Chapter 313 - Mentor

While Zaos was allocating his soldiers, he ended up meeting a bunch of soldiers he fought side by side years ago. Eventually, he even found Elius.

"Look who showed up," Elius said.

"It has been a while, Captain," Zaos said and then offered a handshake. "It seems you have been doing well, despite the fact that a big ass is giving the orders around these parts now."

"Well, it can't be helped," Elius said and then accepted the handshake. "We are good at defending, but not attacking. Anyway, thanks for coming to help. Now I can finally procrastinate back in the base."

"Hey, Captain… what do you think about this whole mission as a whole?" Zaos asked.

"It has its ups and downs. Staying here in the cold for so long is one hell of a down," Elius said. "However, killing those bastards and then and then contribute to the peace of the kingdom more than makes up for it, right? Defeating this kind of enemies really boosts the confidence of our soldiers, so we take down many birds with one stone."

"I suppose so," Zaos said.

Elius seemed exhausted, despite that, when he replied to Zaos's question, he suddenly looked livelier. That didn't make any sense. Why would talking about fighting make someone who stayed in the cold mountains look so lively for so long? There was no mistaking it. Elius was following the same logic as everyone else…

After the new group took the place of the older one, Elius marched toward the base, and Zaos continued on his task of positioning his soldiers in specific locations. Another weird thing that he noticed was that he didn't find any suspicious prisoners since it was basically the only thing everyone had to do.

After one week, Zaos returned to Vitalar's camp, but apparently, he didn't have anything to do. He only ordered for him to return for the sake of convenience. Zaos waited patiently for something to do after he set his own tent. Since he had a lot of free time, he realized that the people around Vitalar didn't look like soldiers, and there were no signs of prisoners whatsoever.

Things stayed like that for around three weeks, and during that time, Zaos only killed time by training his magic and his sword skills a little bit. After waiting for that much time, Vitalar finally came and talked to him.

"We didn't find any movements of them thus far, so we are going to attack and make them split," Vitalar said. "It will be easy to capture them that way afterward. Remember, don't attack to kill."

"There is a village of them nearby? Why do you want to capture them anyway?" Zaos asked.

"That is confidential," Vitalar said. "If you are that curious as to why you can ask your daddy."

Zaos frowned when he heard that. It seemed like a taunt, but at the same time, it seemed like Vitalar was telling the truth, and Laiex knew why they were capturing the followers of the demon god. Another thing that Zaos finally realized was the fact that he was finally going to attack a place instead of defending it… it wasn't essentially the same as what his enemies did many times over the years? They were going to attack a village, and it was evident that they were going to find more than just mages with battle experience.

"Let's just wait and see for the time being," Zaos thought.

Vitalar decided to take half of his men and leave the other half behind. Zaos looked around, and he confirmed once again that he was the only one who seemed able to fight, but then he changed his mind when he those people armed with rapid-fire crossbows. The bolts of those weapons also seemed a bit weird, the tip had a different color as if it was coated in poison, and the tip also had a weird shape. It had four sharping sides… as if it had been made to cause much more pain if someone tried to pull them.

"That is really nasty… but I guess it is a highly effective tool," Zaos frowned.

Zaos wouldn't use such a tool if he were to attack a place and risk hitting civilians. Still, he would gladly use them against enemies trying to threaten the peace of the kingdom. Regardless, the group had to march through the mountains for five days before they finally could find what seemed to be a very poor village. The houses were made of wood, but it seemed the people didn't refine their wood chopping techniques. The place looked pretty quiet and empty, but Zaos could feel some presence inside the forty of such huts. He looked to the side and also saw a frozen lake, and some people were fishing thereafter digging some fishing spots.

"I heard that you have experience fighting them, so your job will be protecting us," Vitalar said. "If any of us gets hit, I will give you the order for you and your unit return to the capital, and you will inform His Majesty that you failed on your mission."

Zaos almost let out a sigh. He thought that he had some resistance against unnerving people, but it seemed Zaos was wrong. He never found someone that he felt so eager to cut him down just by talking. Besides, what kind of reasonable demand was that? Any decent commander knew that it was possible to go to a battlefield and not have some losses.

In the end, Zaos only nodded. He was looking for a chance to learn more about the followers of the demon god, so that was the chance he had been waiting for. Without wasting time, Vitalar gave the order for his men to attack, and even though the fishermen were almost one hundred meters away, they hit them with pinpoint precision on their sides. They screamed in agony and then rolled on the ground. As expected, those weren't followers of the demon god who had battle experience. Zaos knew that the ones that approached the border were pretty tough. While that kind of attack would cause a lot of damage, they would resist.