"Commander Aldrich! Thank god you are alive" A voice resounded from behind him.
Myles momentarily dropped all of his thoughts and looked behind him. He saw hundreds of armored men behind him, he saw all of them bowing their heads in his direction.
He walked towards them, halting only when he got close enough to them.
He saw three men at the absolute front of the crowd bowing in front of him. A powerful aura was being emitted from their bodies.
"They are probably the strongest fighters among them," Myles guessed.
Apart from them, an aura was also being emitted from each man behind.
This caused a powerful pressure to bore down on their body due to their combined pressure. However, the pressure was quite tolerable.
"All of us happy to see you alive Commander Aldrich"
"We had thought that you were killed by that wicked woman"
"It's not that easy to kill our commander"
Myles ignored their speech and scanned each one of them from top to bottom.
Just from their looks, Myles could guess that none of them meant any harm to him.In fact it was the opposite. In their eyes, they had nothing but immense respect towards him.
"They might be crucial for me to complete this trial. " Myles thought to himself.
The chances of them being crucial to complete this quest was very high. Since they knew who he was.
It also looked that Aldrich was a very respectable figure to them. Considering that they were calling him commander.
This will make things very easy for Myles. If he managed to convince them that he was really Aldrich.
"This is going to be a bit tough"
After all, he didn't have any information regarding them. Hence, his first goal was to gather as much as information was possible!
A few seconds of thinking later, Myles decided to ask a very simple question to start the conversation.
"How did you find me?" Myles asked.
"You were trying to achieve sword aura right Commander?" A person at the front asked.
Myles momentarily nodded his head since it was exactly what he was trying to achieve a few minutes ago.
"Hector sensed your aura and led us to you. However, Commander I advise you not to try to achieve your sword aura in the middle of the battlefield.
I know that not being able to achieve sword aura even though you are a Grade- B swordsman has frustrated you a lot.
But you must understand that the enemies could have found you instead of us, probably leading to a very difficult fight for survival" The woman exclaimed, her voice carrying seriousness.
"I agree with Cora sir, you shouldn't have done this. When we are surrounded by countless enemies" Another person at the front said.
"Commander Aldrich, Cora, Hector and I Zen are the captions of your troops. We are you swords who you will use to slay any enemies that come your way.
Hence, as long as we are with your side. You don't have to worry about being too weak to protect your troops" Caption Zen said.
Just from a single question, Myles gained a lot of useful information! He learned the names of three people at the front.
He also learned that Aldrich doesn't possess a sword aura to begin with!! It explained his inability to utilize sword aura!!
"Though it's very strange for a B-grade swordsman not to possess a sword heart.
Afterall, according to the old man, anyone who is above Grade: D possesses a sword to heart" Myles's thoughts to himself.
Although he did indeed find this to be very strange. It wasn't strong enough to occupy his mind for long though
Afterall by far the most importantly he learned that he had his personal troops whom he could command at will!!
"This is going to be useful" Mylyes thought to himself.
But he didn't dare to believe that he could have an easy time passing the trial. Especially when he was surrounded by dozens of enemies according to his subordinates.
"How many losses did you suffer during my absences?" Myles asked.
"You should be aware that we suffer immense losses. Considering that you were with us at that time" Caption Zen, he sounded a bit suspicious.
At this moment, Myles knew that he had messed up. Though, it wasn't too serious.
"I know but I am not aware of the exact numbers of our losses. Tell me the exact numbers" Myles asked.
"We have lost a lot of troops over the course of this war against the Great mage alliance.
However, the last battle was by far the worst one we had ever faced. We lost 80 of our troops against the wicked disciple of the Great Mage. Captain Atakola was killed by that wicked woman.
At the start of battle, we had over 10000 soldiers but now we are only left with a little over 1700 swordsman" Commander Cora said, her voice carrying frustration.
"Sometimes, I feel like it was mistake to fight on the behalf of the union" Caption Hector couldn't help but say
"I disagree, as swordsmen it's our duty to protect the heritage of the brave warriors from the dirty hands of those wicked mages," Captain Zen remarked.
The captions entered into a mini argument which Myles did pay any attention to. He was lost in his own world. As he had just learned a lot of valuable information!
But it left more questions in his mind than solving the first ones.
Why did the mage's exist here when they had gone almost extinct in the real world?
What was the union and the Great Mage alliance? Well he knew that these two organizations were at war and he was on the union's side.
"I need to gather more information about the union and alliance." Myles thought to himself.
It was given that gathering more information about the Great Mage alliance and Union was a must. Since he didn't wish to get caught with his pants down when his subordinates asked him some questions about it.
As for the presence of the mages it wasn't that important. Since, he wasn't going to stay in this place for too long to begin with.
Of course, he couldn't directly ask about it either so he took an indirect approach.
"What is the current condition of the union and the alliance?" Myles asked, his voice carrying seriousness.
"The union is suffering from serious losses now that the great mages are personally interrupting," Captain Hector replied.
Myles began asking a few more questions to gain more information. He was satisfied with what he had gathered at the end of his inquiry.