Sabburg, The Town of Entrance

Three days later, two hundred knights lined up in front of the barrack. In terms of quality, the knights of Aeglen are second after the royal knights. Having a rich employer means receiving better treatment. Unarguably, their salary, living space, uniform, weapon and armour are all provided by the Aeglen.

Such rare kindness from noble has made the knights of Aeglen swear their unwavering loyalty to the viscount family.

Today, unlike any other day, they're currently wearing a formal light blue uniform together with full armour on top of it. Lucky for them, the weather today is cloudy. In addition, the wind blew by helping reduce the morning heat.

Considering they are conducting an operation in the dense forest, the uniform worn by the knights isn't suitable at all. Everyone including the business-oriented noble like Viscount knows about this fact.

Like it or not, they have to wear it for the entirety of the mission. Unless they want to die, feel free to take it off.

In a way, wearing full armour to capture mere dunirrs is not an exaggeration by any means. Because dunirrs is such a small creature, they opt for poison as a main weapon when dealing with the knights. Often, the poison would be injected unnoticed.

Lostin Forest is a place with dense vegetation where their sights frequently get obstructed. To make things worse, with the noise animals made and the uneven terrain to walk on, the knights had to exert their utmost sense to look out for the enemies. In return, they experience extreme pressure during the mission.

Their minds would be too preoccupied and their bodies would be too sore to notice a small pain inflicted on them. As a result, two or three unlucky people got poisoned and died.

"Hopefully, this mission would not take too much time." said one of them.

His friend reminds him, "You should hope that you're not the unlucky person instead. Never did commoners like us survive after being poisoned by dunirrs. Nobles would surely not want to waste high grade healing potion to us."

Randal walks up to the front. As usual, he becomes a person in charge. He is responsible for giving instructions to these knights. "Alright, listen up. You're going to be separated into twenty teams with ten people in a group. Then..."

He dragged out the blackboard with an enlarged version of the map stuck on it and used a stick as a pointer.

A red line was drawn earlier to let the knights grasp the path they would take to enter the forest. He explains in great detail how they should move and in which direction they should proceed.

"Did you guys understand the plan? Do you have any questions?" Randal looks at the knights. He finished his explanation rather quickly.

Since every single one of them isn't an idiot, he assumes they would catch the overall idea of this mission. After all, the plan he concocts is not that complicated.

"Yeah, I mean Sir...I have a question."

"Go on..."

"This plan was made with the assumption that the mission only lasts for one day. What happens if in the event things go south and the mission prolongs? We may end up stranded in Lostin for an extra couple of days."

The voices of knights whispering with each other gradually filled the area. Worries appear on their face. The risk of getting attacked at night is far higher than during the day.

Bang—

Bang—

Bang—

He tapped the blackboard. "Alright, alright, alright. Stop talking and listen up. I understand your worries. However, we won't catch every single one of them. We would not have to spend time in the forest. Once dusk arrives, we move out. Moreover..."

Randal raised his right hand. His hand starts glowing. A small and perfect sphere shape of fire forms in his palm.

Orb of fire.

The name of the spell the knight commander just used. It is a baseball size sphere made out of the fire. A basic spell that anyone who wishes to join the knights of Aeglen needs to learn. Evoking this spell is a part of the tests conducted in the recruitment process.

"Can't we do this and use it as a source of light? I don't see what's the problem. When push comes to shove, we just obliterate everything that stands in our way." Randal coldly said.

To be completely honest, Viscount Andrei doesn't give Randal enough money for this expedition. He had diverted a large portion of Aeglen's monthly budget into preparing Aleksandra's dress, jewellery and gifts for founding day.

As such, expensive items like the healing portion are out of the question. Only beef jerky and miscellaneous provisions were prepared. With a lack of money, he changes the mission objective to 'capturing as many dunirrs' rather than 'capturing all'.

The knights shut their mouths and keep their heads down. Being gazed at by the angry commander is not a pleasant moment. Definitely is not a good way to start a new day either.

The fault lies on their side. To let one worry cloud their mind is a shame for a knight.

Since his subordinate suddenly became mute, Randal did not wish to linger on this topic any further. "If you guys had no questions, let's move."

....

An hour later, a total of two hundred knights arrived at Sabburg. A town with ten thousand people.

It is located at the entrance of Lostin Forest and upstream of Zheqas River, 45 kilometres to the east of Aeglendera City. This town symbolizes the first step humans take in an attempt to explore and conquer the forest. Unfortunately, they stumble before having a chance to take a second step.

Now, Sabburg was ruled by a baron family. They practically suck up to Aeglen at every chance they get. He meets with one of the baron's daughters at a tea party three days ago.

"Let's see..." Randal gazes upward at the sky above. Noon is still a long way off.

And currently, the weather is not too hot and not too cold.

Perfect.

He turns to his subordinates, "As I planned, we'll leave the horse here and take a boat to Point 1 and Point 2. Then, we'll move on foot separately. The baron will take care of the horses and provide boats for us. Everyone gathers in their predetermined group now. Each group takes their supplies, no one gets more and no one gets less. I'll give you time to assort your stuff."

Seven minutes later,

Randal asked again, "Did you guys finish checking your supplies and an outline of the mission?"

"Yes, sir. We got everything needed." The leader of Team 1 spoke.

"We too..." Team 2 added.

Randal nodded after confirming all teams had their portion of supplies.

"Good...Let's move into the forest."