When Althea and Garan finally entered the teleportation array to leave Metteo, it truly felt like they successfully swatted a fly that had been annoying them the entire day.

For once, the mission was easy, and they gained quite a profit in a single day, at least compared to peers among mercenaries. For this mission, they simply had to deliver the items to his shop

The client was a tea shop owner who offered tea based on the plant. The tea shop was actually quite good, and it was well-known in this region. One of the things it was known for was its vast selection of tea, many of which were exotic. It allowed the locals to feel like they had traveled far away.

She went ahead and bought tea bags for every unfamiliar plant he offered, just because.

There was another reason why they needed a lot of the Igneus plant, however.

The town of destination was already part of the temperate zone, so it did not experience the same problems as that of the desert area. The only exception was during the Extreme Heat disaster, and that specific disaster only happened once every couple of years.

However, the village had a volcano. It wasn’t that big, and due to the size of the continent, even if it exploded, it wouldn’t directly affect more than three or four territories.

However, there were volcano-loving plants that needed some harvesting, including one of the materials for Zenno’s Fire Potion, as well as a few other high-end potions.

There were also some gems there, which did not have much effect except for some light warming functions, but they were beautiful.

Anyway, drinking Igenus tea before heading down the volcano would prevent early lightheadedness due to heat and suffocation, and so on.

The couple used the next few hours to record and study the place before heading to the Mercenary Hall again.

At their level, and the fact that they were pseudo-elves, Garan and Althea could use the arrays a few times in a day. This was in contrast with others, even if their levels were higher, they still needed at least a day.

The next place they landed on was Macca Town, which was a location they knew of. They knew it was closer to their place, and this information about this town was from Bart, who loved sharing information and hoarding contribution points.

Interestingly, that group had been grinding hard for points back in Alterra. After all, the combined points remaining in their hands were practically zero, spent in getting the leasing rights for the base lot as well as increasing the purchase limits for various items.

Each item type had their own categories, and increasing purchase limits for each one required a large amount of contribution points. Hence, to expand their stocks of one item type, they’d have to prepare a lot of points.

They chose a relatively decent escorting mission again to Twinwave Town. From Twinwave, they could finally use the Hall to go straight to Alterra. The distance from Macca Town to Twinwave Town was quite far, about a thousand kilometers away, which was a good few days even at their level.

As for why they weren’t using the Hall, it was because their client was a caravan with a carts-full of items.

Two level 2 towns within a thousand kilometers were already quite uncommon. After all, how many level 2 towns could there be in the world? How many could be in the same region?

There might seem like a lot since that was all the Mercenary Hall was connected to, but in the grand scheme of things, there were probably only a few hundred towns above level 2 in the entire planet that consisted of tens of billions of humans, not even counting other races.

The client was a merchant caravan this time, and the pay was tens of gold based on their levels, which was clearly stated in the mission description

If they had been given the chance to "sell" themselves as elementalists they could’ve gotten a better price, but they decided to be low-key.

The departure of the caravan was set at dawn of the next day, so the couple went to book another inn room after taking a peek at the new town.

Like most towns, there was nothing interesting. The reason they reached level 2 was because they got lucky in their location, and they also had a river nearby.

With a river, many refugees, people who lost their way, or travelers followed the waterway and stumbled into Macca.

Level 2 Town level was practically a level threshold that stumped many towns wanting to upgrade, so there was naturally a sharp difference in numbers between Level 1 and Level 2 towns.

They took this chance to rest, but also to absorb what had happened to them so far.

The couple slept together on the bed, with the mattress changed to their own and pillow sets of their own, as always.

"Do you think they’re really dead?" She asked, referring to Erol and Maika’s group. Other than the traitor, they really weren’t bad people. It made her sad, especially since the bad guy ’won’ this round.

Seeing even nodding acquaintances lose to evil was very uncomfortable. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

However, it wasn’t their place to dip their toes in, and they were not strong enough to fix whatever with a flick of a finger yet, so they did not bother getting involved at all.

Still...the Lord must’ve taken advantage of their weakness after escorting them to the Undead area. Thinking of it this way, wasn’t it partially their fault?

"No, there had been enmity between the two parties. They simply took the chance to use that mission. It would’ve happened eventually."

They had been tempted to tell Josef about Dune Town and how they could rest there, but they were afraid it would leak and cause trouble to Sinnan’s side instead.

She couldn’t help but feel bad though.

Garan patted her back and embraced her. For a change, he didn’t do anything, knowing they would go on foot the next day.

"The world isn’t your responsibility, my wife," he said. "You’re already doing far better than anyone else."