92 A rushed meeting

The Lieutenant that had arrived before Captain Stoutmantle and Jay was taller than the average woman. She looked to be in her thirties and was a brown haired natural beauty.

The light armor and the two slim swords dangling on the girdle around her mature hips hinted Jay to her fighting style.

He still analyzed her as she was giving her report to her Captain.

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Lt. Fiona (Duelist LVL 16)

Base LVL 30

*Arathi*

HP 1384/1384 * Mana 176/176

[Sword LVL 4]

[Dagger LVL 2]

[Dual Wield LVL 3]

[Commanding LVL 2]

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Like he had anticipated, she was the agile type of a fighter and it was the first time Jay saw the skill like [Dual Wield].

Unsure of how it would function, Jay was pulled out of his thoughts as the woman herself looked towards him with visible annoyance.

Thinking about whether it was due to him analyzing her and her noticing, or because he was going to travel with them, the Lieutenant herself clarified it in the next second.

"Don't you think it's unfriendly to inspect someone so openly, you meet for the first time? At least you could have waited until after our introduction…" F.

"Please excuse my blunder. I was just to baffled by your presence and my curiosity got the better of me.

My name is Jay, it's a pleasure to meet such a young and skilled Lieutenant." J.

"It's all right if you're sorry. I am Lieutenant Fiona, pleased to meet you.

You're quite the smooth talker, ain't you?" F.

"Just speaking the truth…" J.

"How about the two of you get acquainted better on your way?

Time is still pressing!" G.S.

"Yes Sir!" F.

"Yes, sorry…" J.

"My Lieutenant will fill you in on your trip. Please listen to her command while working with the unit.

You as well Fiona, take his hints to heart as he already proved them to be valuable." G.S.

With this they said their goodbyes and left the garrison. The unit following them was marching on foot, as well as the woman next to Jay.

She pulled her horse on the reins on their way to the northern gate while she explained to him that the unit was set together to be fast traveling and she hoped he wouldn't slow them down.

Finally out of the City, Jay learned what she meant. Fiona saddled up and the whole unit went into a light jog to keep up to her pace. Jay though summoned his horse and saddled up as well, riding besides Fiona after he caught up to her.

Though it was only a slight jog for the unit, with them all being at or over level 20, their speed was easy enough to keep up with the horses trot.

As they followed the path where the survivors from the raid came from, Sentinel was out of sight in no time.

"You know, I already asked Stoutmantle about it, but don't you think there are a bit too few soldiers in this region?" J.

"What did the Captain answer you?" F.

"He said that Westfield is a pretty big region, so the impression of it being not that many soldiers may arise but there aren't that few. They are just spread wide all over the lands…" J.

"Yeah, sounds like him… The truth is, we really are not enough men. Through the conflict in the south, a lot of men got recruited to go there with the royal army. With this, most of the troupes once stationed here are securing the border." F.

"But the royal army in Arathor should have enough men to support the border if it really had progressed that far." J.

"I guess they think securing the Capital comes first… It's the last defense after all." F.

"This still doesn't make sense…" J.

Discussing the distribution of military resources for a while longer just to find out they both thought similar about it, their talk soon got interrupted.

A batch of bandits had come rushing from the east, just as Fiona and Jay were riding a bit further than the group and over a hill to look for a place to rest.

It looked quite funny to the two when the unit appeared over the hilltop behind them and the bandits turned tail. Not that it did help them in any way, as Jay took out his bow and galloped after them.

Fiona followed in the blink of an eye and the moment they got a little closer, Jay opened fire and the bandits tried to defend each other. The moment they noticed only the two mounted soldiers were attacking them, their hopes went up, but only until two of them died to a bunch of arrows plunging out of vital spots all over their bodies.

The next moment two other bandits fell as the Lieutenant passed them. She had sliced along their necks and, though both didn't die instantly, completely incapacitated them.

An arrow trough one eye for each ended their misery.

Going on like that, the seven bandits died long before the soldiers unit reached them. The only one who survived was the groups leader, a beardy and bald, slightly aged man. Fiona asked him where they came from but got no reply.

Even as Jay stabbed his dagger slowly inside his left shoulder, he kept his mouth shut.

Trying some other questions and getting the same result, the bandit died without saying anything.

The Lieutenant sliced his throat and left him lying next to the street.

Back on their horses, Jay questioned Fiona about her background a bit as he got a little interested in the calm and straight forward woman.

She replied without thinking about it too much and even told about her past.

Apparently she had been born and raised in the highlands, a wide and grassy region right beneath the mountain range in the north. The private army of the ruling lords had scouted her at a young age, but as her family hadn't been that fond of them, Fiona went to the Royal Army.

Back then was where she met Stoutmantle as a drill sergeant and instructor.

She hadn't been back to that region very often, but her family still lived there and helped rebuilding the towns that got destroyed in the war. Even until now they hadn't been reconstructed completely though the region itself was flourishing like no other else.

The personal interest was mutual as Fiona asked about his background as well.

Jay kept true to himself and told about his lost memories and what he did from then on. Of course his escapades, skills and the thing about coming from another world was not mentioned.

The Lieutenant seemed to not completely believe his story but got more attentive as he mentioned the two women who took care of him.

Only after inquiring if the Alexis he mentioned had been that Alexis, the Hero that fought in the region she was raised in, did the adventures he experienced afterwards sound plausible to her.

Keeping up the conversation with light talk in a friendly atmosphere, Jay soon asked a question that had Fiona's expression darken. It was the one why another Lieutenant got send towards the battle with the bandits.

He really hadn't understood that one as, though Fiona seemed very skilled, another capable man was already there.

The answer he got made sense to him though.

Since the contact got aborted and none of the survivors reported something else, Stoutmantle had expected the previous Lieutenant had deceased.

Changing the topic to the regions lords army and learning they are few but good equipped and capable fighters, the talk got lighter again. Jay and Fiona interrupted their talk only when Fiona noticed the unit slowing down.

It was time for them to have a break or they might arrive at Alexton's farm completely exhausted.

Their break only took twenty minutes in total, but it had been enough for Jay to check on his status and progress. Depending on the battle to come, he was expecting to max out his new Job.

As it was only tier one and he was battling with opponents of level 15 and up, the experience he gained would be plenty. He had already reached level 5 from his fight with the bandits and his nightly activities, though for latter he wasn't sure how much they contributed to it.

Five miles after their short rest, the unit had their second encounter on their trip. It was a small horde of Gnolls that rushed towards them from the south.

Though the soldiers took them down with ease under the Lieutenants command and Jay's cover fire, it still had his workload rise.

If the humanoid monsters attacked a unit this big in the middle of the day, something must be up in the south.

And as Jay was guessing, it was one of those totems again.

The whole trip through the lands from Sentinel to the occupied farm took only slightly over six hours, even with another break after the fight with the Gnolls and slowing down considerably as they closed in on the farm. The unit really had traveled fast for a group on feet and with full equipment, considering the distance was over 30 miles, what Jay had calculated.

Passing the last hill and getting a good view on the farm, Fiona and Jay halted the unit. What they saw was not something they had expected.

Bandits normally work unorganized and with whatever they have at their disposal, but the farm they saw had been fortified.

The L shaped main building and the adjoining barn were completely closed off from what jay saw with [Far Sight]. Between said buildings and the opposite stables lay a wide yard, but it was barricaded by haystacks and two thrown over carriages.

Even the two high silos in the back had guards on the ground and lookouts on top.

It would be a good piece of work to reach the vicinity and even more to get inside one of the buildings.

Looking around some more, Jay with his skill and the Lieutenant with some kind of field glasses, they soon spotted a small batch of what looked like soldiers. They had horded together behind a wagon near a rock formation, over two-hundred yards north of the farm.

Between them and the farm, about thirty corpses lay on the grassy plains and their blood had even dyed the ground red.

Consulting about it, Jay offered to help and sneak to the unit to clarify the situation while Fiona would wait and hide the unit, searching for a way to close in without getting noticed.

Five minutes later, Jay was closing in on the tattered looking soldiers using [Hide]. To not surprise them too much, he had disabled the skill a few meters behind the camp and called them.

The first to notice him was their momentary leader, a skinny looking young man called Petters who was the groups scout.

Ranked up to Thief as Jay had learned by analyzing him, it was no wonder the man had noticed Jay closing in. Giving a sign to his comrades not to open fire, he crossed the short distance and introduced himself while asking who Jay was.

After a quick explanation behind the cover, Jay got informed that Lieutenant Danuvin really had fallen in the last battle. Petters had taken over as the highest rank after some had been sent back to sentinel for calling reinforcements.

As for the farm itself, He didn't know much more than Jay already did. The only new information was that the bandits had taken the Farmer and his family hostage, as well as two of the soldiers.

The workers had been transported away like some other men and women that had been brought over to the farm.

Back at the rescue unit and next to Fiona, Jay explained what he knew and made a proposal. His plan was to split the unit in three.

Totally against it at first, the Lieutenant at least listened to him and after thinking it through, remembering Jay's combat prowess and changing some of the unit distributions, finally agreed to the plan.

It was risky and depended on the boy and herself as main figures, as well as a scout she didn't know.

Fourty minutes later it started.

The poor group of soldiers barricaded behind their broken Vehicle rushed out of their cover. They didn't run back towards sentinel but to the back of the farms stables.

With not even ten man, they found new cover there.

The lookouts on the silos didn't ring alarm, as did the three bandits on the barns and stables roof. Even the patrol that should have been watching out there gave no notice.

They all had been occupied with bleeding out or simply getting shot down.

Jay had another scout from the unit take care of the patrol while he himself went towards the silos together with Petters.

Climbing one each under the use of hide, they killed of the lookouts simultaneous and Jay sniped the other three men on the roofs from there.

With the view from up there, he finally was sure the plan could succeed like he planned.

Looking down, Jay saw about two dozen bandits on the yard while another five or more went inside the barn an out, seemingly relaying information.

The main building was still sealed and he couldn't look inside the barn, but Petters calculation of there being more than two hundred bandits might have been right.

At least if one considered the over ten patrols and the twenty men stationed behind the barn, he had already seen about seventy bandits outside...

What followed was the risky part of the plan. Taking a long and deep breath, Jay took a step forward and readied himself.

The explosion that was audible coming from the farm alarmed Fiona to initiate her attack. She had taken a detour with five of the best men in the unit and gotten into position.

Upon hearing the explosion she stormed forward, partially disbelieving in Jay who had proposed the plan, but mostly hoping for it succeeding and the young boy being safe.

The person himself was looking around trying to get his orientation on track.

His whole body hurt and the feel in his right leg was gone, while his left hand burned like on fire. Wherever his eyes landed, he only saw body parts and debris. The whole ground he stood on was charred and two massive craters still kept smoking.

The man lying next to him didn't move any longer, and even Jay had to hurry if he didn't want to end in a similar state...