The days passed by in a flash, harsh work under a harsh sun, with harsh food for supper.

Finally, though they were at the town.

Willstona was in sight, in all its burnt glory.

“By the Seer.” One of the grenadiers muttered.

Bertrand alongside Césaire and Olivier had been sent to scout the town.

Well, to be more exact. They were sent to investigate it.

Other skirmishers had already scouted the surrounding area, and even voyaged into the town for an hour to see if there were any survivors.

As an escort, they had been assigned two grenadiers and twelve light infantry, no officers had come on this mission but they did have a runner.

“Well, let's get going lads, you all may be getting paid to stand guard but I’m not.” Césaire said with a chuckle.

His joke didn't garner him many chuckles in return but it did help lighten the mood.

Setting off into the ruined wreck of a town they thought they were prepared for what they were about to see but despite the warnings of the first skirmishers to enter the town, they were still caught off guard.

Shattered bones littered the ground, strange horrific symbols having been drawn everywhere from the bone powder.

Trying his best to ignore those arcane symbols Bertrand got to work, walking around the town and trying to spot anything of significance.

Being joined by Césaire shortly after he starts his investigation.

Olivier focuses on the symbols instead of the rest of the town though.

A little unsure about what to do the other members of their team make their way up onto the roofs of the houses, or similar vantage points.

At some point Willstona had great walls, however the problem was they were wooden.

Meaning without anyone to put out the fires, the wall burned and burned becoming so very brittle that whole sections had collapsed.

Bertrand scoured basements, looked under fallen logs.

He even walked around the outside of the town, looking for anything of significance.

Other than a hill that overlooked the town there was nothing to note.

Behind that hill was the forest Willstona got its wood from.

Perhaps there was something worth investigating over there but Bertrand certainly wasn't going to go and check it out.

Not without a large force to back him up.

Though what use were numbers against that monster? All that could fight it was a mage.

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But mages were rare, one in ten thousand levels of rare.

Apparently Napoleon had plans to unveil some sort of nationwide testing to find more mages.

But it would be tough, by the time the system was implemented war would likely have already begun, making the point of it obsolete.

It was both a pity and a blessing that their mages were so weak. If they had previously taken the threat of the Collition seriously they would have increased their power.

Making it harder if not outright impossible for the revolution to succeed.

But it had succeeded, The nobles were dethroned and dead, their heads adoring the main walkway through the palice.

Morbid it may be but they were animals, they deserved every bit of humiliation they got after death and every bit of pain that was inflicted upon them during their time amongst the living.

It did cost them many mages though, as the majority of mages were upper class and had chosen to side with the king.

Foolish bastards.

Though as he dug through the wreckage of a house for the tenth time, he wondered if he was the foolish one.

Seer why was Francois not here?

He would have been perfect for this role,

But sadly he was away on a protection mission, performing overwatch on the legions right flank as they transitioned into the old forward camp.

There they would rest a few hours and if Bertrand and his fellow investigators found nothing then they would move forward into the town.

Bertrand figured they would probably arrive at dusk, though judging by the lack of, well anything, this investigation may be over sooner than expected.

After an hour had passed by with no results to show for his efforts, Bertrand had fully given up.

There was nothing to find, just arcane symbols and ruined houses.

Césaire ran around to gether everyone, then as one whole unit they set off, marching back the way they had come.

Before leaving Olivier had ruined all the symbols, Bertrand would ask him why but the answer was pretty obvious.

Superstition. If those runes actually did anything then the officers would already have informed them.

Making it back to the semi disassembled camp, Bertrand gave his report alongside his comrades.

It was a simple report, only taking a few minutes out of his day to complete.

What wasn't so simple was having to pack up the camp.

He was quickly starting to feel like he was more porter than soldier.

And Seer was it hard labour. Having to pull out the stakes and roll up the tents was agonising for his back.

The worse part though was when the camp has finally being disassembled and they had to march to Willstona.

Once they got back to that cursed town they had to get to work hurriedly foritfying the ruined wall.

Plugging up the gaps with scorched tables and with floorboards from the ruined houses.

There was even some effort put into sharping table and chair legs that way they could add some spikes to the wall.

An officer put a quick stop to that though, remaining them the spikes would just offer the zombies a handhold and make it easier for them to clamber up their fortifications.

With the sun settling down and the sky darkening the rest of their legion arrived.

Joining them in their haphazard construction efforts.

And under the last few dregs of sunlight the wall was complete.

A few houses had even been turned into watch towers. Manned by sharp eyed linemen.

Their reward for all this hard work was soup with a bit of meat in it.

Bertrand didn’t run immediately to go get his dinner like most of the others though.

His hands were blood red, it ached to even move them let alone to hold a hot bowl.

So he just sat on one of the houses for a few dozen minutes. Waiting for the soup to cool down.

Before jumping off the roof and heading to the town center, where the cooking was being done.