“Zelos, Kaitrine. Go deal with the archers. Attack them silently from the side!”
Those two nodded and soon moved away from the area as fast as possible. It didn’t take long for them to eventually the regiment of archers since they unleashed another barrage of arrows. Without hesitation, Kaitrine used her trait… it would have been better if they arrived at the same time, but Zelos soon followed her by using his charging technique. After using it five times, he reached the enemies lines just around the time Kaitrine had slashed the throats of three of them.
With his sword, Zelos cut the enemies left and right and then cut them in droves. Those enemies tried to move away and fire their arrows at them, but those two advanced too fast and thanks to the darkness of the night, the enemies soon lost them, even though they were so close.
At that point in time, the battle was pretty much over, archers were terrible at close range, even more so when they had more than one quiver each.
“These guys… they aren’t all that special. I shouldn’t have expected anything from a force that stayed hidden during a war.”
The archers began to run away when half of them had been decimated. Zelos thought that he should chase them, but then they realized that Kaitrine was breathing roughly. It was better not to leave her alone since the riders were also spreading around in all directions…
Before long, the group reunited and approached Rux who was giving some orders to the riders and soon they left to pursue the enemies that ran away.
“You must be Heirina and you must be Kai’s daughter… oh, the boy from that time. This is quite the weird group. Anyway, your father begged me to give you a hand, so I am here. Truth be told… I don’t expect that I would actually confirm the crazy story that he told me.”
“I saw you from a distance a few times… where did you get this force, Rux? Where is your clan?”
“I was about to travel incognito when I received the letter from your father, so that is why I borrowed Lua underlings. She had noticed that something was off in that town, so she secretly left some of her underlings behind to keep an eye on things. When I went to investigate the merchants, I found them and heard the news.”
Lua… she had a few screw looses, but it looked like she was at least honorable. Even though her employees were plotting something weird, she didn’t turn a blind eye to it.
“Thank you… you really saved us.”
“Don’t thank me yet, now that you have unveiled this kind of situation, I have to see it through to the end. People joined the enemy’s side and attacked their own allies. Still, I have my own job to do and that can’t be delayed any further. So, you guys will have to do it for me.”
Rux passed to Heirina a scroll that had a golden line surrounding it. Everyone opened their eyes widely when they saw that, but Zelos just looked confused at that.
“What is wrong?”
Heirina couldn’t help but sigh for many reasons, but at least explaining things to Zelos felt like it would make her calm down and think things through.
“You know that in times of war, sending messages is very important, right? Although we try to keep a lot of ravens, sometimes that isn’t enough, so we use a system for urgent messages. Scrolls closed with brown lines are common messages with no urgency. Scrolls sealed with red lines are to take priority since they are only used about military matters, and there are the ones sealed with golden lines like this… they are written by the imperial family only and usually they have urgent orders for times like this…”
Zelos nodded… he could understand the situation was a bit better now. Rux was someone very important in the city of Tilia city to receive direct orders like that. Still, he didn’t feel like the message wasn’t as urgent as the fact that someone from their country was about to join the enemy’s side.
“This is something that needs to be delivered to the leader of the natives, you guys will head there for me while I am going to sniff out the guys that just attacked the town and their leaders. Although I have a feeling that they won’t be there anymore when I get to that city. I won’t be returning until this job is finished, so I will advise you to depart tomorrow morning.”
Without wasting time, Rux left the area toward where the enemies escaped. The group looked at each other and wondered what they should do, but soon the population began to celebrate the victory.
“So, I guess I will take a break from the work on the farm again.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
That was Zelos for you… everyone was completely astonished about the orders that they received while he was just worried about that. It couldn’t be helped since he didn’t believe that he was going to be paid for that. However, he couldn’t just ignore it since it was related to the war and that could help Hei and the others at the front lines.
The next morning, the group reunited with a bit of sleepy expression. Truth be told, they didn’t have the chance to sleep at all since Heirina had to organize a bunch of things before her departure and everyone had to help on the clean up duty. Things looked quite messy in the East side of the town thanks to all the corpses of enemies and animals. The corpses were no longer there, but the blood was.
Speaking of blood, Zelos was able to confirm that the sword was truly cursed. He could tell now that it was a bit heavier… but he could tell that he was soon going to get a bit stronger, so the difference would disappear. Considering his experience, the sword got around two hundred grams heavier, but it would have absorbed ten times more blood than that. It was quite the weird weapon.
“I will be driving, you sleepy heads can go and rest inside.’
“Thanks, we will take the afternoon turn.”
Heirina and the others entered the wagon that she bought this time. It was less comfortable than a carriage, but it was a bit faster since it was lighter for four horses to pull.
While the others were resting, Zelos couldn’t help but wonder about the mission. Meeting the natives on the area two territories south of them as ordered by someone from the imperial family… while they didn’t receive the orders directly, it didn’t mean that they could fail or had to waste time. Still, Zelos heard that most of them were isolationists, so he wondered how things would play out.
Another thing that was on Zelos’s mind, was the fact that the next battle was going to take place close to that farm again… the one which he spent ten years of his life in.
“I have a bad feeling about this…”
When the afternoon came, those four looked a bit better, so they took turns driving. Zelos had the chance to take a one hour nap, and he got rejuvenated thanks to that and soon resumed his training. Around the same time, Heirina began to consider a few things.
“It isn’t certain, but I bet the council of merchants are done for. Only them would be able to hide a force like that in times of war and that is obviously a crime since those who can fight and have weapons are forced to serve their territories. They will either die or run away, so what are you going to do about that, Edea?”
“... I want to at least finish my contract here and then see what happens. Still, my clan was being hired by then, so I wonder what will happen to everyone.”
“Well, they didn’t participate in those acts, so they should be fine. You can tell that they are loyal to the emperor, so the merchants didn’t try to persuade them to join them.”
“Maybe.”
“Anyway, you can probably stay with us. Isn’t it better for you this way?”
“I hope so. I just want to avoid causing trouble.”
Zelos couldn’t help but sigh… that kind of mentality was worse than the mentality of a slave. It seemed that she was raised like that since she was born and since that was the kind of lifestyle that she knew, it would be harder to break free from it.
Along the way, the group was able to confirm the safety of some villages and they sighed in relief when that happened. At the same time, the people celebrated the good news that they passed.
During the whole time, Zelos focused on himself and kept training nonstop. He knew that he wouldn’t have the chance to do that soon enough, so he decided to speed things up.
Health: 890/890
Magic: 280/280
Stamina: 780/780
Strength: 47
Vigor: 42
Precision: 36
Wisdom: 10
Willpower: 18
Traits: Regeneration Lv 64
“The damage that I suffered wasn’t high, but I guess it piled up and made my trait improve faster than the parameters. I suppose this is a good thing.”
After thinking for a bit, Zelos couldn’t help but consider all of his experience so far. With that in mind, if his trait kept improving, and he found a way to make his skin harder, perhaps he would become very hard to kill. In a battlefield, where one doesn’t know from which direction death can come from, that kind of ability would be very useful.
It sounded like an interesting idea, but in the end, Zelos also knew that he needed to get rid of the enemies faster. Keeping things as before was the best option, even if sometimes his regeneration would improve faster than the other parameters.
After the group left their territory and reached the one in the south, they began to head straight to the mountains where the natives were supposed to be. They didn’t want to waste time since they used the roads for a bit and didn’t find anyone. The people there were completely involved in the conflict, and they also knew that bandits would use that chance to attack travelers.
“Captain, do you know how we should refer to them once we find them? At the same time, do you know which specific mountain we can find? It would be a good idea to ask around and see if people have a clear path to their territory. Can’t we ask some people to be our guides in the towns or villages?”
“Slow down, Irlan… I know that you are excited to meet them, but acting like that in front of them will do us no good. Anyway, as far as I know, they don’t like to be referred to as anything unusual. Some people call them wildings or barbarians, but they aren’t fond of it. Calling them natives is probably the best option, but it is better not to use it just to be safe. As for asking around for help, that can’t be done since we need their help and we want to surprise the enemies with them, and they should have spies there as well.”