In the town of the sixteenth outpost, every two months the army sends new groups of soldiers along with supplies to fill the reserve warehouses.
During that time, caravans of merchants bring their products to trade in the town and some of them decide to settle there.
An example of them is the clothesline that sold roast meat in the center of town.
Returning to the guard barrier, Crow heard a man call out to him from behind.
Turning around, he could see the man who had given him a piece of meat.
— Now I understand what you told me that time, I misunderstood you—
The older man, seeing the young man's sincerity, handed him another piece of meat as he shook his head.
— It's normal, don't worry about it. Take this piece of meat and return to your group, another day we can talk—
Grateful, the young man finished eating the piece of meat and presented himself before the guard.
— The training is over, at the moment the teams are patrolling the outside—
The soldier in charge of training the guard was almost the same age as the clothesline, scars from past battles and the missing part of his right ear could be seen on his body.
Thinking of how a soldier who had been through many battles had yet to regain his name, Crow only imagined his dark future.
Reviewing a list in his hands, the soldier looked at the young man for a moment before pulling a book out of his clothes.
— According to the captain, you do not know life magic well, use this book so that you learn everything you need and when you finish it, return it to me—
After receiving the book, Crow was sent to his house with the notice that a team would be assigned to him the next day.
Life magic, this was the magic necessary to be able to use most of the artifacts or magic circuits in the houses.
— So I needed this—
Reading the book, Crow understood how the gem that Leaf gave him worked.
The gems were refined from a mineral called ficorita, these minerals had the ability to collect the magic particles inside and their mines were highly coveted by all kingdoms.
The gems of ficorita were necessary to activate the circuits of light in the house, in addition these gems had different levels of strength. The weak ones were used for daily life, those of medium quality were necessary to activate some means of transport and the stronger ones were used in the arms of the army when expeditions were carried out.
Currently, Crow did not have any gold to buy some of them, so he was looking to do some work to get it.
In the kingdom, the basic currency was copper, where with ten of them you could buy most of the fruits of the stores. A silver coin was equal to a hundred copper coins and a gold coin was equal to a hundred silver.
In the book he also explained the basics of magic.
The inhabitants of the continent of Aios since they are born are exposed to magic particles, if one had a bad affinity with magic it was exposed that the magic particles, stored in his body, lost control causing his entire body to explode.
To learn more uses of magic, Crow could only hope to ask Leaf for help to teach him.
Looking towards the guard barrier, the young man was surprised to see a plume of smoke rising in the distance.
Without thinking, he advanced to the guard post to ask what was going on.
Upon reaching the barrier, several guard teams had returned.
Most of the faces were serious and some of them had blood stains on their armor.
Looking at the soldier in charge, he found that he was next to Aisha informing her of what had happened.
Aisha's face changed from a calm appearance to one of concern every time she heard the soldier's words.
Raising her sword, Aisha stood in front of the teams as she gave her orders.
— Team two has been ambushed by a group of unknown beasts, to assist them we will form three rescue teams and a scouting team—
— You have ten minutes to prepare your things before leaving, leave—
When the soldiers went home, Crow approached Aisha and asked her to allow him to participate in the scouting team.
— Are you sure of that, as the first mission it would be better for you to participate with the rescue teams, so you could observe how the soldiers work-
At the same time that she said those words, Aisha looked at Crow's face, which had changed a lot when cutting his beard and a strange thought ran through her mind.
—I'm more confident moving through the trees—
Looking at the conviction with which he said those words, Aisha thought for a moment before accepting his request and handing him a bag full of tools to confuse the beasts.
— You can go with the exploration team, but don't detach yourself from the collar, understood?—
After saying goodbye to Aisha, Crow handed the book to the soldier and thanked him for the help.
After ten minutes, the three rescue teams left the village, maintaining order at all times.
The scouts, apart from warning about the position of possible enemies, had to mark the way and leave traps in case the teams had to retreat.
The column of smoke was more than ten kilometers from the town, in that sector there were several caves occupied by large beasts that could present problems to the group.
Among the trees, Crow was surprised to see that Aisha belonged to the exploration team. After they left the village, he tried to see where Aisha was, but couldn't find a trace of her.
On the other side of the plume of smoke, team two had taken shelter in a cave and kept caring for the wounded while part of the group was tasked with repelling the beasts' attacks.
The group had lost five of its members to an ambush by horned lizards that released venom in each of their bites.
The creatures acted in an orderly fashion, each time a dark elf lagged behind, two lizards surrounded him and sought to take his life in the shortest possible time before continuing to pursue the group.
When they found the cave, team two decided to use it as a shelter and block the entrance because it was very small.
The horned lizards, seeing that only one of them could enter through the opening, left only a few lizards in charge of harassing the dark elves while the others dug a hole to take out their prey.
After an hour, the exploration teams reached the location of the smoke plume.
Moving closer, Crow could see that the source of the smoke lay in several brown spheres similar to the ones Aisha gave him.
Without waiting for everyone to be gathered, Aisha's voice was heard from among the trees.
— Team two should be close, if you see something that needs to be reported, come back as the first priority, don't give your life away in vain—
Finishing those words, everyone could see Aisha's silhouette leaping through the trees. Not wanting to be left behind, the scouts advanced in different directions looking for traces of team two.
As time passed, the bodies of the five murdered members appeared on the road and were reported to the rescue team.
In a joint effort, one of the explorers found a group of lizards digging dirt and rocks from a hole.
Without risking, the young woman tried to withdraw, but Aisha appeared next to her and placing her hand in front of her mouth indicated that she be silent.
—They've already detected us, if we want to get out of their attack range, you must pay attention to what I tell you—
The girl, although she was older and had a better figure than Aisha's, respected her captain a lot, nodding from her, she listened to her instructions and remained.
Among the horned lizards, a small cloaked creature was hiding from the view of others.
Every time something happened, this creature gave new orders to the lizards while keeping an eye out for them to be surrounded.
Raising their hands, eight lizards followed the creature's orders and charged in the direction of the two women.
—Now, release them—
Both women dropped the brown smoke bombs and covered themselves with a blanket wrapped in white powder.
After the explosions ended and a plume of smoke rose, the lizards tried to chase the women, but when they tried to follow their trail they couldn't find anything.
The creature, seeing that it had been deceived, raised its hands revealing a scepter full of skulls, concentrating the energy of it began to chant a detection spell.
When the women heard the language the creature used, they were terrified and tried not to make noise.
In the army academy, they had been taught many types of languages used by the races, but after many years they could only remember those used by the most dangerous races.
— Goblins—
Aisha couldn't help but raise her voice when she said those words, the appearance of goblins meant that a new Goblin King had appeared.