Enemy in the Dark of Night

The evening sun struggled to stay around. It created enough light for them to see what was ahead of them.

Kant frowned slightly.

His heart raced along with his emotions.

"This is interesting."

As he spoke, Kant's eyes looked rather cold.

There was an obvious curved line left on the flat sands north of the messy Jackalan Tribe. It winded about as it led to a dune. It extended to deeper parts of the desert.

The line was clear for all to see.

The line itself was darker than its surrounding colors, making it obvious that prolonged travel through the same route caused the sands to harden.

"The Jackalans made these with their steps."

As he commented, the Desert Bandit frowned like Kant

The Jackalans, who were still at a primitive tribal state, had no concepts of roads.

However, they had still been able to blaze a trail in the desert. It was obvious that they had reasons to do so. They had gone to-and-fro on the route throughout long periods of time, making the winding path into the most primitive of roads there were.

"Why are they heading north?" Kant was puzzled.

The Desert Bandits pondered that for a bit. One of them looked up and said with a serious expression, "Perhaps that is their daily quest."

"A daily quest?"

Kant frowned. The term sounded like something assigned by the system.

"It is like going out hunting every day."

The look on the Desert Bandit's face turned increasingly serious as he said, "I think it probably leads to the salt mine that we are looking for, which has been taken over by the Jackalans. Coarse salt is being excavated every day."

"That is speculation." Kant frowned and said, "It sounds rather ridiculous."

Jackalans were primitive tribal beings. Digging in a salt mine was not something that would have done them any good.

Salt was a type of seasoning.

At the same time, it was a commodity. Furthermore, it was considered a luxury in the dukedom.

Kant did not agree with that Desert Bandit.

To him, even if the Jackalans were to actually dig up coarse salts in the salt mine, no merchant had been purchasing the salt, even though the dukedom was so near them. The fact that there was salt in the Nahrin Desert was unheard of back in the dukedom.

Things would have been different if the nobles of the dukedom knew that there was a salt mine there.

They would have given everything they had to amass a truly elite force and kill every Jackalan found in the desert.

Kant knew well of their greed.

As such, Kant frowned and shook his head in disbelief at that Desert Bandit. He said, "There can't be any of those brutal primitive Jackalans capable of digging out huge amounts of coarse salt and selling them as goods. Can there?"

Everyone knew how ferocious Jackalans were. They were devoid of any capacity for reasoning and behaved more like beasts.

That speculation sounded like little more than a joke to Kant.

"My Lord, it is still very possible."

The Desert Bandit's expression did not change. His expression remained serious.

That severe expression made Kant frown even harder. There was no way troop classes from the system could betray him.

Kant told a deep breath and asked, "What are the reasons?"

The Desert Bandit immediately replied, "It's simple, My Lord. Look over there at the urn the Jackalans drink from. If anything, you should be familiar with that urn."

"Yeah." Kant narrowed his eyes and peered. He slightly nodded.

Even though it was quite a distance away, he was still able to tell apart the urn used by the Jackalans for drinking.

The black exterior looked severely worn. It was as if it had been left in the desert for a very long time. The mouth of the urn looked broken. It made it so that it was little more than trash to the Dukedom of Leo, which produced massive amounts of clay. Not even commoners would have bothered picking such a thing up.

"If you look closely at the urn, you'll find that they are many in the tribe."

The Desert Bandit's tone grew increasingly serious as he said, "There are always a lot of urns around the messy tents. I don't think the Jackalans are using the urns to carry water or anything else."

Kant's eyes remained fixed. He stayed silent.

He stared at the large Jackalan Tribe and found himself getting restless.

"So, is this true?" Kant slowly asked.

It was as if he was asking about the truthfulness of the case, despite knowing deep down that what the Desert Bandit said was true.

"It is." The Desert Bandit nodded.

He told Kant, "The Jackalans at the Oasis Lookout are related to this place somehow!"

His tone was confident.

"Well." Kant's face looked rather bitter. He nodded and said, "It does look like that."

He was able to tell from the ambush that night.

Those Jackalans were reinforcements gathered from that huge tribe.

If the two tribes were unrelated, they would not have been Jackalans from that huge tribe forming an army heading for the Oasis Lookout to begin with.

Kant slightly closed his eyes.

He began to lower his head and think. Thoughts sped in his mind at very high speeds.

Things looked increasingly worse for him.

In his perspective, things had just taken a turn for the worse. It was serious enough that development of the Oasis Lookout and establishing a true Drondheim became rather uncertain.

His mind was shaken.

This was a well-developed Jackalan Tribe.

A salt mine had been taken over by a huge Jackalan Tribe.

All of that made Kant lose his way. He was puzzled as to what to do next.

All he had was a small village with a population of little more than 60. There was no way they could resist the Jackalan Tribe.

Trying to do so was like having a death wish.

"Well, what should we do now?"

Kant opened his eyes and bitterly smirked.

The Desert Bandits were all silent. They had no answer to that question posed by Kant, their lord.

Their forces were simply too small.

Kant nodded slightly. He looked grim as he said, "We should take this seriously. If we don't want to die horrible deaths in the Nahrin Desert, we need to absolutely prepare for this."

He had not come to the Nahrin Desert to die.

Kant clenched his fists a little and reasserted himself.

"Let's go. We'll circle around and have a look over there."

Kant turned around and told the Desert Bandits, "I at least want to know if that place holds a true salt mine."

"Understood." The Desert Bandits nodded.

While the Jackalan population was massive, that ambush in the night did not kill Kant's forces right where they stood. More than 100 bodies were left behind as they left the Oasis Lookout battered and bruised. They had even left enough tracks for his cavalry units to trace them.

As he thought deeper, Kant was able to come to a realization. The Jackalans were not all that powerful in terms of combat capacity.

While they were ferocious and of hardier constitutions than normal humans, they lacked excellent strategies and tactics, as well as effective weapons for killing enemies. They also lacked armor capable of protecting their bodies.

Swadian Peasants, who were all zero-level troop classes, were good enough to take them on.

A band of first- and second-level troop classes would have been able to practically slaughter Jackalans of the same number.

There was no reason for Kant to be afraid.

"Let's go."

He gently kicked the stomach of his horse and rode swiftly across the dune.

The six Desert Bandits flicked their reins and followed right behind their lord, riding just as swiftly.

I'll finish the System quest and get myself troop classes up to higher levels.

Kant reaffirmed his resolve deep down.

He was certain that if he were to have 100 fully armed Swadian Knights, which were known to be the king of troop classes on land from the system, he would be able to ride straight into such a huge Jackalan Tribe.

Despite the odds, he was sure that they would come out on top.

They followed the trail left by the Jackalans on the sand. They moved quickly.

The light of the evening was finally gone.

A bright moon and dazzling stars were seen in the sky.

The temperature throughout the arid air began to drop sharply, making Kant and the Desert Bandits, who were riding forward on their horses, feel a chill.

They put on the woolen clothing they had brought with them and continued riding forward.

At times, beginning a journey in the night was the right thing to do, compared to the unforgiving heat of the day and the resulting massive consumption of water. One only needed to keep warm during the night.

Kant and the others had only decided to continue riding in the night due to such reasons in the first place.

Time gradually passed.

The moon was high in the sky. The bright, round celestial entity glowed with an alluring silver radiance.

It grew increasingly cold in the night. It made Kant's face felt rather stiff.

"Everyone."

He opened his mouth and breathed warm air, yet he pulled back the reins of his steed. He raised his right arm at the same time and said, "Stop riding."

The six Desert Bandits behind him immediately got off their desert horses.

"My Lord, what is happening?"

Mist was coming out of their mouths. The heat from their bodies formed a stark contrast with the surrounding temperature.

However, they quickly discovered why Kant told them to stop riding. They extended their stiff arms one after another. They reached for the spears they had strapped onto their backs. All of them looked serious.

The enemy was coming.