During the hours of rest, I have not lowered my vigilance, I have kept on alert every time someone approaches the room that we are resting which are really few times.
Erick seems to be going out of his way to avoid interaction between my team and his, and it's really comforting to have someone who clearly sees the situation we're in. Thanks to that I basically didn't have to struggle to keep the groups separate, it would be really hard to do that since this is not a place I know or have authority, but thanks to Erick I can relax and rest in peace.
We rested for seven straight hours, which is very unusual on a trip like ours, with everyone rested I had to be restricted so that no one had the idea of exploring the smugglers' base. Hilda was a little frustrated staying in this dark little room for so long, but that ended when a fire elemental warrior knocked on our door.
"Good night, the boss told me to take you to the cafeteria to eat. We have to travel for a few hours to reach the ambush site, so we'd better get out soon."
"Okay, lead the way."
It doesn't take long before we're all seated at a table in a pretty crowded cafeteria, looks like we're not the only ones making their last possible simple meal. Not that I'm complaining, but a thick broth was served with bread, a few furs and dried meat.
This was still the tastiest meal we've had since we left town, even though the meal doesn't have a lot of heart in this well-crafted broth and fresh bread tastes much better than meat roasted by my hands with the basic spices we have and a little of hard bread that only lasts a few days.
It's a pity that cheese isn't something popular in the kingdom, it's much better to have it in place of dry, hard bread.
As we ate our meal, I had a good opportunity to study our temporary allies, these are really the elite brought together by a criminal organization. Most fighters have elemental energy in their body, only two fighters don't have an element, but both are in the final stage of the silver core.
Apart from the shadow element, most here have the wind and fire element. Just two warriors with a very large build and the earth element denouncing their styles as defensive warriors.
Just a water element warrior here, she doesn't seem to be very strong to be precise I think she must be among the three weakest people in the smuggler group.
The combined strength of both groups should be more than enough to kill our target which is a very good thing and it lessens my nervousness, I still haven't been able to see the item that made me most curious in our plan.
The special arrow that will kill the green core mage of enemy smugglers, it is not here. I hope to be able to see it even if it is used to blow up the mage.
"Ready to travel?"
While I was still distracted and processing the information I had to gather, Erick appeared by my side, ready to travel.
"Yes, did something happen or is everything okay?"
"As far as we know, everything is normal with our target. Several hours ago, their caravan left for the border, unfortunately we will only know if something happened to them if they don't show up by their normal route."
"Then not even a watchman or a scout?"
"No, it would be too risky as this lookout would be too close to their base. There are so many alarms and traps in that area, any attempt to get past them is a futile risk because we wouldn't be able to receive any kind of signal from them without it denouncing that something wrong is happening to our target."
"You think everything will work out."
"Sincerely? Yes, we haven't had a hint that our target suspects they are in danger, we have a good plan and the upper hand. We'll start the trip to the ambush site in a little while, we'll probably be waiting around two to three hours there, but I think doing that is safer in case their caravan happens to arrive early, which would be a miracle that iron with us."
"I hope everything works out."
After our short conversation Erick went to haul off his men and I looked at my team who were eating at a high rate of speed. Even a noble and polite lady like Hilda was tearing that poor bread like a rabid dog, everyone is hungry and no time to enjoy a long meal.
Our march began under moonlight, and when I say march, I literally mean a march. We walk through the night to the ambush site; this makes a lot of sense since a troop our size mounted would be enough to signal anyone with a good ear or eyes that triggers the urge to find out why a group of warriors and mounted mages strolling through the dark forest near the kingdom's border.
Nothing suspicious here, completely normal behavior and a pretty common route for walking in the moonlight.
As we made our way through the savannah and lost trees we faced some magical animals, but not a magical beast. The smugglers really chose a safe route to make their way with their contraband.
We arrived at the ambush site well in advance, I'd heard Erick's discretion about this place, but now I'm sure they made a good choice. We're on a slight slope that we can use to reduce our target's field of view.
The trees for some of us to hide like the archer who must kill the leader of the smugglers, and the rest will hide in the tall grass. There's room for everyone and we can attack them from three different directions as they start to climb this little hill.
We split our group as we agreed yesterday, although I feel more comfortable with my teammates around me, so I went with the second-best option which was to separate my teammates into pairs, Gloria with Zephyr to protect him and Hilda with Alice since her collaboration and good.
I'm with Erick and two more wind element warriors, our group will attack the front of the convoy while Hilda and Alice's group will attack from the right and on the left is Gloria protecting Zephyr.
He should have brought a fucking book to read if he didn't have the patience to sit on the floor all this time.
The silence of the night was broken by the sound of a caravan approaching, the sound was characteristic of a caravan, but it was very low. If I hadn't focused and waited for them to appear I might not have noticed the sound they're making.
Four medium-sized wagons pulled by a type of magical animal I'm not familiar with, but its purpose is pretty obvious. These black-haired animals are very silent and their presence is very small, their mana is strangely concentrated in their body and they barely leave footprints wherever they go.
Their speed is pretty low for a level three animal, but that's probably not their maximum speed, their body is well tied up by a very elaborate leash and a few more chains around their body preventing them from moving too quickly or even giving a damn. strides.
With a brief analysis I confirm that the information Erick had was correct, the number, strength and attitude of our target and exactly what we expected. I focused my eyes on the mage who was the only person who had a green core, this mage is well equipped and even has two barriers around his body to protect himself.
I would even suspect that he already knows he's going to be attacked but the barriers around him don't come from his magic but from magic tools in his body. Seems like he's a well-prepared person or he's very afraid of dying, this kind of magic tool isn't cheap even if it can barely block a level two strong blow.
But what surprises me the most is not that but on one of the wagons, even though they have several runes engraved on them I can still have a good ability to perceive the contents of the wagons and on the second wagon to a chest that has a ridiculous amount of mana and elemental energy of the fire element.
And almost a mini sun in that box, if I had activated my eyes when the smugglers caravan was still far away, I would have seen a red and blue beacon. This box is almost like a beacon in mine at night, which is something very unusual any item that contains so much energy should be in a quality box that would preserve and hide the energy of the item inside it.
Now I'm really curious to find out what's in that box.