Author’s Note: Continuing right where last chapter left off. Please enjoy.
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Chapter 13
I decided to play dumb. “What do you mean? Explain what?”
The commander looked exasperated. “Your title! It says you’re royalty for Spirits’ sake!”
Oh. I thought he was going to ask about my race being designated human when I’m clearly not one. Well, he did call me ’your highness’, but I thought that was just a joke based on the title. My title though, do they not understand the word sniper? Well, I guess a medieval-ish society might not actually, since the term originated from gun marksmanship I believe. Shooting snipes to be exact. I haven’t seen any sign yet of even primitive guns here. You would think, if they existed, people in a fortress would be the ones using them. There probably aren't snipes on this world either. I might end up surprised on that point though. I've already seen horses and other familiar creatures.
There’s not really much to say though, I mean, I’m not royalty! I can see that the commander is now looking at my shield choker so he’s probably thinking that they explain each other. My shield’s ornate appearance comes back to bite me again. The appearance made sense in the game, but on this planet, I guess it is way too elaborate and expensive looking. If I say I’m not royalty, he’ll ask me where I got the jewelry. If I say I had them crafted somewhere, he’ll want to know where and I can’t really explain where since that was a location in the game on another planet. I don’t know enough about this world to make up a location. If I say something along the lines of it being a family heirloom, that would just add to the suspicion that maybe I’m some descendent of some royalty from somewhere. Of course I could always say I stole it or found it somewhere, but confessing to a crime is definitely out and saying I found it somewhere would create other questions too. Maybe saying someone gave it to me would work? Which would be the best option to go with?
I should probably just say something rather than staying silent. The longer I stay silent the more time he has to think I’m trying to hide something. Plus regardless of what I say now, the title has already been seen and a misunderstanding has been caused. The best I can do is just try to limit it a bit. “I’m not royalty. I have no idea why I have that title. My family are just commoners and I lived with them in a small village a long way from here. I left home and started traveling a long time ago.”
“What about that necklace? That’s much too fancy for a commoner to possess. Is it by chance a family heirloom?” The commander asked shrewdly.
As I expected huh. Let’s see if this works. “I received it as a gift from an eccentric merchant. It was quite a while ago now that I think about it. No idea where he got it from. He just insisted I take it.” Maybe, I should have thought that explanation out better before I opened my big mouth. Doesn’t it sound like I just said some crazy merchant pushed possible stolen or shady goods on me!? Shit. Well, he has no way of confirming or denying any parts of my story so let’s see what his next move will be.
The commander was silent for a while as he frowned at me. His finger was tapping on the table. He finally opened his mouth to speak again, “I’m guessing that you’ll tell me that you don’t remember where you met this merchant at? Or even what he looks like?”
I smiled, “Right. I’ve been traveling so long that everything kind of blends together after a while. Was it a city far off to the south and west? Maybe north and west? I don’t recall anything clearly.”
He sighed before saying, “No matter then. If you don’t know, then you don’t know. It wasn’t really that important. I’ve never even heard of a kingdom by that name anyway so it’s probably just some long dead one. I guess it was just idle curiosity. I don’t have any other questions for you, so I’ll let-”
His words were cut off by the sound of a horn. Instantly, he jumped up from his chair. He was no longer paying even a sliver of attention to me. He turned to doodle soldier, I mean Roderick, and ordered, “Take the young lady to a spare room then get to your post. Donovan with me.” Afterwards he rushed from the room with Donovan following close behind.
Roderick merely beckoned me to follow him and then also left the room. I guess I should get going, too. I hurried after him, but he wasn’t that fast, so I caught up to him easily. He led me to one of the staircases and then down a hallway. The horn was probably an alarm of some kind. Someone or something attacking? I would assume it would be more monsters based on the field in front of the fort being littered with bodies when I got here. Is that why the fort is here? To intercept monsters coming out of the mountains?
Eventually he stopped in a door and opened it. I saw inside was a small room with a few bunks. No sign of anyone living in it though. “Please stay in this room. It will be safe here.”
Before he could leave, I called out to him to ask, “Was that horn signalling that the fort is under attack?”
“Of course. No reason to fear though, no monsters have ever breached the keep walls.” He gave me a reassuring smile. Well, I assume it was supposed to be a reassuring smile but with the doodles it just looked weird.
This time he really turned and ran and left me at the room. Well this attack came at a convenient time, though it did appear like the commander was going to excuse me anyway. I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t seem to care at all about my race though. Is it normal to have human on the card but have features of other races?
Now do I stay in my room or go watch the battle? What a silly question! Of course I’m going to watch the battle. “Lynn, make sure you keep track of the path I take from this room. I’m going to probably need your help to find my way back here afterwards.”
“Roger that, Mistress.” Lynn replied.
Now, the number one objective is to try to get upstairs I think. I don’t want to be seen and I need a good vantage point. I ran back to the staircase and then up. Then stopped and ducked in a side room as I detected some soldiers ahead. I let them run past the room I was hiding in before I left the room and I looked for the next staircase or at least a window to see out of.
Eventually, after some minutes of sneaking around, I found a passage that led out to a small balcony of the keep. Upon getting out, I was a bit surprised to see that the current time was already sunset. I didn’t think that discussion with the commander had taken that long. Maybe I had embellished my story a bit too much. Luckily, there was no one around to see me. Just to be sure, I crouched down to peek over the balcony wall. From the looks of things all the soldiers were either on the walls or at the gate to sortie if it became necessary. At least I wasn’t detecting anyone near me. The location wasn’t the best for an actual view of the fight though. I couldn’t see much of the area outside the fortress though I did get a quick scan of the monsters I saw. The monsters were still primarily in the forest at the foot of the mountains, which put them a kilometer away from the walls. This is probably why the fighting hadn’t started yet. It was a mixed group of humanoid looking ones called trolls and wolf like creatures called wargs. The wargs were much lower level than the trolls, only being in the level 20 to 30 range. From what I could see from my vantage point, there were a couple hundred of them if not more.
The trolls were the more interesting targets. The scans said they were in the level 60 to 70 range and there were at least a few dozen. The interesting fact that came from the scan result was the note that they have very high regeneration and that it is necessary to use fire to finish them off. I was curious to see how the soldiers were going to handle this.
I also took the time to scan some of the soldiers and was pretty impressed with what I saw. There was really no comparison with those weak town guards. For one, a lot of them were past level 50 in their Class. Some were lower level but had Subclasses that when combined with their Class totaled past 50. The vast majority of the soldiers I could see were Knights or Warriors. About a hundred or so were Scouts or Hunters, and these were the bowman on the wall. While I was scanning random soldiers, I managed to get a glimpse of the commander running around and got a scan off on him and was pretty amazed at the result. He was a level 79 Knight with level 51 Scout for the Subclass. Absolutely the strongest person of this world I’ve seen so far.
Why would the monsters even attack a fortress like this though? I mean even the trolls look only about three or four meters tall, no where near the size necessary to get over these walls. I can’t see them being able to break that giant metal gate down either. Is it possibly something to do with knowing that people are here? Regardless, they’re just going to get slaughtered. Stupid monsters. <((This series is only officially posted to royalroad.com. If you are reading this series on any other website, then you are doing so without the permission of the author, Xacual. If you have paid money for this story, please file a report and request a refund as it has been stolen and is being sold illegally.))>
As if in response to my thoughts, a chorus of howls echoed out of the woods along with some roars. The monster horde was now in motion as they rushed toward the fortress walls. I had definitely underestimated the numbers as I watched the monsters get steadily closer. When they reached about halfway to the walls the archers let loose and a volley of arrows flew into their midst. I was impressed. The archers were scoring hits at a distance of at least 500 meters. From what I could tell, the arrows were one shotting the wargs. They weren’t that tough I guess, or it was just the level difference in play. The trolls on the other hand, were shrugging off the arrows as they barreled their way to the gate.
I noticed a new group of people had come up on the wall. Unlike the other soldiers, these were wearing robes and had staves and wands and the like. I knew what they had to be, but I scanned just to be sure. My expectations were for naught. They weren’t wizards. They were called Sorcerers, well and Sorceresses. Out of the twenty person group, eight were female. I finally took note of the fact that the commander was standing with them and seemed to be communicating with the highest level Sorceress. After a moment he backed away from them and I got to see an amazing sight.
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The Sorcerers had all raised their spellcasting tools while standing shoulder to shoulder and then I felt another wave of that weird energy again. It must really be magic! About thirty seconds later, suddenly there were balls of fire falling through the air like a rain of meteors hitting the ground. It was almost like carpet bombing with the explosions of fire moving in a wave away from the fortress walls. I watched as all the monsters got consumed in the flames. Not a single monster managed to escape that bombardment.
For a moment I wondered why they hadn’t done that to start with but then I realized they had likely waited to do it to let the bowman get experience from kills. It looked like the Sorcerers were pretty winded from that display too. They had all collapsed off their feet after the large spell had ended. It was an impressive effect, but if the magic users are useless afterwards that seems like way too big of a demerit to me. Maybe magic isn’t as great as I was hoping for.
The soldiers were starting to return to their other duties, including a number coming back toward the keep so I knew I needed to get back to my room. “Lynn, directions back to the room fast!” Lynn obliged, and little floating arrows started appearing in my vision ahead of me as I raced as quietly as I could through the halls. It only took me about a minute to get back to my room and I hurriedly went back inside and laid down on one of the bunks.
About ten minutes after I laid down, doodle soldier showed up apparently with orders to ask if I required dinner and if so he’d escort me to the mess hall. I thought the offer over but decided to decline. I could make a much better meal for Coa and myself here than whatever these soldiers were likely having. I told the soldier that I had eaten a small meal from my supplies while the fighting was going on and that I was going to go to bed shortly. He nodded and then left.
Being careful about potential interruptions, I took out my cooking equipment and set it up on the other side of the bunk out of sight of the door. I simply cooked some meat and veggies, which the smell of, woke Coa up. I had been surprised when I realized that she had slept through the entire battle, including the very loud, explosive fireballs. She gets afraid of an old man simply looking somewhat at her, but then can sleep through explosions. What a silly child. Regardless of Coa’s little quirks, the two of us enjoyed a nice quiet meal. As I guessed earlier it seems like this room is not in use by anyone, since even as it got later no soldier came to this room to sleep. I sensed soldiers moving into other rooms and going to sleep, but none of them came to this room or the ones on either side.
After laying Coa down on the pillow, I had a discussion with Lynn about the magic we witnessed. Her opinion on it closely aligned with my own. That if that was the limit of magic, then it would be useless. I mean sure it might be cool to be able to throw fireballs or something but I have much more powerful guns that can easily duplicate what those Sorcerers did and won’t exhaust me using them. We exchanged some theories back and forth for a while, but in the end we still don’t have enough concrete details to really work with, so all our theories were nothing more than guesses. We’ll need to collect information about magic and what it can accomplish now that we know for sure it exists. At least I’m pretty confident now that I’ve felt magic activating twice, that I should be able to detect attacks to help protect myself. I had no idea if my shield would actually defend against it or not and I didn’t want to take a stupid chance and risk Coa or myself on letting magic hit me to test it.
Lynn and I exchanged good nights and I settled down on the bunk with my head on the pillow next to Coa. The bed was very simple and kind of uncomfortable, and made me wish I dared to take out my bedroll to use instead. Thankfully, it had been a long day, so even with the poor bedding I fell asleep quite quickly.
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I woke up groggily to the sound of a whining dragon. Opening my eyes, I saw Coa looking at me and she continued her begging sounds. I guess I should have expected as much from a young beast. I took out some food to appease her hunger. After she finished eating, she chirped happily before sighing and then climbing back to my neck to go back to sleep. I guess she prefers that spot over the pillow. I checked the time, and I guess it wasn’t too early. Only about an hour until daybreak.
I needed something to do to kill time because I don’t think the soldiers would appreciate me wandering around on my own. Which reminds me of something I had forgotten to ask Lynn about last night. “Hey Lynn, did you copy that map we saw in the room or were you too busy playing?”
“Of course I did, Mistress. I wouldn’t let my leisure interfere with work. The map won’t be that useful though.” She displayed it on my vision and connected it with the details we already knew. “See, it just displays the general area along the mountain range. It doesn’t even have that town that was mentioned to be a few days away on it.”
I examined the map and was surprised that barely any of the mountains were in much detail. “Either they never go into those mountains or they don’t put much stock into accurate maps of it. I guess it’s possible too that there are other maps of the mountain range in a different location. That map might be all the commander of a fort here needs. I wonder if that dungeon is actually known or not?”
“If I had to hazard a guess Mistress, I would assume it is. I’m sure at some point people explored those mountains at least enough to find it. It’s not like it was hidden anyway.” Lynn replied.
“That’s true.” I decided to change topics. “How is everything at the ship?”
“The digging has gone well. If the current pace is maintained, I’d estimate about thirteen more days until the hangar is usable. The two drones have been constructed and they are currently on standby outside the ship. I believe that’s all I have to report.” Lynn concluded.
I sighed. I had hoped for a longer discussion. Soldiers wake up early though, don't they? I shouldn’t have to wait too long to leave this room, right? I tried to get comfortable again on the bed as I waited.
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It took two and a half hours before a soldier, and this one wasn’t doodle soldier but someone new, came and checked on me. During that time, I had gotten tired of waiting and had a light breakfast and changed into a fresh pair of clothes.
The soldier, who appeared to be an elf if the ears were anything to go by, told me that Commander Astrell required to see me. I made sure to remember the name and I was curious why this soldier said it. The other soldiers had just called him commander and left out the rest. Maybe this guy just values the extra formality? Whatever. I followed him and to my not surprise, he led me to the same room I met the commander in the day before. Unlike the day before though, the room was not silent and I could hear an argument from the interior.
“What do you mean, you’re sending me on messenger duty!? I refuse. Send one of the lower level scouts or hunters. It’s what they’re for. And why are you just nodding, Gormon? Don’t just go along with stupid orders!” A very angry female voice was saying. The soldier I was with was looking awkward, like he wanted to knock on the door and yet didn’t want to go anywhere near it.
“Now, now, calm down Seran. I have reasons for choosing the both of you for messenger duty.” The commander’s voice was heard. I’m surprised that he’s willing to take that kind of disrespect from whoever that is. Usually refusing to follow orders in the military would be a big deal after all. It seems like, thanks to hearing the commander, the soldier I was with got his wits back and knocked on the door. “Right on time! Come in.” The commander sounded relieved.
The soldier ushered me to go ahead of him into the room. Inside were a female elf that was scowling and a human man that looked pretty dull and blank. The elf was quite attractive and I took a moment to appreciate her looks, especially her form fitting leather armor that displayed her slim curves nicely. She had her silver hair cut short, which was a bit of disappointment. I’d always preferred girls with longer hair. She’s definitely a 10 otherwise. Well, not like I have any intention of hooking up with her.
Now that I was here, the commander continued. “The two of you will also be escorting this young lady. She’s a Beastmaster, but all her tamed beasts were slain except for the small dragon around her neck. You just need to take her along with you to Dawnwater. Nothing more complicated than that.”
The elf, Seran I guess, was examining me with a thoughtful expression. She turned her attention back to the commander. “I understand why you chose us now. Alright, I’ll accept the mission then.” The commander merely nodded, and then passed her some sealed letters which she slipped into a pouch at her waist. She walked up to me and then introduced herself. “I’m Captain Serandelle. Feel free to call me Captain or Seran. The man behind me is Captain Gormon. He’s easygoing, so call him whatever. We’re both high level Scouts, so there will be no worries. Are you prepared to leave now?”
I nodded. “Yes, I’m ready to go. By the way my name is Seri. Nice to meet the both of you and thank you in advance.”
Seran looked surprised before asking, “By chance was your mother or father an elf and were they the one to choose your name?”
I was puzzled. Did that kind of thing matter here? What should I say? She obviously thinks I’m part elf because of my ears. I guess I’ll just go along with it? I can’t see any possible harm in it. I’d have to make up some kind of more detailed backstory eventually so might as well start with a bit now. “Yes, my mother was an elf and she chose my name. Is there a problem-” I was interrupted by Seran rushing forward and embracing me in a tight hug.
“You must be a clan member’s child then! How nice to meet family!” She gushed.
What? Seriously, what!?
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I kind of feel bad ending two chapters in a row like this. Sorry!