The next morning, Clark woke everyone at the crack of dawn.

“Come on fellas, I hope yesterday’s rest was enough for you all! We’re going to be doing some real hiking today, so I hope everyone’s ready!”

…

For the next three days, they hiked through the mountains at high speeds in order to reach certain checkpoints to camp at during the night. All the while, the group had been heading closer to the Silver Hawk tribe’s village. Actually, the village was barely a day’s hike from their camping location this night.

Gust and Wesley had prepared themselves - they would leave for the Silver Hawk tribe’s village come morning. However, what they, and the rest of the group hadn’t realized quite yet, was that “friends” were heading in their direction.

In another tent, Charlotte’s eyes were closed shut. Charles, Mack, and a few of the other guards sat in the tent, staring at her.

After sitting in the tent like this for nearly half an hour, Charlotte’s eyes finally fluttered open.

“They’re coming.”

Mack stood up in a flash, spear and shield in hand. “How far are they?”

“They’re about five minutes away; It’s time to warn the others. Remember, don’t be loud. We don’t want to scare off the barbarians”

“Yes, young miss.”

“Mack, have one of your men keep watch on what Clark and his sons do. We don’t want them to give the Silver Hawk tribe a chance to run away.”

“Yes, young master.”

With that, Mack and the rest of the guards left the tent, and began notifying the others in the group.

“The mountain tribes are attacking!”

Within a minute, everyone in the group had been notified, weapons drawn, in the center of the mountain valley they’d set up camp in.

Clark and his sons came running to the group - for obvious reasons, Mack and his guards hadn’t bothered to warn them.

“Who the hell said the mountain tribes are attacking?” Roared Clark, as soon as he was in front of everyone.

“We did.” Charles and Charlotte stood forward, flanked by their guards, who were all clad head to toe in shining silver armor.

“Why did you say we’re under attack? There’s nobody here!” Clark brandished a gladius in his hand, spittle flying everywhere as he expressed his dissatisfaction.

“My sister has verified it. They’re hardly a minute away, now. But of course, you should’ve known about this already, yes?”

“W-what do you mean?” Clark and his sons slowly backed up.

“Don’t move, unless you want to die. It’s very simple, Clark. This area here -” Charles gestured toward the area the group was in. “Is very hard to see from the direction the Silver Hawk Tribe is in, especially in the veil of the night. Assuming they’re rushing toward us, which I’m guessing they are, they’ll have left the cover of the forest before they realize we’re already prepared.”

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“And if they come… I believe the timing is too ideal to be a coincidence?”

Hearing this, the others understood what was going on, and were incensed. And as if on cue, they could hear people approaching, proving Charles’ and Charlotte’s claims.

Clark had sold them out.

Charles pulled out a black stone layered with magic seals, invisible in the darkness. After activating the stone with magic, a fierce black suit of armor appeared on Charles’ body, and a two handed mace materialized in Charles’ hands.

The HeiMo Set.

With a powerful step, Charles dashed forward toward Clark, who’d already begun running away. However, with the assistance of the HeiMo set, Charles was much faster than the latter.

The mace crashed down on Clark’s head, then his sons’, in succession.

Just then, a mass of people swarmed out from the trees, but in the darkness, they couldn’t see the travellers, who had moved farther back from the forest. However, once they’d made it to the camp, those in the front saw a few hundred peoples with weapons at the ready charging towards them.

And even in the darkness, they looked pissed.

Without a single word, the two sides clashed in the middle of the clearing the travellers had set up camp in, and in the confusion of the darkness,

Gust and Wesley hadn’t charged forward, but instead stayed back exchanging looks. This was simply the best scenario for them!

Instead of running straight into the fray, they ran around the side of the clearing until they were a little behind enemy lines, and prepared themselves. Gust pulled a box of chaos gems out of his bag, and Wesley began drawing seals.

“Ready?”

“Ready!”

The two began assaulting the Silver Hawk Tribe’s warriors’ flanks in their own ways. Wesley shot bolts of ice toward them, whereas Gust used all his strength to throw chaos gems.

In the darkness of the night, the flashes of light from the exploding chaos gems, as well as shouts of pain from those who were pierced by Wesley’s ice bolts, only added to the confusion.

Of course, this drew attention from both sides.

Several tens of Silver Hawk warriors shouted in their strange language to each other, then broke off from the main fight to pursue Gust and Wesley.

“Wesley, they’re running toward us. It’s time to run!”

“Run!”

‘Why am I always the one running?’ thought Wesley.

Regardless, the two ran back toward their “allies”.

Meanwhile, Charlotte had been standing in the middle of fray, surrounded by Charles, Mack and the rest of the Silver Knights. As a support mage, she was capable of boosting the capabilities of several of her allies, but while doing so, she wouldn’t have any fighting capabilities of her own, so she would need to be protected.

However, the trade was well worth it.

Charles and the rest of those surrounding her had had their physical capabilities boosted nearly 5%. While this didn’t sound like much, Charles was already being supported by his HeiMo set, while each Silver Knight was an experienced warrior close to the peak of physical ability.

That 5%, pushed these fighters to the superhuman level.

Because this support didn’t require much concentration and only needed a constant stream of mana usage from Charlotte, this gave her time to observe the battle. So, when Gust and Wesley had begun their barrage, she had easily seen it, and when the Silver Hawk tribe started to chase after the two, she had seen that as well.

“Brother, there’s some interesting people being chased by the Silver Hawk tribe. Shall we help them?”

“Your call.” There had been far more Silver Hawk tribe warriors than Charles had anticipated, and their group was acting as the vanguard for the travelling group, so despite the support they were receiving from Charlotte, Charles and the others were under heavy pressure.

“Understood. Let’s pull them in.”