212 Battlefield Ready

Pinky's sudden appearance took all of us by surprise… Yeah, who else would say something like that…

Rumors started to spread around with the presence of the white rat… Our main ally in this war, who was the rat? If it was the one that talked, and so on.

"…Who is the snake goddess?"

I heard someone asking at the guy next to him in a whisper.

"What are you talking about?"

His friend was completely clueless about the sudden topic.

"You didn't hear it?"

I noticed that not everyone heard what pinky said. He wasn't as strong as Dante, so it was impossible for him to reach everyone here.

I decided to interrupt them before they get too sidetracked… Pinky's appearance meant that he probably found the Alpha Cow… It was time for the counterattack to begin.

"That's the spirit! Pick up your weapons and get ready. We are leaving soon!"

"Yeah!!!"

The groups disbanded leaving behind Blake, Leon, and Milo looking at the rat with curiosity. A white rat surrounded by another dozen rats, all with their fists pointing at the sky, were standing on their back feet squeaking… I think it's their way of cheering.

"Did you find it?"

'Yeah… She is so big that she is trapped inside a barn…'

"…"

"What?"

'She is trapped inside a barn, she grew up suddenly and was inside when it happened… She can't leave that place.'

I scratched the back of my head… There was a moment in which I had doubts about what I just heard, but then I thought… Does Pinky even know the concept of joking? Most of the stuff that he says sounds fun and weird, but he believes everything he says.

'*ki ki ki ki ki*… I'm joking, she can move freely, but her subjects bring food for her, so she rarely leaves the barn anyway. I'm rallying my troops from all the city for this crusade… Only the virgin priestess of the Snake goddess sanctuary and their guards are going to stay behind.'

My face was blank…

I felt overloaded with the information I just got… First, this rat could joke… I wondered if all that what he said about a harem was his way of laughing at us too…

And what is that about the virgin priestess??

I'm so confused right now…

Luckily, I'm not the only one that fell for the joke… I could see the confusion on Blake's, and the other's faces…

"Pinky, this a holy crusade in the name of the Snake Goddess, how can you joke at this moment."

'I'm sorry, Great Hero… But I saw that everyone here was too tense. I thought that it would be good for the morale to tell a little joke to help us relax… As I mentioned, most of my troops are ready, and some of them are already on their way.'

"Good, we will catch up to your troops in the east edge of the city, you can go ahead to see the situation and wait for us there, we will march together from that point."

'No problems, I'll see you later… May I ask the current condition of the Snake Goddess?'

"She is fine, as I explained she was healed and is out of any kind of danger, Cai-Cai is resting right now. After all of this is over, I'll ask her to visit your domain, so you can see it with your own eyes."

'I wouldn't dare to ask for that, Hero. It is enough for us to know that she is okay. I'll see you on the battlefield.'

He turned around and started to run towards the east followed by those rats.

I wish I could take a picture of their faces right now…

So many questions on their heads… Leon had talked with him before for the traps placing and noticed the peculiarities on his personality, but now those were fully displayed for him to see. Blake was the fist that managed to open his mouth…

"What was that?"

"Our main ally, Pinky…"

"I know that but what was with that conversation… Can we trust him?"

"He is a little weird, but there are no problems… Just follow his game, and you will get what he says…"

"What was that about a goddess?"

"… Rat's mythology, Cai-Cai is the avatar of a Goddess… The story is too long to talk about it now, so ask him yourself later. We need to prepare and go."

He nodded knowing that there were more important things to do right now.

"Just one more question… Can we really trust him?"

I thought about it… Before the joke, I would have said yes without a doubt, but after falling for that little trick, I wasn't a hundred percent sure…

"I think we can… But think of this… How many people are here that you would blindly trust without even questioning it? It's the same for Pinky… I think we can trust him, but almost everyone on the battlefield has to fight for their own survival."

He nodded understanding my meaning… The real nature of the people appears when they are in danger… Here I know that Hayley, Hope, and Gerhard would never do something that might harm me, and it was the same from me, but there was no one else I would trust my back to.

In this situation, I'm not sure how many people could say that they have a bond like that.

I moved back to get ready and pick up G and Hope… Hayley came with me too, this was my team after all. The place where I left Hope and G was close, so it took just a minute to arrive at the place where G was stretching and yawning… Hope couldn't hold her laugh anymore when she saw it and at my side, I could hear Hayley giggling too.

G looked at the girls laughing…

"What happened? Why are you laughing…"

I smiled.

"We recalled something that Dante used to do…"

Both girls nodded in agreement to my comment as G scratched his head, completely clueless about what we were talking about. I was sure that he was awakened by all the cheering that was going on before.

"Get ready… Can you grab your hammer now?"

"Yeah, with this sun I can grab a building if I want…"

I knew that he was just boasting… I knew his strength, and there was no way that he was able to do that, but what is the point of destroying his confidence now?

"Yeah yeah, you can throw the Alpha all the buildings you want… Pick all you need and get ready, Pinky already located the cow and is going to wait for us at the edge of the city… Hope, assemble that gun…"

None of us had too many things to take with us… Just the water and food rations… we also had our weapons of course, so after Hope finished assembling her gun, we finally joined the rest of the teams that were ready to leave.

Despite my speech, there were still some people that wanted to stay behind, even if we wanted to bring as many people as possible, we couldn't leave Green Shelter completely unprotected, so there was no harm in leaving some people behind anyway.

Johanna was left in charge, she and other people that were selected and wanted to go complained, but in the end, they understood that Green Shelter couldn't be left completely alone. Of course, the main decisions would be taken by Dr. Harting anyway.

The travel was similar to when we moved towards the Aura clinic in a small group, but it happened even faster… The hunting teams were used to run when needed, and that coupled with the fact that we found no beasts on our way, helped us to move even faster than what we expected. I think that Pinky's rats were the ones that made it possible… I don't believe that a full retreat was commanded by the cow, so it must be Pinky.

The other option is that the cow knows about the attack and already is preparing the defense.

On our way, we made few short breaks, and it took us about four hours to arrive at our destination. The sun was already up high in the sky, ready to start its descent.

But we were already in our last stop before engaging…

Or that was what I thought…

In front of us, beyond Pinky's army, we could see the farm beasts already lined up ready for a war, but my eyes fell on a giant cow that was gazing back at us…