When we touched down at our destination, Anise and I finished hashing out our new objectives.

Anise now had a way to hurt the worldstriders, as long as I pulled us into their layer of reality. If their bodies were stretched too thin, Anise could rip them apart with Mage hand. If their body was too bunched up, it made it hard for them to dodge my extinguishes. In other words, we had accomplished our original objective.

But that didn’t mean there was nothing we could accomplish here.

One of the other big reasons we had come here was because Anise had almost no way to form a good keyword ability. If she stayed in her shop, she would probably end up with more abilities like her 'repair' ability. That wasn't what Anise wanted. It would be much better if she got a keyword ability with lots of growth potential.

Since both of us had very high lethality against the worldstriders, this was probably the best chance we would get for her to form a good keyword. If we missed this chance, Anise would need to form a keyword ability by fighting in the army, or taking some other desperate action. While that was possible, it certainly wasn't the best outcome. Armies in this world were hundreds of thousands of people. Even with unusual magic, Anise wouldn't be able to make a difference there. Even surviving might be hard.

So this was our best chance.

As we continued talking about what we wanted to accomplish, I had another idea.

“Anise,” I said. “I know you said earlier that faking your death to the worldstriders might be a good thing. It would keep them from looking for you after we're done here. But I have another idea. How about we make them think that there’s a giant enclave of Zelyrian mages hidden somewhere?”

Anise looked at me, as if shocked by my question. She pursed her lips in thought, and then grinned.

“Your illusions?”

I smiled. “Yup. It’ll be a bit hard to manage, but we can do it if we put in some legwork.”

“Do you think we can pull it off without dying?”

“I do,” I said, as I grinned. “I have a rough idea how we could accomplish this. We do need to confirm a few things first, of course. I need to know where the main worldstrider base is. And we also need to know if the worldstriders can be fooled by illusions. If they can't, this idea won't work. But we can do something incredible if everything goes well. And get you a really good keyword ability.”

"In that case, how about we split up for a few hours and kick around the city?" asked Anise. "We can ask locals about what they know, and see if we can find an information dealer or someone of the sort. We might also find good information if we sit around in pubs and listen in. I imagine lots of soldiers hang out there. With how close we are to the front line, at least a few soldiers should have the information we want."

The two of us broke up and wandered through Mirlen to collect information. I spent the next two hours listening in on local pubs. Since we were only two days away from the front lines, there were plenty of sloshed soldiers to listen to. Eventually, I also used a few illusions to make myself look a bit older, before I settled in to talk to a soldier who was more... drunk than the others.

"Hey therrrree," he said, slurring his words as I slid into the seat next to him. He spent several seconds staring at my face, before he started grinning.

"Hi there! My name is... Millie," I said. "I couldn't help but overhear you talking about the fight against the worldstriders earlier. I was really impressed by the fact that you fought on the front lines against them. What's it like on the front lines?"

The soldier spent several more seconds staring at me, before his grin grew wider.

"Yeah... they's... they's gotten trickier now. They were bunchin' up at the start. But now they'rr fightin' in smaller groups. Real tricky they are, always watchin' and waitin'. But my friends an' I... we scared em off!"

"How did you manage that?" I asked, more curious than ever.

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"One of my friends's... a carrier! He was carryin' a bolt, and it hit one of 'em. The little bast-errrr... punks are scared! They don't fight'n they can get hurrt!" he said.

I felt that the soldier's slurring was getting worse, and decided to push a bit harder. With how drunk the soldier was, I seriously doubted he would remember this conversation tomorrow.

"How many worldstr-erm.... Zelyrian experiments are there per fight, do you think?"

"There's... there's lots of 'em! I can only fight'em off cuz I'm real strong!" he said, puffing out his chest proudly. With how drunk the man was, he overbalanced a bit, and nearly fell out of his chair as he spoke.

"So... are we talking hundreds per fight?"

"Naww... they're grouped up in groups of.... thirty or forty? Ah... I mean, there are hundreds of them purr fight," said the soldier, as he tried to puff out his chest again.

"Only thirty to forty?" I said, curiously.

I had expected something very different. Giant hordes of worldstriders wandering around in massive groups, ready to pounce on Vernese soldiers. Or something along those lines, at least.

"Hmm... you mentioned that one of you friends was a carrier. What does that mean?"

"He's carryin' Zelyrian tech. He can actually hurt 'em!" said the soldier grinning as he spoke.

"Ah, I see," I said. That made more sense. The soldier had also mentioned that the worldstriders tended to back away from fights where they could actually get hurt. If both sides fought large, pitched battles, the Vernese would know exactly where to bring their Zelyrian artifacts. If they had split into smaller groups...

I grinned.

While it would be a huge pain for the Vernese to fight guerilla warfare with the worldstriders, it worked to our advantage.

Originally, Anise and I had been planning to pick off small scouting groups and try to enact our plan that way. But if the worldstriders were spread out, we would face much less danger of being swarmed.

“Thank you for your information,” I said, as I stood up. "Hey, two of this guy's drinks are on me," I said, as I handed a bit of money to the bartender. Since the soldier had provided me with useful information, I could at least pay for a few drinks.

"Hey, wait... Mill... Millie. We can... meet later?" asked the soldier.

"Thanks, but I have to go," I said, as I walked out of the bar.

When I met back up with Anise, the two of us recounted everything we had discovered while investigating the city. The two of us had found out the same thing - the worldstriders had split up into lots of small groups. With my biggest fear addressed, we started heading towards the front lines.

There was one last thing we needed to check, and then we could get started.

* * *

The final thing we needed to check was simple.

The plan Anise and I had developed relied on my ability to manipulate information. Normally, illusions would work pefectly for this. However, the worldstriders were a completely different species. It was hard to say whether an illusion that could trick a human would work on them.

If it didn’t, we would have to return to Damilius. I didn't think we would get a better opportunity for Anise to make a good keyword ability... but if we died, we wouldn't get the keyword ability Anise wanted either. So we needed to test whether my illusions could fool the worldstriders.

I used extensive illusion magic to create a new set of people. I first created an illusion that made looked like a bald, slightly overweight forty year old man. Then, I created another illusion, of a thirty year old woman with bronze-colored hair and metallic, iron-gray eyes.

Then, we walked up to the edge of the area the worldstriders were known to be active.

Then, the two of us hopped into a patch of bushes. I followed that up by applying a second layer of illusions to us, which helped us blend into the scenery. It wasn’t perfect - there were a few patches of our body that stood out if someone looked closely enough. But it was good enough that the worldstriders shouldn't notice it while fighting for their lives.

Afterwards, I started sending our two illusions around the area. At the same time, I monitored the area with my special types of sight. Then we waited.

It took six hours of waiting before a worldstrider group appeared near the edge of our sight. Upon seeing the two illusory people, the worldstriders stopped and yelled at each other in old Zelyrian. After a few seconds of bickering, the group started flying towards our illusions.

I grinned. They were flying towards the illusions. Not us.

I made the two illusions gasp in horror, before the turned and started fleeing from the worldstriders.

We waited for a few more seconds, to see if anything changed. However, the worldstriders remained fooled by our illusions. The worldstriders started lobbing spells at the two illusions... and kept ignoring our actual bodies.

I sent a wave of joy towards Anise through our communication bracelet.

I said.

With our final test completed, Anise and I looked at the worldstriders and grinned.

It was time to begin.