And (N)one Shall Remain

“You can see the border there, indicated by the forts,” said Sir Inolet as he pointed with one finger towards the distant horizon. The entire party, consisting of the [Heroes], all the [Companions] and [Associates], as well as the additional escorts they brought, were at the top of a hill a distance to the north of the present border between human and demon territory. “All of you should have enough Perception to make it out, I believe.”

 

Alissa looked towards the general direction the old knight pointed at, and noticed the distant fortifications easily. She noticed that Joshua also seemed to have minimal issues in finding the same, the boy had even discarded his glasses for a while now, probably as a result of his Perception stat increasing, as one of its effects was to improve their eyesight.

 

Ethan had to squint and shade his eyes before he seemed to notice the forts though, not unexpected since Alissa suspected that he mostly dumped his free points into the Body stat over others. He likely added a few to his Mind and Soul to keep them in line to support the Body, but otherwise he likely neglected them. 

 

As for the rest, some of them seemed to be able to see the forts just fine. Most squinted and shaded their eyes like Ethan did to focus their sight better, while a few had to rely on telescopes to even see the distant fortifications, mostly amongst the new batch of twenty second tiers. 

 

From the high vantage point at the top of the hill, Alissa noticed the rolling plains to their south, which was likely their destination, further bordered to its south, right between two of the fortifications, by a densely forested area which she was told was another dungeon with high levels. The dungeon’s presence made it a natural barrier for the relatively wide swath of land, which was why the two forts were built quite far apart.

 

On the other hand, it also meant that the two fortresses on either side of the forest were isolated from each other.

 

“Is it fine for that fort further east to be isolated like that?” she said as she voiced her doubts to Sir Inolet.

 

“Well observed,” noted the old knight with a hint of a smile on his lips. “The eastern fortress of Gardelans is well defended enough. You cannot see it from here, but behind that hill a bit to its north is yet another fort, with a third a short distance behind it. The three forts serve as a multi-layered gateway to our eastern flank, and are not easily breached, put together.”

 

“Besides, the east end also only possesses a narrow road, unsuited for massed troop movements. At the end of the east road is one of the largest military fortifications of the Kingdom as well, which we’ll take a tour of on the way back,” continued the old knight. “The area is quite well-secured, at least when it comes to large troop movements, I assure you.”

 

“But not to smaller groups,” mentioned Alissa as she noticed what the old knight implied through the words he left unsaid.

 

“Exactly, hence the extra precautions we took for this trip. Like before, we will not intervene against the dungeon creatures, but if there should be any outside interference…” murmured the old knight. Besides him, Magus Drummond, and the two priestesses, they were also accompanied by another two royal guards who were in their fourth tiers, and two temple guards in the same level of power.

 

All four were notably younger than Sir Inolet or Magus Drummond, easily young enough to have been their children or grandchildren, even. While they were bonafide fourth tiers as well, they were lower in level, mostly levels 2 to 4, compared to Sir Inolet who was at the twelfth level of his fourth tier. Aside from the level difference, however, Alissa got the feeling that the old one-eyed one-legged knight would still likely wipe the floor with all four of them put together in a fight.

 

The biggest difference was in the quality of their classes, something that could be intuited just from the class names.

 

Where Sir Inolet was a [Soldier’s Child Lvl20/ Royal Guard Lvl20/ Arcane Edge Lvl20/ Blade of Sorcery Lvl12], the two other knights had [Noble’s Child Lvl20/ Royal Guard Lvl20/ Royal Knight Lvl20/ Royal Champion Lvl4] and [Merchant’s Child Lvl20/ Royal Guard Lvl20/ Royal Spearman Lvl20/ Royal Lancer Lvl2] respectively. While they looked equal on the first two tiers, Alissa could tell that Sir Inolet’s class was of higher quality, and not by a little bit.

 

Hell, the classes that the [Companions] and [Associates] received were also higher quality than what the fourth tiers had. These four were clearly not the cream of the crop amongst the fourth tiers possessed by the Kingdom, but then again, Sir Inolet was supposed to be one of the ten strongest of the fourth tiers in the Kingdom to begin with.

 

The quality of the classes that the Temple guards had were similar, as in notably lower than what either Sir Inolet or Magus Drummond possessed. They definitely have a good bit of power to them, but since Alissa and Ethan were used to sparring with Sir Inolet, they felt the additional chaperones to be far less threatening in comparison, to the point that they might have dared to take them on, one on one.

 

“Another question if I may, Sir Inolet?” asked Alissa politely since the old knight seemed to be in a talkative mood. 

 

“Hmm? Sure, go ahead and ask away.”

 

“How many people of their… caliber does the kingdom have?” she asked, gesturing towards the additional fourth tiers with her eyes. “I had not thought that they would be so common it was easy to detach four of them just to keep us safe.”

 

“In total? Probably around four to five hundred or so. Reaching the fourth tier is a risky proposition for most of us combat types since it means having to fight longer and harder against increasingly dangerous things. It was all too easy to lose focus while fighting something that had become a routine and lose your life because of it,” replied Sir Inolet. “In fact, this is already a large number considering we aren’t at war yet. The war itself tends to be the catalyst that gave birth to many new fourth tiers.”

 

“The majority of the Kingdom’s armed forces are mostly late second tiers to late third tiers in level. Those under that level were likely still trainees, and those above it would be considered as important assets and not used haphazardly,” continued the old man with a nostalgic look on his face. “You [Heroes], along with your [Companions] and [Associates] will likely become such an asset once you’ve grown a bit more too.”

 

“That’s what we came here for, no?”

 

“That’s what we hope. The challenge of the beasts from this dungeon should hopefully be able to push the three of you to your fourth tiers, at which point we hope that you would be approaching my equal in combat prowess,” nodded the old man in agreement. “At that point of time, unless the other side concentrated their best forces, it would be difficult for them to stop you easily, though their own [Champions] would be the ones you are most likely to face.”

 

“Once you have grown enough from the battles to reach the fourth tier… then ones such as me would no longer even be your opponents. At that point the battle would mostly devolve into one between your [Heroes] against their [Champions], while the most we could do is to support you as best we could,” he continued with a tinge of melancholy in his voice. “I lost my eye and leg against the [Champion] of Elugunuras back then. No matter what the healers tried, there was no restoring them.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“For what, girl?”

 

“Sorry if I invoked bad memories, Sir.”

 

“Think nothing of it. I was a knight serving my liege back then. It was already fortunate that I survived fighting such a foe at all. Far too many of my compatriots from back then had no such luck,” replied the old knight with a shake of his head, looking somewhat wistful for a change. “I sincerely hope that things will go better this time around, at least.”

 

“That’s one hope I’d like to share with you, Sir,” nodded Alissa firmly with some emotions battling each other in her heart. While she still kept a measure of caution to most of the locals of this other world, the old knight – once he started to shed the exterior of the stern tutor he showed most of the time in the beginning – was one of those who she couldn’t help but grow some fondness for. He reminded her of her own late grandfather, in some ways. “May the fortunes be with us.”

 

“May the fortunes be with us, indeed. Now, it’s already late in the afternoon, so we will make our camp on the backside of this hill, just as a precaution, and proceed to the dungeon tomorrow. This dungeon is not one where we’d delve for long periods at once, as we’ll instead retreat to camp outside of it every night. The beasts there are far more active at night.”

 

“How would the resources be gathered, then?” asked Alissa. While the dungeon delves were primarily to train them, the Kingdom was always short on resources, so they were unlikely to waste anything useful from the creatures that would be slain during those same delves. 

 

“The gathering team will follow us closely. They’re also part of the reason why we got so many extra chaperones. Part of them will be for keeping those gatherers safe,” explained Sir Inolet with a nod at her question. “From this dungeon… the hides, fangs, and claws of the beasts are the primary harvest, along with some of their organs used in alchemy, as far as I know. You should be aware of what that means, no?”

 

“That their hides are likely as tough as armor and their fangs and claws can likely shred through lighter armor as is?” she replied, to a satisfied nod from the old knight.

 

“Along with muscles that could propel those claws with enough force to shear through metal, and are nearly as hard as rock themselves. It won’t be an easy hunt here, I can tell you that much. Many of the creatures also form packs, so you will often have to deal with a bunch of them all at once,” said the old knight almost as an addendum. “That combined with the open area means that you might be attacked by a second pack before you are done with the first.”

 

“Got it, so we hit hard, hit fast, and kill them as soon as possible to avoid that scenario, while keeping our eyes open of our surroundings at all times,” noted Alissa. At the moment, despite some skills like what Osmond possessed that allowed him to see long distances clearly and easily, Alissa remained the team’s primary scout, partly thanks to her [Walk in the Shadows], which allowed her to stroll around an area and assess the situation unnoticed.

 

Alissa had grinded that skill in particular during her training ever since she got it. At the moment, the skill had reached level eight, and its cooldown had dropped all the way to fifteen minutes, while its duration increased to eight minutes. The skill itself would still end prematurely the moment she emerged from the shadowy dimension she was hidden in, however, which made it best suited for sneak attacks and scouting.

 

Of course, she would have to do her scouting alone, as taking someone along with her would have slowed her so much as to render it a pointless exercise. Still, for the time being she put such thought away and helped with setting up their camp for the night. They would need a good and proper rest tonight, for the trial that awaited them the next day.