"What?"

"If what the guard said last night is true, the outposts should be lightly guarded because the majority of the guards should be out hunting."

"What is the point of doing that?" There is nothing to gain from it, and we will most likely lose a large number of men for nothing."

"Who says there's nothing to gain? Shouldn't there be somewhere for the guards to hand over their prey for the rewards?"

"Even if there is a reward, how do we get there?" What is the location of the outpost? How powerful are they? And, most importantly, how many of us are going to DIE there?"

Ansgar's eyes furrowed in thinking as he processed Zaki's quick questions.

"Finding the outpost is easy; I know where it is; with your reconnaissance technique, we should be able to avoid patrols and ambush the lightly guarded outpost."

"You did not answer one of my questions, how strong are they?"

"Before the big battle near the city, the outposts usually had ten people in the acupoints realm and its equivalent body refiners, but they were likely mobilized to fight in the battle, so at most, there should only be a peak body tempering realm or its equivalent in the outpost"

"What if you were wrong and there was an acupoint realm expert inside the outpost?"

"There isn't, and even if there were, it would only be one or two of them, and I'd be able to deal with them if I didn't hold back."

Zaki sunk deep in thought. It would be a lie to say he isn't tempted to raid the outpost; perhaps if he hadn't cultivated the [Void Forge] he wouldn't be as tempted, but now that he has experienced the immense benefits of the [Void Forge] he isn't willing to go back to passive cultivation; the technique also requires a lot of resources, and inferior grade Nutritional fluid is immensely beneficial to him right now.

"...how many people do you think will remain in the outpost?"

"It's most likely not more than our numbers, we just have to hit and grab quickly and get out of there before the hunters come back."

Zaki closed his eyes for a few seconds before squashing the hesitation within him; when he opened them, there was just condensed will within them.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"...let's move, lead the way I'll recon"

Ansgar smirked

"You won't regret your choice, you can be sure of that"

" I hope so"

Ansgar smirked and went back towards a group of deserters that composed of half of the group, as it seemed they were ready and already knew that they will be raiding the outpost.

Zaki stood up and gathered close to him and Dimitri spoke up.

"Is it true we are going to raid an outpost? We heard those guys talking about it last night"

Dimitri pointed at them by nodding upwards with his chin.

"Ansgar told me about it, and I agreed"

"What!? Why would you agree to that?"

Nastya exclaimed.

" The fortress or the forest near it is more dangerous than what we can handle, and we will be running into enemies either way, so might as well be the ones attacking and acquire resources that can increase our strength to tackle the dangers on our path"

"Tackle the dangers? Do you know how dangerous attacking the outpost is?"

"Dangers? Can you tell me what part of this forest isn't dangerous? What part of running from the guards isn't dangerous? What part of having to possibly fight them in a fortress isn't dangerous? The only way to cope with it is to increase our strength, and one way to do it is the resources in the outpost"

Nastya opened her mouth but she had nothing to refute, which gave Dimitri a chance to speak.

" we barely know Ansgar, you barely know Ansgar, yet you allow him to persuade you to go to the heart of danger? The guy has barely been with us for a night, what if he had nefarious intentions? What if he was one of the guards trying to lead us in an ambush to capture us alive?"

Zaki widened his eyes in realization, he hadnt thought if that, he had tunnel visioned on the rewards and Possible casualties but not the dangers of ansgar.

He fell silent for almost a minute thinking then said.

"...you're right Dimitri I didn't think of that...but we can't stop now, half of us has already been persuaded to go with him, and just us moving through the forest is too dangerous"

"Then what should we do?"

Zaki sighed" with my recon abilities we wouldn't fall in ambush, and Ansgar probably isn't with the guards it's a fifty-fifty chance, afterall with his strength I don't think he needs to go through all this trouble for a group of deserters"

"What if this guy wants to capture us alive and can't do it alone, hence the ambush," Nastya speculated.

"Then again what would he get if he does that? If it's the acupoint realm cultivation technique that he wants just capturing one of us alive is enough, and the inferior grade nutritional fluid is useless for him who's at the peak of body tempering realm"

"..."

Everyone was silent as they didn't have any answer to that.

"Regardless of what we think, we have no choice but to go to the outpost along with Ansgar, if he is an enemy he might attack us if we refuse to go with him, and if he is a friend not only will we lose an opportunity to gain resources, we will also reduce our survival chances due to our fractured group" Zaki Sighed.

Dimitri patted the guys next to him on their shoulders

"Well let's just hope for the best and prepare for the worst" Dimitri looked Zaki in the eye when he said the second half of his sentence

Everyone started preparing and minutes later Zaki and his group started moving, but this time under the lead of Ansgar.