They arrived at the town after another day or so of traveling, which was actually a bit ahead of time. They were expecting to be a bit delayed. After all, the destination was a town, which meant there were town-level monsters lurking around.

Then they found out that Miss Althea had used a Beast Repelling Sticker that greatly reduced the beasts they encountered in the last day. Though it had limited effectiveness against town-level monsters, reducing the weaker mobs definitely helped, as they could focus more on the real, challenging fights.

They immediately wanted to buy some—the girls thought the stickers were incredibly cute—but unfortunately, unlike luxury items like tents, Althea and Garan had to preserve these lifesaving things for their own use.

Once again, they simply marketed Alterra. "In Alterra, this is already a commodity," she said, not lying at all. The true ’good’ repellents could shoo away town-level monsters!

Of course, the stocks were limited and mostly reserved for official business. The amount that trickled out to the market— sold either in Althea’s Pharmacy or in the Contribution Store—could be counted in two hands, replenished once a week at best.

In sum, everyone could understand that the things they were so amazed about were taken for granted elsewhere. Quite a few teams had already made plans to head straight to Alterra after this mission.

Speaking of the mission, it was marked ’completed’ as long as the bride entered the walls of the groom’s villa.

So what they had to do was to literally sneak Anna into an unpopular sector of the wall and then head out again.

Easier said than done, of course, at least in the mind of the mercenaries.

After all, the groom was a high noble here, the highest kind. According to the rumors, his family was the only one who had the know-how on handling the metallic resource.

They could even get the Lord to create system walls and sentries around their property, making sneaking around a bit troublesome.

The mercenaries were not afraid of the sentries themselves, but their activation would alert the guards, which defeated the purpose of going there in a low-key manner in the first place. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

This stumped the mercenaries, who were worried they’d be caught and get into trouble.

Fortunately for them, they had Althea.

...

"This isn’t really that difficult," she told them, making them stare at her.

When they saw that she really wasn’t troubled, they couldn’t help but blink.

Althea smiled at them. How many strategies had they developed and mastered during their own wars?

This...was child’s play.

These town people, who rarely went to war and, if they did, relied on brute force, wouldn’t think of these things so easily. If they think of something, it would be after a brainstorming session.

For Althea, it was just a matter of choosing among the various tools and tried-and-tested strategies she already had on hand.

What they did was to throw simple, small fireworks at one end (the small ones were very, very cheap in Alterra, and were even treated as toys), catching the attention of the guards.

At the same moment, they would throw Anna inside, with a high-level mercenary handling or shielding against the sentry arrow. They would then fish her out again just as she landed. If they were quick enough, they’d be out of the sentry’s way by the time it shot its second arrow against them.

Only two people were needed to do this, and it was really not hard to run away before any abnormality was detected.

[Mission ’Escort Illyan Town Bride to Acero Town’ completed!]

The remaining reward money withheld by the system was automatically added to their accounts.

They didn’t have to worry about the system alerting the Lord that the mission was done. After all, it wasn’t him who had posted the escort mission.

Althea smiled. Her first mission outside the Alterra Region: Done~

...

Wilem made sure to give a lot of bonuses to everyone involved in this mission. One was because he was genuinely thankful, another was to keep them quiet.

As for why Althea didn’t worry about the mercenaries leaking this ’scam’, she just didn’t think they would do so.

Even if they did, it didn’t matter much. She and her husband weren’t staying here. If these mercenaries made trouble, they’d only be going against Wilem, who was still the rightful heir to the Illyan seat.

They would also lose the trust of her and Garan, their current sole connection to the mysterious Alterra and its various interesting goods.

In short, anyone with a brain wouldn’t risk it.

Anyway, after a bit of small talk, the mercenary teams said goodbye to each other, gaining some friendship, before going on in their own way.

Most of them would check into the Inn, though, which was a system building. A lot of them did ask for each other’s home bases so they could send posts here and there.

Interestingly, everyone had mentioned that they would go to Alterra one of these days. They ended up scheduling a reunion on their own.

Althea shook her head and just stared at the town itself. It wasn’t particularly novel, as many territories used the same buildings.

On their way to the inn, however, they saw carts traveling on the side roads, heading to the Warehouse located behind the Center. (They naturally gained a rough idea of the important locations when they were doing Anna’s mission).

The couple was curious and went to look, though they had to keep distance. There were a lot of guards, indicating that it was important, so they did not want to attract trouble by walking too closely.

Instead of approaching, Althea used her ability. Specifically, the Earth element.

With a flick of a finger, she created a large bump in front of the carriages. It was nothing that would cause them to tumble, but it caused a few small and loose pieces to drop off.

The big ones were immediately retrieved by the guards who walked around the carriage, but the smaller ones took longer to get.

Althea took advantage of this. The earth underneath a few ores ’ate’ them up, hiding them underneath the soil.

With another flick, they were carried to Althea’s direction.

And so, literally under the guards’ noses, the ores travelled underneath their feet.

Althea and Garan positioned themselves away from the line of vision, and she kneeled down, catching the ores spewed out by the ground a second later.

Her eyebrows rose. It seemed like Acero Town had some resources that interested her.