What Do You Mean There Are Other Transmigrators In My Harem Fantasy?-Chapter 1024: Escort Caravan Woes

"Hello. You're also here for the escort quest right?"

I turned to the source of the voice to find a young man wearing a steel chestplate on top of his leather armour.

I nodded, "Are you also another Mercenary escorting them?"

He stuck out his hand which I shook, "That's right. I suppose we will be working together. I'm Clark, leader of the Howling Wolves party."

He then gestured behind him and I found four other people who must be part of his party waiting behind him.

Judging by their gear… The leader was clearly a swordsman and they had one female mage, a male spearman, a female rogue and a male archer. All of them were Mahuns of course.

I think that's a pretty balanced party at least. freewebnøvel.com

"I'm Aster. Leader of the White Dragon's Sword Maidens."

He nodded in acknowledgement, "Forgive me for asking but is your party not from around here?"

I wondered why he would be asking that until it dawned on me right then… There's not a single Mahun in my party…

The only person who looked Mahun was me and that's only because I was hiding my tail and wings…

I chuckled, "No, no. We're actually from around here. We grew up in this Kingdom. Unless you're asking if we're from Dragon View Trade City then we're not. We're from down south."

I was intentionally being vague of course, since I didn't see the need to tell someone we just met everything about us.

He nodded, "I see, I see. Oh, don't take it the wrong way, I was just curious since I thought your group might have come from another land. Anyway, I'm looking forward to working with you."

He then turned back to return to his party and Katsuki very subtly came over to me, "Mistress… They are a new party that was just formed today. They're E ranked."

"Eh? How did you know?"

"They were a few counters down from where we were at the Guild earlier. I overheard their conversations then."

I didn't even notice them at all but… I guess as expected of Katsuki?

Still… I guess they must have been doing this work for a while since their gear definitely doesn't look new so maybe they had been going solo all this time and only just decided to form a permanent party? Although… For them to be lower ranked than us… I guess they haven't really been doing this for that long either.

Putting that aside, we're still waiting for the leader of the caravan to prepare.

As the Guild Request had stated, this caravan was headed to Latipac city and it was a merchant convoy that was also taking passengers that were paying to ride along the convoy.

Which was what we're waiting for right now since the leader was holding up to see if there were any more passengers who might be coming at the last minute.

The convoy consisted of four wagons with two being used to transport cargo and the other two for people. We would be riding on the one at the back to act as the guards and I'm assuming the other group would be riding on the other wagon to spread out the defenses.

Eventually, the merchant leader, a rather elderly looking man with greying hair, called out for everyone to prepare for departure.

He had already greeted us earlier and confirmed we were his escorts for this journey but he didn't ask for names so we didn't give him one either.

I guess he's probably not expecting a long term working relationship with us so we're just here to do the job and then go our separate ways.

Well, I have no complaints about that so we just climbed into the back of our assigned wagon while the Clark guy and his party also went to the other wagon to do the same.

In the wagon with us were several other travellers including a family of four, a middle aged man with a large rucksack and a girl wearing what was obviously mage robes.

We gave them a nod as a greeting but none of them seemed to be looking for conversation so we didn't strike up a conversation with them either.

The convoy moved out of the city with the horses pulling the wagons in a single file, passing by the guards at the city's entrance without any problems.

Then it was nothing but just sitting there while watching the lands roll past until we got into the forest trail…

That's why after a few hours on the road… The girls got bored and… Err… Got busy with me…

"Aster~ Mmmm~" Odeta moaned as she kissed me, her arm snaking around my waist to pull me closer to her.

On the other side, Lisa was resting her head on my shoulder while she planted kisses on my neck, her hand stroking my inner thigh.

Nnggh… They actually wanted to just start doing it right there in front of everyone and it wouldn't even have been a weird suggestion seeing how they treat sex in this World… But I rejected the idea since it would not be proper for us to be caught with our literal pants down if we got attacked.

So the girls just settled for touching and kissing while we were in the wagon.

I couldn't even deny them of this since they were all looking at me with pitiful looks so I allowed at least this much…

Well… That's not to say that it didn't come at a cost because the others in the wagon were all staring and it felt even more awkward…

I really hope that night can come faster so that we can make camp and get off this wagon…

Swish…

Katsuki suddenly moved and pushed Lisa away from me while she pulled out one of her daggers.

I stayed still and just let Katsuki do whatever she wanted without panicking or flinching back, trusting her completely.

She swung her dagger in my direction and stopped the blade right beside me, the sound of something metallic hitting it echoing in my ear.

Peeking to the side, I saw the arrow she deflected spinning away from me before it bounced on the ground a short distance behind the wagon.

I heard another 'swish' sound which was followed by a cry of pain from the side.

Turning there, I found the guy with the rucksack falling to the ground with an arrow embedded in his side, the guy yelling out in pain.

"Goblins!!" Emilia shouted, pulling out her blade.

Odeta immediately leapt up to her feet, "Are you serious?! Fucking bastards ruined my time with Sister Aster!!!"

Another arrow was shot at her and she pulled back her fist and literally just punched it out of the air, snapping the arrow in half.

"Howling Wolves!! To me!" A cry came from the other wagon.

The other Mercenaries jumped out and started charging in the direction of the arrows right as a group of goblins rushed out of the forest to charge at them.

Trusting that they would be able to handle that, I gestured for the girls to go as well and they also leapt out of the wagon, leaving me behind.

I rushed over to the guy who got shot by the arrow, ignoring the couple who were doing their best to shield their children from the chaos with their own bodies.

The mage girl seemed to also be in shock but at least she had the sense to take cover.

"Aghhhh!!" The guy screamed, holding his side in pain.

"Stay still," I instructed, grabbing onto the shaft of the arrow. "This is going to hurt."

He looked at me and I didn't give him time to realise what I was going to do before I yanked the arrow out.

I checked to see that the arrow head was still attached and not lodged inside him before I used [Heal] on him.

In hindsight… I should have used [Low Anaesthesia] on him first before I pulled the arrow out but oh well… Too late for that.

His wound closed up and I left him to groan on the floor before turning my attention back to the fight.

As I had thought, once the element of surprise was gone, the goblins didn't stand a chance against us.

The goblin archers never got the chance to fire another volley as Katsuki and Emilia had broken through the front lines and cut them down before they could nock another arrow.

Then with Odeta leading the front, she basically tore the goblins apart with her bare hands while they could do nothing to stop her.

In less than a minute, all of the goblins were cut down without a single mercy shown.

The girls didn't need any healing but it looks like Clark's party suffered some damage so I went over to heal them.

Clark nodded gratefully at me, "Thanks Aster… Umm… I can pay you for the healing."

I shook my head, "It's fine. We're all working together here so it's a given that I'll help you."

"Ah… In that case, please accept our thanks again."

I waved at him before returning to the girls and I realised Emilia was frowning at the corpses of the goblins.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"For goblins to be this close to the city… This is odd… And it's still in the middle of the day too. This isn't even like a side road either and there's other caravans going past here… Why did they only target us?"

I shrugged, "Maybe we're just that unlucky?"

"I doubt it… But I think we need to be more careful now."

Well don't worry Emilia! We're always careful! Right girls?