During their travel to the coastal city of Whaling, Anton realized that everyone was suffering due to the Undead Coalition’s attack. Even the villages and towns they passed through were feeling the results of the hostile attacks done by the undead. Because of the refugees that managed to escape the conquered cities, the refugees were now going to the villages and towns but since they couldn’t accept a huge amount of people, most of the refugees were turned away.

However, the refugees actually didn’t want to stay in those small villages and towns since everyone had the trauma of the undead’s attacks and each one of them would prefer to be behind the massive walls of cities that could at least give a modicum of defense and sense of safety against the undead monsters.

At first, Anton’s group managed to outrun everyone since they did travel fast enough but soon the refugees were managing to catch up to them. There were now a huge amount of travelers on the road.

The huge problem that was currently occurring was the surge of banditry on the road and some were becoming truly vicious. More than once, they passed by travelers on the road that were murdered by bandits and because of that, the mood in the group became dark.

They truly realized that they needed to leave the continent to be safe. Anton could foresee a time when this continent would be home to monsters and malevolent people like some post-apocalyptic dystopian world.

Anton wondered why the powerful beings of this continent didn’t join power to fight the Undead Coalition. Didn’t they realize the danger? But again, Anton knew that he shouldn’t judge since he was truly ignorant and didn’t know anything about what was happening behind the scenes.

He remembered when he was on Earth, he was a fan of the movie franchise Lord of the Rings and he had read that the happenings in the movie were considered small events by the truly powerful beings in the lands of Middle-Earth. He didn’t know if that was true since he didn’t dig deep enough to understand that comment but maybe it was the same here. Maybe the Undead Coalition attack was just a small event in the grand scheme of things from the point of view of the powerful beings that lived in this world.

Even though some people considered Anton an archmage, the fact that he felt so tiny made him considered, at least, compared to regular people, he had the power to defend himself, his family, and his friends. Suddenly, he felt pity for the regular people of this continent.

Everyone in their group was thankful that they hoarded a lot of food since the villages and towns weren’t selling them anymore. At least they could still purchase the broken weapons and armor and other things that people considered unimportant.

Even if they couldn’t sell them in Whaling, they could still sell them to the next place they stumbled into.

Curiously, with the surging of the number of bandits in the area, the monsters’ presence diminished until they couldn’t see them even deep inside the forest. Anton thought with grim humor that maybe the monsters fled to escape the undead as well.

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Lucas and Devon intensified their hunt for game animals inside the forest since when the people started hoarding food they knew that they wouldn’t be able to buy any more food from them. Even though had a humongous amount of food stored in their spatial items, more was better and the fact that the food wouldn’t spoil inside the spatial items was a blessing.

No one in their group felt guilty about hunting a lot of animals and wild vegetables, herbs, and fruits because they did those deep inside the forest where regular people could hardly go so even if they didn’t hunt, all of those things they acquired could hardly be taken by regular people.

It was frankly too easy for Lucas and Devon to hunt animals, wild herbs, vegetables, and fruits because aside from the dire wolves they were riding, they had the assistance of the two dire wolves that Anton summoned and asked to guard the two. The third dire wolf was beside Anders who chose to remain near the two carriages to act as their guard.

Anton knew that his father wasn’t worried about remaining as their sole guard since Anton still had the Grizzly Bear that could be summoned anytime together with the five Spirit Wolves. He also showed his Clay Golem to everyone and no one was surprised anymore that he had a new spell.

He wondered what everyone’s reaction would be if he summoned his skeleton army although him still being a low-level necromancer, his summons couldn’t be considered an army yet and also he would need corpses to summon them.

One advantage of them looking always fresh and clean due to Anton’s Cleaning spell, they didn’t look anything remotely like refugees although technically they could be considered as one as well. They all looked like nobles and even Lucas and Devon, who used to be the most rough-looking of them now looked like young nobles as well.

Anton couldn’t help but be amused whenever he saw Lucas and Nemina being lovey dovey which made Lunelle and Devon disgusted. Their head guard was smitten anew with his wife since Nemina now almost looked the same age as Lunelle and Nemina was the same since Lucas now looked like a handsome young soldier.

The girls kept admiring their silky smooth skin and, luxurious hair and their overall beauty, and when Anton suggested that they stopped using mana water so they would return to looking like normal, they all glared at him as if he had suggested the most horrible thing in the whole world. Anton learned what wise men had learned a long time ago, never go between a woman and her pursuit of beauty.

During the last seven days before reaching the coastal city of Whaling, Anders declared that they shouldn’t purchase any more items from the villages and towns since they had enough. That meant that they wouldn’t stop on any of the villages and towns anymore and would head directly to Whaling.

Their days on the road were becoming grim since there were now a huge amount of refugees. Anton even had to summon his Grizzly Bear and his Spirit Wolves when they rested during the night so others wouldn’t disturb them.

Anton’s father also decided to join a large merchant caravan on the way to Whaling during the last seven days since the caravan had a large contingent of guards that protected them from refugees turned bandits but they needed to pay the caravan master some gold coins. They were treated really well since their group looked like a group of wealthy nobles.

Some of the guards eyed them maliciously at first but when Anders declared that one of them was an archmage who didn’t want to bother killing the “flies” that bothered them on the road, those eyes that had nefarious intentions turned their gaze somewhere else especially when Anton summoned his three Dire Wolves and five Spirit Wolves as their guards.

The caravan master and his family tried to ingratiate themselves with Anders and the rest especially when Anders still allowed them to watch the television shows despite them being part of the merchant caravan.