But my masterpiece is not something easily traded,” he said with a grin.

“How much?” I asked.

“A 100 platinum,” he replied. “And that is just the poison, not the antidote.”

“Deal,” I replied and pulled a bag of platinum out of my inventory before he could say anything else. I tossed it at his feet. “The poison?” I asked. He looked at me and then the bag. He opened it up and confirmed there were platinum coins inside. He then pulled out a vial from his robes with a dark red liquid inside.

The reason I didn’t hesitate to pay him was to make an impression and move things along. I needed the alchemist to actually cooperate and not make a fuss. The price wouldn’t have changed much either, it was already incredibly cheap for a legendary poison.

“One of only seven batches that I have made and my current magnum opus. If your target ingests one drop, they will constantly bleed from their eyes, impacting their vision and health regeneration,” he said as I took the vial and confirmed it was the correct poison. I put it in my inventory next to my first one. “So hard to make a stable legendary poison,” he said with a sigh.

“And harvesting monsters. I just need one dose of poison from each,” I added.

“Oh, you plan to get the Poison Expert title. Very hard, but I can appreciate such things. That also means you are going to see the Purification Alchemist, unless you already have?” he asked me.

“That was our next stop,” I told him.

“Well, I will be coming along for sure then. Just to make sure that devil woman doesn’t get her hands on anything truly interesting. Give me a moment while I collect my supplies,” he said.

“I will let my team know, you are coming with us,” I said, and he nodded. I went back to the adventurer team I had hired.

“He agreed to help harvest the poison from the monsters. He is also completely untrustworthy and will need to be watched,” I said.

“I can harvest monsters without him,” the archer said. I shook my head.

“I only need one dose of poison from each of the monsters and to ensure it is a legendary poison that doesn’t decay for a period of time. While I have no doubt in regards to your skills, a master alchemist is unfortunately needed to ensure the potency of the poison and that it isn’t degraded,” I said with a sigh.

“This is the shit we were expecting,” the cleric said.

“Hmm, he will probably try to kill us all at one point,” the mage added.

“Well that is obvious, even if he didn’t have a reputation. Whoever is on watch, will also watch him,” the swordsman replied. Hans just nodded along.