Belli Mundi - Chapter 33

After several days of work, the ditches were finished. Next up was a wooden palisade, for which they were to gather their own wood. Thus an expedition was planned into the nearby forest.

Early in the morning both squads were standing at attention in the middle of their future camp. Here MacGregor explained their mission for the day.

“All right, today we’re going to enter the forest on the southwest of the city. Squad one, your task is to secure the area. Squad two, you will start felling trees to use for the palisade. After lunch you will switch your tasks. Squad one, take the lead. Move out!”

Shortly after that the two squads were at the edge of the forest. At first they went by a lot of smaller trees, as the forest hadn’t been trimmed back in a long time. Soon though, the trees were higher than even the members of second squad, who were some of the biggest men Sam had seen. She and the others from her squad were the ones who had to clear the area of monsters. Normally there wouldn’t be many of those this close to a city, but the cities of the legions, of which Veritas was the capital city of, didn’t employ adventurers. In other countries there would be an adventurers guild where the adventurers could take on quests to kill the nearby monsters. Without it, there was no way to know what monsters they would find.

Sam and the other fighters cautiously entered the forest, making sure to have their shields and weapons at the ready.

Almost immediately both Erik and Leophon were attacked by goblins. These small green humanoids were the same kind that had attacked Sam after she had arrived on this world. This time though, she was not alone, and she was also a lot stronger than back then.

Neither Leophon nor Erik needed help to kill the weak creatures. Both killed their opponent with only a single attack. The only problem was that those two goblins weren’t the only ones.

Moments after the first two goblins were killed, another three attacked. One of which first let out some kind of screech first.

“That was a call for help, be ready for a lot more of the pests!” MacGregor told them.

Indeed, even before Erik and Leophon had killed the next three goblins, three more arrived. And within moments another four arrived from the side. These were immediately engaged by Lufir and George. This left Sam and Deon to cover the other side.

“Don’t bunch up so much, you guys need to cover a much larger area for second squad to get to work!”

This was different from all the training that they had had in the legion. Normally they had to keep in formation, even when that formation was in duo’s. Awkward they spread out some more, but only so far that they could still support each other.

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More and more goblins arrived, and with the fighters spread out, the archers started to do their thing.

“Okay guys, spread out some more. Me and the other archers will support you, and if that isn’t enough, Xanthe and Virgil will toss some spells to help out.” Jasper took over as squad leader now that they had to fight on their own.

Immediately reassured, the fighters spread out some more. Slowly they ventured out into the forest, while the archers made sure to get rid of most of the bushes that would impede their sight and arrows. Thus the fighters wouldn’t be attacked in the back by some hidden goblin.

Now that they finally managed to secure a bigger area, second squad started working on felling trees. Them being the huge men they were, they didn’t need much time to down a tree. They worked in pairs, and in moments the first six trees fell to the ground. Only, one of the trees didn’t fall towards the edge of the forest, but the other way!

Loud snaps could be heard, as the big tree crashed through the canopy of the forest. This gave just enough of a warning for both Jasper and Leophon to jump to the side.

“Hey watch out where you toss those trees!”

“Sorry little man, I’ll make sure to aim a bit better next time.”

“… I’m not sure that that reassures me.”

Soon there were several dozen trees on the ground. Second squad though, didn’t stop for a moment with their killing spree on the trees. This meant that first squad had to keep moving to defend them from the goblins.

Luckily the goblins didn’t keep attacking as ferociously as in the beginning. After the first minutes of frantic defending themselves, Sam and the others only had to kill a few goblins at a time.

Then something bigger charged through the undergrowth. A large boar charged right at Lufir, and before the man knew what happened, it hit his shield. With a mighty blow the man was tossed aside, only to be stopped in his flight by one of the still standing trees.

The boar, which had stopped after hitting Lufir, spotted his next target. Xante was the one who was supposed to cover Lufir, as they had spread out too much for only the archers to take on that role.

Now the small mage was the target of an angry boar, and without the physical stats that Lufir had, she stood no chance.

“Run Xanthe!” Sam shouted, while she started to run to help the mage.

Immediately the mage tossed her shield away, after which she started to run towards Sam. Unfortunately there was no way that she would make it.

Suddenly the boar went flying, and in its stead stood MacGregor.

“Back to your stations, and get some healing potion in the other idiot. Remember that there are bigger and badder things in this forest. Stay sharp!”

Some time later at the headquarters in Veritas.

“Brothers, we need to take action! We almost lost some recruits a few moment ago. It was only luck that we assigned one of the better retirees to them. If MacGregor hadn’t intervened we would’ve lost at least three to six recruits to a boar. That proves that we’ve let the creatures roam free for too long.”

“Tribune Extor, we’re glad that you came to help out with the dungeon, but we don’t have enough troop in the city to also clear the nearby forests. Otherwise we wouldn’t have needed your troops to help us out.”

“Then invite those damned adventurers to take on those duties.”

“You know as well as us that the adventurers guild was banned from our lands for a reason. We don’t need another fighting force that close to us while we fight the undead hordes.”

“Well then, what do you suggest? You have to agree that we need to do something!”

“What about those recruits? I know that at least half of them are strong enough, as they fought the dungeon break for far longer than could be expected of them. The second half should be just as good, as they are former adventurers who answered the call.”

“You mean the same recruits that almost lost half a squad to a boar?”

“I’m sure that that was only an incident. They were probably distracted or something. Let’s vote on it."

Soon the vote was carried through, with only the visiting tribune of the fourth legion being against, and the commander of the garrison and his people all voting to use the recruits as adventurers as part of their training.