In the time that I have spent in the fort, I have not managed to spend a long time with the soldiers there. The reason for this is that I can feel these guys feeling awkward in my presence. They seem as if they do not know what to do in my presence.

Even now as I sit with them, I can feel these guys sitting there checking their weapons and doing their best to not meet my eyes. Well, it is not like I care if they respect me or not. All I need is for these guys to follow orders when they are on the battlefield.

I am putting myself at considerable risk regardless of whether the plan succeeds or fails.

"Soldiers, at attention.", I speak. "Anton is the troop ready to leave."

Anton is the leader of this bunch of soldiers and is supposed to be a person almost on the verge of breaking through into the first circle. I do not know much about the path of draconians, but that seems to be quite an achievement given his age.

Well, I guess it is about time that I begin telling what it is that I plan to do. The very first thing that I want to do is to sneak into the ice beast camp. Well calling it a camp feels wrong, but that is what the others call it.

it is better to call it a dungeon. These ice beasts have one ability that can be considered to be the center of their power. They can manipulate ice and snow to a very extreme level. Anywhere this ability would be quite average in power but in this Frozen wastelands, it can be considered to be one of the top-tier abilities.

Anyway, where was I, yeah it can be called a dungeon, where these beasts will use their abilities and essentially drill into the ground, creating a network of tunnels in which I can attempt to kill these guys by causing a massive cave-in.

I do not have the exact location of the entirety of this tunnel system but the amount that I have found should be enough to collapse the entire thing. It's an old dwarven skill that they use when they fight in their mines.

This was one of the things that my master forced me to learn. The method of collapsing tunnel systems from the dwarves themselves. I remember that he had to pay quite a considerable amount to the dwarves for my lessons too. The dwarves are masters of the destroying mines which you would find surprising until you remember that the biggest competition of a dwarf is a dwarf and the easiest way for one clan of dwarves to hurt another clan is by collapsing their mines.

There are very few races that can compare to a dwarf in this regard and while my skill is pretty little compared to that of a dwarf, it is still better than most creatures. Anyway, long story short, make sure that I can reach the correct position and I can collapse the entirety of the enemy's base. After all, snow is softer than earth. Having a massive explosive would certainly help but I will get to that when we reach the position.

It is about time that focussed on the task at hand which is to make sure that the enemy does not detect us before we have even reached them. In this field, I am surprised by the capability of the soldiers. While they are certainly not assassins they do know how to be stealthy.

Still, that leaves us with a pretty annoying problem of having our mana emissions being quite easily detectable. We cannot stop this unless we want to become blocks of ice and in this desert where the mana of only the ice element exists, the mana of other elements exists like in beacons in the sea.

For now, the only option that seems to work out for me is rather than try to control the emission on our side, I will give the ice beasts something else to look at. In our present case that would be the formation base beginning to go all out. That would essentially be like all the dam's gates leaving nothing behind in reserve. Such a massive movement of mana would be enough to mask our mana emissions. Especially, since the ice beasts would be considering this to be some kind of attack.

That is the theory at the very least, but I am not sure what unforeseen consequences I have to deal with. For all, I know this might have just caused the enemy to be forewarned and I have just made our entry into their base even harder. Regardless, now is not the time for us to be in doubt. That is the easiest way to commit suicide on the battlefield.

(After a couple of minutes.)

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Well, it looks like my worries were partially correct at the very least. Right now two ice beasts are standing guard at the entrance we had planned to enter this location from.

At the very least they have not guessed the exact numbers of my soldiers. At the moment Anton and his bunch are looking at me for orders. Normally these ten people would be enough to deal with two wolves in a matter of moments. These moments might just be enough for the enemy to know of our position. Looks like I will have to begin pulling my weight around here. Signaling for the others to retreat, I prepare to make my move.

Right now I am not wearing my armour which will make my work much harder. Well, not much of a chance for me to complain. For now, I am using a sword I have borrowed from Shamon. It is an okay sword, though I have certainly made use of better swords.

Compressing mana from my core I push it through my legs. Normally it is not suggested to do something like that since it will leave behind damage in my body (what I am about to do is kind of like putting springs in my legs.) But for the matter of stealth, this is the best way, since it won't emit too much mana.

I jump, feeling the tingle of mana leaving my body. It is a bit disorienting, but it shall not distract me too much. I have aimed myself to hit the one with the more mana being emitting.

The crash is exactly as disorienting as I had expected it to be. Suddenly the sky seems to become the earth as my sword enters into my victim. The sword almost splits the creature in two, leaving viscera and blood everywhere.

Fuck, I had not considered that. I fight the disorientation as I locate the second creature which is still In the process of turning in my direction. Before it can complete that though, my sword enters into its eye.

It struggles for a few seconds until my sword finds its brain. Fuck, this is why I hate to use blades in battle. Somehow I never really seem to get used to it though. As I pull out my sword, I find that the soldiers have already made their way to the entrance. I will have to admit that these people are very efficient in their work.

Now is not the time to get distracted. I might have just ended up exposing us. The smell of blood is not overpowering, but I do not know the strength of these creatures' noses. I don't know how I missed to acquire this information. They look like wolves, so for now I will just assume a similar level of senses.

Regardless, I gesture for the soldiers to enter the base silently. Entering the tunnel I am surprised by their skill. They are no minotaurs but these tunnels would be quite defensible in case of an attack. They seem to be strengthening the tunnel with ice mana In a way that I don't understand.

Well, I have to focus. Slowly but steadily I make my way to the base, as I can feel the mana in the air grow denser. Normally that would make me feel nice but here it just makes everything seem colder.

Up till now the maps that I have made seem to be working at the very least. That is good because I was worried that these beasts would have a way to beat the dwarven skill of tunnel mapping. Tunnels in ice and stone are not the same thing.

I am quite thankful for our good luck until I feel the world around me go black as an ice beast bites into my face. The creature's teeth don't cause a few flesh wounds on my cheeks, but the true danger with the ice beast is the mana that they inject.

I can feel the wounds on my face expand as I pull the wolf away from my face. Rather than pain, my face is tingling as if I have spent the day putting my face in ice.

I throw the wolf away quickly pull out my sword and keep stabbing it into the creature. The creature struggles with everything it has but I can feel the life of the creature drain out in my hands, but my arms do not stop moving until the creature lies limp in my hands.

I quickly turned to find three more such corpses lying on the ground, all surrounded by soldiers stabbing into the creatures as wildly as possible.

"Anton, give me a report on the wounded.", I speak, knowing that our position has been lost. The enemy must know of our existence if we have been ambushed like this.

"Two of the soldiers have lost their combat capabilities, captain." Anton begins. "We will need to return them to the base before the chill falls on them."

"Fuck, we cannot retreat after entering so deep. Anton, pick three people and have them escort these two people to the base. The remaining five I need you to concentrate on the mission at hand.", I command the others. "Our mission has gotten just that harder. The enemy knows of our presence so fuck stealth. Quickly get out your weapons."

Saying that we all get to our positions. The five soldiers that need to leave retreat at almost a lightning pace. They should be the safest among all the people. right now I am at the front with Anton and another soldier. The remaining three stand at the back with bows drawn out. The situation from now on is going to be quite terrible.

(After that we essentially began to charge into the base. We managed to reach our target position nearly fifteen minutes after entering the place, with quite a significant amount of damage. We have been attacked five times, three times by a single troop and twice by a group of four wolves. With a proper formation, none of them caught us by surprise, but we are still accumulating injuries. I have been bit in a couple of places and clawed near the knee.

Anton is limping because an ice beast bit at his ankle and every soldier while not injured has been battered and drained. We were not supposed to lose so much so quickly. Well, after this begins the riskiest part of our mission.)