It was a 5 star gold ranked quest, so not many in the academy could take it. Apparently, Lucius and a few other students had lobbied with Headmaster Elufied and were successful in putting up the quest.

Despite it being a border patrol quest, the true purpose behind the quest was for Lucius and the few students who had their territories situated on the borders to have a legitimate reason to request back up from the academy students.

They couldn't just go and request for help. The students needed to have a legit reason to take leave from cla.s.ses. First years didn't have this option and only 2nd years and above could take time off lessons for practical experience on the field via taking adventurer quests.

Cecil and his friends would graduate from being 1st years in two months, then their vacation would start and this would last another month or so before the next school year begins. However, despite being 1st years, the Little Kings Adventurer Party was currently out on a mission even though they had cla.s.ses.

Of course, they had received permission from the Headmaster and the Academy. It was also because they were Academy Kings that they were given the option not to attend cla.s.ses.

******

On a highway heading towards the Darkfang territory, a unique carriage being pulled by a large white wolf was speeding down the large and congested road. Many carriages were moving along this highway, but this particularly unique carriage was speedily pa.s.sing by every carriage like a gust of wind.

"Hmhm~ the wind feels good~"

"The breeze is great, but..."

"BLEUUARRGGHH"

The carriage was the unique transportation vehicle of the Little Kings. Everyone was having a great time feeling the wind blowing on their faces, but only one person, a fatty, was having a hard time.

"H-hey...Lucius, you okay?" Velicia asked while patting her fiancé's back.

"I-I'm fine Veli...I'm just not used—blarrghhh"

More rainbows flowed out of Lucius' mouth. He was currently slumping down by the window of the carriage, freely showering the other carriages that the group was pa.s.sing by with colorful rainbows.

"Haha~ I'm sorry about this Lucius! You did say we should make for the Darkfang territory post-haste!"

"Y-yeah..."

"Should I ask Silv to slow down?"

"N-no! The faster we make it there...the quicker we'll be able to complete the quest!"

Cecil nodded. He then had Silver pick up his speed. Silver activated his wind magic to manipulate the air resistance that affected his body and the carriage then he shot forward at an even faster speed!

If Yuna or Lucia had been to the Darkfang territory before, they could have easily reached the place using the Misty Gate, but it was too bad that neither of the two had ever been there.

"WOOOOAAAHHHH—BLEEERRGGHH"

"Uhh...Eli, you recently learned levitation magic right? Could you place one on Lucius? At least this way he won't feel the carriage rocking too much..."

"It's rocking?" Eli replied in question.

The upgrades that Cecil put on the carriage had literally stopped all forms of shaking and instability that a normal carriage would have to go through when traveling at the party's ridiculous speeds.

Theoretically, no one should have even felt any form of 'motion sickness' while on the carriage, but for some reason Lucius was an exception.

"D-don't mind me! I'm alright—ughh..."

"I say...you're far from it," Ainz snickered.

"Shut it, Ainz!!" Velicia returned his snickering with a yell.

"Heh!"

Lucia was sitting next to Cecil who was holding on to Silver's reins. She turned towards the boy and whispered.

"Hey...are you sure about this?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know full well what I mean..."

The day when Lucius became the bearer of bad news, Lucia had interrogated Cecil when the two got home.

Reluctant as he was, Cecil was still forced to explain to her about the news he received and also about his intentions on going out to the border in order to help Lucius out.

Lucia was against the notion of course, but she was conflicted about not wanting him to go there or not. Lucius was a friend and Velicia's fiancé, turning him down now when he had gone all this way to request for help would no doubt leave a bad taste in their mouths.

She could only reluctantly agree to help out, but with the condition that Cecil doesn't do things on his own. No matter how strong he was, it'd still leave him in a bad position if he fell into a trap and his abilities were rendered useless.

For instance if he fell into an illusion, or he was forced to fight until his mana fell into critical levels, Cecil wouldn't be able to punch his way out of that.

They've been going about their adventures safely for a long time now, but who knows what kind of tricks the Empire would pull once they found out that Cecil was at the border.

For now only Lucia knew about his predicament. The boy still hadn't informed his other friends about any of it just yet and Lucius had also kept his mouth sealed.

For all they knew, the party was only going out to help Lucius with the conflicts in his family's territory.

It took the group another 5 days before they reached the border territories, even when they were traveling at high speeds. Lucius had gotten used to the high speed movement after only a day, so in the end, he was still able to enjoy the carriage ride to some degree.

Along the way, they stopped by some places to look for alchemy ingredients. This didn't take too much of their time, but even then it still took them 5 days just to get to the border territories.

Then, it took them another 3 days to arrive at the main city of the Darkfang territory. This was because they had to stop by a couple of towns and villages to pick up packages of alchemy ingredients and foodstuffs being contributed to the territory.

The people were pretty united in combating the foreign threat. It didn't seem like any one of the villages or towns were being forced to hand over a share of their monthly yields.

"The beastkin are a really close-knit bunch of people~" Cecil said while observing Lucius' past interactions with all the village chiefs and town mayors. They were all friendly to the young master of the territory and Lucius was also very amiable to them as well. He didn't act like an arrogant young master, but more like a humble envoy that was requesting help from the people.

Currently, the Little Kings were now inside of the Darkfang Family's Estate within Darkfang City and Lucius' elders were currently speaking with Eli who was the Princess of the Kingdom.

Before coming here, Eli had visited the castle and came back with a royal decree. It should've been a great help for Lucius' parents to request additional supplies from their territory citizens, but it seemed it was all unneeded. The people of Darkfang Territory didn't need to be pressured by a royal decree to help out the administrators of their homelands; they had all contributed in some way on their own accords.

While Eli and the elders were talking, Cecil pulled Lucius over to the side and asked him about the quest's completion criteria.

It was a bit vague on the quest board so he needed to know the specifics.

"So, how are we going about this 'patrol' quest? What's the criterion for us to successfully complete our mission? Remember that the academy gave us a 1 month time limit, this excludes the time needed for us to get here."

"Yes, this is the limit the headmaster and our group had previously agreed upon...as for the completion criteria, we want you guys to just patrol the borders and keep an eye out on any suspicious groups or individuals."

"Alright."

"With the royal decree backing us up, we can freely detain anyone we deem suspicious. For the ones that try to resist arrest...you can use force to detain them...and if it gets too out of hand...kill them if you need to." Lucius declared coldly.

"What? But wouldn't this antagonize the Empire if we simply began killing their citizens, just because they looked or felt suspicious?"

Ainz asked in shock.

"It doesn't matter...the Empire was the one who made the first move...do they really think us beastkin aren't easily provoked? If they think that blatantly sending these shady characters into our territory is something we'll easily overlook, then they're sorely mistaken."

"..."

"Like I said, with the royal decree, we'll have the authority and power to detain anyone we deem suspicious. As for the killing, keep it to a minimum and ONLY do it if their resistance might threaten your lives!"

Cecil and the rest only responded with a nod.

"So, we'll only be doing this for a whole month then?"

"Yeah, basically...even then, this will be a big help. We're currently still in the process of completing a network that'll monitor and keep any future individuals from the Empire from doing anything."

'Oh? Like a police network huh?' Cecil thought, but couldn't they just use the guards?

"Why not just use the guards?"

"The guards won't cut it...they do their jobs properly of course, but we need people in the dark to handle...the dirty jobs..."

'Oh, so maybe not the police, but like a personal a.s.sa.s.sin unit.'

Handle the criminals with—well, maybe not criminals, but people who won't mind getting their hands dirty.

"Well, that's good and all, but are you sure you can set this all up within a month?" Lucia asked.

"We've been prepping all this since the Empire began pressuring us. The Kingdom was the one that decreed it, so all the funds are being supplied by the royal family. All we had to do was recruitment and training."

"...so the King wasn't as tolerant as he seemed then."

******

With the arrangements settled, Cecil and his party members were escorted to their living quarters within the Darkfang Estate.

They were staying in the west wing of the estate, close to the core family members of the Darkfang Clan.

When Velicia showed her face to them, they all greeted her happily. This young girl was going to be the next mistress of the Clan, so they treated her with respect.

Although it wasn't set in stone just yet, since many things could change before the young master and the young mistress do get married, but with the way those two interacted, it seemed things were progressing smoothly already.

"Let's get some rest. We'll be starting our rounds at dawn," Cecil said to his teammates.

Ainz, Eli, Yuna, and Fina quickly went to their rooms. Only Velicia had a different room. She frequented this place when she was young so she already had her own private room in the estate.

Cecil entered his room to hit the hay. He also bade Lucia good night before going to sleep.

"Good night..."

"Mhm. Good night..."

"Say..."

"Hm?"

"...are we really going to do this again?"

"...?"

"Don't act stupid! Why are you even in here?!"

"Because...I should be?"

"..."