Author's Note: Don't forget! From now on, the posting schedule will be Thursday and Sunday!
...
Pudding-Dog-Island / Whirl-Uru Island, Somewhere in the Essence Alliance Part
Two shadows glided and jumped from tent to tent in the evening after the sun had disappeared over the mountains for hours. They avoided the already drunk and relaxed soldiers, who were either chatting, flirting, getting high, gambling, or everything simultaneously, having a great time. This three-dozen-strong outpost looked more like an open-air tavern than a defense post five hours away from the border with their enemies, the Leonandrians, and by listening to the djinns chatting, it seemed that nobody even cared.
A relatively young bluish-skinned djinn, while sitting at the campfire, swallowed half a bottle of cheap-looking rum and glass-eyed at their friend who was poking the fire with a stick, "Do you think I will be sent back to Azure City?"
image [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/main/Chapter_141_to_150/Chapter_150/First_Soldier.svg]
Their friend, of the same race but much older, looked back, face flushed and glassy-eyed, chewing on something, "Crazy? You are not even a year here, newbie."
image [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/main/Chapter_141_to_150/Chapter_150/Second_Soldier.svg]
Poco sighed, taking another sip, "Dammit, I thought it would be more exciting than being an adventurer."
Geraldine laughed, almost choking on whatever she was chewing on, "Haha, urgh... damn it! Fuck! I swallowed the Leviathan grass!..." However, after calming down and taking out a flat metallic can with a bluish and wet plant inside, she put it inside her mouth, pushing it to the side of her cheek while continuing, "...exciting? It's military. We are here not for fun..." After a moment, she shuddered slightly, "...oh yeah, that's the stuff. A fresh one hits differently."
Poco clicked his tongue, "I get it, but we only had one skirmish against some normal commoner! I could've sworn though it was a sol..."
Geraldine, her high, suddenly interrupted, quickly shut him up, "Psch! Are you crazy? Do you want all of us to die?"
Poco looked at her weirdly, "Why? It was just some dirty animal. What's there to die?"
Geraldine rolled her eyes, stood up, and walked to Poco. She sat beside him and whispered, as quietly as possible, "Shut up! If we say it was a soldier, we need to counterattack, and nobody wants this!"
Poco, hearing this, stood up angrily, his eyes full of youthful vigor, "But I wanna fight!..." He brandished his sword, his energy bluish, sloppily enveloping the blade, "...I want to learn the Ancient Azure Sword Techniques!"
From far away, someone else started laughing and pointing at him, "Haha, look at this moron! He really thinks he can learn the Whirl Clan Sword! Haha!"
After that, only rowdy behavior and a barrage of insults followed with them having a friendly spar, which would look so amateurish for experienced fighters that they would cringe because of second-hand embarrassment.
The shadows watching the dull exchange felt this sensation. They frowned, regarded this exchange as useless, and slipped away. There was nothing as they moved around the outpost for some time, looking for any abnormalities they could report. As such, they moved toward the most prominent house built there, which also seemed relatively new and far above what others lived in, like tents.
After slithering through some drunks guarding the house, they quickly appeared inside it. It was a bungalow, and they immediately knew who lived there, seeing how the person was sleeping in a bed with a bottle in one hand and a young appearance-wise girl in another.
However, for the night-elves, it was pretty hard to distinguish gender when looking at djinns. Sure, they were very close to them when it came to physical builds, being also androgynous, with even the same long ears.
Yet, the shadow figures knew that their women and men were much more stunning, with either having bigger breasts and wider hips or broader shoulders and bigger muscles. Looking at the ones lying on the bed, it was unclear who was who.
One of the shadows approached the sleeping djinns, its eyes glowing, showing it everything, like before, with a dozen other soldiers.
image [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/main/Chapter_141_to_150/Chapter_150/Commander.svg]
After she scanned one of the djinns, probably the bigger one since it fitted the most, she turned around and saw the other shadow frowning while doing sign language.
Petra rolled her eyes, her sign language becoming more casual, almost trying to relax him.
Jorsh acted as if sighing heavily, interrupting her before she continued with her usual schtick of getting a little too excited on the job.
Petra pouted, slithering to some drawers, signaling to him that she was annoyed through her aggressive sign language as she tried to copy how Jorsh did it mockingly.
Besides Petra's weird kink acting up, infiltrating was ridiculously easy, which was also probably why she was this casual. They first arrived at the beast-kin portion called Pudding-Dog-Island by sneaking onto a ship. Afterward, they sneakily crossed the borders, entering the Essence Alliance part of the island called Whirl-Uru Island. From then on, they went into one outpost after the other, with this being the fourth one.
Sure, this married couple was at the top of their field regarding stealth and information-gathering missions, especially long-term ones. Still, the security was so lax that even some amateurs could do their job on this island, making them much more relaxed.
In comparison, they often sneaked into the Leonandra outposts in Kratikal, trying to find information about the caravans and when they would arrive so they could rob them. Little to say, those outposts were much better guarded, even better than the ones on this island on either side.
They prepared for this too much, even buying costly potions and scrolls, thinking there would be much more tension because it was an island where two sapient races tried to conquer it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only tricky thing was arriving at the island by sneaking onto a trade ship.
After seeing how everything was run initially, they became very cocky, sure they could easily overwhelm some parts of the island. Yet, after traveling for a bit and seeing the infrastructure, they understood that sustaining and holding it was another problem altogether.
They needed resources and knowledge in various fields they had long forgotten since living in Kratikal. Their common knowledge differed heavily from others, making agriculture, farming, sanitation, and much more something they needed to relearn again.
Of course, there was also the danger of much stronger enemies appearing, and for this, they would need more defense structures, weapons, mercenaries, etc., which also made the two realize how little they actually knew.
They needed a sponsor to succeed in this endeavor, and reality immediately crushed their initial hubris. Even bringing their people over would only be possible by stealing ships, the crew, etc. It was a stupid idea, indeed.
This hubris came not from somewhere. They wanted children, and giving birth in Kratikal was almost a death sentence. This was also why they were extra motivated to do their job well, since they wanted to live on this land they were scouting, far away from the massively dense miasma that killed their offspring.
However, while thinking and looking around for information, Jorsh suddenly signaled that he found the critical information.
Petra slithered close to Jorsh, behind him, who was already reading a letter.
Jorsh turned toward her, frowning, or as much as a shadow could do.
Petra pouted,
Jorsh appeared beside her, wanting to read it too, but she hid the map,
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Jorsh frowned at her, reminding her of something to control her,
She wanted to say something but stopped herself, imitating clicking her tongue with her fingers,
She threw the map to him, which he caught, and quickly memorized the contents almost perfectly. One of his divine skills was called [Absolute Memory], and his [Divine Time] was the strongest, especially now at night.
Beast-kin had a [Divinity Line], divine skills that changed after every Tier increase, specializing and becoming more mighty but less general in their use, as shown in the rarity. All divine skills would slowly funnel into one specialization, making them incredibly strong or skilled in a particular thing.
Djinns had [Divine Acclimation], divine skills that changed depending on the environment in which they were the strongest. The bars showed the environments in which they were the strongest and weakest, with dark red being, for example, Kratikal's environment. Depending on where the djinn was and how long the bar was, their divine skills, effectiveness, and attributes in general would increase or decrease substantially.
Night-elves, though, had [Divine Time]. Their divine skills and attributes changed depending on a specific time of day, week, month, etc. Jorsh's was relatively dull. It worked best when there was no sun and, even better, when more moons were in the night sky. His attributes would increase by thirty to fifty percent and at peak by a factor of two. Depending on the time, he could also remember through his skill much faster and more.
His wife, though, had a weird [Divine Time]. Her best time was once every ten or so months when her attributes would increase by a factor of ten, making her incredibly strong for a couple of hours. Other than that, her ability was that she could see other people's system windows and other details she couldn't decipher. However, once she used the skill at her peak, she saw the age, race, sex, etc. Every little detail, even what kind of natural attributes they had and how they distributed their [Free Status Points].
Together, they went from outpost to outpost, gathering information and analyzing their future enemy's strength. Until now, they have been pretty weak, but the agent couple only went through three outposts, with this being the fourth.
As time passed and Jorsh was about to memorize the last letter, someone moved weirdly behind him. His instinct warned him, and something pushed him away to the darkest corner of the house.
Fortunately, only a moment later, he felt an intense energy crashing into the drawer where he had previously stood.
BANG!
Looking around, Jorsh saw that the drawer now had a hole, and Petra held him in her arms, looking at the djinn, who was now sitting up on the bed. She enveloped them in her racial-specific skills, which she was better at, trying to hide them inside the shadow in the corner.
The smaller djinn moved away from the larger one, scratching their private parts, rubbing their eyes, and yawning while looking at where they shot the energy.
"Huaaam! I really thought some fucker was trying to steal my booze..." They suddenly frowned, looking more closely at the chaos the night-elf couple had made and hadn't cleaned up yet, "...hm who?"
Jorsh also used every stealth skill he could, sinking as deep into the shadows as possible. Even though they could assassinate the small djinn without the larger one not waking up, it could worsen their situation later.
Someone disappearing or being killed could make their future invasion much more challenging when their enemies tried to increase their security or if they blamed the beast-kin for it. Their new ally was probably one of those, and they would rather not do anything they could regret.
Their potential sponsor was obviously extremely ambitious, trying to engage them and think of such an operation. With their experience, the couple knew that such people were also highly eccentric and whimsical. Killing the djinn could give them a lot of merit or hate. They wouldn't want to try out, as too much was at stake for them.
However, the small djinn looked at the larger one, frowning and focusing her whirling azure blue energy on their fist, "Hey..." They hit them once in the head, sending the bigger one flying to the floor and waking them up in panic, "Wha...?!"
However, the smaller djinn had nothing of it, pointing at the house around him. The night-elf couple was sure it was the actual commander of the outpost, Irisk, the one Petra scanned the system window off. Regardless, through the slight bulge in his underwear, they also saw that it was a man since the name did not tell them anything.
Irisk became enraged, "Don't play dumb! Now clean up the shit!..." He looked at the bottle in larger djinn hands, taking it away, "...gimme that! I have shit to do, so start!"
The larger djinn stood slowly, constantly bowing, "Sorry, Commander, I will do it quickly."
After taking a big gulp, the commander laid down again, "Yeah, yeah..." Not even five seconds later, he was sleeping with the subordinate, cleaning up their mess.
Petra and Jorsh looked at each other, baffled, but smiled and quickly slithered through the cracks, fleeing as fast as possible and back to Wolfsteeth, giving notice of what they found out.
...
Connie's Copper Cauldron, Northern District, Wolfsteeth
Sitting in a private room inside a cheap hotel, two of his people were telling Makol everything they found out. For him, though, the most surprising thing was that there was so much information that it became absurd.
Funnier, though, their retellings of how easily they could infiltrate was even more laughable, making him doubt why those two parties were at war at all with such defenses.
Jorsh shrugged while swiping Petra's hand away from his bottom, sounding annoyed, "This is all the information we got."
Petra pouted and looked at Makol, shrugging, too, "Yeah, it was a lot, and I doubt there will be any severe fortifications or defense if we first take on the southwest part of their territory, where we scouted. We can fortify ourselves there..." She pointed at the map, at the border, right after the mountains ended, "...and open a small harbor on the border to the Leonandrians."
Looking at the amateurishly drawn map by Jorsh, Makol nodded, agreeing with her, "So we can easily access our food supply through the sponsor?"
"No, because I really like ships, you retard..." Petra rolled her eyes, "...Of course, because of all the stuff we need from our sponsor."
Makol sighed, ignoring her, seeing as she had one of her days. Since Jorsh concentrated only on work and ignored her, he made it far worse, "Sure, but what is that? The codes don't say what it is." He pointed at the east part of the djinn territory, inside the mountain range in the north.
image [https://github.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/blob/main/Chapter_141_to_150/Chapter_150/Dog_Pudding_Island_And_Djinns.jpg?raw=true]
Jorsh now answered, letting Petra touch him. He clearly did not like it, but it was better than her being an annoyance through the talk, "This symbol is a shrine, and according to the letter for the commander of the last outpost we infiltrated, it is a freshly discovered dungeon inside a copper mine. They wanted to hide it, so they said it was some holy ground or whatever, not letting anyone inside and guarding it heavily."
Makol raised an eyebrow, confused and thinking of the worst, "Real dungeon or a mana cave?"
There was a difference between the two, but many used the terms interchangeably. A dungeon had a core that let monsters appear inside, who then wandered outside. A mana cave also had a core, but this one couldn't let a monster appear but would lure them in.
Jorsh shook his head. "In the letter, it was clearly specified as a dungeon. It appeared a few months ago, and the reason the current high commander, the one who leads the whole island's operation, is keeping it a secret, only letting their most trusted people know, is even more complicated."
Makol tilted his head, confused, "Yeah? And the reason is?"
Jorsh sighed and started to describe the contents of all the letters, whispers, conversations, and everything else he had heard and read, summarizing it. Apparently, a fight between probable heirs was ongoing in the Uru clan. The high commander, who discovered the dungeon, wanted to use it to get favors and a higher position by giving it to whoever was about to win. Thus, they held it back, protecting and securing it until the right moment.
Makol frowned, not knowing what to think. With this information, they could get much more help. He didn't care for the dungeon since his people couldn't do anything with it now or in the following decades. Even if they could get valuable resources from it, nobody would trade with them seriously, and it could lead to more odd situations, which he was not ready to deal with. His priority was to get his people out and onto a territory where they could thrive. As such, he was prepared to give it away when the other party was serious about the deal so they could gain even more.
Before thinking about it further, he looked at Petra and Jorsh, dismissing them, "Have fun. Our meeting is the day after tomorrow, and I want you to show yourself but be as cordial as possible, got it?"
They both shrugged, but Petra noticed something, becoming a little serious, "Shouldn't it be better to get a scavenger and wind-djinn to attend, too? To symbolically show that we are a closed front?"
Both looked at her, astounded that she made a good point. She didn't like it, crossing her arms and humphing angrily, "What? I also have good ideas from time to time!"
Makol sighed, nodded at her, and agreed, "That's a good idea. I will get some more people, and you can enjoy your time until evening."
With that, they left, and looking at the frown on Jorsh's face, he had a long night before him. However, Makol looked for something like this for his camp, resembling normalcy. It was not a fight between partners that involved killing the other because they became a burden since they lost a limb while fighting a demon, and they couldn't do anything else anymore.
His people dreamed of living a simple and productive life. They wanted to find a partner and a simple job, have children, and die because one choked on a chicken bone—a dream come true. Yet such things were primarily impossible. Only the strong who ventured into the city, who could hide themselves well, could do something like this.
Makol shook those thoughts away, concentrating on the preparations for the meeting, 'Never mind.'
He looked back at the map and the information they had left him with and tried to understand it. Much of it was detailed, almost too good for the little time they had to gather them.
Better even, the rough pieces of information written in the letter, which the unknown person gave, matched what they collected over the last few days. It meant that they were at least approaching them in good faith.
Other than that, it was clear what the other party wanted, and even though their exact motive was unclear, they were indeed against the djinns of the Essence Alliance and an ally of either the beast-kin households or the Eros Alliance.
Sadly, Makol had no idea who was behind all this. They tried to find out, but nothing came up. Regardless, his gut feeling told him that it was fine. Sure, he was nervous, fearing that it was all a ruse and a waste of time, but for this, the pieces of information inside the letter were too detailed for it to be anything that would waste his time.
However, did it feel bad to be used as a sellsword so they could get their territory? Not at all. Instead, it was so straightforward and clear that he didn't care, clearly understanding what they wanted to do. They needed a neutral and non-affiliated party to attack and occupy a few weaker bases in the Essence Alliance territory. In contrast, the other parties would pressure them from different sides, creating numerous battlefronts.
Yet, would they take their territory once everything was over? It made no sense. Whatever they wanted was obviously not in the territory they would give them. It would make even less sense to sponsor them massively, let his camp show their worth, and then cut them off, even though they would be loyal. It would be a stupid idea for countless reasons.
The only question left was: Why was he so sure that they could easily take at least the west and east sides? He only needed to look at the statistics Petra gave him, or rather, the amalgamation of system windows, she said to Jorsh, who memorized everything and later wrote it down.
It was sad, 'I can't believe it...'
On average, there were two to three dozen soldiers per outpost. All of them were Tier 1 with one supervisor or commander, who was at Tier 2 with some good skills.
It was clear why they had so little power there. Most likely, they had all the strong ones in the rear, waiting for attacks so they would move. The same was true for the beast-kin, who only put their weak ones at the border, not caring if they were breached since they would retaliate fast.
After reading all the information, summarizing it, and comparing it to what was written in the long letter, Makol was positive. His gut feeling told him it was the right decision but an arduous one, which he had never felt before, 'It could also be the stew. I could've sworn that the cook threw a cockroach inside it after smashing it with their ladle.'