I ran back to town as quickly as possible, each step leaving behind a distinct footprint. My abilities had not alerted me that something was wrong in our nation, so I truly wondered what the urgency was. When I was about halfway back to the town, I could finally see something that wasn’t ordinary.
More and more people started to move around the town, similar to how an anthill would start to move when something was threatening it. Was it something in the sky? Could my ability not work with flying threats? But I dismissed that immediately. In cases where huge birds have flown over our land, I was always notified about their threat levels.
Luckily, I didn’t have to guess about what was wrong any longer as I was close to the town. I just jumped over the outer wall and just a few moments later, the inner wall as well. As soon as I got in, I started to hear commands being relayed. "Every first-rank fighter needs to report to the portal station." It was something that I heard multiple times, which made me worried. Why would we need to send all our first ranks to some place?
I needed to slow down a lot and was basically just walking now, as running and hitting someone would mean that in the best case, I would just break some bones. At the portal station, I could see many council members and a large portion of our first-rank fighters who were close enough that they could get here quickly. "David, what is happening?" I asked. He turned around when he heard my voice. We were still quite far away from each other, but he knew that I would be able to hear him.
"Thank the earth that you're here. We just received an Adventurer Guild summons and information about a regional threat that has been found. The area quest that they issued called for all fighters of the first rank and above to be deployed as soon as possible to a temporary portal station set up by them," David explained, and I was now close enough that we could have a normal conversation. But I still didn’t understand why we would accept this and deploy everything we have.
"Why are we even accepting this?" I asked in a loud voice that silenced everyone around here. David was silent for a moment, and then I could see a bit of confusion on his face. "When something like this has happened everyone, even the nobles who hated the Adventurer Guild, still join. Not doing so would be detrimental to us all, especially with the threat currently facing us," David explained, and when I raised my eyebrow, he continued.
"The current danger is an almost second-rank dragon that must've been blown here by the last winter storm. It's something that can devastate everything it comes close to. Its power is legendary, even at lower ranks. And not to mention how valuable every single piece of a dead dragon is."
At this point, I held up my hand for him to stop. The Guild does have access to powerful fighters who would be able to handle this fight a lot easier than us, but if I remember correctly, there was some sort of rule that when a regional danger emerges the forces it the region would have first challenge and loot rights.
As I was towering over everyone, it was easy for me to look around and see how people were feeling about this. Some were scared, others determined, while some were excited about the opportunity. I can understand them and not going would be bad. Hopefully, the Adventurers Guild can keep the politics to a minimum. Currently, 27 of our 38 first-rank fighters were near enough to make it here. I was quite certain that this situation would turn into the first political showing of our area.
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"Only 19 first-ranked fighters who are decent or better at long-range fighting will be joining. I will be the 20th and no one else will go. I want the best gear we can get for everyone going through and we need a lot of arrows or anything else needed for those long-range fighters." After my command, everyone started to move and while the council wanted to argue, this was more of a military matter than anything else. I took off my adventuring backpack and started to pull out my armor and weapons that I hadn’t stored in my tattoo storage.
While I was gearing up, David and a few other council members approached me. "Do you want to know why I will only take 19?" There were nods, so I explained. "First, this will be a hard fight and from what little I know, getting close to a dragon is a bad idea, so losing our first-rank fighters would be a bad idea. Especially when we are fighting side by side with potential enemies. The second reason is that showing our hand by bringing exactly 20 might mean that we only have 20, but most likely we would have more fighters giving us more political power."
"I can see your reasoning and I kind of agree, but shouldn't we send as many as possible so we could claim more of the dragon's remains?" One of the council members asked, to which I shook my head. "There is no point in losing our fighters for more monetary gain. People are worth a lot more than anything that dragon can give." To that, everyone agreed and we continued to talk until I was geared up and we were waiting for a few more fighters that were especially good at long-range fighting to join us.
In 15 minutes, we were ready. "Everyone get in standard formation and then follow me through," I ordered, and the 19 fighters quickly obeyed. The portal was promptly opened, which I will get compensation from the Adventurers Guild for, as we needed to use the expensive mana stones to make this happen. We marched through in perfect formation, me at the head with everyone else following. In a single moment, I was in another location looking over a grass field where three distinctive areas with different tents were situated. There was a forest on every side, but it was quite far away. I saw that Adventurers Guild representatives and the Queen’s representatives, who were led by a powerfully built man who was definitely in the second rank.
POV Omar
I was sipping on the wine that I was offered, but it was just awful. At least it seems that I am starting to get used to this. At the beginning, I would call this dog shit. At least there was some excitement now with the dragon coming. Observing this fight would give me quite a lot of recognition from the other courtiers if I ever get to go back.
Why did my cousin have to become a stupid petty king and why did my grandfather ask me to keep them as safe as possible? I did not enjoy this, but like everything else, I will do it as perfectly as possible.
The Guild had set up the temporary portal station quite fast. It was quite fortunate that one of our hunters was able to sneak away from the sleeping dragon and report everything back to us. My fool of a cousin wanted to rally our troops and army and go by themselves. It was satisfying to slap him for that idiotic idea. That first-rank weakling really thought we were going to take down a dragon. That stupidity still makes me smile a bit.
My smile, of course, made my servants nervous, which I really hope that they would stop. I wasn’t like those idiot nobles, I was a proper noble and I will make damn sure my cousin will become one as well. We had quite a decent-sized petty kingdom with a lot of coastline and plenty of rivers, so we wouldn't starve, but a dragon could destroy everything, and unfortunately, I wasn’t a fighter. Luckily, it seems that the Adventurers Guild head here was competent. It seems that the dragon was still sleeping, probably completely exhausted from trying to make it to land.
If only it knew that the shallow sea was completely safe for it and just landed there a long way from here. That, of course, would mean that in the future it would be more dangerous, but if it was second-rank, none of us would need to worry about that dragon as the Guild and the world council would send stronger fighters here to take care of it, but that could take a while and who knows what it could have destroyed by then. Even leaving it unchallenged for a day would be disastrous for any petty kingdom.
The portal flashed and a small group of seven people walked through, one of them wore a stupidly jeweled crown. These people have no taste. The Guild representatives quickly approached and wrote down the information given. I looked towards my cousin and his advisors while slowly sipping on the wine. They finally stopped whatever stupidity they were doing and quickly informed me of what petty king had arrived and what their kingdom was like.