Faceless Phantom

Chapter 39 - The Storm is Coming (1)

<Revell Village Square>

Sitting on a bench, Mirage and I were waiting for a wagon to pass by the square patiently, until we saw one that was drawn by two horse-sized yellow-feathered dinosaur. They looked like a big chicken yet their head was dinosaur-like, similar to velociraptor.

The wagon was slowly ran toward the north road. And before they went further north, we quickly approached it.

"Excuse me..." I said as I ran by the driver.

"Yes?" The wagoner answered as he turned his head toward me. And then he immediately stopped the wagon.

"I'm sorry... Are you, by any chance, going to Sandune?" I asked while I was observing the driver who was wearing fine clothes.

The man seemed to be short and skinny. He had big round eyes, short brown curly hair, unusual long nose, and protruding mouth with thick mustache.

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"Can we... Can you give us a ride there?"

The man got curious about what I meant by saying us, so he moved his gaze beside me and looked at Mirage. His eyes squinted a bit and the tip of his lips were also raised a little. The look on his face wasn't really pleasant to see.

As he was just staring at Mirage, I tried to ask him once again.

"It's really urgent. There's no Gatekeeper in this village, so... Please... Can we?"

"Ah I see... Yeah, this small village indeed doesn't have a gatekeeper." He answered as his gaze moved back toward me. "Well,  there's no point to have one since it doesn't have Adventure's Guild as well."

The man put his hand on his chin and thinking. Since he didn't continue, I had to open my last card to convince him.

"We're willing to pay you..."

Suddenly, I could see he smiled. Then the tip of his eyebrows immediately went up and his expression changed as if he was feeling bad.

"No, you don't have to! The more the merrier. Hahaha..."

Hearing that, I instantly smiled. Yesterday, I was overthinking this scenario over and over again, yet the answer was actually very simple.

"Come on up!" He continued. "We'll leave immediately."

"Ah thanks!"

I bowed and quickly went to the back.

The wagon was quite wide. Perhaps, it was about two meters wide. There were several stacked crates which filled the back side of the wagon, and some even almost touched the ceiling. Beyond them, I could see the five hooded men were sitting behind the driver seat.

I didn't really want to know if there was a space or not, so I just looked around the back. Fortunately, there were enough space for the two of us to sit by the entrance. It was tight and cramped, but I didn't have a choice. So we went up and sat down within the space.

"Are you guys in?" The driver asked.

"Yes." We answered.

As the wagoner heard us, he immediately hit the raptors to move the wagon.

Shortly after, we were stopped by the guards to do gate checking. So the driver went down and approached one of the guard behind the wagon.

"Let's just do this quickly. I have the paper here." He said as he lifted a paper in front of his face.

The guard looked at the paper, and then he looked back again to the wagoner. The guard ignored him and walked toward me. Then he checked the content of the crates beside me with burning torch on his left hand. The light from the fire was enough to illuminate some vegetables inside. They looked fresh and healthy.