Chapter 56 | Terrified

Although the outpost should have been a make-shift one, it was pretty solid with Theo’s help and the hard work of more than a hundred main characters. Walls made of lime concrete stood tall, perfectly set in less than a day. The parapet was thick enough for three adult men to pass side by side. All in all, this was an actual fortress. Albeit just a little too small.

Theo, Satou, Long Tian, Emma, and Tatsuya were huddled around a table, inside a three-person-tall tent. This was the command center of their recently constructed outpost. There was a map laid out on the table, showing an area of a hundred kilometers around them. Satou was busy drawing circles in certain different areas as he narrated.

“There are three distinct fights happening about forty kilometers out,” he said. He tapped the pen on three different circles, approximately forty kilometers away. “Here, here, and here. I would say out of all three, there is only one first-rate, which makes it easy for us to deal with.”

“You don’t sound so sure?” Theo raised a brow. As an assassin, Satou was incredibly good at scouting. He could hide his signature really well while scouting. He was expecting him to bring concrete numbers, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“That’s where I was about to get at,” Satou shook his head. “As soon as I approached those three battles, I sensed something sinister in the distance. If I had to triangulate… Here,” he drew a new circle, slightly further away from the other three. “I’m pretty sure it’s a Master-rate warrior.”

Immediately, the atmosphere around the tent became heavy. Theo frowned. Long Tian shivered. Emma crossed her arms, and Tatsuya shifted his weight from one leg to another.

“Are you sure?” Theo asked. Though his hopes about the information being wrong were low. It seemed there really was a reason behind the forces quota of the mission being so high.

To his question, Satou nodded and placed the pen down.

“The enemy’s aura signature was incredibly potent and could be felt from kilometers away. It was also full of bloodlust and madness. It didn’t feel like the type of aura a knight would have.”

“Bloodlust and madness…” Tatsuya muttered as he held his chin. Theo was starting to worry whether or not this guy would abandon the hire and flee with his men. “I think I might know who you are talking about.”

“Oh?”

“There used to be this person amidst the bandits… He was called The Eviscerator, if I remember correctly. He had disappeared after the Battle of Fracture. He was a peak first-rate at the time. He must have broken through.”

“How can you be so sure of that if you haven’t even felt the aura yourself?” Emma asked. There could be many other people with an aura that contained bloodlust and madness. Tanaka from the tower, for example. The guy was the epitome of that.

Not to mention, it had only been a couple of years since abnormals started appearing. This was consistent with everyone. Those who were reincarnated or transmigrated earlier, like Emma, had awakened their powers only when the time came.

Those who were presumably native to this world, like Long Tian, had experienced their “starting conflict” only recently. It seemed that there was a sort of starting line for the main characters. So how could Tatsuya know of The Eviscerator’s aura signature?

“It doesn’t actually have anything to do with that,” Tatsuya shook his head. “I noticed it while reading through some records and looking deeper into The Bandittide. It seems that most of the first-rate ringleaders behind this war are former captains of The Eviscerator. Considering it has been enough time for him to break through to the next stage, he is probably the one behind this war.”

“Hm…” Theo nodded along. His logic seemed reasonable enough. “So… What do we do?”

“Is there any guarantee that we will face him in battle?” Long Tian asked. He was obviously not interested in fighting a deranged master warrior.

“There is,” Theo nodded. But he didn’t explain any further.

“I think we can face him,” Tatsuya said. His willingness to continue the job surprised Theo. He must have noticed the surprise in his expression as Tatsuya explained. “Bailing on a job after accepting would be a massive hit to our credibility. Not to mention, I think we can win.”

“Hm?”

“According to Satou’s intel, the enemy entourage isn’t that strong. The Eviscerator has probably entered the Master tier recently and hasn’t had much time to accumulate enough power. We have three first-rate elites and many second-rates. That should be enough to give us an edge.”

That feels like raising a flag… Theo gritted his teeth.

“Fine. Then it’s decided,” he said. “Let’s meet up again later and discuss the best way of facing him. The Eviscerator won’t be joining the fight immediately.”

[Establish Locus time left until first wave: 0:16:12]

A man with a long, luscious beard and no hair sat in a makeshift tent.

“What do you mean there is a fucking outpost there? Didn’t we just scout it yesterday?” he asked. He was one of the first rates under The Eviscerator’s command, called Enicht. He slammed his hands on the table. Hadavy jumped in place and stepped back.

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“Y- Yes! We did. But the- but the…”

“Damn it! Shut up. Were you able to see the defenders? How strong were they?”

“I couldn’t get too close, or they would notice me,” Hadavy frowned. Enicht sighed and rubbed his temples. The war had been going steady, but Enicht’s gang wasn’t doing so well. They hadn’t been able to contribute much, only managing to take down a single knight company with the help of some other gangs.

They needed to claim some accomplishments, or he would fall from Eviscerator’s grace. And Hadavy didn’t want to think about what that entailed. The man was called Eviscerator. That was enough to guess the consequences.

“Whatever. We have to kill them either way. Recall the others. We are not chasing the knights anymore. We are attacking the outpost,” Enicht said before shooing away Hadavy.

Hadavy nodded and turned to leave, but Enicht suddenly stopped him.

“Also inform the two other nearest gangs. Just in case. If we look like we are going to lose… It’s better to succeed with others and split the merit than to fail.”

“Understood. It should take them a day or so to arrive,” Hadavy said.

“Mhm.”

As Hadavy stepped out from the tent, he looked up at the stars. Three moons hung on the sky, each one similar in size and shining in slightly different hues.

He sighed.

The battle broke out with some simple rustling. Theo and the rest were crouched behind the parapet, hidden from sight so that the enemy thought they weren’t alert.

And it was successful. The clouds were dense, and there wasn’t much light to go with. The bandits came out of the bushes, crawling, doing their best to remain hidden from sight. They were about two hundred people in total, with one first-rate, fifteen second-rates, and the rest being third-rates.

The entire outpost seemed to hold its breath for a moment, then the first attacks exploded. Satou, Emma, and Tatsuya all unleashed their own ranged aura attacks, culling more than a hundred third-rates in one shot.

Theo took the chance to utilize his new spell, Shrapnel Burst. The dirt-ball exploded into a storm of super-heated dust particles as it churned, causing the bandit’s formation to fall into disarray immediately. Only the second-rates could keep them in control.

“Ugh!”

“I can’t see!”