The sunrise was still several hours away. A gentle, slightly cold wind blew and while the inhabitants of Rita slept soundly, not far from their village, a thousand soldiers picked up the huge camp they had set up yesterday afternoon.
Although it must have been more difficult to set up the camp than to pick it up, the soldiers were about to finish in just a quarter of the time it had taken them to set it up yesterday, and all under the greatest possible silence.
Raven did not want the villagers to notice his departure, much less know the direction in which he had departed, so he had instructed them to perform all tasks as stealthily as possible. Surprisingly even the horses seemed to obey such orders, for they made no sound.
As he quietly watched the NPCs make preparations to leave, Raven continued to think about his options.
In a situation like Raven's, any ordinary person would surely never even consider attacking a city. Raven was quite aware of how absurd this thought was, and yet the very idea was so tempting that it caused his limbs to shake slightly.
Something like attacking a city and making unnecessary enemies wasn't really new to Raven. In CO, he attacked who he wanted and when he wanted, bringing his number of enemies up to the total number of players in the game.
'If there isn't a huge challenge, it's no fun' –this was Raven's mentality as a CO player. Whether his current body was the avatar he used in the game and somehow, he still thought it was still in the game, or this body was supposed to be destined for conquest, Raven was simply unable to completely rule out the idea of attacking a city.
According to the village elder, to the south was a walled city, Kard. Unfortunately, the old man did not have more detailed information about the city, so Raven was completely unaware of the size of the city, the height of its walls, and the number of soldiers protecting it.
(If I die it could be that this dream ends... but it is also possible that I end up really dying) –despite the tempting idea, Raven was not naive. With the information currently available, in his mind, attacking Kard was described in one word; 'recklessness'.
In CO, in the beginning, players had only two options; immediately conquer a city controlled by the CPU and fully engage in management and defense problems with a reduced number of soldiers, or make use of the materials with which it was provided to build a castle and from there, to better prepare themselves based on a secure defensive position.
At its inception on the first server, Raven had opted for the second option, build a castle. For his start on the second server, already fully aware of the game and its mechanics, he planned to immediately take a city.
As for his current situation, ironically his options seemed to be the same as in the game. However, this was an unknown world and the only viable option in Raven's mind; it was to build a castle, and having a safe place from which to gather as much information as possible about this world and about his own circumstances.
Even so, the option of building a castle had its own problems, of which the two most important were probably; the place where to build it, and the construction itself.
In CO, there was total freedom over where one could build a castle. There were players who built their castles even on the side of cities, although there were also bold players who did it on another player's territory as an outpost attempt. With respect to this world, the limitation on the construction site are certainly common sense.
However, even ignoring the problem of location, the issue of construction had its own problems. In CO, it all consisted of accommodating translucent blocks into the desired shape and then an intricate pattern of movements and animations of the soldiers carrying out the construction was triggered. As for this world, as there was no "menu", planning had to be carried out by manual methods, and, in addition, a large number of factors had to be taken into account such as the firmness of the terrain, the water supply and the management of the construction tasks themselves.
"Raven-sama, we're almost done."
Taking Raven out of his thoughts, Nike, Freya and the eight captains gathered around him. It was more than obvious that his ten officers were waiting for further instructions.
After a rough night, Raven hoped to have enough time to think while the camp was being lifted, yet the soldiers' speed had not given him enough time.
'Relying on others is not a sign of weakness, failing to be open to the ideas of others, yes' –Raven must have contained the mocking laughter that almost escaped his lips when he remembered those words.
(Lean on others, uh...) –Raven took a quick look at his two generals and his eight captains as he remembered those words given to him by the one person that he could never avoid during his college days, an energetic and cheerful sempai who was always meddling in his affairs with such a phrase as; 'After all, I am a Onee-san...'.
(They... if their BIO and CO background story is a reality for them, that means that their "experience" on these issues, unlike mine, is real) –Raven was an elite player on Conquest Online against whom the last twelve players had been forced to form alliances to face, however militarily efficient it might have been, that had only happened inside a video game. The ten NPCs in front of him, though hardly true, at least in their minds their military experience was "real".
"Raven-sama?"
"Nii-sama?"
Face to the silence of Raven, the NPCs exchanged glances.
"Captain Vesta, how long would it take you to build a castle?"
Finally breaking the silence, Raven addressed his words to Vesta Valdini, one of the eight captains.
"Depending on the size and the terrain, I'd say 2 to 4 weeks."
A castle in just weeks, although it was an absurd time in terms of reality, surprisingly Vesta's calculation was within the time it took to build within CO.
"But with a little impetus and the help of the other divisions, it might take less time" –with a mischievous smile and a mocking tone of voice, Vesta added those words.
In CO, troops were divided into three types; combat, engineering and auxiliaries. Technically the three types of troops could fight, the difference being that some were more efficient than others in this, and some could perform unique tasks.
In the case of engineering troops, their specialty was construction.
As for the basic start-up troops which Raven currently had, they consisted of 300 infantry, 200 archers, 200 cavalry, 100 magicians, 100 engineers, 50 siege and 50 inventory carts, all within the "Veteran" level range. Even though within the standards of the game these are few troops, they were enough to take a city controlled by the CPU, or to defend a castle from an army five times more numerous.
The configuration of the troops had not changed in this world, and if there was anything that could be considered strange, it was the existence of the Captains, each of these eight characters as the leader of at least one class of troops. In the case of Vesta Valdini, she was the Captain of the engineering troops.
"Nii-sama, wouldn't it be more efficient and quicker to take the city in the south?"
Faced with Raven's clear intentions, once again Freya was the only one who dared to question him.
"Courage and impetus are no doubt the minimum necessary to wield a sword, but a wielded sword without caution could end up cutting off the own arm. Attacking a city of which we know only its name? Fortunately, the hand that wields my sword does so more cautiously than with impetus.
"Nii-sama!"
Freya simply could not avoid jumping on Raven, she was totally impressed. As for Raven, he took advantage of the event to turn his head towards the forest and thus hide his face. The truth was that Raven was almost certain that a slight blush had tinted his face, and the reason for this was none other than his own words.
Those kinds of almost poetic comments were very common within Raven's mind, very often arising in his mind during his days in CO, yet it was the first time he allowed these thoughts to escape his lips.
Just as Freya, Nike and seven of the eight Captains were totally impressed by Raven's words, the exception was Vesta, who showed a slight smile full of irony.
In the Raven´s Army, Vesta Vatdini apparently was the oldest age person among of all NPC´s. The age of this singular woman must have been within the range of twenty years; however, her blue eyes and face overflowed an aura of greater maturity. And of the thousand NPC of her army, it was Vesta who most intrigued Raven.
She, Vesta Valdini projected an aura that caused Raven to remember that sempai of his university days.
(Although I am still unable to understand Vesta, the rest seem to have accepted my shameful words...)
Attack a city without any prior information, it was certainly totally unwise. However, this was not Raven's only reason for refusing. The lack of information about himself, whether he had been transported to another world, whether he was dreaming or he was simply another NPC, these prevented him from making risky decisions. Therefore, his priority was to build a shelter from which to obtain information safely.
"Then Raven-sama, where shall we build a castle?"
A place beyond the reach of the inhabitants of this world, with a supply of fresh water and if possible, with a supply of food. These were the basic requirements that Raven mentally detailed regarding the best place to settle.
However, as simple as he might think, in their present circumstances, these requirements seemed too much to ask.
This was an unknown world and to venture to continue traveling indefinitely and with limited provisions was out of the question.
All Raven's knowledge of this world was limited to what was told by the village elder, yet, fortunately within this limited information, there was a place that certainly met two of his requirements, the infamous forest north of the village.
The forest, whose name was Dark Forest, was considered a cursed place by the villagers, who preferred to stay away from there. With this, the Dark Forest is a place beyond the reach of the inhabitants of this world. In addition, a mighty river of fresh water seemed pass through the forest, which met another of the three requirements.
In addition, beyond the forest seemed to be the sea, which, hypothetically speaking, must be full of food, of fish.
The only drawback of such a place was of course its infamy. The fear that the Dark Forest instill in the villagers, maybe it shouldn't be totally unfounded.
"We will seek a suitable place in the north."
After thinking about it for a couple of seconds, Raven concluded that there should be no danger within the forest that an army of a little more than a thousand soldiers could not handle, and without better options, he gave his answer to Vesta.
"Understood! Captains, inform the troops, we'll march north!"
"Understood!"
Nike wasted no time in instructing the captains, and the captains, as soon as they responded to their orders, left to lead their respective troops.
"Nii-sama, we will build a huge, luxurious palace from which we will rule this world."
"Huh?"
"You are right Freya-sama. It will be the point from which our conquest of this world will begin."
Somehow through which that Raven could not understand, it seemed that his NPCs had totally misunderstood his intentions regarding the construction of the castle. What in Raven's mind was a safe place from which to gather information, within the minds of the NPCs ended up becoming a sort of base of operations for the conquest of this world.