Frontier. Fort Whitestone.

Spike was so surprised he simply stood and stared at Hunter Rikko kneeling before him inside the command tent. This is the second time someone pulled this on him. Even the other officers were surprised by the sudden action that the tent become silent.

Getting a grip on himself Spike asked for clarification. “I don’t understand Rikko. Is it because I played a role in saving your life?”

From the kneeling position. “It is just as you say my lord. I should have died, but you have given me an extension of my life. An extension that allows for me to watch over my children. I am very grateful for this life. And it must be requited for my cycle of life to be complete or I will be unfavorable judged by goddess Gaia.”

Ahh shit! Is this some sort of a life debt for life saved thing. Sounds like a warrior's code philosophy. Badass!  Spike thought. “And I suppose if I decline this life debts then it will be bad?”

“I would have to kill myself in your presence.” Rikko replied still with her head bowed. “I had first pledge to Healer Simmons, but he said that it was your power that actually saved me. He said that it is to you whom I should pledge to.”

An amused look appeared on the other officers face when she said that.

Nice one Doc! What a way to pass the buck and weasel out of this one. Understanding the seriousness of Rikko conviction and not wanting to shame her by dragging this out. “Very well. I accept Rikko. Henceforth, you shall stand by my side and fulfill your role as my hunter and tracker. So go and prepare yourself to move out in the morning.”

“May the will of Lady Gaia be served.” Rikko said as she stood up and raised her head to look at Spike’s face with determination on her face. “Thank you my lord. Since you have given me a role, I shall be ready when you depart for the hunt.” Then she walked out.

With a look of satisfaction and approval, Major Jung said. “You’ve adapted quite fast in the short amount of time sir. You handled that rather well if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah. Well, who would have thought that the demi-humans would have such tribal tradition. Wait! The hell.” Spike suddenly raised his voice in surprise. “Does this mean stuff like will be repeating with other demi-humans?”

Chuckling “I don’t think it’s a bad thing sir. To be honest, I rather like these demi-humans. They are honest with themselves. Not like most humans.” Major Jung said as he congratulated Spike on getting a loyal follower. Then bursted out in happy laughter. Not bad. Not bad. A skilled loyal follower. And a  demi-human to boot. That should help keeping him alive in the forest. And one less thing to worry about.

Spike eyed the Major with a worrying look. Wondering what he's scheming about now.

=

=

=

Frontier, near Trimmor.

The road construction group kept getting hit by the gnolls and kobolds in the last week. The small skirmishes had grinded Lieutenant Walker's platoon, his dead were quickly replaced with new summons. However, the wounded increased in numbers leaving him with only half of active platoon and another squad at the medical. Even Lieutenant Collins' engineer platoon took a few hit while working the road construction. With the increased number of skirmishes in the AO, Lieutenant Moore, Major Jung and Spike decided having Spike onsite for quick resupply and replacement of dead would bring a strategic advantage if shit ever hits the fan. So for now, Trimmor became a temporary base for the Freelance platoon. And Spike would make a routine visit to Daldia to continue his magic lessons with Marquess Daldia.

“As the leaves are falling the visibility has gotten a lot better for us but it’s also the same for the gnoll. They are very clever hunters sir. They are playing hit and run and we don’t have enough demi-humans to cover all the AO. And the fact that they can see in darkness is a massive tactical advantage over us. We take more casualties during the night time as we can’t follow them into the forest. And we don't have a walled defenses we can sleep behind yet.” Lieutenant Walker briefed Spike and Lieutenant Moore as the rest of the freelance platoon listened up. Then pointing to the many buildings in Trimmor with collapsed roofs and holes in the walls. “And these buildings aren’t full proof against their longbows during the night attacks. Our experience tell us that they can’t see clearly with increase in distance. So we keep all the labors inside the building during the night. So they end up targeting our sentry. My gut feeling is that they are trying to piss us off enough for us to go chase after them. Hence the hit and run. But I’m too short on man to do anything right now sir. And barely able to maintain the security patrols for Lieutenant Collins to do his job during the daylight.”

“Right. Lieutenant Walker and his platoon has done a helluva job sir.” Lieutenant Collins jumped into support him. “He's had quite the success in the beginning. Before the gnolls shifted their attacks to night hit and run during night time. I was actually contemplating whether or not to call off the road construction until we have the AO cleared. But those creatures are smart sir. They know there is no point in killing the labor now. Even if they can kill the labors, Hunter Tam said the gnolls and kobalds won’t be able to haul them off. And there is no point as they can’t get access to the corpse for food. So they are focusing on killing off the protectors. Which is us. Then they will most likely drag off the live humans. And the fact that they haven’t mass attack yet indicates that they don't have the numbers right now after Lieutenant Walker thinned out their numbers in the beginning.”

“OK. I understand. Your new replacements are going through a crash course right now with training up on the SAW and Hunt Master Malikia and Captain Wraeth are also giving them a crash course on local survival and tactics. This will increase their survivability. Until they arrive, we’ve been sent to give assistance.” Spike informed.

“How are we looking with getting more demi-human hunters sir?” Lieutenant Walker asked as he eyed Rikko and Grigor standing by.

“Rikko is now a permanent member in my bodyguard team whenever I go out hunting. So you can’t have her. And Grigor is with Lieutenant Moore. But, when the 2 injured scouts from Birsk are cleared for duty by Doctor Simmons in few days. They’ll both take over patrolling the home bases with Hunter Sodie, relieving Hunter Grieves to come forward to help out. So hang tight for few more days LT.”

“Yes sir.”

“Then Lieutenant Moore.” Spike nodded to Lieutenant Moore. Indicating him to take over.

“Thank you sir.” Then looking at the other officers. “Has Hunter Tam had the chance to track these gnolls.”

“He has, but he said they are not staying in any one location. So tracking them is impossible as there has been too many tracks left behind by them in recent nights and his having difficulty. If it wasn't for his exceptional nose we’d all be screwed.” Lieutenant Walker said.

“So it’s going to be a search and destroy.” Spike commented.

“We tried that on the second day sir. They can smell us long before we noticed them. If we didn’t have Hunter Tam with us I can’t count the times we would have been ambushed and had our asses handed back to us. However, he did mention that as the temperture drops, and the visibility improves with the falling leaves, their ability to snif us out will decrease and we'll be able to get the edge on them with our rifles.

“Well shit! Maybe we should just napalm the shit out of the forest.” Spike said in annoyance.

“Sir?”

“Never mind.” Spike said as he realized they probabaly didn't have napalms in WWI.

“This is a difficult nut to crack sir.” Lieutenant Moore said. “We might be grinding our men to death for this road. Is the iron mine an absolute necessity? Maybe we can trade for them when we establish the trade port in Birsk. We may need to review our strategic goals. We’re losing several men per day building this road. But most of all, the gnolls may be waiting for their own reinforcement to arrive.”

“That’s a good point LT.” Spike said as he thought about Lieutenant Moore’s last comment. Then looking around. “By the way. Who’s in command of this mission?”

The 3 lieutenants looked at each other understanding what Spike was asking.

“For obvious reason, I’m in charge of the road sir, as I’m tasked out to build the road.” Lieutenant Collins said.

“And I’m security sir.” Lieutenant Walker said.

“And I’m reinforcement.” Lieutenant Moore said.

Looking at the  3 butter bars. The fuck. Did the Major actually make a mistake or did he plan this. He always has someone in charge when there are combine platoons. “So… Nobody is in charge of the overall mission?”

“Well technically sir. You're in charge.” Lieutenant Walker pointed as Spike.

“Hey now. I know I learned a lot in the few months, but I ain’t no Captain material yet. I haven’t even commanded a platoon yet.” Spike said. “In anycase, the reason I asked was, someone has to make the call on what to do.... Well shit!” Spike cursed as he realized no matter what, it’s going to be up to him. How the hell can that man plan this shit out as a desk jockey piloting his desk. “Alright then. What are everyone's recommendations?”

“For one sir. I’d like to at least send half the civilians back to town for now. We don’t have enough men to protect them all. So we end up bunching them up to protect them easier. Because of that, many of them are not working. Then we can help out on the hunt sir. We may be engineers. But sometimes command forget the combat in the combat engineer part.” Lieutenant Collins informed.

“Ok. That’s easy. They can go back with the next wagon train full of logs for the city.”

“I think with mine and your night vision devices sir. We could come up with something to ambush the enemy’s hit and run tactics during the night.”

“Ok. I leave it to you to think of something then.”

“I think we should be more proactive on search and destroy sir. Instead of waiting for colder temperature. Now that we have 3 demi-human hunters. Even if those bastards can smell us. If we keep moving around, they won't be able to pinpoint us as we’ll be leaving our scent everywhere. It's the same tactics they have been using on us during their night raids, making it difficult for Hunter Tam to find them.”

“That sounds good, but how do we communicate so we don’t end up having friendly fires.” Spike asked. Little by little, he was finding the lack of common sense technology of his era a limitation to their tactical and strategic survival. “We’ve no map of the area and compass doesn't work in this world.”

“That is a problem sir. That reminds me. Have the command made a decision on using mines sir?” Lieutenant Walker asked.

“Ah that’s right. I forgot. That is a NO GO on the mines LT. In the future, our people will be living in this very land. In my era, we are still finding mines from WWII and children's are the ones who often find lost mines in 3rd world countries. And I don’t think anyone one of us want to have that on our conscious.” But most of all, mines become more or less obsolete in Spike’s era and he had very little knowledges of them. Because his era had better micro surveillance technology, that it was easier to drop bombs and shot missiles using high altitude drones.

Understanding Spikes meaning. “Roger that sir.” Both Lieutenant Walker and Collins replied solemnly.

“I suppose we are going to have to do this the hard way. Simply go and find them.” Spike thought there must be something in all the military arsenal of all the countries of one of the era he could use that are cost efficient. But there are so much items, yet lack of descriptive information that limits his ability to summon proper equipments. It bothered him greatly. Which Spike knew will cost him his men's lives. But they are all in it for the long run and he had to weight out the long term overall cost to benefit. Having thought of his options Spike started to give instructions. “Alright then. I’ll say what I think. If you lieutenants find anything unwise with what I say, please speak up.”

“Yes sir.” The 3 lieutenant replied.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“After lunch, let's send back half the labors with whatever lumber you have loaded onto the wagon. Lieutenant Walker will take the rest of his platoon as security for the returnees. Lieutenant Moore will take over the AO patrols and external security. But Leave Hunter Tam with us. You shouldn’t need him while traveling on the road. And get a good night rest at the base before returning in the morning. For Lieutenant Collins, with less labors present, the work will be slower, but you won't be so stretch out with protecting so many labors and overseeing their work. This will be better for your own security as your platoon can react to support each other more efficiently during enemy attacks.” Then turning to Lieutenant Walker. “One other thing LT. Please get a clarification from Major Jung about the need for the iron. Lieutenant Moore did make a valid point on trading for them. The iron mine will not be accessible for the labors until Spring at best. And I don’t like the idea of having civilians working the road while we have hostile forces trying to kill us. So ask him to reevaluate the strategic planning for the iron mine and the road leading to it. I understand that we all thought the area was mostly cleared up after we subjugated the goblins. But it’s very apparent we were wrong.”

“Roger that sir. I’ll make my report and convey your message.” Lieutenant Walker replied.

“And I’m ok with your order sir. I don’t see anything wrong with what you’ve said. But I’d like to workout a plan for tonights ambush when the gnolls and kobolds come to pay us a visit. So I’d like for our men to rotate out and get some rest for a long night ahead.” Lieutenant Moore said.

“Oh? What do you have planned LT.” Spike asked looking inquisitively at Lieutenant Moore.

“I’m still working it out in my head sir. I’d like to inspect Trimmor and its surrounding before I finalize my plan and make my recommendation.” Lieutenant Moore replied with his thinking face.

“Then I’m going to start pulling out half the labors now so the wagons will be loaded on time with the lumbers being sent back to town sir.” Lieutenant Collins said.

“Alright. Then Sir. Lieutenant Moore. Let's take the time we have now and I’ll show you around the areas we’ve sort of mapped out and I can slowly pull in my platoon on security as we switch off with the your Freelance platoon. Having a little more familiarity will give you some tactical advantage.” Lieutenant Walker said.

With that, the little meeting broke off for everyone to manage their tasks.

As per plan, Lieutenant Walker’s platoon and half the labor left right after lunch. Before evening, everyone was brought into Trimmor. And Lieutenant Moore escorted Spike into the center. Followed by Spikes bodyguard team.

“After inspecting the tracks with Hunter Tam sir. I focused on 2 objectives. The enemies have been using their night vision advantage and had been making light of us. With each snipings with their bows and random return fire from Lieutenant Walker’s platoon. I’m fairly sure the enemy’s are overly confident at this point. So I've identified all the locations they are likely to snipe from and the least likely location. Second objective is placing our SAW gunners to spray as much bullets into that area with you and me using tracer bullets for our men to see the area of the forest to focus their fire on. With our night vision devices, I think it’s very doable sir.”

“Sounds good LT. Just tell me where my position is and I’ll summon up some tracer rounds. But will you be able to fire enough tracer rounds with your Springfield?” Spike ask. With only 5 rounds per load, Lieutenant Moore will be spending too much time reloading his ammos.

“It's fine sir. I’ll have Corporal Watson as a loader.”

“Ah right. I didn't think about that.”

As the Platoon leaders and Sergeants weren’t expected to fire their weapons as they should be managing the battles, they were normally armed with Springfields or shotguns.

“But you know. Wouldn’t the tracer round start a forest fire with the dead leaves piling up on the ground?”

“I believe it’s fine sir. The morning dew is keeping everything wet and damp. The tracer isn’t enough to start a fire yet.

“With the help of the engineers and labors, we reinforced 2 sections of a roof top and put coverings with sandbags. That way both of us up top will have decent protection from their longbows.” But as Lieutenant Moore looked at Spikes armor. “But in your case, I’m not sure if you even need protection cover sir.”

“Roger that LT. And no I don’t need it against their bow and arrows, but are you planning for me to man the lookout post alone? What about my battle buddy?” Spike said as a joke.

“Well I suppose it would be lonely staring up at the night sky all alone sir.” LT joked back. “Both our position will support at least 2 fully loaded men. But, I’ll ask Lieutenant Collins to build a more permanent reinforced tower so it will serve as both watch tower and machine gun tower sir.”

“That will be great LT. Trimmor is slowly becoming our forward base into the frontier. So, maybe we should actually build up this settlement. If I think about it. I would prefer fighting here then near the soon to be Daldia City with lots of civilians.” Spike said.

“Yes sir. Maybe we should built up Trimmor first. Then build the road to the iron mine.”  Lieutenant Moore agreed as he looked upward to point out Spike’s lookout position. “Sir, this is your lookout position. I remember from your description that your night vision capability is much better then mine. So from this position, you’ll be able to monitor the center and the north side. And I’ll take the south side of the town.”

“Alright.” Spike agreed understanding his meaning. His headgear had 3 micro cameras for IR, thermal, and telescope. And a computer to process all them all at the same time on his eye sensory monitor to give him real images of what he's looking at. It even had a targeting scope Spike could us if he had the right attachment device for it on his weapon. But the M249 SPW and Assassin MK3 are from different era and completely incompatible. A problem he currently couldn’t solve, as he knew it’s too expensive to experiment with random summoning and he doesn’t know the proper military name for it as he never learned. And there is just too many targeting scopes that it’s like playing a Russian Roulette. While Lieutenant Moore’s night vision devices was Spikes old hand me down IR goggle.

“We still have enough day light left for quick dinner sir.” LT reminded when Spike started climbing the rope.

“It’s all good LT. I want to take a look around now and get the feel of the view before relying on my helmet. Just have someone deliever my dinner to me.” When Spike got up top, the outpost had 4 walls at chest hight with sandbags and a wide roof that extended out to make it more difficult for the longbow to rain down arrows onto the sentry inside. As Spike pulled himself up, he was thinking his lucky star for putting 2 points to his strength again. And wished he could put more points into his physical stats, but he needed more men for long term survival and security. Hauling up an extra 35 kg wasn’t easy, even if he had help from his bodyguards. Then looking down at everyone on the ground level. “Rikko, you're my battle buddy for tonight. With your night vision, it’s an obvious choice.”

“Yes my lord.” Finally having an important duty to fulfill, Rikko jumped up with her demi-human cat like agility on a single step hop on Private Gonzalez’s shoulder. And quickly climb the rest of the way.

With a surprise look on Spike's face. Daaaamn! Did she really have a hole in her guts only few weeks ago? Then looking down at his bodyguards. “Ahm. You men can chill inside this building.”

Looking and realizing there’s nothing they can do about the situation. “Yes sir!” Corporal Robinson replied.

“Alright sir. I’m going to make a final check on the men's position before I head up to my lookout post.” LT shouted up before leaving.

With some daylight still left. Spike looked around to find the small settlement of Trimmor to be going through a minor reconstruction already. With so many traffic passing through the settlement to build the road to the mine, the engineers had fixed up some of the better buildings and repair the water well to support the labors.

From the rooftop, he could tell that settlement was build like a imperfect perpendicular shape from north to south. And his building being the village chiefs building with a second floor gave the best view of the town. Then right as the Autumn sun hit the zenith, Spike saw Sergeant Miller climb up with Lieutenant Moore to help man the outpost.

Looks like they’ll be sharing the night vision device. Spike thought as he saw the LT detach the NOD off  his helmet.

Spike open the mouth piece on his full helmet to eat the beef stew and black bread baked by Private Kirk. As he enjoyed the tasty food, Spike wonder how in the hell Private Kirk can cook up kickass food from anywhere he cooks at. I should just turn him into a permanent cook so everyone can enjoy his awesome cooking.

“So Rikko.” Spike started a conversation to pass the time.

“Yes Lord Phoenix!”

“If I remember right from the medical station, I think you were going to tell me something about why the demi-humans don’t age like humans? Because you look seriously too young to have 2 children. Especially someone of Annalia’s age. No offense by they way.”

“I’m 40 years old Lord Phoenix.”

“What!” Almost shouting out of surprise. No freakin way! She looks like 23 years old.

“I actually had my children late for a demi-human. We come of age a much earlier than humans my lord. Not just in body, but also spiritually and mentally. Because we understand that in the cycle of life, childhood is when we are vulnerable and adulthood is when we are truly able to live freely, making our own decisions about life.”

“That’s very interesting. But you look like someone around 23 or something. It must be good genetics that make it so.” Spike commented again.

“Forgive me my lord. But what's genetics?”

“Err… I mean it must be in the blood.” Spike fixed his word as he keep his eyes outward scanning the woodlines.

“Well yes. Goddess Gaia has gifted us demi-humans with long youth to hunt and to find strong mates to birth strong children who will also grow up to be strong hunters. But we all show our age at the end of our life to quickly return to the cycle of life. And if we have proven ourselves a great hunter, then goddess Gaia will pull us out of the heavens pride, which is part of the cycle of life, to forever join her as one of her warden.

“That… You know. That sounds great for you demi-humans. But the human girls must hate the hell out you demi-human girls. I mean the part about you all looking young for most of your life. How the hell can the human girls compete. And your belief. Is it the same for all the other demi-humans?”

“Well. It’s not our fault for being blessed by Lady Gaia. Beside, demi-humans generally don’t like to mate with humans. Unless they are strong or a mage. And some humans want their children to be humans as the child born of 2 race is always the race of the demi-human parents.” Rikko said defensively. “And yes. All demi-humans share this belief. Even the beastmen.”

“Beastmen?”

“They mostly live far up north in the great plains. They are more beast the human. You’ll know when you see one my lord.”

“I see. Well, I look forward to discovering more of this land. But… so the demi-humans can also be mages?” Spike ask.

“No my lord. They become a shaman.”

“Huu? So how is a shaman different from a mage?”

“Shamans make us stronger with their power. While the mages control the elements my lord? Hasn’t Marquess Daldia told you this?” Rikko asked inquisitively.

“No. It never came up.”

“Hmm. I suppose it’s not important as shamans are only found in the great plains and the fact that they are just as rare as a mage, the chance of you meeting one is probably zero.”

They continued their talk as Spike learned a little more about the demi-humans. He learned that almost all the demi-humans south of Kindarth Empire are refugees who fled the anti-demi-human movement started about 3 generation ago. And Beastmen are very rare in human communities. Unlike the demi-humans, there are too much prejudice against them. He also learned about elves, dwarves and gnome. But they are almost never seen as they live in their own closed hidden communities away from the humans.

Rikko even talked about many legendary creatures like Dragons, unicorns, and mermaid. But those are mostly myth as no one has ever seen them but only read from books and fairytales. Except for wyverns, which are not real dragons. There seems to be great many bones of them as trophies in various powerful families castles.

Then little past midnight when Spike was cycling through his different night vision mode, he picked up heat signatures in the wood line. Zooming in, he IDed  2 groups of  4-5 large inhumanoids with a dog head. 1 group was directly north and the other group was on the west side.

“Rikko. They're here.” When he saw them getting their longbows ready, Spike didn’t waste time. He had no idea who they had on target, but with every arrow shot, it could be one of his men dying on his watch. “Fire the flare towards west now.” He ordered. Then he fired off his SAW with every 5th round loaded with a tracer bullet to guide the other SAW gunners to saturate the area with thousands of bullets. Trimmor came alive as the gun fires woke up everyone. With the flare to the west, Lieutenant Moore marked the area for the SAW gunners with his single shot tracer rounds. Labors huddled inside the repaired buildings located in the central part of Trimmor to protecting them.

The Phoenixians looked for tracer rounds to identify the area to unload their ammos. Rikko kept an eye out with her natural night vision. She tried to not look directly at the flare or Spike's direction as it somewhat disrupted her sight. But the gnolls only showed up on north and west side of Trimmor. With so many bullets saturating the area Spike checked his stats to see if he scored. And sure enough between the 2 sneak attack locations, he scored 446 EXP.

As the cease fire was called and the explosive ring lessened, injured gnolls whining and whimpering sound carried into the town making it difficult for everyone to sleep. Especially for the civilian labors. Some of the civilians broke down from the stressful distressing noise and few were knocked unconscious for their own good when they freaked out. The work horses brought into the center and barricaded to protect them were extra jumpy making it difficult to sleep for most of the labors.

No other sneak attack materialized for the rest of the night. After a while the critically injured gnolls that could not retreat continued their cry, what everyone assumed was their cry for help. It got really annoying, but Lieutenant Moore absolutely forbidden anyone from going out to the forest in darkness where the gnoll had clear advantage and they could potentially be setting up an ambush. As some of the gnolls bleed to death throughout the night, Spike noted the increased in EXP.

Phoenixian soldiers held their position until daylight finally broke. So everyone ended up having a miserable night of almost no sleep. Then an hour after sunrise, Freelance platoon went into the forest to inspect and track for blood trail with the demi-humans. They tracked for several hours looking for stragglers, finally finding a few heavily injured gnolls who didn’t make it to far. In total Spike gained an additional 528 EXP with 18 total dead gnoll. From the numbers, Spike felt that he didn’t get too many solo kills. And most of all, the night's encounter somehow felt not as exciting as usual and he wondered if he was getting too used to combat environment after 2 months of living in the frontier.

The demi-human hunter being what they are. They took all the iron off the weapons and bodies on the inhumanoids to be sent back to the crafters guild.

As the platoon was returning back into Trimmor, the lack of sleep and the long night of staying vigilant finally caught up with Spike.

“LT! My ass is tired as hell. And I don’t have the benefit of the ABH. So I’m hitting the sack right away.” Spike said as his physically exhausted body dragged and he felt his mind foggy and struggled to keep his eyes open.

“Yes sir. I’ll take care of everything.” Lieutenant replied energetically.

=

=

=

Frontier, Daldia City.

“Major Jung. That was the last group from both Tri and Banorg. And the hunters have already made contact with 3 other settlements up north. I must say sir, with the recent raid from the Stovkow, they were very enthusiastic with our offer.” Captain Allen reported.

“That’s good to hear. Sooner we consolidate, sooner we can dedicate more of our fighting forces in the frontier. How’s your forces hold up Captain?”

“We lost about a squad in men and another 4 men will be down at the medical for more than few days. And we’ve also had several civilian casualties. Farther up north we move, the increase in minor skirmishes, mostly with strange beast hunting for food. That's what the hunters have identified as owlbears. So I plan to use the now empty towns as a resting points as we move the people to Daldia sir.”

“Then I’m taking some of your hunters from each town. The road construction is having problem with the inhumanoids as they are deep inside the forest. Lieutenant Walker is asking for more demi-human support. The nocturnal nature of these gnolls have become a major problem for the road construction security. They've been taking casualty every night at Trimmor.”

“Yes sir. Each settlements have more than a few hunters for their own survivals. So I have more then I need for my mission. Will you be needing a Mark VIII to reinforce Trimmor sir?” Captain Allen asked.

Standing up to get a closer look at the map of the area. “I would like to send one of the Mark VIII, but you need it more. Any idea on how many more settlements and how much longer you mission will take?”

“That’s hard to say sir. But I suppose it’s up to Lord Phoenix. From the Hunt Master Malikai description, Stovkow frontier border is around 400 Kilometers long. And farther up north we go, longer each mission to will take and the increase in danger. Also the problem with the road is, it tends to curve with the terrain. I figure at some point, we won’t be able to progress any farther as there won't be any roads.”

“Well, do what you can for now. Once it becomes a problem, I’ll inform our lord and make some recommendations.” Major Jung informed.

Clearing his throat. “Yes sir.”

=

=

=

Frontier, Trimmor.

When Spike finally woke up few hours before sunset. He was surprised by what he found. The road construction was temporarily halted as they had a complete change of labors. While eating his meal, Lieutenant Moore briefed him on the changes.

“So, with all the labors sent back to the city to speed up the construction of the residential district to meet the increasing population, Major sent these criminals to work the hazardous road constructions and building a fortification for Trimmor. They’ll stay chained up. So the work will progress slower but it will progress. Also sir, the Major said that getting access to the mine is vital to Daldia’s development sir. Marquess Daldia said that even if they could trade for the iron with some of your summoned high grade spices, he has no idea when trading will even be possible. Ah, and he has informed that all the ring leaders in Birsk and officers on the slaver ships were hanged. And he also said that if you want, since you are using Trimmor as a temporary base, it should be safe to practice mana circulation on your own inside Trimmor.”

“These son of a… Are they trying to keep me out here permanently with the wild life.” Spike complained as he stopped eating.

“No sir. Major’s message was that until Captain Allen’s mission is complete, or until the Captain Wraeth company is freed when the POWs are sent back, or you gain more personnel slots, the Freelance Platoon is the only force that can reinforce Trimmor and the road construction.”

“Sigh! That puppet master!” Spike cursed even as he know the Major was right.

“And also, he agrees with you about keeping the battles away from the Daldia and vicinity.” Lieutenant Moore followed up. “So he said to make lots of noise out here sir. Just that, don’t burn down the forest. Daldia needs all the woods for the future 250,000 people sir.”

Spike, silently stared at Lieutenant Moore with a dead fish eyes. I some how feel that I’m just not getting the respect for my position.