Apinsig
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Chapter 182 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-03-10 12:44:39 +0000 UTCIt was another day of training when I finally felt it. A large group of people were entering our territory. My moment of relief from the anxiety of waiting I was feeling spiked into worry. The group of people hadn’t entered from the road near the town but came through the forest that was over 100 km away from the town.
I continued to observe them trying to understand what was happening, but I soon figured it out. They were just regular refugees who happened to reach us before the caravan with the infiltrators that I was expecting to arrive.
They didn't have any carts as it would be impossible to get them through the forest that they came from, but they did have a lot of animals that they used as pack animals. There were cows, goats and a few horses but the animals look ragged. The people looked even more worn out. I soon figure out why. They were being pursued by fox-like creatures and there seemed to be a lot of them.
The fighters that they had seemed to be quite good at what they did but there were too few of them and the beasts hunting them were too smart. Everyone was barely able to keep moving but I also understood what kept them going. There were about 15 children in the centre protected by the animals and then the people around the animals.
I looked towards the temporary unit commander. “Take over the training. Keep doing what we have done but don’t push them so hard you do not know where their limits lay.” I moved quickly towards the village and stopped in front of a gate guard giving him orders.
“Unit 1 currently on crafting duty will report to the refugee diplomat group and escort them to sector 877PC. We have a group of refugees numbering 58 under attack from beasts. I will depart immediately and hopefully, I can reach them before they are overrun.”
The guard gave me a quick salute and run off with all haste. I did the same and started to run at my top speed. I still wasn’t armoured and I only carried my knives and sword but it will still be enough. But the question still remained if I was going to get there before or after they were all killed. Even with my current speed, it will take me a couple of hours to make it there.
The wolves were a lot closer basically just a short run away but there wasn’t any way to contact them. Goose was flying back but he was only as fast as me. That made me pause for a moment. Perhaps Goose hadn’t had any reason to push himself and this would be a good reason.
While we couldn't communicate any real information between us from so far away, I could still call him back. I had done that this morning as well to give another mission to the wolves but this time I conveyed incredible urgency, and I could see from my mental map how Goose started to speed up.
As I had expected his speed was a little bit faster than mine, but I was also correct in that he hadn’t pushed himself truly. Every once in a while, his speed accelerated and while sometimes he did slow back down, most of the time he kept his accelerated speed. I didn’t want to be left out, so I also concentrated on running but he was outpacing me now by quite a lot.
He made it to me in 30 minutes which was incredible. He did peck me a bit when he found out that I wasn’t in any trouble but after I explained what was going on he quickly took flight again and headed towards the wolves.
This time he didn't push himself so hard but still worked to make himself move faster and, in the end, I calculated that the wolves should make it to the refugees almost 40 minutes before me. I looked in on their situation and thought that it might be enough but even the wolves had to be just a deterrent as the number of fox-like beasts just kept getting higher.
The first one to act was Goose who from high up started to bombard some of the foxes with winds slashes. The refugees of course were puzzled as to why another animal was helping them. That puzzlement turned into fear when they heard the wolves coming. When they understood that the wolves were for some reason helping them and working with the eagle they were utterly confused. This tired them even more because of the emotional rollercoaster.
It was at that moment when I felt another intrusion but this time from the road near the town. I only had to wait a few minutes before I noticed the same scout that had breached our border about a week ago. “Son of a bitch.” Really did everything have to happen at this time? It would be a bit annoying, but the plan was to let them get well into our lands anyways so there shouldn’t be any big problems.
But I was still in quite a hurry so when I reached the refugees I didn’t even say hello to them and just started to slaughter all the foxes. I pushed myself perhaps a bit too hard as I was a bit displeased with the situation so I might have shown off too much of my power as everyone was a bit afraid of me. After the fight, I walked towards the person who was obviously in charge.
“Greetings travellers and welcome to United Freeholds. I can see that you had a rough journey but what brings you to our lands.” I asked them while Goose landed on my shoulder. There was a momentary pause and after a sincere thanks, the leader excused himself for a moment. They started to discuss what to do next.
I could, of course, overhear what they were saying and I had to wince a couple of times as the main problem was my brutality in dealing with the foxes but for some, it was a benefit. You really can’t please or displease everyone it seems.
We introduced ourselves when they stop discussing and I had to answer a few questions. I was completely honest with them and told them that they had reached the end of civilization and that we were most likely going to have to fight for our freedom.
I could see all of their faces fall and some even broke down and started to cry but the fighters ask me what I thought about my chances for victory. “Currently I will have to say about 76% but that can swing quite a lot as I don’t have all the information to make a final decision.” My absolute certainty in my words made everyone pause and then they finally asked if they could at least have a place to stay for a while.
To that, I had to raise my hand. “I am sorry, but I cannot make those decisions there will be an escort coming here with people that you can discuss this with and I am afraid I can’t stay here any longer and I have to make my way back. I will however leave Goose here.” I pointed towards him and then pointed towards the wolves. “And they will also stay here as well until the escort arrives.”
With that done there was only one thing left to do. I quickly ran towards the fox that had the only monster core amongst them and pulled it out as it had a fire element spark that I wanted. After that, I started to run back towards the village to organize and lead another group to welcome even more refugees. It will be a busy time, especially because after that we will make contact with the town and then start to tear it down.
I reached the group of escorts before I made it to the town. I gave them the updated information and let them get on their way. It will take them three days to make it there and then it will take them even longer to make it back with all the animals and children bringing down the average speed. I started to prepare everyone, but we ended up agreeing to start the march tomorrow morning.
We were going to take unit 3 who had hunting duty but also a few of the better fighters just in case. We also had to make another refugee diplomatic group as we never expected to need more than one at the same time. When we started our march, we were going to need about two days to reach our refugee group even when they were moving towards us at a reasonable pace.
We barely had enough camping equipment for everyone but hopefully, we will have enough for our forces when we needed to march to face the enemy army. Emma had taken charge of that side of things and was working hard to make enough fabric and sew everything together. She had a lot of helpers but there weren’t many with the skill sets she has.
The two days went by fast, and I spent them by observing the refugees. Only one of them was marked red and that was the scout that I knew was the enemy. Others were marked as light blue except for one that was orange. I was even more curious about that because that person was a child.
It took me until the end of the first day to realize why he was orange. It was hard to notice but the child and the scouts seemed to know each other, but that relationship was weird. It was not something you would see if they were working together to infiltrate and find out our secrets.
When we were about four hours away from the caravan when I started to notice some weird bugs that weren’t acting as they should and they had some weird energy signals. I figured it might be some sort of an ability used to control them but then the question became who was controlling them and why.
My first guess would be the small child with the scout, but I couldn’t be sure yet. If it was and he could somehow see through the bugs, I could understand how he might be good at gathering intelligence.
