Chương 454: Chapter 455: Aldyn

Miria's father, Aldyn, stared at the expanse of snowy, white jungle in his surroundings, and squinted. The sunlight that made the snow and ice glitter like crystals was beautiful, but it was also deadly. If he got distracted for even a moment, something might leapt out of the forest and kill him or one of his companions before they could react. He focused on {Flame's Intuition} for a few moments, and felt his senses shift.

Instead of seeing the world through his usual five senses, he saw the world only as a landscape of different kinds of fire. The most prominent sources of flame were the nearby ember and his companions, although other nearby trees and other plants were also notable. There were no forms of the fire innate to monsters within his detection range. A few moments later, his feat started to strain his mind, so he disabled it.

{Flame's Intuition} was useful for short bursts of detection, but it was very difficult to use for more than a few seconds at a time.

"No nearby monsters," he said. The other warriors working with him this time grunted in acknowledgement. The group maintained a tense silence for nearly a minute, before attention started to flag. It was inevitable - nobody could maintain perfect attention every second of the day, and both Aldyn and the scouts had yet to find the nearest swarms of monsters.

"It's nice that it's sunny. I hate fighting in blizzards. Makes it much harder to see," said the man next to him. Aldyn eyed the man, before he nodded. The man's words themselves weren't important - Aldyn knew them for what they were. A way to vent pre-battle anxiety. Everyone had their own way of coping with the waiting before a battle. He didn't particularly like chatterboxes, but it was also true that most warriors had feats or enhanced senses to find monsters.

A bit of noise wouldn't make it harder for the group to detect the first wave of monsters, at least in theory. He still hoped the man would shut up, though. He preferred silence until the first monsters appeared. He was always afraid that he would miss something. On a battlefield, accidents could always happen - and when they did happen, they were disastrous for the noncombatants in town.

"I hope the monsters here are weak. Those frost serpents last stop were really difficult to kill. Their tunnelling abilities made them way more evasive than they had any right to be," said a nearby woman, as she meticulously oiled and sharpened her massive, two-handed axe.

"You don't have to tell me. Last stop, the Paraddi brothers both got bitten by the frost serpents. They didn't die, but they both lost a limb - some kind of unusual magic was attached to their fangs, apparently. None of the [Apothecaries] could deal with it in time," said the first man.

"They wouldn't have gotten so badly hurt if the blizzard didn't help disguise the little monsters." Aldyn resisted the urge to grimace. Two chatterboxes in his squad this time.

"Keep your eyes on the jungle. We haven't identified which monsters are heading our direction yet. Scouts haven't located any notable swarms, so we need to keep an eye out," said a second nearby woman. Unlike the first two, she had an iron necklace around her neck - a symbol that on the battlefield, she had the right to give orders. Aldyn sighed in relief. His superior this time also didn't like chatterboxes. That meant he wouldn't have to put up with constant talking while he scanned the area.

The next three minutes were spent in tense silence, before Aldyn saw one of the scouts return. The scout's lips were pulled taut, like bowstrings on the verge of snapping.

"Is there trouble?" asked the commander.

"Fliers. Not too strong - I got one with a fireball pretty easily. But they're fast and there are a lot of them. They haven't finished locating our ember yet, but I think we'll have enemies coming our way within a few minutes. They might seize an opportunity to sneak by the front lines and hit the town if we're not careful." Aldyn's heart seized. He hated monsters that were likely to bypass the front lines the most.

Big, slow monsters were the easiest to handle - as long as enough warriors were nearby, they could slowly whittle it down with spells and arrows while front line warriors stalled it. But fast, fragile monsters that could soar through the air… those had a very high chance of hitting the town behind them. His thoughts flicked back towards his precious daughter for a moment. Would she be okay? The woman with a necklace grimaced.

"Take the news back to the town. Also, take a couple warriors with you, and make sure to grab kids, craftsmen, injured, and everyone else that isn't on the front lines. Make sure people are grouped together for protection, and make sure those slackers in the defense force are doing their job." Aldyn felt his heart relax at the woman's words. At least she was alerting the town. Sometimes, the town didn't have enough time to prepare for a horde of fast-moving monsters.

Those were when casualties were especially likely. The town defense force always did its best… but if they didn't know what to expect, mistakes were sometimes inevitable. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Two minutes later, the first flying monsters appeared. Aldyn felt a grimace tug at his lips as he saw them - they looked kind of like little strips of cloth with a small, paper head attached to each one.

The monsters were nearly pure white in color, which made them hard to see in the snow, and they moved in an uneven zig-zag pattern that made them hard to predict. He saw a few of his companions release arrows at the monsters, and while a few of the front-line monsters got taken out, most of the arrows missed. He threw a fireball at a nearby monster, and was astonished to see the creature twirl out of the way, before a flash of essence surged towards him.

He heard a low whistling sound, and a ripple appeared in the air in front of him. Aldyn barely had time to duck before he heard a loud pop. He felt slightly dizzy, and shook his head. He felt something wet coming out of his ears. He touched the side of his head, and his hands came away speckled with a few drops of blood. Some sort of sonic attack? Or wind magic? Aldyn didn't know, but he didn't like it. He tossed another fireball at the oncoming horde.

This time, he spent a bit more mana and a great deal of his focus to seize control of the fireball as it travelled through the air. As the creature twirled out of the way of the fireball, he forced his flames to track the creature's movements. A moment later, the miniature fireball connected, and the creature instantly died. He felt a small surge of energy flow into his body. Barely enough to make a difference at his current level, but better than nothing. At least they were truly fragile.

If these monsters were sturdy, the warriors might have gotten wiped out. The other warriors on the front lines had also realized the monsters were dangerous, but fragile. They started to group together, while a few other warriors stepped forward. A moment later, Aldyn felt several surges of mana, before a wave of icy cover snapped into existence above the group. There were several holes in this new ceiling, allowing archers and mages to fire through the gaps, but they were very small.

The [Ice Mages] finished right on time. A moment later, Aldyn heard a wave of loud crackling and snapping noises as bursts of magic slammed into the icy defenses. However, the defenses held. Aldyn glanced around, and confirmed that no one had died yet, at least as far as he could tell. Each attack from these strange monsters could injure someone, but unless they had unusually low [Vitality] or they were hit several times at once, it looked like it wasn't too hard to survive one hit.

From there, the battlefield settled into a slower, more measured grind. Archers and mages constantly darted towards the gaps in the defenses, killed a few monsters, and then dashed back into cover. The monsters spun around and fired attacks back at the defenders, but to Aldyn's relief, it didn't seem like the monsters were inclined to fly over the group and attack the towns behind them. The monsters also ignored the ember - it looked like they were only going to move on after dealing with the human defenders.

Furthermore, the monsters weren't too bright. Most monster tribes would try something different after a minute or two of fighting, if their current strategy didn't work out - but these things refused to flee or change their tactics. This made them annoying, but not too threatening. Aldyn started to relax as the battle settled into a routine.

There were still dangerous moments, such as when he moved to a gap in the ice ceiling to toss a few fireballs at the enemy, but around him, he didn't see very many people get injured. This battle was safe and manageable - exactly the kind of battle he preferred. Minutes passed by, as the group slowly whittled the horde down. No new surprises appeared on the battlefield as the fight progressed - just careful, steady erosion of the horde as they tried and failed to kill the defenders.

Finally, the last monster dropped to the ground. Aldyn looked around, and confirmed that there were few casualties. The first wave of monsters had been dealt with safely. The commander for this area relaxed as well.

"The first wave is dealt with. We should have at least a few hours before the next wave hits, if any monsters are close enough to notice the ember. You guys, on the left, go take four hours to relax in town. Then, come back and relieve the others," she said, pointing at several warriors. To Aldyn's relief, one of the people she told to take a break was him.

He relaxed, and after a routine check from an apothecary, who told him that there was no permanent damage and he could walk off his injuries, he made his way back to town. He didn't stop at any shops, or anywhere else - the first thing he wanted to do after every fight was make sure that his daughter was safe. Everything else could come afterwards. When he reached his house, his heart leapt into his throat. He hadn't seen any of the little monsters make their way past the defensive line.

he had thought that they hadn't breached the defenses at all. The front of his house told a different story. There, he saw twenty corpses, laid just outside of his house. Each of them was a monster, and he didn't see any signs of human injury or death - but his vision still went black at the thought that his daughter had been left to face monsters on her own. He dashed inside - only to see Miria and her little friend Anise, both of whom looked alive and well.

A few other children were in the living room with them, and Mark, one of the warriors of the village, was standing nearby. Mark seemed baffled. Just as Aldyn's heart was recovering from his near-panic earlier, Miria smiled and waved at him.

"Dad, you're back! I reached level 20! Anise and I killed lots of monsters!"