Chapter 70 - Trouble In The Distance

"... Hello, young man," the village chief said once Zaos and Elius knocked on his door. "My name is Edrius, and I am the chief of the Cedres village."

"My name is Zaos, sir," Zaos said and then smiled. "It is good to meet you."

Edrius was a man in his late sixties. Although all his hair had turned grey, he didn't lose many of them. Instead, he had long white hair that went up to the middle of his back. Weirdly enough, Zaos noticed that he was wearing something on his shoulder that looked pretty fluffy aside from his normal clothes. Thanks to it, Zaos couldn't help but stare at that.

"It has been a while, chief," Elius said. "For the next six days me and those sorry excuses of soldiers will guard your village. I apologize in advance if a group of bandits attack this place and kill us all."

It looked like Elius tried to crack a joke, but Edrius' smile was pretty forced, and Zaos could see some cold sweat falling through his cheeks. For some reason, it looked like the people in that village considered such a possibility. That was probably why the people were hiding in their homes.

"It looks like something happened, that or the people around heard some unsettling rumors," Elius said. "You don't need to worry chief. There is not a single reason for your village to be targeted. Besides, we have scouts in the borders that will prevent problems from happening."

"... Right," Edrius forced another smile. "Well then, if you need something you can always come and talk to me."

"You can relax, chief," Elius said. "I won't bother you more than I need to."

After that, Zaos and Elius headed toward the military post. Still, they noticed that despite the fact that Zaos's squad was moving around the village in a pretty calm manner, the villagers didn't leave their homes.

"Sir, commander Ruvyn said that this village never got attacked, so why are the people here so scared?" Zaos asked.

"That is something that happens now and then when any place in this region is attacked," Elius replied. "After a few days, life returns to usual when the problem is solved."

"So… the problem hasn't been solved?" Zaos asked. "I thought the commander left to deal with it and took several days for him to return because he was hunting some criminals."

"… I am starting to get annoyed by your questions," Elius said.

Just as Zaos had expected, the military post only had ten beds. It will be a pain for his squad, but since he already had divided them into groups, they won't have to rest at the same time. Aside from the beds, there were only a few tables, chairs, and tools that could be used by them to clean and repair their gear. As for the watchtower, it couldn't give much vision of the area to Zaos. The only area that could be seen in detail was North. Still, the nearby mountains prevented him from seeing anything more than five kilometers away. On the other side, trees were blocking the vision.

"I guess they only cleaned the north because that is the direction the enemies are supposed to come," Zaos thought. "In any case, this is village is supposed to one which relies on chopping tress and gathering wood for a trade, but it looks like this place has been created only a few years ago… since the number of trees around still is high."

After a while, Zaos gave the sign for his squadmates to come and unpack their things, but he had no idea what he should do in the end. It looked like the bandits who attacked another village hadn't been captured. Since Zaos didn't know the details about the situation in the region, he couldn't come up with a decent strategy. So count with Elius was also a waste of time.

"What are you going to do, sir?" Zaos asked.

"I am going to make sure that you won't do anything stupid," Elius replied.

"I don't think there is much for us to do for the time being," Zaos said. "So, I would like to train some members of my squad in how to use a bow while others will move around the village making sure that nothing is out of place. Can you go with the first group, sir?"

"Are you giving me orders, rookie?" Elius furrowed his eyebrows.

"No, sir," Zaos replied. "I am asking that because we have no idea how to do that kind of job yet."

In the end, Elius decided to do that, since it made sense. He could only be so uncooperative, after all. Zaos divided the five groups into three and then made eight of his squad members leave with Elius. Meanwhile, the others and Zaos moved away from the military post. They found a group of trees close to each other to finally begin learning some archery. As one would expect, they had a lot of trouble pulling the string and aiming. While the kids had some strength in their arms, the muscles in their backs were somewhat lacking… that was something only continuous practice could solve.

Zaos also practiced his archery while he was instructing his squad. Still, even though he had a fair number of arrows over the last two years, his accuracy was average with a bigger bow. He also would need to train hard…

Along the day, Zaos's squad change positions several times. Some trained with bows, while others moved around the village, making sure that nothing weird or suspect was around. The afternoon of the first day, the village people began to relax and leave their houses since the kids were pretty diligent in their work. That passed the feeling of safety for the villagers. For the next three days, nothing noteworthy happened. Still, then on the fourth, the villagers shut themselves in their homes again when they saw some thick clouds of smoke rising from several points nearby the mountains.