After the group of mercenaries which consisted of 6 people get onto the carriage, they tossed their weapons to the front with Syla being the nearest person that was sitting there, she observed the mercenaries with keen eyes, making sure that none of them hides anymore weapons up their sleeves, she only calmed down after she believed everyone was unarmed.
As the carriage moved against the wind, Syla saw the injured mercenary being treated by his friends, the person whom she negotiated with earlier can be seen giving his injured colleague a torn bandage.
"Here, use this." He said.
"Hang in there Jule."
Syla couldn't help but to be curious as to what happened to them, when she realized that the injured man that was called 'Jule' had his right leg cut off, she felt pitiful.
"May i ask for your name?" Syla said to the mercenary's leader that was sitting right infront of her.
"–Ah.. My name is Errick, im the captain of this mercenary group- Thank you for the help, even though we looked incredibly suspicious, you still let us in." He said while lowering his head.
"Umm.. You can raise your head, i just followed what Paroug- the carriage driver said, since he agreed on taking you guys, you should thank him." Syla responded.
"I see, then i'll have to thank him when we arrived." Errick smiled with gratitude before looking after Jule once more.
Itching to know what happened, Syla eventually decided to gather her courage and asked Errick directly about it.
"What even happened to you guys?" She said.
"...It's a long story– A few days ago, we gathered in Beakwood in search for a client.. Unlike adventurers, we mercenaries doesn't take quests from the guilds, but rather people come to us directly.. Back then, we were approached by a man who looked to be a merchant, his vibe was already suspicious the moment we met him, but we ignored it—
"That man wanted to hire us for a scavenging task, he said that he needed a rare plant called Sunbloom flower- It's an ingredient that was commonly used in potion, specifically Strengthening Potion, but it was illegal to sold because the flower has an addictive side effect, developing dependency to anyone that had consumed it—
"But since we're mercenaries, we didn't cared about it, illegal or not, we take any requests as long it isn't killing another person, only assassins do that.. We accepted the man's request and he said that he'll pay us when we have the flower in our hands- Though im hesitant to admit it, we should've noticed the signs sooner—
"The man took us on his carriage and we searched for days, entering forests and scattering around the vast grasslands, but we found nothing- That is until we were at that grove you saw earlier, we entered the grove and didn't expect anything from it, but to our surprise, we found the Sunbloom flower at the top of a cliff– We tried to search for a way that leads towards he cliff, but our client that has been watching from the back began to get impatient, so we decided to climb it—
"For the first few minutes, nothing unusual happened, i climbed the steep cliff using protruding rocks as a stepping platform and we slowly make our way to the top- But that's when we suddenly hear it, a quiet growl that reverberated through our ears.. We turned our head towards our back and saw an adult drake, it seems like we accidentally stumbled upon its territory, since we can't run anywhere else because of the cliff, we had no choice but to fight back—
"And- And that bastard, that pig of a merchant, he ran away as soon as he saw that Drake, because drakes are smart, it knew that we were the real troubles, if it attacks the unarmed first, we would probably use that opportunity to attack through its blind spot, that's why its eyes was locked onto us, the ones with weapons—
"You could guess the rest, we fought hard, injuring the drake to a certain extent, but in the end, we ran away aswell after Jule lost his right leg.. Thankfully drakes doesn't always chase after its prey once they left its territory, and we were lucky that that thing decided not to chase any further– When we left the grove, we were devastated to find that our carriage was missing, we were left alone to die in the wilderness, away from any settlements.. If we didn't find your carriage, we didn't know what to do to reach the nearest town." Errick ended his story with a sigh.
Syla who was listening closely to Errick's words nodded in response, she finally understood their troubles and the series of things that led them to their current state.
"–I see, so that's what happened." Syla said solemnly.
"Keukk!!.." Jule suddenly grunted, he squeezed his right thigh as he felt a piercing pain in his amputated leg.
"Jule! You okay!?" Errick tried to calm him down, along with the others.
"We've stopped the bleeding, you just need to hang on until we arrived in Aerdawn!" A woman in the mercenary group held Jule's head by his cheeks and tried to make him stay concious.
"Anyone have a water!?" Another person from the group asked.
Syla saw each of their reaction, looking if any of them have a water jug on their satchel, and when none of them opened their bags, Syla knew that this mercenary group had already ran out of supply, because they've been travelling for a few days, they didn't have any chance to refill their food or water.
"I can give you some of mine if you'd like." Syla said amidst the silence.
"Really!? T- then.. If it's not a problem, can you give it to Jule?!" Errick was surprised by Syla's kindness, he didn't expect her who stared at him with eerie eyes to be this kind-hearted.
"Okay." Syla said as she moved her body closer towards Jule, one of the mercenary that was sitting right beside her had to move away for a moment so that Syla can give Jule water without any disturbance.
Everyone was confused when they saw Syla not taking anything out from beneath her cloak, then their face quickly turned into shock as they watched Syla pouring water out from her palm directly into Jule's mouth, it's as if there was a water source that was coming out of her skin.
"I- is that!? Magic?!" One of the mercenary mentioned.
"You're a mage?" Errick asked.
"Yeah." Syla replied calmly, after she felt that Jule has had enough water to rehydrate his body, she then went back to her original spot and encouraged everyone else to sit back.
"Umm– Thank you.. Uhh" Errick was about to thank Syla when he realized that she hadn't given him her name yet.
"Syla, my name's Syla, i haven't told you right?" Syla responded.
"Ah, i see.. Thank you Syla." Errick completed his thanks and looked after Jule again, he was relieved when he saw the veins on Jule's face gradually disappeared.
"But is it okay?.. I mean, drinking water that was formed through magic.." The woman who was sitting beside Jule but the farthest from Syla was worried.
And she was right, it's actually quite unnatural for anyone to have thought about drinking the water that came from Magic.
"Well, i've seen a few people do it, but it still weirded me out whenever i see it." One of the other mercenary replied.
"Why is that? is it dangerous?" Syla asked, curious with their reason as to why drinking water from magic was weird.
'I've been doing it ever since i was little though–' She thought.
Before any of them could reply to Syla's question, Errick decided to interrupt and cut everyone off.
"It's not that its dangerous, but many of us grew to not trust magic or mana in general because of the requirement to use them– If you need to risk your life, dancing with death, just to awaken something that was already inside you when you were born, some people thought that it's an embodiment of sins—
"There's a legend from the old times that said Mana is the power of the god of death, the more you use magic or the more stronger your magic is, the more corrupted you become– Even if you lived a good life and helped others, you will be tortured depending on your magic power after your death because the god of death will be mad at you for cheating him the first time you both met and taking advantage of its powers—
"Of course, it's just a myth, after all, mages still exists everywhere, in every city, towns, and even rural villages."