We are one day away from Strawford, the last town before Mirfield, and I am still embarrassed by the motivational speech I gave that morning we met the merchants.

During these travels, we have been hunting some small monsters. I take parties of seven gorilla kids hunting with me to power level them. There are twenty-one of them, very convenient. I even got a racial level and five levels of magician.

We also use this time to let Mittens, Kochurearc and the female gorillas rest away from the road. It really wears them out to remain on it. Just what are these roads made of?

Anyway, here we are one day away from the next town.

"Look at me! I am on the shoulder of a giant! To new heights!"

"Marcy! Watch out or you will fall!"

"Wee!"

"Shoot the angel!" "Firebolt!" "Firepuff. Waa!"

The girls are standing each on one shoulder and holding onto my horns for balance. Zahariel is soaring in the sky and the gorilla kids are using him for target practice. Almost all of them can cast the basic fire spell [Firebolt] due to this impromptu practice. Kochurearc told me that it is usually one in ten flame gorillas that can do so.

I used the bee's poison sting and inoculated everyone until they got the poison resistance skill. I also gained one racial level and seven levels of magician. I am now a level 22 magician and the tier 4 wizard job opened. I didn't pick it. I will only get a tier 4 untested job after I advance all the four basic elemental skills.

"Are you girls going into Strawford for shopping too?"

"I am afraid you will raid or destroy something again," says Marcy.

"And the chance of having people from Mirfield here is even bigger."

There is a tough choice now. East of the road is a hilly terrain that will be very difficult to cross but can get us to the syrup meadow faster. But Strawford is like a barrier for us to cross. There is a river that runs to the west, and no bridges until further away.

"We could try to cross the fields at night. If we can get a distraction... yes. It might work. Here is my plan. We will go slowly through the hills, hidden from the city by the elevation. Once night falls and you hear the signal you will descend on the fields and do a double march through the edge of the fields until you get to the road on the other side. I will create a distraction on the other side to draw the watch away from the wall. I'll later join you on the road." I'll summon three big water elementals and command them to spray low powered water jets at the wall. Then while the chaos is installed I'll get to the other side of the river and rejoin the party.

"What will be the signal?"

"The town's emergency bells."

We travel slowly during this day and the next. We must be rested for this to work.

At the last bend of the road before entering the cultivated fields, I separate myself from the main group and run around under the cover of the vegetation to the west. If everything works, we will reach the syrup meadow in two days. Finally.

I can hear the river growling ahead. It won't be long now. This river just flows up from the deep earth and then runs fast until Heorot, then lazily all the way to the sea. If you could navigate it, one could get to Capital City Heorot in less than one day. But there are too many rapids and rocks. And boats can't navigate upriver.

This town has one of the lowest mana concentrations of any in this continent. The same hole that pours water out also sucks mana in. Because of fantasy. It also means the chance of a monster attack is almost zero. Not even from the groundwater stream, not a single monster has appeared.

The sun appears to be almost level with the town in its high perch. I am watching the river. the terrain has a sharp slope and it is basically a series of short waterfalls. Anyone that falls in the water will be bashed against rocks hundreds of times. I have to cross this river without being spotted.

Just in case I'll set a dimension anchor here. Tunneling underneath using earth elementals will be difficult and hazardous. I'll jump over with the feat of strength version of Emperor's Might. If I fail I can short jaunt back to the anchor.

It feels like the sunset takes forever up here. I can see the lowlands already covered in darkness. This town looks like a nice one to live. Mirfield is a frontier town, almost like it is a fortress against something else beyond to the east. What is in there? Tancred mentioned someplace he was going to. There is no humanity east of Mirfield, that is a sure thing.

The orange-red light of the dusk reflecting on the rock face is awesome. Well, time to jump. Run the fastest possible and leap before reaching the water. Emperor's Might activate! I fall with style through the air for about one hundred feet before reaching the ground on the other side and making a dash for the nearby vegetation. I can't raise the alarm this early. It feels like an eternity. My legs ache when I hit the ground and I almost tumble down the hill.

And safe! There were some sentries up in the wall, but they were blinded by the sun. Like a giant worm's maw that comes from below, the darkness of the night rises and steals the last shard of sunlight from the tallest wall tower. Some minutes later and the first and most daring stars in the sky show themselves.

I summon three big water elementals. I actually had to wait for MP to recover before summoning the third. These three drain as much MP as I can recover, so I'll stay near zero for a while. "Never get near the river source. Go and spray water on the walls. Not too hard, just wash the grime away." They groan and move over the rocks on the other side until they are near the wall. Each elemental is thirty feet tall, half as much as the one I used against the imps.

The bells begin to ring all over the town. The elementals are shooting their water cannons at the wall, I hope it holds. I have to dash for the road now, in case some trouble happened on the hillside. I also don't want to go too close to the river source. I had enough of MP drain with that boiled potion.

Ahead I can see the road to Mirfield. The town gates are not closed yet. In the tactical map, I can see the arrows pointing to where the main group is. They are still crossing the fields. I'll hide and wait for them to come. There is no use running to them despite my anxiety.

Flame gorillas are a liability for night stealth. They can't help but shed some small flames every now and then. When you are traveling with twenty-seven of them it is even more problematic. I can see them approaching. They are some 200 feet away and one elemental was defeated. Too bad. 100 feet and only one elemental survive.

They reach my position right when the last elemental is defeated.

"Hurry up. The distraction has already died. We need to make it on the road. The entire town is in high alert and I am sure there are people annoyed that the event was one with zero drops. If we are spotted some hotheads will come to get us," This last metaphor earned me a glance from the female flame gorillas.

We reach the road and our speed picks up. It is downhill too, so it is a given. I'll summon a lot of gnomes and give them orders to stop the advance of someone coming from the town. It should buy us some time. I'll take the lead now.

"Grendel, there is a merchant stuck down the road!" Marcy gives a troublesome alert.

"Let me handle it. Hoods up everyone," At my command everyone put on their hoods. I take out the wagon and put Kochurearc and other female flame gorillas to pull it. Marcy and Helen on top, everyone else inside. It is crowded so I removed the cover, or it would catch on fire.

We move downhill and I am leading the six-gorilla carriage pulling what looks like reins for the gorillas. Title set: swindler king.

"Good evening, kind sir. I am afraid we can't help you with your cart, but best of luck," I tell the merchant as we cross each other.

"Mo mo mo!" The guy is freaking out.

"Oh. I see. Pleased to meet you, I am Houdini, master of illusion magic. I am practicing my spells over my horse-drawn cart right now. Would you please tell me what your eyes are showing you, sir?"

"Troll! Flame gorilla! Blood Mantis! Aaaaaa"

"Please calm down, my dear merchant. It is obvious that this is just a trick your mind is playing on you thanks to my marvelous illusions. This that is speaking to you is just a human magician with a unique spell skill, and these are my horses. Of course, you can check your own status, you are at full health. If we were a troupe of monsters, you would surely be dead by now, right?"

"Status! Status! Status!"

"How is your HP? Are you hurt?"

"No! I am fine. It is not real! Not real!"

"Of course not. But people will ridicule the kind merchant if they listen to what transpired here. It is better if you kept silent about our meeting. Here, have these few silver coins as compensation for your distress. I am sorry to have played this prank on you. Also, let me help you with your pack animal." Intimidating Presence.

The horse pulling the merchant's cart decides it is in its best interest to get to town the sooner, despite the steep hill it has to climb. And there goes our nameless and scared shitless merchant. After he is far away I store the cart and we resume walking.

Helen comes next to me, "I don't believe you! I don't believe you convinced the merchant we were not monsters!"

"And if he tells anyone in town nobody will believe him either. Tell me what are the odds of a lone merchant and his horse meeting a blood mantis, a troll and two dozen flame gorillas and surviving to tell the story?"

"But illusion magic sounds awesome! To fool the eyes!"

"Why don't you try? You just need to picture the image you want and then place the image in your mind covering the real one. Like this!"

I'll imagine Mittens is a log. And then pour MP to make the image in my mind overlap the real Mittens for everyone but Mittens and me.

"Illusionary Disguise!" Nothing happens. "Try it, Helen. Maybe begin with something smaller, like a phantom sound, some small figment or just, for example, a torch in your hand where nothing is."

"Figment!" I can feel a reaction as MP is expended. Nothing happens.

"Try again. Make a small illusion. Try closing your empty hand and imagining a coin inside your closed palm. Then you open your hand and the coin is there."

"Minor Illusion!" She chants and again the MP is expended. She didn't get the skill.

Skill Teaching level 7 acquired. {Class Lesson} learned. Allows the teaching of several subjects. Time to teach is increased by a factor of the square root of the number of students. Maximum three times the skill level.

Maybe if I try it. I'll omit the chant and just pour MP into the image. If you chant the spell name wrong, it decreases the chance of learning more than just omitting the chant. There is a side effect of costing several times the MP, but this is not a combat situation.

"Helen, close your hand." I focus and pay the MP cost. "Now open it"

She opens her hand and there is a coin in it, "Good. Practice with a real coin to make the image more precise, then try to cast the illusion again."

Skill Illusion Magic level 1 awakened! {Cantrip} learned.

"Grendel, there is no coin," Helen shakes her hand and the coin does not fall off. It remains on her palm. "Did you get the skill?"

"Yes! It shows Skill [Illusion Magic] level 1 awakened! in my system messages. Now it is your turn, Helen. The spell chant is {Cantrip}"

She makes a real effort. The key to improving the chance of obtaining a skill in this world is to put the effort in it. The system was designed this way. To help people in a pinch. "Cantrip!" she chants.

Again she opens the hand, and there is a coin in there. I touch the coin and my finger goes through. "I knew you could do it."

Marcy that was watching it in silence joins the talk, "It was like what you did to me. I never thought I would be able to use magic, even if its only arrows."

"Speaking of which, how many types of elemental arrows you can shoot?"

"Ice, lightning, acid, fire," she answers. Quite the nice selection. She has the right selection of elements to exploit the weakness of every monster in this group.

"Say, can you shoot some fire arrows for me? Aim at some rocks."

"Sure. Fire arrow! Fire arrow! Fire arrow!"

"Nice. But the fire is so-so. Can't it burn brighter? As if you wanted to light up where you hit? Focus!"

"FIRE ARROW!" The arrow in the nocked blow licks the bow and her hair but doesn't burn anything. Then she lets the arrow fly into a boulder further down the road. It lights the road and then hits the boulder and keeps burning for half a minute before vanishing. "There, is this bright enough?"

"Yes. It is. It seems you can make it burn. Can I take a look at your bow?"

"Here, what do you want with it?"

"Item box: store!" I look at her, "nothing. Can you put your palm in front of you like this?"

"Yes. Like this?"

"Yeah. Now imagine the burning of that arrow but in the palm of your hand. Put MP in the front of your hand like a ball of fire."

"Sure."

"Now get ready to fire that arrow once you say the loudest you can the word firebolt!"

"Firebolt!" Whoosh! A small ball of fireflies and hits the boulder.

"Nice. Can you do it 3 more times?"

"Firebolt! Firebolt! Firebolt!" 3 more balls of firefly from her hand into the boulder.

"Did you get any weird system message?"

Marcy freezes on the spot staring at the infinite. Typical behavior of someone that is looking at the system window.

Helen pounces and hugs Marcy from behind and asks her, "Shoulders of giants?"

I pick up the still frozen Marcy and Helen and carry the two girls with me. For some reason, they are leaking water from their heads.

"Thank you two for being with me, for believing in me. I love you both."