We spent the next day finding another Worldstrider camp. It took until sunset to find the next one. This one was situated right next to a ruined Vernese town, and from the stench of decay, I got the impression the previous inhabitants had died.

This camp was a little larger and more well-organized than the previous one, but I also got a certain sense of… laxness as I observed it. This group had fewer patrols, despite having more people. It gave off a certain sense of overconfidence.

We spent the rest of the day observing the camp, to figure out which worldstriders were off limits. We eventually came to the conclusion that the camp had 350 combatants and 150 noncombatants.

After that, it was time to start hitting them. The first few groups of soldiers were easy to get rid of. The moment they were half an hour away from their camp, we demolished each group with a quick ambush.

To our surprise, this camp took almost three days to start innovating on their tactics. The fact that it took them three days to try using Vernese guns made me wonder what their commander was doing. The entire camp seemed sloppy and unprofessional. I was also starting to suspect that most worldstriders struggled to set up lots of explosives. The worldstriders didn't have much in the way of production, so most groups couldn't set up big gunpowder traps. Their only real source of explosives was to swipe them from the Vernese.

Of course, that wasn’t enough for my illusions to escape death. On the fourth day, the worldstriders set up an ambush for us. Right after my illusions attacked another group, enemy reinforcements flooded the area. My illusions were surrounded by four hundred angry worldstriders and demolished. There was no way the worldstriders had gotten that many warriors from the base we were harassing. Anise and I decided that they must have gotten reinforcements from nearby camps. If we were sticking around, I might have tried to target another one of those camps afterwards - but with only one day left, Anise and I ended our hunting. Having two groups of Vernese Mages 'die' was more about all we could accomplish. Then, we snuck out of the area, and started heading back towards unoccupied Verne. We had defeated four hundred Worldstriders during our excursion. While there were still tens or hundreds of thousands of them… we had at least done what we could. The rest was up to the people of this continent to figure out.

The System also agreed that we had made some sort of contribution to the battlefield.

Influence: Make a [Minor] Contribution to the Vernese-Worldstrider war

Note: Since the conflict is still ongoing, the impact your actions have had on the war have yet to be determined. Please wait until the conflict ends to receive payment.

Achievement +???

As Anise and I were leaving the Worldstrider camp behind, she also started mentally cheering.

She said.

I grinned.

said Anise.

I felt my smile grow wider. One of the biggest reasons to come here had been getting Anise the keyword ability she needed. Hearing that she had finally gotten it… well, it made me happy. All of our hard work hadn’t been for nothing. She finally had the ability to pursue her dreams in future worlds.

We spent our last day in Verne making our way back to one of the cities that still had airship service. The entire time, I felt a strange mixture of elation and fear. Part of me expected the worldstriders to jump out and ambush us as we left. But nothing went wrong as we bought our tickets. Twelve hours later, we boarded an airship and flew back to Damilius.

The flight was tense. Anise and I kept eyeing the windows, waiting for a swarm of angry worldstriders to descend upon the airship. None of them showed up. I kept waiting for something to go wrong at the last second. I kept my guard up. I felt my nerves growing more taut with every minute that nothing went wrong.

But for the first time in three worlds… things went according to plan. I felt disbelief as we finally touched down in Damilius, and a I realized that we had made it back. We had completed our objectives, done something risky, and lived to tell the tale.

The first thing I did was go to Old Mo’s place, give him a hug, and spend some time with him. Now that I had spent two weeks away from Old Mo, I wanted to spend some time catching up. Next, Anise and I went to see Felix, and the three of us had a nice dinner to celebrate our return. I gorged myself on fish, and waddled out of the restaurant afterwards. It was a lovely night.

Two days later, school started. I finally started to realize a deep, underlying truth. The worldstriders weren’t coming for us. They hadn’t figured out where we lived, or killed us, or done anything else. We were truly safe.

From there, life started to settle back into a routine. Months drifted by, as we continued our education, and Anise continued to run her shop. Finally, after about six months, the time for a much happier event came.

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Dr. Trish’s wedding had come!

* * *

The venue of Dr. Trish’s wedding wasn’t packed with people, but there were still eighty other people there. That was more than I had expected, since Dr. Trish had said she wanted a small wedding. The three of us had also put on rather unusual clothing, at least by our standards. All three of us were decked out in flowers.

In Damilius, flowers were thought to symbolize life, hope, and spring. Flowers were also deeply tied to their wedding culture. My dress had so many flowers woven into it that it resembled a flower bouquet instead of actual clothing. Part of me felt that the wedding clothes of this world were quite wasteful. The flowers sewn into the dress would die within a week or two, and then the dress would be unusable. Still, I did have to admit that the effect was quite pretty. Having every single dress and suit drowned in fragrant foliage also improved the smell considerably.

Felix, in particular, seemed most annoyed by the flowers.

“I can’t help but feel like this is absurd,” he whispered as the three of us sat down. “Why does everyone weave flowers into their hair and clothes? It's so wasteful. I can't imagine how many growth potions one wedding needs. Before the alchemical revolution, how did they sustain this at all?”

“Maybe flowers used to be something for nobility, and then spread to commoners after the industrial revolution?” I said. "I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 'thing people envied' in the past. The dawn of mass production has a way of spreading culture and ideas."

"I suppose," said Felix thoughtfully. "I still feel that it's a bit of a waste. So much energy spent cultivating things that aren't particularly useful."

Anise shrugged. “I really like them, honestly. I wish that we'd had more things like flowers back in the caves. I guess nobody had time to waste on them when everyone was focused on food production. Still, it's a bit of a shame that we didn't have them.”

The three of us continued to chat and joke about previous worlds for several minutes. We avoided explicitly market-based terminology, but we had a lot of fun talking. After some time, a nearby conversation dragged me out of the conversation with my friends.

“ - think that those weird Zelyrian monsters will hit us? If so, Markus’s wedding might be the last happy event we see for a while. I'd hate to think about staying on the front lines of an actual warzone for months on end."

“I doubt it. I’ve heard they’re slowing down in recent months,” said the other man that he was talking to. “I heard a few people say that they should have started hitting us this year, but they ain’t even reached us yet. They’re still messing with former coalition countries and Verne.”

I hesitated, and then decided to join the conversation.

“Are you talking about the world-erm… the weird Zelyrian creatures?” I asked.

One of the two men, a gruff-looking man who was wearing a few military medals, turned towards me and then grinned toothily. “That’s right, miss…?”

“Miria!” I said. “I work with Dr. Trish at her clinic.”

“Ah, the healer girl, right? I've heard of you,” said the gruff-looking man. “My name is Jackson. I'm stationed at the same fort as Markus."

“Nice to meet you!” I said, before I turned to the other soldier. Upon meeting his eyes, I felt a flash of recognition. “I remember you! You were there when we first entered the country, weren’t you? Your name was… Tom?” It was a bit fuzzy, but I still remembered the soldiers at Markus's fort. They had been very kind to us back when we were still refugees.

Tom cackled. “You’re right, little Miria!” then, he squinted at me. “Well, not so little anymore. You're almost grown up now. I'm glad to see that you've been doing well! I was a bit worried when I saw your bedraggled group of survivors limp their way past the border. But it looks like things worked out well!”

“Yup! Felix and I are attending university now, and Anise has her own repair shop for prosthetics. But I want to know about the strange black monsters.” I shivered. “What I've heard of them makes them sound pretty terrifying...”

“You probably don’t have to be that worried. Even if something does happen, its our job to handle it,” said Jackson. “Besides, I’ve heard they've run into more problems recently. Most of the nearby nations have started pooling their Zelyrian artifacts together. The cooperation is helping the human nations slow the Zelyrians down quite a bit. I don't know if anyone can manufacture more artifacts, but it's having a big impact on the war."

“Are Verne and the other countries fighting them off successfully?”

“Well… it’s hard to say. I don’t think Verne is winning… but they aren’t losing, at least.” He chuckled. “I’ve heard that a few of their monstrous diplomats demanded that Verne turn over their Zelyrian mages. Verne has just been brushing them off though. Keeps claiming that they don’t have any Zelyrian mages. The idea really cracks me up.”

Tom snorted. “It is a pretty ridiculous demand. As if there are still pure-blooded Zelyrians around. Most of the pure blooded ones died when their empire collapsed. All that’s left is a few slivers of bloodline here and there. They must think that since Verne is using Zelyrian artifacts, they still have Zelyrians somewhere. What a ridiculous idea."

“Is that so?” I asked, trying not to chuckle. It sounded like Anise and I had caused the worldstriders a bit more trouble than I thought.

“Well, it’s not all good news,” said Jackson. “I did hear that the creatures were smartening up, too. They started stealing guns and cannons to use against the Vernese. They don't use them often, though."

"Probably because they can't make gunpowder," said Tom. "They don't seem smart enough to make tools the way humans do." I shrugged. I didn't think it was a matter of intelligence, so much as biological need. The worldstriders seemed perfectly intelligent to me. They just had confidence in their ability to overwhelm the continent even without tools. Although, I was glad to hear that their overconfidence was setting them back.

“Sorry, anyway. Even though the news from the front lines is a bit sketchy, I don’t think they’re gonna be real problems for us,” said Jackson. "You don't need to be afraid."

I smiled, even as the actual wedding ceremony started, and the crowd quieted down.

It wasn’t much, but Anise and I had made a difference. We just needed to hope that the continent made use of the time we had bought them.