“3… 2… 1… Begin!”

As the fight began Saturio kept his spear pointed and slowly made his way towards his opponent. Arthur on the other hand knowing that Saturio had the advantage in range knew he would need to close that distance where he wouldn’t be able to easily retaliate. Arthur, keeping his blade pointed towards Saturio, rushed to quickly put him on the back foot.

Saturio smirked, easily understanding Arthur's strategy and quickly adjusted his stance to counter.

As Arthur approached the spear he swung his sword to knock it to the side to clear a path directly to Saturio, but Saturio only needed to take a few steps back to leave Arthur with no progress.

This went on for about a minute with Saturio toying with Arthur who appeared to be simply doing the same thing over and over again hoping to see a different result. ‘Like I thought, he has practically no training.’

Arthur performed the same attack in the same way as before and Saturio went to back up. But instead he ran into the fence leaving him with nowhere to go. Arthur was taught a bit more than just how to use weapons from Hambel, he was also taught the basics of the basics on how to use one's environment for their own advantage.

/- - - - - -\

Tactics - Level 3

\- - - - - -/

While far harder for most to learn it does have some benefits as Arthur showed.

Arthur took the opportunity to push the spear aside and ready his sword to strike. As Arthur got closer Saturio dropped his spear and reached behind him for a training wooden dagger that he had swiped in place of his real one for such a situation.

With a swift motion as Arthur was bringing down his longsword on him, Saturio lunged the wooden dagger at Arthur’s face and hit him just before Arthur did the same over his head.

The two fell to the ground clutching where they were stuck, Arthur on his nose and Saturio his head. Hambel and a few others who had been watching the fight take place were baffled by what had happened, how both fighters were down.

“Well I think that makes this a draw.” Hambel was the first to speak as he turned to the other spectators. They all agreed with him.

Half of the group rushed to Arthur and the other half to Saturio. The groups made sure that their respective ally was ok.

“What on earth just happened?” A familiar voice echoed. It was Lyra the elf learning the expedition along with Citro.

She approached Saturio who was surrounded by his allies. “Hello Saturio Quintilius.” Her sarcasm clear as day. “I wasn’t aware that you liked picking on our new recruits and losing while you did so.”

“I was simply testing his skills and he simply surprised me with his tactical readiness.” Saturio attempted to defend himself.

“Is that so?” Lyra scoffed at Saturio’s blatant lie. “When you recover, bring your group to my tent so that we may discuss our plan of attack.” Lyra turned and left before Saturio could say anything in retaliation.

Soon after, Lyra left Saturio and his crew left in the same direction. Clearly he did not wish to anger Lyra any further.

“You did great lad!” Hambel slapped Arthur on the shoulder as he shouted.

“You should be careful nobody hears you.” Arthur said to try to shush his friend.

“Ah don’t worry about that. You should be more worried about that bruise on your nose, it doesn’t look so great.”

Arthur touched his nose and grunted in pain. “I'll go to Cassia. She probably knows some magic that can heal me.”

“Do yeh know where she is?”

“She probably hasn’t left her tent since I left. I will be right back as soon as she is done.” Arthur turned and ran to Cassia’s tent while he held his nose.

*******

“What happened to you!” Cassia yelled upon seeing the state of Arthur's face. She quickly rushed over and forced him to take a seat.

“I'm telling you I just need a quick heal and I'll be good.”

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“Oh no you don’t. You are staying here until I am certain that you are fully healed and that bruise fully fades away. If you even have a scratch left you are not leaving.”

For several minutes Cassia cast a multitude of spells of a golden light onto Arthur. Arthur saw that the first few didn’t do much, at least not from his perspective. The next few were far more obvious in their effects.

The first of the spells that had an observable effect was one that quickly removed all of Arthur’s fatigue that he had accumulated over the course of training and the fight with Saturio. The next spell healed any smaller cuts and the soreness in his arms that he had when training. The last spell slowly healed the large bruise on his face, taking by far the longest amount of time of all the spells cast.

“Are we done now? Because if not I likely won't be able to help Theo with dinner today.”

“Yes we are done, but there will be no more physical training for today. I may have healed most of the damage but your body needs rest. You have been nonstop training for about five days now.”

“Fine. I'm going now to help Theo.”

“When you finish dinner I am expecting you right back here.”

“I will be, and you are not my mother!”

Arthur jogged his way to the kitchen to help Theo with today's dinner. While they skinned and cut up potatoes to mix in with the stew Theo spoke up.

“From what I’ve been hearing we’re gonna enter the fortress tomorrow afternoon.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“A couple of the mages were talking about it amongst themselves, and I just so happened to be listening at the time.” Theo smirked as he turned to look at Arthur. “Are you ready to go back there?”

“Yeah I'm ready to go back there. Why do you ask?”

“Just wanted to make sure. Oh and one more thing, what was it like down there?”

“Well the halls were basically empty, I expect that most of the dangerous stuff was hiding in rooms. Like that one group of goblins I fought.”

“You fought a group of goblins? How many were there?”

“Five goblins, but only one had a proper weapon.”

“Do you still have those weapons?”

“Cassia gave me a bag to put them in.”

“Hmmm, when you establish yourself more and you have the money to afford it you should look into buying a dimensional bag.”

“What is a dimensional bag?” Arthur had never heard anyone say anything about something like that. “Based on the name it must be very useful.”

“Oh it is.” Theo chuckled. “A dimensional bag is an enchanted bag that has a dimensional space that displaces non living matter. The weight of the bag depends on the amount it can hold.”

“When I get a chance I will most certainly look into that.”

*********

The next day started out quite like the last with a nice breakfast and Arthur practicing his hydromancy with Cassia and honing his skill with the spell water whip.

At about 11:30 everyone joined up at the front entrance of the old fortress. Saturio and his group were off to the left side and everyone else stuck to the right side.

For the first time Arthur was able to see exactly how many people were on the expedition. Counting all those who arrived with Saturio there were about fifty people standing outside the entrance.

‘So about 30 people came with Saturio, good to know.’

Lyra walked to the doors that had a few stairs that gave her a slightly elevated position allowing her to be seen by almost everyone.

“Good day to all of you.” Lyra waited for a moment to ensure she had everyone's attention. “Today we are beginning our descent into the fortress. Our objective is to scout and map the layout as best as we can. If you encounter something that you are not confident in facing, retreat back up here and share your findings. Do not be a hero!” She emphasized those last five words making it clear what she wanted.

“We will be travelling in groups of 6 and my second in command Citro-” She pointed to a man in full plate armour in the very back who raised his hand. “-will hand out the list of our groups. Not everyone will be exploring today, those who are not exploring will be setting up fortifications where we have established safe zones. That is all.”

Lyra walked off to the left of everyone and Citro took her place. The first thing he did was call up the leader of each of the groups, a total of nine. Then Citro handed each leader a list of their team members and one at a time everyone found their group.

Arthur upon joining his group which was named group seven he noticed both Hambel and Cassia were in it.

‘Looks like Lyra has paid attention to who I made friends with. When I get an opportunity I'll pay her back.’

“Well what a coincidence lad.” Hambel laughed. “You must be on very good terms if you managed to convince Lyra to group us all together.”

“I actually didn’t ask her. She must have just been paying attention to me.”

“Ehh? You don’t sound too concerned about that lad.”

“Well she hasn't done anything to harm me, quite the opposite in fact. She has helped me greatly so far.”

“Well lad, typically when government or high ranking officials get involved in people's lives without being asked to do it because they want to butter you up so you view them in a more favorable light.”

“Why would they want that?”

“They probably want to keep you on their side, and perhaps in the future they will have need of you and if you have a favorable view of them you will be far more likely to help them. Never underestimate the power of a familiar face.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

‘I hope Hambel is wrong about Lyra. She seemed so nice.’

All of Arthur’s group followed their leader to an area nearby what was most likely their tent. Everyone watched as the team leader took out a whetstone and began to sharpen the large axe on her back. The only thing that revealed that she was a woman was her voice under the full plate armour with chainmail underneath.

“My name is Aelia, and I have been doing this for 15 years now. If I tell you to do something I expect you to do it, it will always be in your own best interest.”