n

n

nEldrian spent some more time trying to actually use Observe. After a few good minutes of effort Eldrian quickly managed to use Observe. Having had to confirm the theory he had just understood into his practice.

nWith the first use Eldrian failed in keeping Observe active, only knowing he used it successfully due to the mana cost. With a few more minutes of focusing on keeping control over the skill, he finally managed.

nLooking up Eldrian was immediately greeted with Old Sword's statistics. Or rather with question marks.

nNPC: Old Sword

nClass: ?

nSubclass: ?

nLevel: ???

n???

nWell isn't that is really helpful. Eldrian joked with himself as he saw that he actually got no information. This was quite a bummer for him, having spent close to a week failing in using Observe. Now on his first successful use he found that it did not even give him all the information he knew. Heck, he knew that Old Sword was a Tier 7 Mageleiodis Knight. The system could not even add his known knowledge?

n

"You succeeded?

" Old Sword asked, having felt the prying of Observe on him just now. It was natural that Eldrian would fail to get any results, all things had a natural resistance to being observed.

nA higher Tier of the skill needed to be learned to observe a stronger person. The same held for Inspect, only that it had to do with inanimate objects. This rule also worked for if someone had some cloaking item, an even higher skill Tier being required to pry into their information.

nEmbarrassed that he had been caught right after casting it Eldrian awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.

"I figured out what I needed to do differently. With all the practice I had already put into, it only took a little bit to finally use Observe.

"

n

"I am glad to hear that I helped.

" Old Sword replied, having given Eldrian space once he saw Eldrian's shift in attention.

nEldrian did not directly want to dive into practice, having only been taken by the moment. He still had many questions. About the mission, the land they were traveling and what the hell was out at night.

n

"What land is this?

" Eldrian asked.

n

"What have you heard?

"

n

"A few rumors, saying that it is a cursed land that normal people should avoid. But curses don't-

" Eldrian stopped when he saw Old Sword getting ready to interrupt him.

"Curses exist?

"

n

"Of course, if magic exists. Then why can't curses.

" Old Sword answered before continuing,

"Though this answer is not really correct. This land is not cursed, rather it is the monsters which inhabit it that drain its vitality.

"

nEldrian kept quiet, waiting for Old Sword to continue.

n

"This is a characteristic of demons. Devils only feed on human emotions, but demons can feed on almost any type of energy.

" Old Sword slowly started explaining, knowing that Eldrian had almost now background knowledge.

n

"Like those, what did that guy call them?

" Eldrian asked, having forgotten both the name of the monster that had lurked in night. As well as the NPC who had brought him here.

n

"Who?

" Old Sword asked, not following who was 'that guy.' It could be anyone.

n

"The person who escorted me here.

" Eldrian clarified.

n

"Oh, Andréas. He does not talk much.

" Old Sword sighed as he said this, conflict clear in his eyes.

"But he is one of the best stealth users the entire kingdom has. He can probably even assassinate commanders if they are not expecting it.

"

nWow. That was all Eldrian could think of when hearing this. He did not have a clue just how strong Old Sword was, but he knew that Old Sword was insanely strong. Saying that this Andréas would be able to assassinate him. That astonished Eldrian.

n

"I assume what you were also trying to refer to is actually Night Terrors. Andréas likes using their demonic name, instead of what everyone calls them. He is... Weird.

" Old Sword continued, knowing that Andréas did not like it when people actually used his name. He preferred his title.

n

"Coming back to your original question, this land is a subdivision of the Chaotic lands. A small piece we had not subjugated. Either due to a really strong demon residing her, or the terrain blocking us.

"

n

"In this case, it was both. At least that is according to when Phallos was settled. We also were never forced to, since Taurus had existed where it is for far longer than Phallos had existed. In fact, I think Taurus is almost as old as Tier 1 kingdoms.

"

nEldrian had no idea what to do with this information. He had too little world knowledge to really understand what this meant. For him it implied that Taurus is really strong, it would have to be if it had stood alone.

nIt is also probably special. Eldrian thought, wondering if it was actually far stronger than its classification indicated. It was classified as a Tier 4 kingdoms only due to its position, not some concrete reason. Eldrian had also heard that it was actually a massive kingdom. Almost as large as an empire.

nThis was one of the main reasons why Phallos was having such an easy time in this monster invasion. It was almost wrapped by Taurus, while other Tier 3 kingdoms had many small Tier 4 kingdoms around their border. Meaning that if only one was lost, then there would be a direct route to them.

n

"Then are we going to have to cross through this place each time we want to go to Taurus?

" Eldrian asked, feeling that this would be really stupid. Sending reinforcements through a land of death did not make sense to him.

n

"No, we are one of the front division and our mission is to kill as many monsters as we can. We only ignore Nigh Terrors since they are really hard to find during the day. During the night they are too strong and it would cost several squads to kill one.

"

n

"What?

" Eldrian let out in shock. A squad ideally existed out of 12 soldiers in total. One veteran soldier would normally lead this squad. This meant a group of 12 NPCs, led by a Tier 3 soldier, would not be enough.

n

"That is why we are going to avoid them. The divisions behind us are responsible for setting up a bunch of small resting points. This is also why we are traveling so slow.

"

nNow that makes more sense. Eldrian finally understood why their pace had slowed down so much once they had left the border of Phallos and entered this Chaotic land. A day's travel outside of this land equaled to more than four days of travel inside. Eldrian had not really realized this before, time had gone quickly for him while he was with Flaming Heart.

nBut now, when he was monitoring their position compared to Vivian's constantly. He had quickly realized that they were basically not even moving. If he had to guess, then it would take them a week or more to reach the closest point to her.

nOne advantage of his map being hidden behind a dark mist was that Eldrian could clearly see how they had been traveling. Only the part he had set his eyes on being actually shown, the rest still being hidden behind the dark mist.

nFrom this Eldrian had found that they were traveling in a path that would lead them closer to Vivian. Only it will take some time and never really near it.

nEldrian hoped that Vivian was not in the Chaotic lands and had escaped the area completely. He could not confirm this though, not having a clue how long this land went on for.

nEldrian decided to bring this up to Old Sword, the answer he received was not quite as optimistic as his.

n

"No, she is likely still in these lands. From records and others having traveled through here before, we know that it is over a 100 kilometers long. We have only covered a little over 20 so far.

"

nEldrian was firstly downed by the denial of his hope. He was also shocked by the distance they had roughly covered. It meant they only did about 5 kilometers each day, which was really little.

n

"How do the resting points work?

" Eldrian asked after a moment of silence. Having taken it to get over the fact that they were really, really slow.

n

"It is not too difficult, they are building something similar to the castle where you joined the mission. Only on a much smaller scale. A few hundred soldiers are stationed at each outpost to protect and run it.

"

n

"This should be enough to fight any wandering monsters, though they won't stand a chance against anything larger than a large pack. But this is unlikely to hit them since we are here to kill all such packs while moving through.

"

n

"And the Nigh Terrors?

" Eldrian asked, feeling that just two of them would be able to wreck such a weakly defended outpost.

n

"They are repelled by divine magic. This is also how we defend our camp perimeter each night. A priest simply has to cast a specific spell into the fire and a Night Terror won't risk entering its light. If it does then it would be weakened similar to what they are at day. Losing more than half of their strength.

"

nThose fires are special? Was the only thing which really stuck with Eldrian. He had through the soldiers simply made the fires for heat and light. He did not know that they were in fact life-saving.

nEldrian continued to talk with Old Sword for some time, asking more about the type of monsters he was seeing while traveling. In the downtime when he had nothing else to do Eldrian would start practicing how to cast Frost Needle.

n