Chapter 57 | There Be Spies

“Place that there! Yes, slightly to the right, please. Good,” Theo ordered as several abnormals placed down a massive stone block on another. They quickly huddled away from the block and let Theo do his thing.

…This feels awfully familiar. Am I going a bit overboard on building with magic?

Placing his hand on the two rocks, he interlocked their surfaces using Earthen Wall and evened out the adhesive between them. Using Earthen Wall on literal rocks drained his mana to no end, but he had to do it either way.

During the 24 hours they had left for the next wave, Theo kept at it up until the sixteenth hour mark. When they were finished, there was a cubic room in the middle of the outpost made from blackened stone blocks. Each block was more than a meter wide, making the walls incredibly durable. Even then, Theo didn’t feel like it was enough and made them build another layer of blocks around the first one. When they were done, the building had practically become a bunker.

“What is this for?” One of the abnormals asked. Theo smiled wryly.

“You will see,” he said enigmatically. The abnormals could only nod and go back to their own jobs. Some scouts from a nearby knight company had arrived to take away the captured bandits. There were the remnants of the other knight companies that had been defeated recently that came to them for aid. They didn’t hesitate to accept them, as more manpower was always a bonus.

Seeing that there were a little over seven hours left for the next wave, Theo went to sleep. Thanks to his heightened vitality, his sleeps were shorter than the normal person. He woke up revitalized four hours later and got to the second part of his work. He had asked Satou to get some alchemy equipment from a nearby settlement.

The Assassin came back, pulling a cart. It was loaded with all the equipment Theo could ask for. He didn’t hesitate and started brewing, many of the other main characters looking at the process in surprise. Theo smiled wryly as he kept to his work. Before long, there were several barrels of different concoctions.

Satou was standing to his side, watching him work.

“What are these? What are they for?” He finally asked as Theo diluted another paste in the barrel. After making sure it was mixed, he put the lid on and placed it aside. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Theo smiled.

“These? They are our ticket to beating the master-rate.”

“How?”

“I will explain. But first…” Theo looked around and spotted one of the abnormals. He gestured for him to come over. The abnormal stepped forward and nodded in greeting.

“Can you let everyone know that there are valuable potions in the bunker we built and that no harm must come to them?” He asked with a slight smile.

“…Alright?” The abnormal said with a raised brow and left to spread the news.

“…You noticed it too?” Satou asked. Naturally, Theo knew what he was talking about.

“I did. We have worked with knights extensively before. I am familiar with their demeanor,” Theo said. They had been accepting knights who needed aid for a while, and doing so without much care. He had noticed it in how they acted. Some of them weren’t knights at all.

“They must have disguised themselves to gather intel,” Satou commented. “What are you baiting them into?”

“Those barrels aren’t potions,” Theo smiled. “They are our little surprise for the enemy leader…”

Having felt that something was going wrong, Hadavy had slipped away as the battle started and defected to another gang. He had never liked Enicht’s lack of foresight. If there was a bandit leader who knew how to wager their bets better…

Either way, the moment he had joined one of the nearby gangs, he had been tasked with acting as a knight in need and scouting the enemy encampment. It seemed the allied forces really needed this trade route to be taken over to collapse the enemy front lines.

After donning the armor from a dead knight, he had made his way to the outpost and stumbled his way up to their gate.

How did they manage to build this thing in a single day? It wasn’t there… Do they have a mage or something?

“Halt!” A short man from atop one of the guard towers shouted. “State your allegiance and purpose.”

“I am Haster from The Rose Company. My brethren were killed, and only I managed to walk away with my life,” Hadavy responded. The short man talked to a man beyond the walls before letting him in.

Huh… Is that it? That was easy… He thought to himself. Stepping past the gates, he took in the efficiency of the base.

There were all kinds of people, many of whom carried absurd weights or moved in a blur. This made him almost shiver in place. It wasn’t a surprise that Enicht and his men had fallen here.

Quickly, some of the men came over and checked on his wounds. He had given himself some semi-serious wounds on purpose as a better disguise.

“Here, drink this,” one of the men said, handing him a potion. Hadavy drank the potion and immediately felt its effects coursing through his body.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Hm?

Hadavy was a third-rate warrior. He knew that potions had less and less effect the stronger a warrior was. Although third-rates were by no means particularly powerful, they were still superhumans. Being a poor bastard, he had never drunk a potion as effective as this.

“What is up with this potion?” he asked with a coarse breath. The person who handed him the potion threw him a questioning glance before answering.

“Our new employers make them for use,” he pointed in a direction. Following his gaze, Hadavy spotted the menacing, bunker-like storage room made of massive stone blocks.

…That’s a storage room if I’ve ever seen one. These potions… Aren’t they the ones those knights used in that recent battle?