Journey

The class had already been on the road for a week. The journey from the Capital to Defy was not a short one; it took about a month long. Thankfully, everyone had been taught how to ride horseback at the castle long ago. There had even been times when the students would race during their days off.

Mateo’s horse was called Cinnamon, and she was a mare. The stable hand had not been lying when he said the horses were well behaved. Not once during the week had any of the students experienced any issues. The journey itself had also been pretty lackluster.

While some would call it boring, it at least meant that they wouldn’t have to extend the amount of time it would take to arrive. There was worry about how much damage the demons would cause during the month it took them to get there, but they had been assured that the knights would be able to care for the villages until they arrived.

Although it was morbid, the fact that there were now fewer villages to protect meant that the knights would not be spread too thin. The number of Knight Captains garrisoned at Defy was five. While it paled in comparison to the Capital, apparently this number was pretty high for a border city.

The distribution of Knight Captains was largely based upon the noble houses. The city of Defy was ruled over by a Viscount, while three of the Knight Captains belonged to his house. The class had also been given information about the Viscount.

His name was Fenwick Vlark of the Vlark family. The Vlark family, like most border noble families, belonged to the new noble faction. Fenwick Vlark himself was an Archwizard and received the Viscount title due to the merits he had achieved while serving his country at the frontlines.

Besides Viscount Fenwick Vlark, the city of Defy had a second Archwizard. Archwizard Lewis was not one of the Viscount's men but someone stationed by the royal family. The Church of the Three Gods also had a High Priest and an Oath Keeper protecting the local church. In total there were nine individuals of the intermediate level.

However, the Oath Keeper could not leave the church unprotected and the Viscount and High Priest could not leave the city easily. The city would also always have at least 1 Knight Captain stationed there at all times too. This meant that the city could dispatch four Knight Captains and one Archwizard.

The Viscount also had 300 Knights and 100 Wizards under him while the local garrison that belonged to the kingdom had 100 Knights and 25 Wizards. The church had 20 Priests and 5 Paladins.

The additional forces of the students consisting of 6 at the intermediate and 23 at the peak of the beginner level were a great boon. The party leaders had come to the consensus that the greatest impact they could have was the fact that the enemy were unaware of them.

The plan was to separate into their individual parties and scout out the previously hit villages for any possible tracks. While physical tracks might have disappeared after such a long time, demonic energy could still be detected by those skilled enough or with certain tools.

The five parties would separate in two weeks’ time, when they would still be about one week away from reaching Defy. Mateo’s party was to investigate two villages to the north east of Defy with a distance of about 3 days for the closest of the two. The second village was only about 4-5 hours away from the first village.

If they found nothing then they would set up camp at a location that the party leaders had chosen. The location was close enough to set out for the other villages that were being investigated by the other parties in 1-2 days. They would wait there until all the parties arrived or a signal was sent though a signal stone that was prepared for each of the leaders.

The stones could send out multiple different color signals with which they had designated each of the different villages with a respective color. Should they find anything they would light the stone with the color for the village. Mateo’s party was given the colors of yellow and orange. If the signal were sent, then all parties were to head toward that village.

By the second week of travel everyone was getting tired of eating rations and each evening a party would be sent out to hunt. It was by the end of the second week that the monotonous days were coming to an end.

By the second day of the third week, the students finally felt assured enough to state that they were being followed. So far only three different scouts had been identified. Mateo had been the first one to notice. Once he brought the matter up the other archers of the group quickly verified his finding.

At first they just kept an eye on the scouts, trying to find out their intentions. Maybe they had traveled too close to a village or other travelers, but when this continued for three days they knew the matter was something more serious.

It was more than likely that the group had been marked by bandits. As for the possibility of demons, they were still too far from the border. There was also the fact that the scouts appeared to be humans, at least there was no demonic energy coming from them.

The party leaders gathered together and looked over a map for where the bandits would most likely ambush them. They found several possible points, but based on their path, the earliest would be reached in two days.

They decided to follow the path but created a strike squad that would split off the night before. After much debating the strike squad consisted of Alicia, Arthur, Cyrus, and Mateo as the strike squad leader.

The four of them set out while leaving their horses behind. They ran while avoiding the scouts that were still spying upon their campsite. The four of them were all combat type specializations so their bodies were highly trained. While Arthur was a wizard, he was different from the normal type of wizards. Arthur was a unique Magical Fighter who fought like a Knight but used spells instead of Arts.

Before the sun even rose they had reached the point of ambush, an open plain surrounded by hills. The tallest hill provided a hiding spot behind it that would allow the bandits to ambush the class as they traveled past it. This was the location the leaders had come up with that they believed the Bandits would attack from.

Using the cover of night, they approached the far side of the large hill by moving through the nearby hills. As they suspected, there they were lying in wait. Observing the set up Mateo assumed they had only set up their ambush about 1-2 days ago.

This meant that they wouldn’t have had much time to set up any traps and if they did, they were probably along the path the class would travel upon. This meant that their strike squad didn’t have much to worry about. More than likely the bandits believed their prey remained unaware of their malicious intentions.

Mateo knew that the parties would set off in another two hours and it would take them about another hour to reach this location on horseback. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to sabotage the bandits. While there were some methods they could take, they would let the enemy know that they’ve been found out. No, the element of surprise was way too important to give up.

He decided to take this opportunity to instead identify the plans and traps the Bandits may have. He was quickly able to spot some logs they had near the top of the hill. Cyrus counted 80 of them, while Alicia pointed out the majority of them were archers.

The abundance of archers made Mateo scour the hillside until he found his target. His eyes narrowed as he found a way to impede the bandits during their ambush. He pointed out a certain spot to Arthur and got a nod in return. Now they just had to wait.