“Why did you come in such a hurry? If the enemies are planning anything, it would take a while since they would need to regroup.”

“Captain Hei just asked me to pass a message: if something happens, we won’t be alone. That is the message.”

Heirina nodded while holding her chin… it looked like Hei was also aware of the spies so that he couldn’t be too obvious. The message was pretty clear, though. They will receive help when the time comes, but from whom?

“Captain, the main army should have arrived where the real battle will take place on the territory of the south, but considering how the situation is there…”

“The leader of the clan there hasn’t established his leadership and influence yet. Since he still is the leader there, he will have most of the say since his territory is on the line. After losing his father and having such trouble controlling his lands, I doubt that he will listen to others since he will think that they want his territory… that will make things much harder to deal with. Something needs to happen to make him understand that some people, like my father, don’t want his downfall.”

It would be hard for something like that to happen since everyone would be fighting for their lives. The enemies were relentless in their attacks, and thanks to that, they obtained a lot of experience, which they gladly put to good use in every single battle. Still, Zelos wondered how they came to wage war so often.

“The enemies that are always attacking… how can they do this so often?”

“Right… I guess you should learn this sooner or later. Although all the countries are used to waging war against each other, some of them developed more than the others to pursue that. Their society is structured so that they can wage war as much as possible. The more enemies you kill and the more battles you survive, the more you climb on their ranks. As such, you obtain more underlings to serve you, and you also obtain more suitors to expand your bloodline.”

“You are being pretty roundabout about that. I thought that everyone already knew that I was more experienced for my age.”

“... They get more women to marry and have more children. In their country, they rarely let women join the army, and they protect them as much as possible to make them give birth as much as possible. It isn’t rare to find men there who are thirty years old and have fifty children. At the same time, the more a woman has kids, the more respected they are. They also have a tradition to gift those women when they give birth with money, jewelry and fine pieces of cloth. Overall, they are like upperclass citizens while the men have to prove their worthy through battle.”

Just by hearing that, Zelos didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. He had to ask the people on the other side directly about that. At the same time, if they had slaves, war slaves, and places where Zelos grew up, then he didn’t have to ask at all. They all could die for all that he could care. Perhaps he was being a bit harsh, but Zelos knew that nothing good comes out when people ignore so blatantly the misfortune of others.

After resting for half a day, Kaitrine joined the others and confirmed with a close eye what happened while she was away. She was glad that things worked that way before, but things wouldn’t be so convenient the next time. The enemies wouldn’t fall for the same tricks over and over again.

“What are you doing about the hills, Captain?”

“I have a pair of good riders keeping an eye on that area all the time, so we will be warned if something happens. Don’t worry, Kaitrine.”

“Even if we are warned, we will only receive a warning that will buy us something like an hour, perhaps not even that. Not many of them should be there. We need to take over the area before they can get reinforcements.”

Kaitrine had a point, but Heirina knew that the enemies had enough time to set traps, ask for reinforcements, and prepare ambushes there… It was too dangerous to go there. They pulled almost a miracle by defending the town with only civilians and a handful of people who could truly fight but attacking would be another matter altogether.

“Kaitrine, let’s trust my father’s plans this time. Just like you, I don’t like the idea that the enemies are still in our territory, but we aren’t as nearly equipped to deal with a situation like this with the manpower we have.”

“I understand, but… we don’t need a lot of people. While I believe I can do this alone with my speed, With Zelos and Edea, I will have the support to take down a small unit in no time.”

It was rare for Kaitrine to say that kind of thing, so Heirina wavered a bit… Still, the plan would be to approach the area at night and a single mistake would be equal to Kaitrine getting hit by an arrow or iron ball on her back.

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“We can’t risk it.”

Kaitrine wanted to sigh, but she avoided that because she knew it would be rude. She also couldn’t question Heirina’s decisions further without jeopardizing her leadership.

“Besides, we should train with each other here as much as possible to sharpen our skills. Since you can fight at close range, too, we can add some variety here. Any improvement done will be necessary to help us.”

“It is time for my afternoon turn so I will be leaving.”

“... He still doesn’t join you guys on the training sessions?”

“Yeah, he is busy with his work. Still, it seems that it helps him a lot. Irlan said that he was impressed during the ambushes. He even knocked down a horse and a rider with his club.”

“The really impressive thing is his steel nerves, Captain. The kid doesn’t flinch in front of anything. He keeps the same calm demeanor at any moment, and the danger of any task is almost lost on him.”

“What is impressive is his screw loose. It must be because of his trait… he healed from those wounds pretty fast, so he believes that he will be fine as long as he doesn’t die.”

“Yeah, but even so, pain is something we all fear, but he is used to it.”

Zelos’s self-preservation instincts appeared to be lacking a bit, at least considering how much he was working to improve his future. Still, considering the situations that he found himself in, one could only imagine that he knew that he could survive them without too much risk.

Regardless, they started another training session and decided to focus on it. A few hours later, Zelos finished his work and then checked the wounds in his hands. They were starting to close a lot faster than before, but since he still kept his dark sword with him, he always had the chance to drop a bit of blood on it.

“Hmm… It is hard to tell if it truly got heavier. My parameters are increasing steadily, so I can’t feel the difference. I guess the only way is to get a lot of blood. Animal blood probably won’t work and I am not going to weaken myself when I don’t know when the next battle will start.”

It seemed that killing the enemies would help Zelos with that, but he wasn’t sure how he could feel about that. Was it an accident that made the sword turn into something like that or was it intentional? So far, he hasn’t heard anything about special swords, so he could only be a bit suspicious of it.

When Zelos had some time the next day, he went to talk with the blacksmith that he bought the sword from. Although he should have worked on making a lot of weapons in the last few weeks, he still was working on making more of them, probably because people will lose weapons and armor during the conflict.

“Oh, it is you, kid. What do you want this time?”

“I just want to ask if you’ve heard of many weapons like this.”

“Cursed weapons? Can’t say that I have.”

“What about special weapons or weapons that become famous after someone wields them for many years?”

“Those are easier to find. Everyone has their favorite weapons and then will become famous after being used by someone famous. Aside from that, I didn’t hear anything special about them.”

“I see… What about the origin of the sword? Do you know where it was forged?”

“It’s probably very far away. Long gone is the time when people used shields and one-handed swords here. As some traits became more prominent, shields couldn’t withstand the attacks as much as before. Still, there is a country further east that has the best shields that work to this day, can’t say its name, though.”

Zelos nodded… he could only assume that commerce or some conflicts made the dark sword reach that country. Looting is important to recover from the costs of war, after all. In times like that, the countries probably wouldn’t negotiate that much with each other.

“I heard that you didn’t get hurt at all in that battle, you must be pretty nimble to be able to avoid so many hits.”

“No, I am just pretty sneaky. In another battle, I got hit plenty of times since the situation was in favor of the enemies. Why do you say that? Do you want to sell me some gear?”

“No, I am just commenting about it. For now, you might not need it, but you might want some protection, at least on your limbs, since without them, you can’t move or attack.”

The blacksmith had a point… Zelos saw the other with some light gear as well. Only Irlan didn’t wear anything since his trait worked better when he could counter without anything getting in his way, even some extra weight on his body. Perhaps he also didn’t have any protection because he had to force himself to become better at that.

“I might not want to buy anything here for now, but if you make these smaller and even heavier, I might come here now and then to buy them.”

“Iron balls, huh? I can’t imagine why you need them… they are heavy. I heard that someone in the past used to throw cannonballs at the enemies and crush them for hundreds of meters of distance, but this is quite interesting as well.”

Zelos felt a bit bothered by the fact that he wasn’t the one who started that, but it couldn’t be helped. Moreover, he was a bit concerned about the words: cannonball. A certain image came to his head, even though it was the first time he had heard that in that world.

“I will see what I can do about this. Don’t bet much on it since I am a busy person.”

“No worries.”

Zelos nodded and then decided to leave the shop. The sun was about to set, and since he was done with work for the day, he wondered what he should do… just eat and then return to sleep? He could hear the sound of metal in the distance, so it seemed that the others were training. Although Zelos had already finished his set of exercises that day, perhaps he could do a bit more, even though his hands and feet were still healing. Breaking his limits daily was the only thing he could do to become stronger, after all.