We hunkered down behind a fallen tree. A hundred meters down the forest slope, past a rocky creek, three Greyfang warriors stood unnaturally still. Their coal-black skin made them look like charred stone golems. A subtle magic barrier covered them all over their hardened skin.
“A faint strand of mana is coming from their heads,” Ilya whispered.
“You can see it?” I asked.
A self-satisfied smile appeared on Ilya’s face when she saw my surprised expression. The connection between the Greyfangs and the black spire was faint, almost invisible, and I didn’t recall seeing any new detection skills in Ilya’s repertoire. Her smile widened. There was a correlation between [Mana Manipulation] and the ability to detect mana, and Ilya was a natural.
I smiled back at her.
“What are you two talking about?” Hallas interrupted my train of thought.
“The Lich is controlling the Greyfangs. If they find us, the Lich will know our precise location.”
Hallas dismissed my words with a sigh.
“The connection between undead and their master isn’t that strong—”
“The Greyfangs are alive,” I cut off Hallas before he could finish. “The Lich used to be a human magician specialized in puppetry. We must assume his connection with the Greyfangs is much more intense than with undead.”
Hallas clicked his tongue.
“If that’s true, killing them won’t be easy.”
After a moment of silence, Zaon raised his hand.
“C-can we save them?”
I would like to know that as well. During my last confrontation with a Greyfang, I attempted to cut the connection between them and the black spire without success.
“I don’t know if they can be saved, but I’d like to avoid fighting them. They aren’t monsters. I won’t risk a stray spell hurting any of you.”
The kids nodded, and we set off.
Ilya's [Spirit Animal] allowed us to go around the Greyfangs undetected. The orc warriors remained motionless, like unpowered automatons. I wondered if that was a sign of the Lich’s current power or lack thereof. Raising the black spire at Umolo couldn't have been cheap.
We found more Greyfangs scattered in the valley. Most of them were motionless and alone, but occasionally, we found one who was relocating. I marked their positions on my mental map of the Farlands. As we walked towards the Warden’s Tree, I added more markers until I noticed a pattern. The Greyfangs were forming a grid.
At first, I thought the Greyfangs were looking for us, but then I realized they weren’t sending out scouting parties. They were simply creating a barrier around the Warden’s Tree. I grinned as I realized the Lich couldn’t control every Greyfang simultaneously.
We had a window to cross the valley without being detected.
“Let’s stick to the western side of the valley,” I said.
The terrain was tricky to navigate. The slope was steep and uneven.
“Lady Aias never turns her back on an opponent. We should go through,” Firana jokingly said.
The terrain didn’t hinder her pace.
“You’ll have the opportunity to flex your levels very soon. Right now, we need speed. Pyrrah, Hallas, give me your boots.”
Elven footwear was high quality, so the enchantment threshold was enough to fit all the runes of the Wind-Shot Boots. After a few minutes, the rune string closed, and the enchantment was complete. The process was considerably faster and cheaper after getting [Iron Runeweaver].
Pyrrah gave small, excited claps as I returned her boots.
“It will take some time for you to get used to them, so for now, you’ll travel in pairs,” I said. “Hallas, you go with Wolf. Pyrrah, you go with me… with Firana.”
Pyrrah, in her usual fashion, deflated like an old balloon left to the sun. I knew that expression very well. It was the ‘I didn’t get paired with my high school crush during the field trip’ face. Hallas had to be the worst wingman out there. He struck me as the kind of guy who couldn’t even bother moving a finger for his friends.
I made a mental note to introduce Pyrrah to Risha. Risha had hundreds of acquaintances in the army, so, logically speaking, at least one had to dig Pyrrah’s style. At least she could get some experience dating—or simply talking to a man.
I sighed. I had gotten too involved with the elves despite trying to maintain a strict business relationship.
“Push magic into the boots, and the spell will propel you perpendicular to the sole’s angle. Understood?”
Firana squeezed Pyrrah’s hand with a maniac glint in her eyes. After the first few hesitant jumps, we cruised through the forest. The elves didn’t take long to get used to the Wind-Shoot Boots. Hallas let go of Wolf first, probably to keep his honor intact. Pyrrah took longer to let go, although I couldn’t tell whether it was due to her initiative or Firana’s. The girl seemed to have a blast dragging the poor Pyrrah over the crevices in the rocky ground.
Ilya’s [Spirit Animal] kept us from running into any Greyfangs.
The lack of any other monsters caught my attention. I expected the Lich to be more eager to obtain the Access Rune. We completed the first day of travel without experiencing any area spell, no monster army came to meet us, and no squad of Mana Stalkers or winged Chrysalimorphs hunted us down. Either the Lich was weakened after I destroyed his chrysalimorph body, or he was setting up a trap.
The sun set, and we stopped to rest. Hallas wanted to continue traveling, but I ignored his complaints. Wolf, Ilya, and Firana lacked night vision, so continuing during the night was out of the picture. Using enchanted stones or [Mana Manipulation] to illuminate the path would turn us into an easy target.
We set camp in a depression on the mountain slope, covered from the wind and prying eyes on the forest.
Despite our heavy backpacks, we had traversed about half the way to the Warden’s Tree. [Foresight] told me we had covered almost thirty kilometers from dawn to dusk, and none of us seemed particularly tired.
Hallas lit a small campfire, and Ilya cooked a simple meal of the orc’s barley-rice, tubers, and salted meat. Then, she pulled a small spice rack from a small pocket of her backpack.
“Oh? Kara gave that to you?” Firana poked at her.
“It would be rude not to accept an offering like this,” Ilya shrugged before turning towards me. “And before you ask, I apologized for my behavior. Kara accepted it, and I invited her to the orphanage in case she wanted to improve her sword skills. Happy?”
“Happy.”
When the pot boiled, Ilya served the stew in our wooden bowls. One hidden advantage of combatant Classes was the ability to carry a lot of equipment without getting tired. The seasoned soup tasted great, and for a moment, I forgot we were walking towards the lair of a monster.
Firana, Zaon, and Wolf fooled around while Pyrrah mindlessly fidgeted with a frogstone. Since Hallas had revealed Evindal’s secret, an invisible wall had been raised between them. Pyrrah hadn’t been aware they were carrying a Warden’s Seed.
I wondered how Prince Adrien and the Marquis would react to the news that the elven kingdom wanted to set up an outpost in their backyard. I felt strange thinking about court life. Three weeks ago, I was waist-deep into the kingdom’s politics, and my greatest concern was preventing the kids from being conscripted into the army for the final push through the Farlands.
Everything had changed.
I shook my head, trying not to think about home.
“Let’s go over our battle plans,” I said.
“Again?” Firana rolled her eyes. “We already practiced a lot.”
“We don’t have any margin of error, so yeah,” I said, but to spice things up, I used [Mirage] to summon a mock battlefield with an orcish chrysalimorph and the four kids. With the help of [Foresight], I could calculate the speeds of the kids and the monsters to create realistic combat scenarios.
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“Alright, I like this more,” Firana smiled.
We reviewed battle plans until late into the night. The kids stuck to our tactics, and most fights developed similarly. Surround the monster, open a shooting line, and retreat. Hit and run. Rinse and repeat. Mana was a limited resource, and we were fighting a war of attrition. We had the mobility, the armor, and the firepower. My only concern was a stray bullet hitting one of the kids. The projectile wouldn’t be lethal even against naked skin—although a nasty bruise was a given—but the Mana Exhaustion would knock them out of combat.
I had a solution to that problem.
“Give me your jackets and your shirts,” I said.
“You are too comfortable asking people to take their clothes off, Robert,” Hallas pointed out.
“Last time, I gave you a pair of enchanted boots. I’ll give you something better this time,” I replied, grabbing Wolf’s jacket. “I’ll enchant a low power Reinforcement spell with an Insulation layer. That should help you survive an MDBC bullet.”
Pyrrah grimaced.
The only problem with the Reinforcement enchantment was that it reduced the flexibility of the garments, so I tried to keep it to the minimum.
“We have to survive,” Wolf said, unbuttoning his shirt. “Mister Clarke still owes my people a hundred enchanted rifles, and Firana owes me like twelve dishwashings.”
“That’s not true!” Firana jumped.
Everyone laughed except for Hallas.
“Oh, we are totally surviving this,” Ilya said. “I have to return home and fill the pantry with venison and poultry. Also, Firana owes me ten dishwashings.”
“Stop it!” Firana turned to Ilya and threatened her with a finger.
“What about you, Zaon?” Wolf asked.
“I… I want to enter the Imperial Academy,” he said hesitantly. “And Firana owes me like fifty-seven dishwashings.”
Firana opened her mouth to complain but closed it without uttering a word.
“Well… that one might be true,” she said after a moment of thought. “I guess I have to return alive to repay all those times Zaon did the dishes on my behalf.”
We continued chatting while I enchanted the garments. Our spirits were high. After all, fighting monsters and pushing Surges back into the Farlands was the norm for the people of Farcrest. When I was ready, and the cold wind blew from the mountains, I sent the kids to bed and took the first guard shift.
I fed the campfire and sat atop a rock outside our hideout. From the vantage point, I could see everything. Not an hour into my shift, a minor skirmish broke by the valley's eastern side. Not even [Foresight] could help me perceive the details of the combatants, as they were smaller than ants at this distance, but some heavy spellcasting was happening. Fireballs and flashes of light illuminated the eastern slope, and a few trees were set ablaze.
I wondered if there were the remnants of Umolo orcs fighting Greyfangs.
After a few minutes, the combat ceased and darkness wrapped around the mountains. I couldn’t tell who won. For the next hour, nothing happened.
I pulled out the anti-magic sword and identified it.
Mage Killer. [Identify]: ??? Enchantment threshold: ???/??? Status: Stable.
I re-identified it in case the Corruption from Umolo had hindered the System’s normal functions, but nothing changed. Then, I used [Rune Identification], but the result was similar. A long list of interrogation symbols with the usual runes scattered along the string: User, Activation, Absorption, Instantaneous. There was nothing new to add to my Rune Encyclopedia. It was strange, but it wasn’t glitched. It only lacked values.
At least I could wield it.
Things were going to end very soon.
I remained vigilant for half the night and then woke the elves to take the second shift. I warned them about the skirmish and pulled out my bedroll. As soon as the [Invigoration] bonus disappeared, I fell asleep.
***
The next day was equally uneventful.
Pyrrah and Hallas had spotted a few skirmishes on the opposite side of the valley. They agreed it had to be the remnants of the orc tribes seeking retribution against the Greyfangs. Wolf also agreed. The Greyfangs had put every orc tribe in peril, so they were considered a threat to survival, and as such, they had to be eliminated.
By noon, we crossed the northern pass. The Warden’s Tree appeared behind the hills like a colossus, rising seven hundred meters into the sky.
“It reminds you of home, doesn’t it?” Hallas asked as we stopped for a short rest on top of the pass.
Pyrrah heard Hallas’ words but didn’t respond.
The elves must have the sickest tree house in this world.
Vigorous branches extended in every direction, each one thick enough to harbor a small village. At first, I thought the leaves of the Warden’s Tree had white spots, but after another hour of trekking, I noticed I was wrong. Flowers the size of houses were slowly starting to open here and there. On the center of each flower was a crimson-red Chrysalimorph pod. A shiver ran down my spine. Hundreds… no, thousands of flowers adorned the Warden’s Tree.
“O-on second thought… we need the orc army,” Hallas stuttered and turned around.
I grabbed his shoulder while Firana grabbed the other, preventing him from retreating.
“Oh, no. You are not going anywhere,” I said between my teeth. “We will burn that thing down before a single Chrysalimorph can hatch.”
Hallas struggled, but I barely felt his efforts. I hadn’t realized how strong I was. Hallas felt like a toddler trying to escape from a parent’s grip. If I put real strength on my hand, he couldn’t escape. I could even hurt him. The idea made me queasy, so I pushed him away.
“You can’t burn a Warden’s Tree,” Hallas said, fixing his clothes.
“It was a figure of speech. Let’s move. You first. There’s too much at stake to chicken out.”
Firana pushed Hallas onto the trail. I could tell she had been practicing her cultist role.
“This is the part when you tell me not to be too harsh with him,” I said, looking at Pyrrah.
“You should’ve put him in a chokehold or something.” She adjusted the straps of her backpack and followed behind the kids down the rocky pass.
The Warden’s Tree stood like a silent witness of our exchange.
“Keep your guard up. We don’t know what awaits us,” I said, catching up.
The kids clutched their rifles, bullets in the chamber, and enchantments charged, ready to shoot at command. Ilya and Wolf took the left flank while Firana and Zaon covered the right. Hallas and Pyrrah walked in the front while I overlooked the formation. We walked down the slope, and the forest became more dense.
We found the first Greyfang an hour after noon.
Ilya raised her hand and crouched behind the thicket. We followed. A mana sparrow landed on her shoulder and whispered in her ear.
“A hundred meters in that direction,” she said, confused. “I think it is dead.”
If an orc warband was hunting Greyfangs, they hid their steps very well.
We spread out, creating a half-moon shape, fingers on the metaphorical triggers. The trees made a green wall all around us, and only a minute later, I had a clear sight of the Greyfang. I straightened up. There was no sign of mana around the body. The warrior was dead.
“Wolf, with me,” I said, crossing a clump of dead ferns.
The Greyfang was an absolute unit of an orc: more than two meters tall and built like a buffalo. I wondered if they put something in Umolo's water to make them grow so much. Wolf turned the body over. It was a her.
Her skin was black as coal, the product of Corruption. However, what caught my attention was her armor. A thin cut went through the metal. Her right arm was twisted, and the bone fractured in several spots like something had constricted it.
“This is a slashing wound,” I muttered, pointing at her chest.
Wolf removed her armor to reveal the wound: a deep slash from shoulder to hip. The skin was burned around the edges. It was undeniably a sword wound, but I had seen the orcish cleavers bounce against the Greyfang’s corrupted skin.
Wolf must’ve seen something I didn’t because he turned the corpse to reveal an exit wound. A hole was in the orc’s back, and the armor plate was charred.
“Zaon, did you lose your flaming sword?” I asked.
“No, Mister Clarke. I have it right here,” he replied, patting the sheath of his sword.
I had seen the orcs Warrior Trance, but flaming spells didn’t seem part of their repertoire.
“An enchanted weapon or a System user,” Wolf said.
I glanced at the wound. The Greyfang skin was resistant; even my mana blade had trouble cutting it. Only a Combat Class with a high offensive stat could cause such a wound. Farcrest had only two high-level individuals who had business in the Farlands—Chieftain Alton of the Sentinels or Janus.
My mind rushed. It didn’t make sense for Janus to be in the Farlands killing corrupted monsters.
I remembered a conversation with Captain Kiln months ago. We discussed my true power level. Izabeka had gone on a tangent and had told me about Farcrest’s most powerful warriors. She told me the Marquis was the strongest, a level fifty-four Flame Fencer. Then came Chieftain Alton, a level fifty-three Marksman. In third place was herself, a level fifty-one Knight. She had lied to me. Izabeka was a Radiant Knight.
There were several other high-level warriors in Farcrest: Lord Herran, Lord Gairon, Duke Jorn, and Lord Osgiria. However, it didn’t make sense for them to be here, risking their lives. Not even the Marquis would be allowed to leave Farcrest without a leader.
There was only one person in the whole city who had a reason to be here.
Alton and his Sentinels might have decided to solo the Forest Warden and stop the Monster Surge.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” I said.
Not twenty minutes later, we found a second dead Greyfang. We quickened our pace. After an hour, we had found six bodies, all with the same type of wounds: scorched stabs and mangled limbs.
Wolf set the time of death between midnight and dawn.
“The skirmishes we saw last night must’ve continued here,” Pyrra pointed out.
Whoever had been hunting Greyfangs had seemingly cleared the path for us.
The Warden’s Tree grew to consume even more of our vision as we came close. The branches covered most of the sky. I could almost envision an elven city built on the canopy. Despite the roots protruding from the ground, no Mana Stingers appeared to prevent us from approaching the Warden’s Tree.
I was starting to get nervous when Ilya broke the silence.
“There is someone nearby. I think they set camp by the Warden’s Tree. I can’t get close without getting detected,” she said, closing her eyes and using her [Spirit Animal] to see.
“Prepare your weapons, but be careful. It might be Chieftain Alton,” I said.
The kids nodded.
As we reached the base of the Warden’s Tree, we adopted the half-moon formation. The root system had mowed the surrounding trees, so there was a perimeter without vegetation. The whole area seemed devoid of any vital energy.
A cloaked figure was sitting next to a campfire between gigantic roots.
We shed our backpacks. Ilya and Wolf stuck with me while Firana and Zaon climbed the root system to aim from a vantage point. The figure was trapped between the Warden’s Tree and the root system. It was a dead end, but only a madman or a mighty warrior would camp at the base of a Warden’s Tree.
I pushed Hallas and Pyrrah behind me and drew my sword.
“Who’s there?!” I raised my voice.
The cloaked figure got up. A sword hilt protruded from their cloak.
“Using orphans as soldiers? How low have you fallen, Robert Clarke?”