Visiting the needle universe of Purpureus Mundi was quite an adventure, but despite the mana it offered, they'd rather not visit that place for a while. It was comforting enough to know that they had access to that universe, and they could go there whenever they wanted in the future, granted that Timothy figured out how to open the portal again.
Relatively, the closing of the portal was great, because bugs couldn't pass through it anymore. Farmers, and their livestock won't be harassed by those any longer, so the short campaign here that the guards of Runimus city developed, was nearing an end.
“The bugs can eat each other, for all I care. Isolating them in their own universe is the best way to starve those big bastards to death. If one of these centipedes got out here, they'd eat a hundred goblins before the guards put it down.” Tim thought to himself, he was beyond happy that he closed the portal.
Anyway, they made it to the campsite afterwards, where all the guards were located, and greeted them. The guards, and volunteers were very surprised to see this group of people who were assumed dead, they didn't know how to react!
“We thought that you folks died off looking for your friend,” A guard expressed, “Pardon my language, but where the heck have you been? We had search parties looking for your bodies up until a day ago!”
Tim and the group understood that these guards were less than happy to see them, regardless of their reactions, but they didn’t bother arguing with them. They told them portions of the truth, mentioned the needle universe, and told them that the associated portal somehow ‘disappeared’.
They didn't tell them that it was Timothy who closed it, because they wanted to keep this a secret for the sake of his safety. As long as an illusionist didn't reluctantly search through his brain, their secret was safe. They wanted to keep the universe for themselves.
Gustav was on board as well, he told plenty of lies today, because he wanted to protect his new friend. Furthermore, he was considering retiring from his duties as a guard, because by all odds, he could've died throughout this campaign, and no one would even care to avenge his death. Despite the endless formalities that these guards spoke of, he was sure that no one had been looking for him!
“Lousy pricks,” He thought to himself.
Anyway, the campaign lasted for two more days only, as they had to hunt the few more Demon Beetles who had gone through the portal recently. It wasn't an intensive hunt, but they had to follow through nonetheless, as to not let them reproduce here, in Valporovus. They killed ten more of them.
Once they killed what they believed to be the last beetle, the guards hoped that another portal wouldn't appear around here anytime soon. Quite frankly, they hoped that it wouldn't pop up anywhere in Valporovus, because this has been a daunting, and dangerous task for everyone involved! This task took the lives of seven volunteers, and two guards, and this death count was a lot for them, considering that they needed all hands on board soon if they were to kill Iron Claw the Wicked.
Iron Claw has burned another village down recently, and he ate most of its people. He was a hungry dragon no doubt, but it was difficult to figure out why he was eating through goblin villages, rather than livestock, or wild animals, it was almost as if he hadn't hunted wild animals at all recently. Such behavior was weird, but then again, no one planned to go bargain with him.
The volunteers, and the guards made their way back to the city of Runimus, where they were to prepare to hunt the dragon. Every volunteer who survived this bug-hunting campaign, proved themselves to be skillful enough to handle an actual, greater battle.
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“If we all die in battle soon, then so be it, we’ll sacrifice our lives for a greater cause…” A couple of the guards talked to themselves, they were battle mages after all, and took pride in the mad notion of dying in battle.
…
The city of Runimus was just as they left it. Though it wasn't the biggest place in the world, its luxurious features remained unharmed. Its citizens were happy that dragons weren't brave enough to attack any big or small cities, because inwardly, none of them wanted to fight a large dragon. Even though they were quite capable of putting up a fight, they'd rather avoid it.
The guards and the remaining volunteers entered the city with a sense of pride, because they came from a campaign alive, and had achieved great results, and a great kill count. Some of them were prouder than others.
The guards were greeted by anyone that they met on the streets, and the guards were labeled as heroes, because they believed that it wasn't easy for them to both manage people, and hunt giant bugs! The citizens were well aware of this campaign, and appreciated the guards' sacrifices quite a lot. The volunteers weren't given as much credit, though, they were quite literally considered war animals, just as a knight's horse would be labeled, and this wasn't fun, but at least they got to come back with their lives! After flirting with death, respect seemed less important.
Anyway, after a good night's sleep, they were summoned to meet Guard Master Zedim on the training yard the very next day. Every guard and volunteer were summoned, the lot of them, and they all knew what to expect, they knew that they were going to fight Iron Claw the Wicked soon!
There were seventy volunteers here, two-hundred and fifty guards, and the lot of them stood in the training yard quietly. Zedim's presence was valuable to them, so they did not dare muffle anything that he was about to say.
“Men, and women, I'm sure a lot of you know why we're here. A wicked dragon is scorching the land, he has no remorse, and he's killed well above two-thousand villagers so far! He won't stop until he delivers a great deal of damage to the goblin kind, we have to kill him, even though no other domain offers to help us! We're dealing with an absolute monster here, he's pure evil, but recently, he made a mistake.” Guard Master Zedim spoke loudly, this was the start of his speech.
Then, he continued. “Iron Claw made a mistake, because he couldn’t manage to wipe out an entire village. He attacked a village two days ago, yes, but there were a handful of survivors. These survivors followed him, located his nest, and now we're as sure as ever that we know where he's hiding! He has eluded us in the past, but this time, he won't be as lucky, because we're going to hit him tomorrow at noon!”
“Iron Claw the Wicked shall die on our hands tomorrow. I too will be joining the campaign, and with the three-hundred-and twenty of you by my side, our victory will soon be carved in stone! We're dealing with a one-hundred meter long monster here, and he's as tall as ten houses, but he shall fall! Our victory is certain, because I’m happy to announce that our local, Floating Pupil sect, will be sending thirty, adept illusionists to fight with us!” The latter was a great announcement, it made everyone feel more comfortable about fighting a dragon that was above forty meters tall.
He then added, “We will be discussing battle formations now, so I need each, and every one of you great warriors to pay attention! Battle formations will save us from losing too many people, but if you have any ideas of yours that you want to share, please feel free to do so.”
Arvena stepped forward all of a sudden, she interrupted the Guard Master, and pitched an idea to him. “Our battle tomorrow won’t be ordinary, master, it will be dangerous, and we don't want to die in it, not if death is avoidable. My point is that me, and my friends would like to offer you an extra, unique sort of back up, that’ll make fighting Iron Claw more effective.”
“I’m listening,” Zedim said, and for once he appreciated being interrupted.
“How would you like to have a few dragons in your team?” She pitched, “We tamed them, and they're hardly threatening to the average goblin, they eat fish and stuff like that. They can come in handy, because with an aerial advantage at our disposal, we can attack Iron Claw from the sky, we can put some of your greatest shooters on a couple of dragons!”
“I like it,” Zedim smirked, “We could use all the help we could get tomorrow…”