Before dusk, Asa found a caravan heading to Vizima, the capital of Temeria.
The Caravan Master was a short, middle-aged man with a thick, bushy beard and a wide-brimmed hat, his attire trying desperately to mimic the style of a noble.
In fact, he was indeed a registered noble in Temeria, though his title was so small that he didn't even have a fief, but that didn't stop him from being proud of it.
Upon seeing Asa standard sorcerer attire, the Caravan Master was overjoyed and agreed to his request to accompany them without a second thought. He also eagerly added that as long as Asa was willing to help deal with monsters along the way, the caravan would cover all his food and lodging expenses, and there would be a generous reward upon reaching their destination.
Asa agreed on the departure time with him and then returned to the inn, leading Grape.
The night passed without incident, spent only in meditation.
The next morning, the caravan was ready to depart outside the city gates.
Besides Asa and the Caravan Master, the group included five teamsters and ten guards. It was a relatively small scale, which was why the Caravan Master was extra attentive.
Novigrad is situated at the mouth of the Pontar River. The south bank of the Pontar is Temeria, and the north bank is Redania. The two countries face each other across the river, having fought several wars in history to claim this free city-state, which eventually ended with the independence of Novigrad.
To get to Vizima, the caravan had to cross the river to the south bank first, then travel east along the dirt road on the south bank of the Pontar until reaching Vizima, so the first leg of the journey had to be by boat.
Asa had heard that the locals called the Pontar River the "Golden River," and he soon learned why it was called that.
The merchant ship set off in the early morning. As the morning light just rose from the horizon in the east, golden rays spread across the wide river surface, plating the entire ship in a warm glow.
From a distance, it looked as if the ship was sailing on a stream of molten gold. At this moment, the sky was clear, the water bright, and the blue sky was like washed jade; the scenery was so soothing that one wished to be intoxicated by it.
But this scenery wasn't unique to the boat. Asa leaned against the gunwale and glanced into the water, and the dragon medallion on his chest vibrated slightly.
Cyan-blue and dark green shadows silently followed the ship beneath the surface.
For a player who had visited this world many times, these creatures were all too familiar. Drowners, equivalent to the goblins that serve as initial experience fodder in other fantasy settings.
The Pontar River nourished the fertile land on both banks, and also allowed the monster populations in the water to thrive unreasonably.
The Drowners approached the ship, but suddenly, as if sensing something, they were startled and tried to scatter and flee.
"It's the dragon medallion. I added Dragon's Might."
"Want to run?"
Asa raised his hand, his fingertips tracing an arc in the air. Purple electric arcs shot out from his fingertips and silently leaped into the river water.
Following the flow of the river, the shadows beneath the surface convulsed violently, then surfaced, belly-up.
[Experience + 3] [Experience + 3]...
Several kill notifications popped up in succession. A dozen or so experience points were credited; it was a small profit on this Golden River.
"That's what you get for being Drowners!"
Asa hummed.
Before the Drowners, charred by electricity, could drift away with the current, more of their kind gathered from all directions, drawn by the smell of cooked meat, dragging the blackened remains to the river bottom to feast.
Asa frowned, his fingers moving rapidly in the air. Electric arcs struck into the water one after another, wiping out the second wave of Drowners that had arrived at the scent.
By the end of this boat trip, the amount of experience points gained was much better than expected.
While Asa was harvesting experience, the Caravan Master and the guards hid far away on the other end of the deck, not daring to get close.
Rumor had it that sorcerers all had some eccentricities; if some blind fool annoyed the sorcerer, it wasn't impossible to be turned into a toad on the spot.
The merchant ship docked at the pier on the south bank of the Pontar. Asa vaulted onto Grape and followed the caravan onto the dirt road to Vizima.
One shouldn't have any illusions about medieval infrastructure; it was good enough if the road surface was relatively packed dirt, and one could thank the heavens as long as there were no deep pits capable of trapping wagon wheels.
The caravan occasionally stopped at villages or small towns along the way to rest and resupply, setting off again the next morning, never easily camping out in the wilderness.
This caravan was quite experienced, leaving little opportunity for Asa to show his skills.
At this time, the war between the Northern Kingdoms and the Nilfgaardian Empire had not yet broken out, and the territory was relatively peaceful. In places where humans lived and worked in peace, monsters were naturally scarce. Along the way, only a few blind Drowners crawled out of the river, attempting to ambush the teamster trailing at the back.
But when they got close, they seemed to want to retreat as if burned by the air.
Monsters of this level were fine for bullying women and children, but they might not even fare well against a farmer holding a pitchfork; the guards in the caravan were more than capable of taking on a Drowner one-on-one.
But Asa didn't leave a single one for them. Since he had gone through the trouble of forcing these lurking Drowners out, he naturally collected all the experience himself.
In the awe-filled gazes of the guards, this young sorcerer had already become a terrifying existence who could summon thunder with a wave of his hand.
With just a lift of his finger, the monsters lurking in the water would turn into a pile of charred remains, unable to even let out a scream.
That day, the caravan traveled along a tree-lined path flanked by low hills. Bushes and weeds spread from the foot of the hills to the tops, and dense leaves obscured everything inside tightly.
The path wound through a narrow gap between the hills, and one couldn't see the end of it; it was impossible to tell whether what was hidden behind the rustling branches and leaves was just fallen leaves or something else.
"Isn't this an excellent spot for an ambush?"
The dragon medallion on his chest tugged violently.