Hearing Roy’s laugh, Hassan raised an eyebrow and walked over, “What kind of idea did you have? You got me interested.”

Roy pointed at the entrance of the dungeon, “That dungeon, whenever I enter it, the monsters are in the same place. I never saw those wolves ever move from their place before we reach them.”

“Yeah, and?” Jack asked confused, “What’s the big idea?”

“Wait, I’m just getting there,” Roy clicked his tongue before continuing, “Since the wolves stay at the same place, and you could leave the dungeon at any time, I was thinking of putting the villagers inside the dungeon.”

“Wait, are you crazy?” Jack furrowed his eyebrows. “What if those wolves come for them? They’re gonna be in big trouble.”

“Yeah, it’s too risky,” Hassan added. “Even if they don’t die immediately, the villagers can’t just heal their bitten flesh on their own like us. They’re gonna be crippled for life.”

Roy sighed and said, “Yeah, it is risky. That’s why I need someone to go inside and check things for me. If I didn’t already clear the easy difficulty today, I would have gone sat there myself.”

Jack looked at Hassan before asking, “Wanna do it?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hassan shrugged. “I feel responsible for this mess. If just waiting at the entrance for a couple of hours is gonna help, then I don’t mind.”

“Well, there you go. How long should we stay at the entrance?” Jack grinned as he looked at Roy.

Roy tilted his head left and right as he thought, “Well, I think two hours should be good enough. If those wolves don’t come for you after two hours then they probably won’t ever come.”

“Fair,” Jack shrugged, “And two hours should be more than enough for us to kill the red bear.”

With those words, Jack’s group split into two. Jack entered the dungeon alongside Tyler, while Hassan went in with Parker and Daven.

As Roy looked at the two groups disappearing, he tapped his forehead as he suddenly remembered an important detail.

“Hawk is gonna kill me. He was waiting to go into the dungeon with his own guys.”

Roy shook his head at his mistake before thinking, Well, I guess he will be going with Alfonse’s group.

As he no longer had anything to do near the dungeon, Roy made his way toward the lake. Once he reached his destination, he found Marth and his group still digging the trench along with Robb. Curiously enough, he could not see Jaimie anywhere near.

As Marth noticed Roy coming, he put down his shovel and walked toward him.

“I heard from Robb that there was some trouble with Lord John’s knights,” Marth’s expression was serious. “I hope nothing too serious happened.”

“Nothing on our side,” Roy shook his head. “They called Jack’s group traitors and criminals and they are going to be enslaved. Of course, Jack had to protect himself there.”

As Roy spoke, Marth clenched with wrathful eyes, “Traitors? Traitors?! They are the ones who committed the highest treason—treason against the people!”

Roy stayed silent at Marth’s outburst. No words were needed when the truth was laid bare.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I’m sorry,” Marth cleared his throat. “I lost my temper.”

Roy smiled, “That’s normal. Now we just need to focus on what we can do.”

Marth nodded at Roy’s words, “We will need to leave some people to protect the villagers. They will be in grave danger if we use all our forces against the red bear.”

“Oh, about that,” Roy chuckled. “I’m testing an idea.”

Roy explained to Marth his understanding of the dungeon’s inner workings and the way he devised to abuse it. He told him about the test that he had Jack and Hassan do.

“If that idea works, it’s genius,” Marth raised his eyebrows in surprise. “We won’t need to leave much of our manpower then. We can just have one or two people stay in front of the dungeon to protect the villagers once they come out.”

Roy smiled and nodded at the excited knight captain, “Yeah, that’s exactly the idea. If that works, we will just need to focus on making our movements as discreet as possible.”

Marth stood in thought for a few seconds before looking at Roy with a smile, “If your idea works, it will help us in more than one way. We can just slowly smuggle the villagers to the dungeon in the early afternoon and then spend the rest of the time inside the forest. That way, there is little chance for Lord John’s men to see and keep track of them.”

“Yeah, but they need to be discreet with it,” Roy nodded. “I already told them to start taking random long detours when moving around. That should help a bit.”

Roy looked down as thoughts raced in his mind. For some reason, he just could not shake off this bad feeling that was gripping his heart. He took a deep breath and looked at Marth.

“Is it too risky today? Should we leave it until tomorrow?”

Marth stared blankly in thought before answering, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to postpone it. If we leave it until tomorrow, there will be an even higher chance that Lord John knows about our plans. At that point, we will just be forced to push it to a later date until we fight them head-on.”

Roy nodded at Marth’s words, “Yeah, let’s just do it today and do it well.”

With those words, the two walked toward the trench and started digging once again. As Roy moved closer to Robb, he noticed Jaimie’s absence.

“Hey, where is Jaimie?”

“He is still in the village,” Robb responded as he took a big pile of dirt with his shovel. “The kids wanted him to train them, and Jaimie liked that.”

Hearing what happened, Roy let out a warm smile, “As long as he is happy, that’s good with me.”

Robb grinned while shoveling the dirt, “Yeah, plus it’s better if he spends more time with kids his age.”

Roy chuckled before continuing to dig out the dirt. The group continued to excavate the trench for another two hours before they were finally done. Almost halfway into the afternoon, their job was finally finished.

“Good work, gentlemen,” Marth looked at his group with proud eyes. “Now we just need to place the spikes and get rid of the shrubbery around the trenches and we should be good.”

“That’s nothing,” Godwin laughed. “Compared to digging this trench, no work is hard.”

Gerald shook his head and chuckled, “I can’t believe we finished this job in less than a day. Just five days ago, I would have called you crazy if you told me we could do it.”

Roy looked around at the men laughing and chuckling. Considering that they were soon going to be fighting a terrifying opponent, the mood seemed to be too jovial.

Well, it’s better that they’re this way than if they were stressed and anxious.

Roy gestured to Marth with his head, “I’ll go check on Jack and Hassan. After that, I’ll bring the traps from Roger’s house.”

“You go do that,” Marth nodded. “Tell me if your idea worked later.”

With those words, Roy bid his farewell to the group before making his way to the dungeon. After waiting for ten minutes, both Jack and Hassan’s group teleported out.

“How was it?” Roy asked with an anxious voice. A lot of their plans depended on his idea working, so a misstep at this point would set them back a lot.

Jack looked with somber eyes at Roy before grinning and giving the thumbs-up, “It’s good. We stayed in our place for the full two hours and the wolves didn’t come to us at all.”

“Same here,” Hassan shrugged and smiled, “They were in the same place that we found them yesterday too. It’s like they’re glued to their place before they see us.”

“Yes!” Roy shook his fist in happiness. “This will help us a lot!”

“That’s not the only good thing,” Jack chuckled before gesturing at Tyler with his head, “Show him what we got.”