SB: Chapter 250 – Sneaking Through The Siege (Patreon)

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The fighting had picked up during the night. The beastkin sure had a lot of energy. At least no one had come looking for us. A small mercy. Now with dawn approaching and the fighting still at high intensity it was time to sneak out. I had given Boris a bandolier of stamina potions and one healing potion. We also took scent concealing potions before we left and I used the area of effect one where we had rested in the abandoned metal building.

While I didn’t want to weigh him down more, they would be necessary. We had to run for the rest of the day once we got to the top of the canyon. We left the building. Even with my Cold Resistance, the cold was brutal. Boris was as impressive as ever, not even reacting to the cold besides a slight frown.

His disposition was an inspiration to be honest. I had expected more questions, complaints, anything. He just nodded and did what he was told. While I had been impressed before, my esteem of him had risen to new heights.

We weren’t that far from one canyon wall. There were several fresh monsters impaled on the stakes at the base of the cliff. I had a coil of rope ready. Ozy flew up to the top of the canyon with one end. Once I saw him look over the top, I knew he had properly secured the end of the rope with Alchemy.

I went up first with Boris behind me. Once I got to the top, I could ensure he was covered as he finished the climb himself.

I reached the top while he was about a quarter of the way up. That case was really heavy and the cold wasn’t helping. I had Ozy use Greater Refresh on Boris, replenishing his stamina. There were no monsters or anything else at the top of the canyon cliff. I saw fighting at either end of the settlement in the base of the canyon due to bursts of light from spell skills.

Boris finally made it up and was breathing heavily. I pulled out a stamina potion as Ozy cut the rope. While it would have been nice to recover, it would have taken too long to pull up and recoil. We needed to get moving away from here as quickly as possible.

“If you have problems, speak up. You run in front of me as quickly as possible without bottoming out your stamina,” I said while pointing in the direction my Compass Of Desire was pointing. We had to get the sword first at the edge of the Great White Waste where I had hidden it.

Boris would run in front today, so I could learn his pace, while I kept watch behind us. I had Ozy scout ahead and then wait at a location where I wanted Boris to run to. Once he got close, Ozy would move on to the next location.

Boris set a solid pace. Far slower than what I was capable of, but respectable enough. I did notice he was going through the stamina potions I had given him quicker than I preferred, but that was fine. Better to get as much distance from the Wolf Clan settlement and the battle as possible.

I glanced upwards. There was a flying monster far above us. I mentally directed Ozy to take it down. A minute later, the flying monster was killed and plummeted towards the ground as we kept running.

I tried to pick a route that wouldn’t directly take us up and down mountains, unfortunately the terrain was terrible, with canyons, and cliffs. Numerous times I had to pick a slightly different direction that was passable.

Once the sky lit up slightly, the cold retreated a bit. There was still endless cloud cover and a light sprinkling of snow coming down onto the hellish terrain.

There was no pursuit as far as I could tell, but my Danger Sense continued to simmer slightly. It had gone down to almost nothing, but was still there. Once the sky grew dark, I cut out a cave into a cliff face and had Ozy make some small adjustments.

“Just cold food tonight. I want to avoid using too much Mana to avoid attracting attention,” I said to Boris.

“I am hungry. That was a lot of running,” he said. I got out the salted meat and hard bread. Not the best rations, but what adventurers would normally eat inside the dungeon. My Danger Sense wasn’t going up but it still refused to go down.

The next day we had another cold breakfast and set off at a fast walk. I didn’t have endless stamina potions. Since there was no pursuit the first day I was hopeful that we would be able to get away.

My real concern was the timing. It was always going to be tight with the distances that needed to be covered. Right now it was about 500 kilometers to get back to the sword. I had seen the general distances back when Whiteclaw had shown me a basic map of the current settlements and major terrain features. Then 780 kilometers to the forge to destroy the blade. And if we had to use the dungeon entrance in that ruined city, that would be around another 1,000 kilometers if there wasn’t another dungeon entrance nearby.

And all of that was over miserable terrain. The dark season of this continent was the absolute worst. It would take at least a month, probably two at our current pace. While I wanted Boris to move faster, I knew the case was incredibly heavy.

That would put us right at the start of the dark season. Initially I had thought that traveling through the dungeon might have put us closer to the end of the dark season once we ascended. Unfortunately, we had been too quick traversing the dungeon.

It appeared I would be spending another winter at the beastkin settlement, probably back in the abandoned Fox Clan settlement. It was frustrating to have to spend so much time on destroying the blade, but I knew all the preparations were incredibly important.

If I didn’t have the case, the sword would act like a beacon for every demon out there. I also had no doubt that the forge where I was supposed to take this blade to and destroy it would be a death trap.

Originally I had thought I could sneak it in myself, but surprisingly Boris was incredibly capable and necessary. A shame that I wouldn’t have any use for him after I got rid of that sword.

Thinking about the timeline a bit more, two years was ambitious. Without issues we were looking at a total time of a year and a half. I wasn’t looking forward to covering such vast distances across this frozen wasteland, but there was no other option.

Hmm, thinking back to when I first picked up the sword, Seraphim Quest had pointed in another direction in the dungeon from the exit passage I had taken. Hopefully that meant we could avoid a long trek to another dungeon entrance. That gave me some hope.

There was nothing else to do as we walked through the wasteland of the beastkin continent besides think and plan how to save time. While I had a long life ahead of me, I didn’t want to be wasting time pointlessly. While my preparations felt a bit excessive, I just had a gut feeling this Seraphim assigned mission would be absolutely miserable. One doesn’t get an amazing Tier 3 skill for something that would be easy.

Today I had us ascend a mountain to get a clear view behind us and to check for any kind of pursuit. Once we reached the top, despite being daytime, the wind really bit into my custom cloth winter clothing. Looking back where we had come from, I didn’t see anyone or anything moving. I had checked regularly, but my Danger Sense still hadn’t dropped to a base level of nothing, that I had felt before on this continent.

I knew there were tracking skills, but once we got a three day lead, I didn’t expect any kind of pursuit. The trail would be too cold and we would be too far gone. Also we had only put one guard to sleep and damaged one door. That kind of crime wasn’t enough for an extended pursuit by either side in the middle of a conflict.

The demons might have pursued us, but they were clearly committed to sieging the wolfkin settlement. Breaking off such a siege, would mean ending the pressure they had been putting on the Wolf Clan.

Sieges rarely happened, but they did occur. Normally it was when one side that had a mobility advantage wanted to wear down another side. Walls and other static defenses were of limited use against a legend. Cities primarily built them to handle lesser conflicts and manage the people entering and leaving to tax them.

Against a legend with Tier 5 skills, walls were a joke. One good spell skill and they would shatter. Magical defenses could be built into them, but passive defenses were too expensive. That was why peace on the Eldarin continent required certain conduct from legends. Once they started fighting the entire place had turned into a mess. At least it hadn’t devolved to the disaster that was this continent. The constant cloud cover, messed up dungeon, and demons.

It was tempting to go into the dungeon and try to get to this forge during the dark season, but that would be a mistake. Dungeon entrances were known chokepoints. And this was something that demons knew. If the forge had nothing guarding it or the dungeon entrance, I would feel incredibly stupid, but I would rather be safe than put in a precarious situation.

That was the key to being successful as an adventurer, risk management. Too little risk and one would progress too slowly. Too much risk and one would die horribly. That careful balancing act was the real challenge and something I felt good at managing.

Looking at the cloudy sky as we trudged along I wanted a weather skill to get some sunlight. I had been spoiled traveling across the Eldarin continent on the backroads. Green, sunlight, and paying farmers to stay at their homes for the night. It had a certain charm to it.

The beastkin continent was absolutely miserable. Once I got rid of Seraphim Quest, I planned to never return to this place. It was just too miserable and even more mind numbing than the dungeon. At least in the dungeon I had to focus on monsters and changes in the caverns.

Out here there were clouds, snow, ice, rocks, and cold. Lots and lots of cold. At least I should get Cold Immunity by the time I finally left this place. Cold Absorption would take too much time, and I was in no hurry to get more Tier 5 skills.

The second night Boris did exercises in his little corner of our makeshift cave while I read next to a heavily breathing large man. It was tempting to ask him to stop, but the man never complained and didn’t ask questions. If I asked him to stop working out every evening we might have problems. I would just have to put up with him.

If anything his nightly workouts would push me to level up certain skills more quickly by requiring that I concentrate on what I was studying. Now there was a use for teammates, distractions while I was trying to improve skills.

Even when I set a slightly faster pace, he would do his exercises every night until it was time to sleep. The man was truly a relentless body training machine.

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