Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

"See you around, and thank you for your hard work," Lorene said when they arrived at her house. "Ah, I have to pay you, huh? Maybe we can delay that for a few weeks. Hahaha."

That wasn\'t funny at all… in any case, Lorene soon returned with a bag with a single coin… Rain thought that she was messing with him, but then he found a platinum coin inside. It was worth one hundred gold coins… so she was paying him two times more than they agreed.

"Don\'t look at me like that; consider that just an example of my generosity," Lorene said. "I promise you that I won\'t try to force you to do anything in the future because of the money."

"You saying that only makes you look more suspicious," Rain furrowed his eyebrows.

"Anyway, Branden isn\'t here," Lorene said. "I will talk with him about the incident, but maybe he will want to talk with you as well, so stick around in the capital for a few days."

Rain nodded and then left the area… it was high time for him to visit home and relax for a few days. However, he also had to confirm what happened while he was away from the front lines. The enemies didn\'t use that many resources to try to kill Lorene, so they could have focused on doing something else… It was about time for the kingdom to try to recover the western part of their territory as well.

It should be easier to recover than Tristan as long as they have a plan.

"Welcome back. It has been a while, Rain," Karla said when Rain reported to the organization.

"Yep, what did I miss?" Rain asked.

Rain wondered if people were treating him friendly or if his full name was just that difficult to pronounce… even Orcis called him Rain when he left the port city, after all.

"Nothing much. Some parts asked about you quite often since they needed the help of a mage," Karla replied. "It must be hard to be this popular."

"Yeah, right… about my report," Rain said after a long sigh.

While he was telling the events during the mission, Rain recalled that he had to talk with Lotto as well and do the same thing. Everyone had to be aware of the bomber man… or so was that the name that Rain gave to the enemy that targeted them.

"Thanks for your hard work. I will make sure to add this ability to the list of what we know that the magic people have… it is hard to imagine that it belongs to anyone else," Karla said.

Rain nodded, and then he left the organization as well. While using the excuse to repair his Bracers, Rain went to talk with Lotto. During that time, Rain confirmed that he didn\'t make much progress when it came to his skills. Still, since he had money now, he wondered if he should buy some potions or just look for enemies to hunt… he would be fine with monsters too.

"By the way, we received word from that region that the beast people are becoming more active in the mountains," Lotto said. "We didn\'t receive word that they attacked or are raising an army, but you might want to keep an eye open in that region."

Rain furrowed his eyebrows when he heard that… now the East might face some problems as well. Since the focus of the kingdom was in the opposite direction, things might get messy.

"I am already stronger than Dad, but he is still training and improving. The girls can use magic, but they are too young to fight…" Rain thought. "This is truly troublesome."

"You can\'t return home before talking with Branden, right?" Lotto asked. "Do you want me to send the message that you are fine?"

"Is he that far away?" Rain asked.

"He is in the south, so it might take a few days for him to return," Lotto replied.

"... I will wait three days, and then I will leave; my job isn\'t to wait for anyone here," Rain replied after a long sigh.

In the end, Branden showed up two days later and also went to talk with Rain early in the morning before he could take a job. That wasn\'t a good sign, but it didn\'t look like Branden had another job for him.

"You can relax. I am just here to thank you and say another thing to make you think about for a while," Branden said. "Orcis was in the fancy before, but now he truly wants to help since our enemies went too far this time."

"I thought that they went too far from the very beginning," Rain shrugged.

"What I mean by that is their current actions, their intentions were unforgivable from the very beginning," Branden said. "Anyway, Lorene praised you a lot, and she said that she wants you to be her guard again when her marriage happens. In fact, she said that she won\'t mind if you want to become her personal guard; she is also willing to pay you even more than a large group of guards."

"That is tempting, but I don\'t want to spend all day guarding someone in the early stages of their marriage that would cause too much mental damage," Rain replied.

"I figured as much. I still hope that you can protect her from time to time since she is also willing to help me now," Branden said. "Well, that is another thing to consider in the future. What I came to say today is that for the sake of the future, it would be good if you joined Jori\'s party for real this time and became an actual member."