"I WANT TO DRINK BOOZE!!!!" Simon can't hold his urge to shout out.
"Shut it cheap guy!!" Someone can't stand Simon's Lamentation.
"I'M NOT A CHEAP GUY!!"
"You are, in Evrick's story last night."
"IT'S JUST A STORY! IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY MEAN I'M A CHEAP GUY FOR REAL!!"
"The way you complaint about the inevitable made you sound like one."
"AAAAAH I'M A CHEAP GUY, I DON'T CARE!! I'M ALREADY FREE, BUT I STILL HAVEN'T GOT TO ENJOY ANY BOOZE. IT'S REALLY DEPRESSING!!" Simon kept lamenting for half an hour until he ran out of energy. Simon behaved this way because there's not much happened since they entered Alatois Woods, and there are no signs of pursuers, which made him feel restless. The only obstructions they faced was only from a group low leveled magical beasts, or a single mid leveled ones. So the party could proceed in their journey to Alatois Woods' exit in a quick pace.
Evrick is walking on Beiruth's side at this moment when Simon's lamenting had caught their attention. Beiruth pondered for a moment before he tells Evrick, "Evrick, In 7 hours of walking, we will exit Alatois Woods. By the time we reach near the exit, I expect there to be scouts or even an ambush. I need you to go scout our path ahead later, you need to prepare yourself."
Evrick, who is the strongest and quickest among them all, naturally get to do the important task. "No, I don't think I need to scout the path. I already saw a couple of enemy scouts since an hour ago. I think they're already aware of the route we're heading to. It is assured that they would set up an ambush near the exit."
"What??? Why didn't you tell me earlier ?" Beiruth felt dumbstruct as he heard that.
"I haven't informed you of this because I'm afraid you'd feel uneasy along the journey ahead." Evrick said as he tapped Beiruth's chest twice with the back of his hand, "And you're feeling uneasy now."
Beiruth frowns. "Yes, you're right. Now I feel uneasy." Being reminded of this fact made Beiruth feel slightly unhappy. "If you won't scout the path ahead, then how are we suppose to know the position of their ambush?"
"You don't need to worry about the ambush, my eyes are quite sharp even in a bright day. I've lived in the extremely harsh environment of Dark Sanguinary Forest for six years. So, nothing can escape my eyes in a small playground such as this. Just trust me, you only need to move our people to position after I locate the enemy's ambushing positions. Also, I will take the vanguard."
"Are you sure?? We only got 35 of us, and we're facing the Marquiss' trained soldiers. Can we really face their ambush?"
"Do I really need to repeat myself? Trust me! As for now, you need to divide our people into 7 of "5 man squads", then appoint a person in each group as a leader. Next, you should explain to each leader about battle formations. So by the time we faced the ambush, you can command them to take positions according to the battle formation that suits best for the circumstances." Evrick got really annoyed and explained the basic deployment to Beiruth.
"And remember. Don't include me in any group. For I would roam the battlefield to controll the ballance. For you, it would be fine with a 4 man squad, right?" Evrick reminded Beiruth of his sole role in the battlefield.
They've been journeying for more than a week and have faced a few battles together. Yet, Beiruth still feel amazed with how good Evrick's arrangement skill is. Beiruth replied on Evrick's enquiry, "Yes, it should be fine. Then we should stop rest for a few minutes to arrange the deployments." Beiruth looked around to check upon the group and then orders them for a halt, "EVERYONE, HALT!"
Hearing the order to halt, all of them stopped in their track. "What is it Boss? A short rest?" Asked someone who stopped near Beiruth. "No. Assemble everyone! We have to make some quick deployments." Beiruth explain the reason for the halt.
After they assembled themself, Beiruth began to explain the deployment of 7 squads of five man and appoint a leader for every squads. As Beiruth is busy arranging things, Evrick sneaks away from the halting place without any sound and without alerting anyone of course. Whenever Evrick sneaks in a forest, it's almost impossible for any normal person to detect his presence, because he had been trained in such a deadly forest for 6 long years. In fact, it has become a second nature for Evrick.
After he moved about sneakily for far enough from his group while still blending in with the trees and other vegetations, Evrick suddenly stopped. He starts scanning the vicinity with his eyes for any oddity. He haven't observed for long when he suddenly smiled sinisterly.*"There they are"* Evrick rejoiced in his heart. Sure enough, through the bushes, he can see 3 scouts hiding in 3 different locations.
The reason for Evrick's sudden halt was because at this spot, he could feel 3 different presence lurking somewhere. It's the exact number of the scouts he detected the last time. As for how he could detect their presence, it was the work of his strong instinct.
Surviving in the Dark Sanguinary forest is no simple matter. One needs to push their own potential until they break their own limits just to be able to hold up for a day. Not to mention about the scattered powerful magical beasts. Death in every corner, one should over-exert their consciousness to be fully vigilant for every second. Unless they want to die. Anyone would find it difficult to even survive for a day in Dark Sanguinary forest. Yet, Evrick had lived there for 6 years, and still came out alive.
This reason alone would be enough for Evrick's powerful observation and vigilance to detect any presence in his surroundings, also his extraordinary skill of stealth inside the nature.
After pointing the exact location of the enemy's scouts, Evrick started his rendezvous again in stealth. His first target is the scout who hides the farthermost from his group's halting place.
......
*"This is strange..."* A scout from the Marquiss' army is pondering heavily.
*"They shouln't have stop here. They've only been walking for an hour. What's the reason for their sudden halt? I can't get any closer or else I'd be exposed. They can't be wanting to take a shit at the same time right? In that case, should I take a leisure time to take a shit as well? I've been holding it in since dawn!"*
The scout thought as he wiped the gushing sweat on his face and neck. It's not like the scout's brain is dead. He just can't think of any matter other than taking a shit for a few hours now. Since this guy is way too duty-bound, he hates the idea of leaving his responsibility over something trivial, Including taking a shit.
When he got really busy holding the call of nature, a shadow silently approaching behind him. The shadow suddenly moved it's hand and covered the scout's mouth and put his body into a death clutch. The scout got really startled as he quickly tries to break free but to no avail, this mysterious person's clutching technique is very firm and strong.
The poor scout cannot think of a way out and could only struggled harder to break free, but his action would only led to a fatal result. Because the sronger he struggled, the heavier the pressure are on his joints. Seeing the scout struggled even harder, the mysterious person suddenly executed his finishing moves, and a muffled clacking sounds of dislocated joints could be heard. "Mmmfff hmmmpppffff MMMPPFFHHHH!!!!!" The scout couldn't hold the pain and tried to scream loud, but too bad, his mouth is still tightly covered by the mysterious person's left hand.
Afther he dislocated the scout's shoulder joints, the mysterious person let go of his arm clutch and slits the scout's throat with a hidden dagger from the scout's waist. In the last moments of his life, the scout could feel his ass loosened and he let out everything he held in since morning. he thought to himself before his life faded out, *"Unexpectedly, This is how I'm going to die. Really shameful!!! I'M GOING TO DIE WHILE TAKING A SHIT!!!!!"* He felt instant regret of holding his urge to take a dump for so long. After inhaling the smell of the extremely smelly excrement of his, the scout finally let out his final breath.
...
After killing the first scout, Evrick let go of it's corpse. Evrick starts searching for valuables from the dead body when he suddenly smelled a really shitty smell. Evrick exclaimed in his heart, *"GOD DAMNED THIS DEAD PERSON!!! HE ACTUALLY SHITTED IN HIS PANTS AND DIED!!! HIS LIFE WAS UNBELIEVABLY MISERABLE."*
After he got aware of the fact that there are excrements in it's body, Evrick couldn't hold his disgust.So he sneaked away as he gave up on plundering the valuables from this dead person. *"This fucker already died, Yet he could still endanger people with his shit!! This damned shitty fucker !!!"* Teary eyed from the disgusting smell, Evrick curses in his heart while also sneakilly crouches toward his next target.
This time, evrick executed his assassination flawlessly without alarming the last scout. Using the dagger he got from the dead shitty scout from before, he got behind the second scout's back and moved his hands as quick as lightning to cover the victim's mouth and cut his throat. The second scout died without a fight.
This time, Evrick comoletely plundered everything valuable from the corpse, including all the leather armors which been taken off from the body and he quickly put on himself. Surprisingly, the plundered armor fits perfectly on Evrick's body. In fact this dude's body build is almost identical to Evrick's, which is totally unexpected. From the corpse, Evric found another pair of daggers with a word "LORE" engraved on it's hilt, completely identical to the shitty scout's dagger. Other than that, he also found some useful things such as a map of Lorelius Marquessate, a compass, a rope, and many others.
The most valuable things he found from the body would be a magical amulet and a prismocular. Evrick didn't know what's the amulet's use but from the cold glow emanating from it, he would know it's of high value, since a magical amulet such as this are expensive, even though he still haven't found out it's use. And for the second prismatic thing, the prismocular. This pyramid shaped thing is a treasured device for every scouts. Evrick had an extreme joy when he found this rare and advanced spying device, as this rare device could observe an object clearly from a mile away. This is clearly a must have tools for any professional spies and scouts.
Prismocular is a device invented by genius blacksmiths from the ancient Dwarven country, Kohn Lodhar. The technology to create this device was lost following after the fall of the Kingdom itself due to the First Invasion. There should be many other types of powerful ancient weapons and tools which were invented by the ancient country, but there's only a handful of them which line of productions are still exist in other countries and kingdoms, while the rest of them were burried together within the ruins of their orgins.
Evrick had once met a travelling merchant who coincidentally possessed a prismocular of the older type. Evrick intended to bought the prismocular from the travelling merchant, but he nearly died from a heart attack when he heard it's sky high price of two thousand pounds of precious ruby crystals, which equals to 5,000,000 Zebs. With Zeboire or "Zeb" as the main currency in the continent of Zebois, it is estimated that a regular family of three in Velveria can live and eat luxurious food for 50 years with just 20,000 Zebs. Which explains why 5,000,000 Zebs to be an astronomical price for a nobody like Evrick. Because of this lucky encounter, Evrick couldn't stop smiling for a while until later.
(Author's note: The main currency for the Continent of Zebois was supposed to be Zeboire. But I thought of another cool idea to make it's slang version "Zeb". It's like Dollar=Buck)
After evrick finished plundering the corpse and hid it under the bush, He was about to move on to the last target when he suddenly saw the target himself seemed to be approaching towards his current position. The thing is, Evrick got too excited over his new prismocular device that he had forgotten about the third surviving scout, so he unconsciously released his vigilance on his third target.
Seeing the sudden change of the situation, Evrick moved both his hands to grab two daggers on his waist, but his hands suddenly stopped. Why wouldn't he grab the daggers? The reason was because the last target mistook something, "Leader!! I can see those fugitives are preparing to move again. Why haven't you order us to move too? Are you sleeping again ?" This scout didn't know that his team leader had been killed, and only thought he's sleeping again. So he tried to warn him like he used to.
*"Hwahahaahaha, this guy actually used to sleep while on duty! And he's even a leader!! I just can't believe this hahahaha!!"* Evrick couldn't imagine a scout leader who'd slept and neglect his duty including his own people's fate. But unexpectedly he killed one of them himself. Also, it was highly possible that Evrick had killed him while he was napping, since the dead guy didn't even flinch while he was being assassinated. When Evrick realised of such possibility, he laughed so hard in his stomach until he got teary eyed.
By the time the scout arrived behind Evrick, he warned for the second time, "Leader! Please wake up now! The enemy's approaching. Me and Green is waiting for your command."
Evrick, couldn't wait to exploit the advantages he got now. He start to act his best and deceive the guy for some information.
"Aaaah!! You got me startled Green!!!" Evrick threw his first line, as he acted as if he is extremely surprised.
"This is Red reporting, Sir! Green is still hiding in the third layer."
"So it was you, Red! My consciousness is still fuzzy. What did you say? The enemy's preaching? What are they preaching? The end is near ?"
"Leader!! get yourself together! Those fugitives, they're preparing to move again. We should move out as well !"
"Easy Red! Take it easy!!"
"But, leader!!"
"WHO'S YOUR LEADER, RED!!??"
*cough-cough* "It's my mistake, leader! Pardon me." Red apologized while showing his unwillingness in his tones.
"NOW THAT YOU KNOW, JUST STAY HERE FOR A BIT AND TAKE IT EASY!! I NEED YOU TO REPORT SOME MATTERS TO ME."
Evrick celebrated in his heart as his last conditions to get information easily from this "Red" guy has been fulfilled. The first was for Red himself to be aware of Evrick's role as his leader both consciously and subconsciously, and also putting some pressure on Red by reprimanding and ordering him, so he'd get in a really bad mood and wouldn't care about the leader being quite different from the one he know of.
"Understood, Sir!" This reply from Red confirmed Evrick's smooth plan.
"Currently, how far are we from the main army ?" Evrick asked the first question.
"We're only half a day by walking distance." Answers Red.
Evrick showed a thinking gesture "I see, this must be the side effect from being startled while I'm napping, that I had forgotten about many important informations. And it was YOUR FAULT!!" Evrick said in a very annoying superior tone.
"Please pardon me, Sir!" Red still showed his halfhearted apology without minding Evrick's reason for questioning him.
"NEXT QUESTION!! What's the number of our pursuing army, both melee and ranged soldiers, also who leads them ?"
"Our main army only consist of 3 companies of footmen and a company of archers, totaling 80 soldiers, Sir Vaux is leading them."
"What's their last situation and deployments?"
"They've fully prepared to ambush, only waiting for our bird signals to redirect the army towards the enemy's main route to exit the forest. The deployments are, for the archer's company to scatter into 4 positions and lay in wait until the enemy entered the red zone to open fire. Next are the 1st and 2nd footman companies, they would stand behind the archers and wait until archers finished their series of arrows to execute the 2nd phase and slaughter the enemy. The 3rd company would act as a reserve and wait at the forest's exit together with Sir Vaux."
"Okay okay, stop. Now I can remember everything clearly. Now, let's go and rejoin Green at Third layer!"
"Yes, leader!"
The two of them walked towards Green's corpse. Only a few feets away from the third layer, Red smelled shitty air. *cough!!* "What a shitty smell." Red coughed out his complaint and starts yelling in the direction of Green's smelly corpse, "Green!!! Why are you shitting in your own post!?? It's disgusting!!"
There's no reply to Red's yells. Red got a bad feeling about Green. He covered his nose with his scarf and approached Green's hiding place. He got really startled from what he saw. He saw Green lying on his stomach, dried blood on the ground and the area around his ass to crotch were covered in yellow greenish marks. seeing all that, Red raised his vigilance to maximum.
"Leader take a look at this!! Someone killed Green in the most horrible way!!" The first thing he did was reporting to his fake leader. Evrick began to think that this Red guy is the embodiment of the Dense God.
"I can see it. Green, he shit his pants in "green" and died. A really shameful way to die." Evrick said muffledly as he tightly covered his mouth and nose using unstained part of the scarf he just plundered.
Red scanned the corpse for a bit and realised something odd. "The killer seemed to plunder Green's dagger and left the sheath on Green's waist. What do you think, lea-" Red stopped his sentence when he clearly saw a second sheatheless dagger slipped onto his leader's leather sash.
This time, Evrick can no longer hide in his disguise. so he stepped forward and told Red, "What do you think? I don't want to spoil my dagger, so I killed Green using his own dagger, and then seized his dagger for myself. It seemed that he can no longer hold his urge to shit. So, I actually helped him to also take a shit while he die, It was really kind of me."
Red's eyes suddenly dripping wet with tears then he cried out, "LEADER!! WHYYYY!!???"
Evrick got really shocked and stumbled hard after hearing Red's cry of grief. *"HE STILL HAVEN'T FOUND OUT MY DISGUISE!!!!!!!"*
Evrick could no longer stand beside this idiotic Dense God. He decided to dispose of him quick. Evrick took 2 daggers from his waist and throw them both at the same time. Each of them stabbed Red's forehead and heart. He exerted most of his power to execute this lighning fast technique and those daggers killed the idiotic Dense God in less than 1 millisecond upon contact.
After plundering all the valuables from Red's body, Evrick quickly returned to his group's halting place. By the time he returned, The group is preparing to move out again. He also found out that The group had been divided into 7 squads, with each squad have it's own sense of familiarty and unity, they became slightly more coordinated than before.
After observing for quite some time, Evrick finally showed a satisfied expression. Beiruth approached Evrick slowly as he asked Evricks opinions, "How was it? I arranged the squads based on which person he is most familiar with. And they started working with each other on who's going to team up with who."
"You've done it the right way, don't worry. From what I see, each squad is strong enough to fight 2-3 armed soldier and beat them using various tactics." Evrick uttered his opinions based on his knowledge of each person's capability.
"Hahaha, that's what I thought as well. Thanks." Beiruth said as he hit his chest with his fist 3 times. "What about the deployment of battle formations ?" Evrick asked as he thought again about the enemy's deployments at the same time.
"I already explained to each squad leader about commonly used battle formations and how to execute them on a real battlefield. I think they have no problem understanding those stuff." Beiruth answered Evrick's enquiry. "Hmm, I hope so. Beiruth, come with me. I have important news here." Evrick urged Beiruth to walk with him. He intends to tell Beiruth of his guerilla from a few minutes ago.
After walking for a few feet, Evrick suddenly stopped. "So, what's the news?" Beiruth asked in a serious tone.
From then on, Evrick explained to beiruth how he actually detected 3 enemy scouts and killed them 1 by 1 and fished many useful informations about their enemy.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Beiruth asked in all seriousness.
"I Am." Evrick answered briefly. "And that Red guy also told me." Evrick turned his head and stared towards their destination.
And he say in loud whisper. "There's an ambush up ahead!!!"