Chương 158: Delivery Fees

The man approaching Sieghart looked barely older than twenty, though the dust covering his brown coat and the permanent crease between his eyebrows made him seem considerably more experienced than his age suggested. He wore practical merchant clothing rather than armor, with several ledger pouches attached to his belt and a short sword hanging awkwardly enough that Sieghart doubted combat was part of his usual work.

"Did you come to carry the cargo?" Sieghart looked toward the wagons blocking the road, then toward the young merchant, wondering what part of his appearance suggested he had been expected by anyone here.

"No. I'm just passing through." The merchant clicked his tongue in disappointment and turned away, already searching the crowd for another solution before stopping after only two steps and looking back toward Sieghart's unusual carriage. His gaze moved toward the large rear compartment, then toward the empty space where horses should have been attached, and Sieghart immediately recognized the same calculating expression people used before asking inconvenient favors.

"If you have room, can you carry some things for us?" Sieghart waited.

"We'll pay you." That part made the request slightly more interesting, though Sieghart still looked toward the ordinary wagons nearby and failed to understand why another driver was necessary. Several vehicles were loaded heavily, but none appeared broken beyond one wagon with a damaged wheel. They clearly possessed enough transportation already to move whatever cargo needed delivering.

"Why don't you send one of those?" The merchant followed Sieghart's gaze and shook his head, apparently having expected the obvious question after approaching someone who had not volunteered for anything.

"We can, but they're slow."

"That sounds like a wagon problem."

"It's an emergency." That changed Sieghart's attention immediately. The surrounding merchants looked irritated rather than frightened, suggesting the emergency existed somewhere else and had already lasted long enough for people here to organize supplies.

"What needs delivering?"

"Explosives." Sieghart stared at him. That was new. He had encountered enchanted weapons, alchemical compounds, magical cannons, rune-powered tools, corrupted organs, and several things capable of exploding accidentally, but nobody had previously introduced explosives as an ordinary manufactured product. Apparently, this world possessed dedicated blasting materials instead of relying exclusively upon Fire Magic whenever someone wanted to remove a particularly stubborn wall from existence.

Sieghart decided not to explain that most of his previous experience with explosions involved mages, unstable prototypes, and one pair of craftsmen who considered being thrown through their doorway a minor accident.

"What happened?" The merchant glanced toward the crowd behind him before lowering his voice, suggesting the situation was already attracting enough attention without someone loudly repeating every unpleasant detail.

"A dungeon expedition got trapped underground." That immediately made the request considerably more interesting than money. Sieghart had encountered only one developing dungeon personally, and that experience had nearly ended with an unfinished guardian eating his mana. The Bellhaven dungeon had barely existed before they destroyed its corrupted core.

A properly established dungeon should contain completely different structures, monsters, rules, and whatever other unpleasant surprises ancient magical reconstruction produced.

"How?"

"Collapse." The merchant explained that the expedition had entered through an older section while investigating newly opened chambers, only for part of the connecting tunnel to collapse behind them. Communication remained possible through a narrow gap, but removing the debris manually would take too long, and nobody inside possessed enough destructive power to clear the blockage safely from their side. That detail told Sieghart quite a bit.

If the trapped group contained powerful Aura users, smashing through rock would probably have become inconvenience rather than emergency. Likewise, a strong mage could potentially melt, break, move, or simply destroy enough stone to create an exit without requiring someone outside to transport manufactured explosives toward them.

"They aren't strong?" The merchant frowned.

"They're strong enough for the dungeon." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"That wasn't what I asked."

"They're mostly explorers, miners, two guards, and a support member." Sieghart nodded slowly. That sounded more like a working expedition than a combat party, which explained why a collapsed tunnel had suddenly become dangerous. The dungeon itself might not even be especially powerful if ordinary workers entered regularly, though Sieghart had already learned that supposedly simple underground assignments enjoyed becoming dramatically more complicated without permission.

"So you need explosives to clear the passage."

"Blasting charges. Controlled ones in order not to make things worse." The merchant emphasized the final description strongly enough that Sieghart suspected somebody had previously asked whether they intended to collapse the entire dungeon upon the trapped workers.

"We have someone there who knows how to place them." That reduced one concern. Sieghart had no particular desire to learn explosive demolition by trial and error while standing underground beneath several thousand tons of stone. His runic carriage suddenly made more sense as well. Ordinary wagons could reach the dungeon, but the trapped expedition apparently needed supplies considerably sooner than those vehicles could arrive.

"How far?"

"Normally, one day from here." Sieghart looked toward his carriage. The merchant noticed.

"How much?" The man hesitated just long enough to reveal that negotiations had begun, then apparently decided this was not the situation for fighting over every silver coin.

"Fifty silver." Sieghart remained quiet.

"If you get there before midday tomorrow, I'll double it." Sieghart calculated quickly. The payment was good for a delivery job, especially when the cargo apparently belonged to people desperate enough that delays could become fatalities. Still, one hundred silver did not matter nearly as much as access to an established dungeon he had never known existed until five minutes earlier.

"Half a day?" The merchant nodded.

"Double."

"Fine." Relief immediately replaced suspicion across the young merchant's face, suggesting he had expected far more bargaining from someone driving a vehicle expensive enough to operate without animals. Sieghart climbed down from his seat and opened the rear cargo compartment, mentally rearranging his tools, books, merchandise, and personal supplies to create enough protected space for whatever explosives arrived.

Several nearby workers approached immediately after receiving the merchant's signal, carrying reinforced wooden cases marked with red symbols and enough warning runes to make Sieghart instinctively activate Magic Vision. The containers possessed simple stabilization enchantments rather than offensive magic. Their internal mana remained surprisingly low, suggesting whatever created the explosions relied more upon alchemical reactions than large stored magical charges. Sieghart found that interesting.

Dangerously interesting. He resisted opening one. The workers packed the boxes carefully, securing each one with thick straps while Sieghart inspected every latch. If the cargo exploded because his carriage hit a pothole, the dungeon would become irrelevant. The merchant noticed his caution and finally introduced himself as Marek, explaining that his trading company supplied several nearby settlements, mining operations, and occasional dungeon expeditions.

Sieghart gave only his traveling name and avoided mentioning Lunar Arc. The fewer connections strangers could make between him, Seraphina, and his actual family, the easier independent travel would remain. Morran handed him a rough local map showing the dungeon farther east beyond Greymill, hidden inside a forested limestone region crossed by narrow merchant and mining roads. Sieghart immediately compared it against the map Ronan had given him before leaving Lunar Arc. The dungeon did not appear there.

He checked again. Still absent.

"That bastard." Morran looked confused.

"What?"

"Nothing." Sieghart folded Ronan's map and placed it away. Apparently, the agent had deliberately omitted dungeon locations, probably because showing them would turn a travel map into a list of places Sieghart might investigate alone. That interpretation was so obviously correct that Sieghart felt mildly offended by how accurately Ronan had predicted his behavior.

He had included towns, roads, forts, rivers, border warnings, dangerous forests, and several places travelers should avoid, yet somehow forgotten established dungeons that might contain monsters, cores, magic, and unexplored chambers. Definitely intentional. Sieghart decided to complain the next time they met. Possibly next year. For now, the omission had failed anyway.

Morran pointed toward the eastern road and explained that Sieghart needed to follow the river for several hours before turning north at an abandoned stone bridge. After that, old mining markers would guide him toward a fortified expedition camp established several kilometers outside the dungeon entrance.

"You'll see it before you reach the dungeon."

"All right." Sieghart nodded.

"She's the demolition specialist."

"Even better." Morran hesitated before adding another detail and entering inside the carriage.

"Don't ask me to open them." Sieghart looked offended.

"I wasn't planning to." That was technically true. He had only strongly considered it. The final crate entered the carriage, and the workers tightened every strap. Sieghart returned to the driver's seat and placed both hands against the mana contacts, feeling the engine respond beneath him as Fire Runes awakened throughout the propulsion system.

Several people stepped away instinctively when the horseless carriage started moving, apparently less comfortable standing beside an unfamiliar magical vehicle now that it contained enough explosives to clear collapsed tunnels. Sieghart guided the carriage around the blocked wagons and toward the eastern road, watching Greymill's market gradually disappear behind workshops, mills, fields, and scattered houses.

He had intended to spend one quiet day buying books, comparing prices, and deciding which ordinary goods might become profitable after a few simple enchantments. Instead, he had accepted a high-speed delivery job carrying explosives toward a dungeon because somebody happened to notice his carriage inside a crowded street. That was concerning. Not because the job sounded dangerous. Because Sieghart had accepted almost immediately after hearing the word dungeon.

Apparently, independent travel had changed who assigned his missions without actually changing how quickly interesting trouble convinced him to participate. Sieghart increased the mana flowing through the engine. The carriage accelerated. Behind him, several reinforced boxes filled with controlled explosives rattled faintly despite the straps holding them in place. Sieghart glanced backward once. Then toward the increasingly rough road ahead.

He had spent years surviving monsters, corrupted cores, enemy armies, magical experiments, and people whose definition of safe research included replacing their organs. Somehow, driving a self-built mana carriage at high speed while carrying explosives toward an unknown dungeon felt like a perfectly reasonable next step. Sieghart smiled. Ronan had definitely hidden those dungeon locations on purpose.