They were traveling at a steady pace and didn’t plan to stop anytime soon. It was only made possible because of Anton’s auras that were supporting the horses. It was still summer so the weather was clear and they were not alone in the road. There were other travelers beside them.

When lunchtime arrived, they briefly stopped to eat the food that their cook prepared before they left the city and stored in Anders’s storage item, the one that came from Zenoxus.

After that brief stopped, they continued on, wanting to get away from the city as soon as possible. The heat and humidity of the summer would have made the travel uncomfortable but because of Anton’s enchanted items, the inside of the carriages were cool and comfortable.

Anton saw that everyone was quiet and Anna was especially so. Anders told everyone before they left that they would begin their planning once they reached a town that was far enough away from the city.

He could understand the sadness that permeated their group. They thought that they would be living their lives happily and in comfort in Zalnothel. They were even planning to build a cinema. That would allow their family to earn a tremendous amount of wealth but now the city could be destroyed. What made them truly sad was not only three of their members had already been killed by the Undead Coalition, but the people they left behind in Oak Sage Manor could be in danger as well. Anton knew that everyone was hoping that the city of Zalnothel could survive the crisis and that their people who they had become very close to during the past few weeks would survive and even thrive.

The road was dusty but the trees in the surroundings were full and lush. The environment was the opposite of what everyone was feeling. It was bright and the summer day was cheerful. Anton felt that the surrounding area was mocking him. As if they were saying, “Yes, the life you’re trying to build is now over but we don’t care! We’re here as bright and cheerful as we can be!”

Soon the sun had set. Lucas and Colin found a good campsite but they were not alone there. There were other three groups of travelers that came from the city to the campground and each group stayed away from the other.

They hastily ate their dinner and prepared tents. Anton was surprised to see all the things they had been using before even the toilet cum bucket.

The good thing about their travel right now, his father and Nemina both held storage items that had huge capacities and they could use them to store all the things they would need during their travel. Just like his inventory, time stopped inside their storage items and that meant that food could be preserved for a long time.

Anders called everyone and they gathered near the fire. It was time for them to plan what their next move would be.

“We will arrive in the town of Norad tomorrow afternoon,” Nemina said while looking at the map that she retrieved from her storage ring. Anton remembered that the ring was the storage ring owned by the archmage from the Blood War gang.

Anton also noticed that one of the two storage pouches from the High Wizards from the Blood War gang was with Frederick and the other was being held by Lunelle. He also saw that Anna was holding one and Lucas had one as well. He remembered receiving storage pouches from the vampires who attacked them before.

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“We will need to do two things. Purchase as much food as we can and purchase broken and worn-out things that Anton can repair since we still need to earn gold coins,” Nemina continued.

“We will only purchase things. We will not be selling since we will only do so once we reach a huge city,” Anders said.

“What’s the first city that we’ll reach and are we staying there?” Anna asked quietly.

“We’ll reach the city of Greton,” Lucas said.

“We’re not staying there,” Anders said to his daughter and Anna just nodded.

After their talk, they all went to rest except for those assigned as guards for the night. Anton knew that Lucas, Devon, Frederick, Colin, and Anders would take turns acting as guards through the night. They spared Anton that duty since everyone knew that he needed to meditate to make sure that Anton would become powerful. They all understood that Anton was still the backbone of their group.

Anton was embarrassed at first and asked to be included in the guard shift rotation but everyone insisted that he mediate instead since his power as a wizard would be more useful for their survival. He then thought of switching to a druid summoner build since they could use the summons as guards so Anton entered his Diablo II game and headed to Akara to reset his character and immediately switch his build since his weekly reset wasn’t available yet.

After Anton spread his skill points to the summoning tree, he called everyone.

“I have a new spell that I can use to guard us. It’s a summoning skill. I can summon three powerful Dire Wolves.” Anton didn’t mention the other summons since three powerful dire wolves should be enough to guard them.

“Can the wolves that you summon hide themselves? Since there are other people here, I don’t want to alarm them,” Anders asked.

“We can tell them though that our wizard will use a summoning spell to guard our camp so let me do that right now,” Frederick said and he immediately went to the other groups to inform them of the fact that their group would be summoning animals as guards.

Anton then summoned the three Dire Wolves. When the wolves appeared, Anna, Ramona, and Belinda actually let out a scream. All of the horses began to panic as well and everyone had to calm all the animals. They were thankful that the other groups were far enough that their animals were just a little nervous.

He could understand everyone’s reaction though since the Dire Wolves looked monstrous. The three summons were huge and imposing and had a dreadful feral aura that could bring terror to anyone who was beholding their visages.

“Can they understand words?” Devon asked, fascinated at the huge monstrous wolves.

“You know what, I don’t know since they obeyed whatever I think of wanting them to do. Let me check.” Anton said.

Anton then commanded one of the wolves to follow and obey Devon’s instruction to the letter and everyone was surprised when the wolf that he pointed at actually nodded and walked towards Devon.

All of them watched Devon give several complex commands to the wolf and the monster followed everything even to the minute detail of his every order. Anton could see that Devon fell in love with the monster and he just rolled his eyes.

Devon then boldly rode the huge wolf to the surprise of Anton and the huge dire wolf let him. Then Devon commanded the dire wolf to run and it dashed towards the forest without any hesitation. The speed of the wolf was tremendous but the shocking part was how silent it was and hopefully, Lucas’s son would not hurt himself.

After a few minutes, the man returned with the wolf and the smile on Devon’s face was very wide.

“This is your best spell, Anton!”

“Okay, I’ll let you command that wolf. Would you like the other one, Lucas?”

“I want the third one,” Anders immediately said beating Frederick who looked disappointed.

Anton then commanded the two wolves to follow Lucas and his father and to his surprise, the two middle-aged men were as excited as Devon. At least that alleviated everyone’s sadness for a bit and even Anna laughed.