Chapter 790: Preparing For War [Bonus - ]

Chapter 790: Preparing For War [Bonus Chapter]

Silas threw his head back and laughed, the deep sound rolling over the heads of the girls marching behind them.

"The proper size, huh?" Silas grinned, reaching over to give the top of her helmet a teasing little flick. "...I’ll make sure to remind you of that when we’re climbing out of the third muddy ravine today."

Aki smoothed down her breastplate with a soft huff, though the wide happy smile tugging at the corners of her lips completely ruined her attempt at looking defiant.

Then her eyes drifted down to his hip, and her brow furrowed a little when she noticed there was nothing hanging from his belt.

"Speaking of gear, Silas," Aki asked, tilting her head curiously, "what weapon are you using today?"

"Glad you asked," Silas smiled.

He reached toward his side and pulled something out of his Inventory.

VWOOMP!

A faint ripple bent the air at his hip, and a long sheathed sword appeared in his left hand.

Silas drew it with a smooth hiss of sliding steel.

SHIIING!

It was a simple practical longsword of dense high-grade steel.

It had a straight double edge with a dull gray finish, and along the groove down the middle of the blade, several runes were etched deep into the steel, humming with a low pulsing crimson glow that ran between the crossguard and the diamond-shaped pommel.

Silas twirled the longsword through a few casual whistling turns.

WHISH! WHISH!

"I’m going to try this one out today," Silas said, resting the flat of the blade on his shoulder with an easy grin. "I haven’t had a chance to give it a proper run yet, so I figured today would be the perfect time to see how it cuts through some plant bark."

"It’s beautiful..." Aki murmured, her azure eyes tracing the glowing runes. "It looks so light, but it feels so heavy just standing next to it."

She paused and stepped closer to his side as the towering rose and steel walls loomed larger ahead of them.

A sudden anxious thought seemed to hit her, and her brow creased into a tight troubled knot as she looked up at his face.

"Silas..." Aki began hesitantly, her voice dropping to a quiet nervous whisper so the girls behind them wouldn’t hear. "T-there’s something I forgot to ask earlier. Since Aki’s Wonderland is your Vassal Territory, if you and your girls help me kill monsters out there, will it still count for me?"

Her hands clasped together in front of her, and her knuckles turned white.

"The Novice Trial’s really strict," Aki went on, her voice thick with real worry. "If it counts your kills as yours instead of mine, then everything we do out there might not count for my territory at all. I want to climb the Leaderboards, Silas, but if having you here means none of it counts, I—"

Silas raised a calm reassuring hand and stopped her panic before it could get any worse.

"Hold on, Aki," Silas said softly. "Let’s not jump to conclusions."

Truthfully, Silas wasn’t completely sure either.

He knew how being a vassal worked in general knowledge, but the rules of the Novice Trial could get oddly specific in ways that didn’t always make sense.

He turned his focus inward and made an Inquiry to the System.

’System Inquiry. If I and my Heroes help kill monsters with Aki, since Aki’s Wonderland is my Vassal Territory, does it count for her?’

For one long second, nothing happened.

Then, with a soft chime that rang right behind his temples, a pale golden window unfolded in front of his eyes.

DING!

[Inquiry Acknowledged.]

[Aki’s Wonderland is a Vassal Territory of Blessed Land... Monsters killed jointly by the Lord of Blessed Land, his Heroes and the forces of Aki’s Wonderland will count fully toward the Novice Trial and Leaderboard rankings of Aki’s Wonderland. The Lord of Blessed Land will still receive UP.]

Silas let out a quiet satisfied chuckle and dismissed the window with a thought.

He looked down at the anxious blue-haired girl walking beside him, his dark blue eyes crinkling with warm reassuring humor.

"You can relax, Aki," Silas said, reaching over to give her shoulder plate another gentle comforting squeeze. "Since your territory’s my vassal, every monster we take down out there counts for you. All of it goes toward your trial and the Leaderboards..."

Aki froze in her tracks for a second, her eyes going wide and bright as pools of azure light.

A long trembling breath slipped out of her, like a huge boulder had just been lifted right off her small shoulders.

"Oh, thank goodness..." Aki breathed, her knees wobbling a little with dizzy relief. "Oh, thank goodness...! I was so scared that bringing you all out there would waste your time... You have no idea how much sleep I lost worrying about that, Silas...!"

She drew herself up to her full height, her back snapping straight as a fierce fiery determination lit up behind her eyes.

Aki raised both of her armored fists and pumped them hard in front of her chest, a bright fierce grin lighting up her face like the midday sun.

"Then I’m not holding back even a little bit!" Aki declared proudly, her azure eyes locked on Silas with bright adoring fire. "Just watch me, Silas! I’m going to fight with everything I’ve got today, and I’m going to do my very best to impress you!"

The wide stone road ran on toward the gate, where the towering new walls threw long shadows over the back of the line.

Quick footsteps clicked against the stones from the front.

Elowynn came jogging back down the line, her cutlasses bouncing at her hips and her tall curvy body swaying with every stride.

She was holding a rolled-up sheet of weathered paper in both hands, and her ember-red hair glowed like polished copper in the sunlight.

"Lord Silas, look at what we mapped out this morning," Elowynn breathed, stopping right at his side.

She stepped in remarkably close and unrolled the brittle map with both hands.

Her soft round shoulder pressed firmly against his arm, and she shifted her weight a little to lean her warm side against him like she just needed something to balance on.

Her amethyst eyes flicked up to his face, and a faint flustered pink spread around the little mole under her left eye, though she kept her voice as practical as she could manage.

"Outside the gate, the land splits into three big ravines," she said, running a fingernail along a cluster of charcoal circles. "We’ve found a few big monster nests hiding down there... We can clear this whole ridge if we take them one at a time, and this one right here is the closest."

Her nail tapped a jagged mark circled with little drawn thorns, barely a mile past the wall.

"It’s down in a sunken hollow under the ferns," Elowynn added, leaning just a little harder against his arm. "There are a lot of vine monsters and thorny crawling things living in it together. If we clear this one first, the whole western side will be safe."

’He’s so solid...’ Elowynn thought, her heart doing frantic little flips against her ribs as the smell of pine, winter air and clean steel drifted off his collar. ’He’s not pushing me away at all. He’s just letting me lean on him... If leaning on him feels this good, what would happen if I just fell right into his arms...? No, no, keep it together, Elowynn! Show him you’ve got a brain before you throw yourself at his chest!’

Silas looked down at the map and hummed appreciatively at the clean marks.

"Good scouting," Silas said, giving her an easy approving smile that made her cheeks burn even hotter. "Clean lines and good landmarks. I’ve got to admit, I can’t wait to see how you girls fight out there."

Right behind his shoulder, two soft voices immediately chimed in together.

"My Lord, please remember," Solenne spoke up, her musical voice trembling delicately, "I’m only an artificer. I can’t fight."

"And I’m just a cook!" Kaelia squeaked, peeking out from behind Solenne’s sleeve with wide panicked eyes. "I know how to fillet a trout, Lord Silas, but if a giant plant tries to eat me, all I’ve got is a soup ladle!"

Silas turned his head and looked back at the two of them.

He chuckled and dropped back two paces in the line to plant himself right in front of them, shielding both of them behind his broad shoulders.

"Relax, both of you," Silas teased, his voice dropping into a smooth reassuring tone. "You don’t have to lift a finger against anything with fangs or thorns. I’ll stand right here and keep you safe..."

He tilted his head and gave them a playful searching grin.

"Besides, aren’t you two just a little bit curious to see how the fights go down?"

Kaelia blinked, her lips parting as her hands slowly loosened their death grip on Solenne’s robes.

A bright fascinated sparkle lit up her eyes, and her head started bobbing in small involuntary nods.

Beside her, Solenne’s fox ears perked forward with an unmistakable curiosity, her golden eyes shimmering with the same hidden hunger for excitement.

Silas let out a quiet fond sigh and shook his head.

’Leave it to these two,’ Silas thought, thoroughly amused. ’They say they’re scared of getting a speck of dirt on their slippers, but the second a real fight’s on the table, their eyes light up like kids at a festival. Two girls who can’t fight wanting front-row seats to a monster hunt... I don’t mind at all.’

Ahead of them, the new Thornward Bulwark rose sixty feet into the sky, shutting out the wilds behind its rose stone and dark steel.

As the line reached the gatehouse, the heavy double doors of steel-banded stone groaned.

Nobody touched a winch or pulled a chain... The runes carved into the stone answered Aki on their own, and the gates swung open with a grinding hum.

GRRRRRRIND!

The formation crossed the threshold and stepped out of the calm and quiet of the territory into the wilds beyond the wall.

The change was instant. Outside, the jungle was thick with old suffocating life.

The air hung warm and humid, heavy with the sharp tang of crushed leaves, damp earth and the sickly sweet musk of meat-eating flowers.

Huge trees twisted a hundred and fifty feet overhead, their turquoise leaves knitted together so tightly that the sky was nothing but scattered shards of amber light.

Thick moss smothered the exposed roots, and pale glowing vines hung like tangled curtains from the branches, twitching every so often like they were testing the breeze.

Somewhere off in the trees, something big cracked a branch and went quiet.

Things chirped and clicked and hissed in the undergrowth all around them, and every few steps, a flower would turn its head slowly to follow them as they passed.

The new Shieldmaidens at the back of the line were holding their shields a little higher than they had been a minute ago.

At the very front of the line, Ther’Abella strode forward with sharp military grace, her silver hair swaying with every step.

She reached out her right hand, and the silver constellation marks on her cheeks blazed with cold starlight.

SHIIIING!

Pure starlight gathered out of the empty air and hardened into a tall slender staff that hummed with a sharp ringing note.

She raised it and drove the end of it down into the mossy ground.

THUMP!

A pale ring of starlight pulsed out through the dirt and swept through the brush around them, flattening the creeping weeds and scattering the little insects.

"Eyes sharp, everyone!" Ther’Abella barked, her cold blue eyes scanning the thick undergrowth on both sides of the path. "Form a tight wedge! Recruits, stay three paces behind the main line! Don’t chase anything into the bushes, and don’t break formation unless I tell you to!"

Aki jogged up to the front and took her place right beside the elf, her steel breastplate gleaming in the scattered light.

Her hands were raised loosely in front of her in a low balanced fighting stance.

Behind them, Elowynn drifted into the middle of the formation with one hand resting on the hilt of a cutlass, her sharp eyes darting between the overhanging branches.

Silas walked in the pocket right behind the front line and took in the scenery around them.

It really was breathtaking.

Pink ferns as clear as glass drooped over the path like little waterfalls, their fronds glistening with dew that caught the amber light.

Purple orchids as big as wagon wheels clung to the mossy trunks and glowed with a soft lavender light, while tiny shimmering beetles buzzed between the flowers like floating gems but as Silas looked past the pretty colors, his eyes narrowed a little, and the gold ring around his pupils hummed quietly.

’It looks like a fairytale garden,’ Silas thought, his hand resting loosely near the pommel of his longsword. ’It’s beautiful out here, but beautiful scenery doesn’t mean it’s all rainbows. The prettier a wild garden looks, the nastier the roots usually are...’

Right on cue, the damp ground under the ferns heaved.

RUSTLE! RUSTLE!