Felix woke up in mid-afternoon. He got up, he stretched, he grabbed a couple of apples and his coin pouch, and he left his home, headed for the village. He didn't have a need to go, but he obviously wanted to find out what happened the night before. He ate an apple on the way to the village and chucked the core to a nearby prairie dog that ran off with it.

When he arrived, things seemed surprisingly normal. Village gates were open, people were running about doing their daily chores, one or two guards could be seen watching over things. Felix decided to walk up to one of the guards that he recognized.

"What news, Trent?" He asked the guardsman.

"Not much. There was that runner last night, but seeing as you're the night watchman, I assume you knew about that already." he responded.

"A runner came in the middle of the night and lit up the plains for a good 20 miles in all directions and no one knows why?" Felix asked.

The guard nodded. "I assume Lord Wiseman knows, but he hasn't told us anything yet. People are all gossiping about the runner of course, though, but otherwise things are normal. But I doubt it will stay that way for long." he said.

Felix nodded and handed him an apple to thank him for the information and his time, and Trent received it as a matter of course. Felix decided to head to the bar to try and see if he could overhear any information from the gossips.

He sat at the counter and was immediately struck up by the owner of the bar.

"Felix, good to see you, bit early for a drink isn't it? Can you even drink today, do you have work tonight?" The bartender, who's name was Lucas, barraged him with questions.

The legal drinking age in Gurnkey was 15, so Felix could have a drink if he wished, and he did so rarely, but the bartender would have known Felix anyway because he was the social type who knew everyone in the village, and also he bought apples from time to time to make ciders.

"Hello Lucas. I do have work tonight actually, but I'm here for information anyway, not for alcohol." Felix said, and handed him an apple. A spot in the bar wasn't free, even if there was only one or two other customers.

Lucas nodded and took the apple. "Information, huh? The only information worth discussing right now though would be about what happened last night, and you're the one person who would know more about that than anyone else in Gurnkey besides the Lord or the guardsmen, seeing as you were the night watchman last night." He rambled.

Felix sighed. "How much?" He asked bluntly.

Lucas put on a cheeky grin. "Well now, you say you'll take a cup of mead after all? I guess just one cup won't hurt you at all, it'll definitely have worn off by the time you need to head off to work anyway. I guess that'll be about 4 coppers."

Felix sighed and placed 5 copper pieces on the counter, throwing in 1 extra for the tip. Lucas grinned and got him a cup of mead. Felix sipped on it, it was actually pretty decent, but 5 coppers was an entire night's wages for him for being a watchman.

"Now that you brought up that incident from last night, I'll tell you, this is just something that I overheard, no way to verify if it's true or not, but they say that there was a huge defeat in the west outside past Fort Basil. And the reason that that runner came last night was to request an emergency troop re-arrangement from Fort Cumin." Lucas said grimly.

Felix frowned. His father was in a unit out west based out of Fort Basil. This was definitely not good news.

The human Aurul kingdom inhabited a vast area in the northeast of the continent. One of the most important geographic features of the kingdom was that it had four hard borders - the ocean was to the north and the east, and to the south and the west there were two massive mountain ranges. To pass through the mountains, there were only two easy passageways, one in the southeast, where Fort Cumin was built, and one in the southwest, where Fort Basil was built.

This was the primary reason that the kingdom had an over-arching standing military despite being feudalistic. These two chokepoints needed to be held at all costs, because the demon lord would definitely not let the human kingdoms ever take them back if they fell. The demon forces would then be free to flood into the human lands and would overtake them easily. Humans had the advantage in terms of magic, but only on the upper tiers, there were many more low-grade and mid-grade mages among the demons, and they all had much stronger bodies as well. Humans relied heavily on their defensive advantages brought by holding the two mountain pass chokepoints to stay relevant and independent in the world.

"Any news about my father, then?" Felix asked.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Lucas shook his head. "That's all I heard, and even then I can't verify it. I hadn't heard any hard or specific details about anyone or the battle, just that there was a loss and that it was bad. Really bad." he said grimly while wiping a cup.

Felix nodded and gulped down his glass of mead. He thanked Lucas for his hospitality and left the bar.

Felix thought about his father. He was strong, but not strong enough to overturn a massive battle. Probably strong enough to take out 3 or 4 low-grade demons in a head on, fair fight. That was already exceptional, statistically speaking. It usually took 2 human mages to win against a demon of the same grade in a hard-fought battle, 3 to be sure of the win, at least when it came to low-grade or middle-grade fights (It was the reverse for high-grade mages, with humans having the advantage, but those fights were exceptionally rare.). So, his father was already in the top tier of low-grade mages for combat prowess.

But if you were to think of a real, massive military engagement, what was a low-grade mage?

Cannon fodder. They were nothing but cannon fodder. Even his father, was nothing but higher quality cannon fodder. If sacrificing his father meant buying a couple of seconds for a middle-grade or high-grade mage to act, Felix knew the military would do it without even a second thought. And that's when you consider that in a real battle, who knew how much or how well his father would be able to display his prowess? His father could take on 3 or 4 low-grade demons in a fair, head on fight, but would demons calmly wait around, challenge him to a just and fair duel, draw up rules and engage him in a chivalric manner?

Hehe. Nope. They would gang up on him and use every dirty trick under the sun.

Of course, the humans didn't fight like idiots either. They had formations, magic defense spells, equipment, etc. They were experts at fighting defensively in this world after centuries of practice.

However, Lucas told him that the fight was out past Fort Basil. That meant that it likely wasn't in the stronghold, but out in the plains. That would definitely take out a large part of the human's advantage.

Felix sighed. He wasn't particularly attached to his father in this world, since he regained the mind of a 30-year-old when he turned 10, and his father left to help defend Fort Basil when he was 12. He didn't want to leave Felix alone, but Baron Wiseman had called him to service (To meet his serviceman requirements set by the king) and he could not refuse. He had said before he left that he was at ease though, because Felix seemed incredibly mature for his age. Which made sense, seeing as how he by then had a 32-year-old mind, but of course his father wouldn't have known that.

So, he only knew his father in this world for about 2 years really. He felt bad about him almost definitely being dead now, but it wasn't heart-shattering. Still, if the news was confirmed, he would hold a simple service for him and maybe make a small monument for him somewhere on the orchard. He deserved that much at least.

Felix left the village to head home while his head was full of thoughts. There was still one thing he couldn't figure out - why had the capital sent an upper-middle or high-grade light mage to Gurnkey instead of a wind or lightning mage to pass on critical military information? Light mages weren't exceptional at all in terms of speed. Light mages excelled in illusions, fighting the undead, corrupted, and dark mages, and weak but wide and far-ranging attacks, having by far the longest attack range of any element, in addition to their attacks being the fastest, since they moved at the speed of light. They were more strategic level backline defense mages than high-speed runners.

There were only a couple of things he could think of. There could be a need for a light mage in Gurnkey that he wasn't aware of - but this was unlikely. There wasn't much possibility of an undead or corrupted elemental invasion happening here, due to the small population (and therefore reward of attacking) of Gurnkey, the relative isolation, and the fact that even if a dark mage thought the village was a good target due to it's isolation, they wouldn't dare to attack it because the village was important to the military as the only link between the prosperous and fertile west and north empire and the southeastern chokepoint at Fort Cumin. Attacking Gurnkey was basically asking for the entire military to personally have a blood vendetta against you. Dark mages needed to be smart if they were the unlawful type, so none of them would be so stupid as to try it, even if the city defenses were nothing special.

Most likely they would be heading onwards to Fort Cumin after they delivered the message, since they would be a lot more useful there, but that still didn't explain why they didn't send a wind or lightning mage first.

Unless... There were no wind or lightning mages available to dispatch from the capital?

This was a pretty terrifying thought. Generally speaking, the distribution of elements among the population was pretty balanced, although humans did have more metal (lightning) mages than other races. However, due to the fairly limited communication in the empire, the military and the aristocracy had always put a pretty strong emphasis on recruiting basically every wind or lightning mage that showed up. Being proficient in one of those elements was basically a guaranteed paycheck.

So if that was the case, where were they? The capital and the military definitely had at least a few dozen of both elements. Even a lightning sub-class mage would have been better than a light mage.

Ah, maybe he was a light mage primary with a lightning subclass, and he had run out of mana on the way, since lightning mages focused more on burst speed than distance?

Felix supposed that was reasonable. It wouldn't have been his first choice, but maybe since he had to head on to Fort Cumin afterwards, they figured they miaswell throw in messenger duty too.

Felix finally arrived at the road split towards his orchard, but he kept walking. He followed the river for a couple of miles, and there was a small stream that went off to the side and formed a pool of water, surrounded by wild grasses and reeds. These were the plants he was planning on using for his wheat plans. The arrival of the messenger made him feel uneasy, and he decided to collect the seeds now rather than later. He placed the in a small leather pouch he had brought with him, and returned home.

However, when he arrived, the guardsman Trent (who he had spoken to earlier) was waiting at his door for him.