As the day went by, the Gnolls got antsier, they became bolder and popped out of the forest more often which in turn caused the travelers to become agitated and panic and the knights, being the most experienced members of our group as well as the leaders of it took it to themselves to calm everybody down every time it happened- by noon, things went into a cycle that constantly repeated itself until the servants had enough nerves to not care about the appearances of the Gnolls which Kaxa reasonably called out.

"Don't let your guard down!" He yelled from the front while glaring at the forest, and the Gnolls took it as a challenge which they responded to by sending out waves of laughter from the other side of the trees. Kaxa ignored it, obviously, and so did the servants, who by now are used to the sound and kept working even as the laughter echoed around them, "they want that to happen! Because when your guard is down, you're gonna have expectations and the Gnolls are going to brutalize them." The knight leader pointed out, "Both literally and metaphorically."

"They're not really believing him are they?" Jacob asked as he watched at the calm expressions of the servants, "They're gonna be surprised when the Gnolls kill one of us and it's gonna be the start of a chain of dominoes where everyone is running for their lives."

"Will that really happen?" Asya asked him, "They probably know what they're doing." Her words made the servants around them preen from the praise and evidently, they started to work even faster.

Jacob looked away from them, "we'll see." If they're so calm that they work much more efficiently, then he's not really gonna ruin their morale. "I hope you're right."

Asya only hummed in response.

With every hour that passed, more stuff was getting made and the servants around them went from wearing haphazard gear to semi-full plated armor made of chitin, some of which have been turned into weapons that are now getting carried by the vast majority of the servants. While those that didn't carry metal utensils that have been repurposed into weapons, items such as knives were added to the tip of sticks to create spears, cleavers were turned into axes, and forks into arrowheads.

Jacob doubted the usefulness of that last one but if it helped them fight against 90 something barbaric dogs then there's no point in trying to call it out.

"You think we're ready?" Asya asked as she made her way up one of the caravans, she had a quiver on her back and a bow tied to her waist, she didn't know any spells but she did train archery when she was young, Jacob was on the ground directly underneath her, watching silently as she climbed, "I'm not really saying that we're gonna lose to them but do you think that we can fight back?" She asked again.

"I think we can," Jacob reassured and it's not like his words were empty either because everyone seemed eager to live and was playing their roles to the best of their ability. All of the guys were surrounding the caravans into a living wall of flesh and chitin, ready to repel and put the Gnolls at a distance so that the girls- who are either on top of caravans or are starting to climb them, - can shoot them down with arrows or anything that they're capable of throwing.

He had to admit, seeing this level of preparation against the things hunting them down did make Jacob think twice about the question of them beating the Gnolls but if he can't believe in them now, then he might as well be dead. Everyone wanted to thrust everyone and that's why they're preparing for the attack instead of giving up, because they can live if they do.

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Even the merchants were helping by taking over the reins of the many horses pulling the carriages and wagons because the men who would usually do it needed to wear armor and fight back. Sure, that sounded like they wanted to avoid fighting altogether but if that's the case then they should've just stayed inside their carriages and waited until the Gnolls were either wiped out or their servants were all dead.

They didn't, obviously, because they wanted to fight back.

Jacob gripped the summoning stone he was holding and eyed the textbox asking him if he wanted to summon the fire elemental or not. Kaxa said to wait and wait he will.

Looking up, he saw that Asya was being hoisted by one of the girls onto the roof of the caravan, she took her position at the edge of the roof and readied her bow while keeping her eye on the wall of trees over the horizon. She seemed ready and it showed when she met Jacob's eyes and gave him a determined nod, "We'll beat them back." She said, much to the nod of everyone around her.

"Definitely," Jacob replied as he made his way over to Kaxa, the knight was handling two horses, one of which is meant for Jacob.

Jacob hopped on and Kaxa watched him with indifference. People expecting him to know how to ride a horse was weird but then again, it's probably the same as expecting an adult to understand how to ride a car in the 21st century and he was honestly thankful that one of his sisters decided that it was a good idea to take him horse riding because holy hell would things go bad for everyone involved if he can't do hit and run attacks against their attackers.

Oh, he can definitely stay at the front since he had a powerful [Shield] spell but it comes with the caveat of him being completely useless because he can't attack through the shield. He would just be a glorified shield maiden in the end.

"And there we go," Jacob smiled at Kaxa as he held the reins to the horse while putting all his weight on the foothold of the saddle.

But this? With him being able to ride a horse? He can actually make a difference and do hit and run tactics that'll slowly chip away at the numbers of the Gnolls while also taking their attention. And it's not like he was the only distraction either, as evident by the warm stone he was holding as he made his way out the encirclement of armored servants, they parted for him and Kaxa and soon, the two of them joined the other knights on the front of the formation.

The forest was in front of him from where he rode, he can spot flickers of orange light glowing behind the trees. "They have fire?" He asked, baffled.

"They do," Kaxa answered in a milder manner than the Gnolls did, which responded to his question by firing a flaming arrow through the sky.

Which thankfully missed and hit the ground far from where they were but he didn't even have the luxury of feeling relieved because a wave of them soon broke away from the crown of leaves. A wall of bright arrows appeared in the sky, illuminating it and taking the sun's place, in the distance, a fire burned and Jacob gulped down his fear as it started to spread, consuming more trees and glowing brighter with each passing second. It provided enough light for everyone to see in the darkness and that seemed to have been the Gnoll's plan because they soon came out from where they were hiding.

The creatures that were running down the steep hills looked like dogs, the savannah kind. They weren't the Hyenas that he expected from hearing their laughter but looked like the... uh, smarter dogs in the same area, they were brown with dark spots, small, around half his height with an inch or four above it.

They looked focused as they charged them down and Jacob met their eyes as he summoned the fire elemental, he saw intelligence behind those eyes, it was unfortunate he didn't get to see more as a creature made of charcoal erupted from in front of him. The fire elemental was humanoid with the head of a bird, two bright orange eyes spoke of the fire that burned within it as much as the fire-orange lines that ran along its blackened body. A leg much like that of a deer carried all its weight while two arms that belonged to an elephant flattened fist against each other into a spark of embers and ash.

With a screech, the fire elemental ran from its spot and met the Gnolls head-on, burning all the while.