Three weeks passed since Victoria was introduced by Lionel, and the strength of the Freedom Legion grew ever stronger. Small battles still occurred between the human army and the Freedom Legion during these two weeks, and those were victories for the Freedom Legion. Their victories were due to all kinds of factors, but the biggest one was the information that Victoria provided to the Freedom Legion commanders on a regular basis. Due to her information, they were able to ambush transports due to knowing the routes the human army would use, take out some of the higher-ups in the human army, and even recruit more soldiers, mostly which were demi-human slaves that had been freed by them. The Freedom Legion soon began to truly trust her, and then she became a valuable ally to their cause.
Slowly but surely, the Freedom Legion began to retake the area that was once free of the human army. The human army had finally begun to see the Freedom Legion as a more of a true threat, as a warning poster brought in by a Freedom Legion member stated it quite clearly. The warning poster was brought to Lionel during a meeting with his commanders, and he curiously took it. Lionel began reading it aloud, saying, "The extremist group known as 'the Freedom Legion' has hereby been declared as a terrorist organization by King Ziam. They seek to destroy the order and peace brought about by the human army, and they seek to rebel against a government that is fair and true. We absolutely cannot tolerate these kinds of actions in these lands. Anyone caught associating with this terrorist organization will be publicly executed immediately, and anyone that can provide information on their whereabouts will be compensated handsomely. This will immediately be put into effect by the rule of King Ziam himself."
Lionel stood up from his seat and slammed the warning poster down on the table, exclaiming, "Those fake self-righteous bastards have the balls to call US terrorists?! They think that their government is 'true and fair?!' Bullshit!" Tokuda used his levitation magic to produce a piece of folded paper and set it gently on the table. Tokuda then unfolded it using his levitation magic and said, "Doesn't this mean that they recognize us as a threat now? And I picked this up the other day, and I think it's a good thing, personally." The folded piece of paper was now fully open, revealing three sketches with bounty amounts on them. The first sketch was a sketch of Tokuda's face looking rather menacing. His bounty was the most, with 1000 gold coins if he was brought in dead or alive. The second sketch was one of Lionel looking angry, although some of his features were exaggerated, such as how big his mane was in the sketch. Lionel's bounty was 600 gold coins dead or alive, and after realizing that his bounty was lower than Tokuda's, he shot Tokuda a look that seemed passive-aggressive, and Tokuda smiled in a sly manner. The third sketch was of Leonardo, although he was smiling in the sketch. His bounty was only 200 gold coins dead or alive, but Leonardo was more focused on the sketch, saying, "What an excellent sketch! The one who made this masterpiece, I must praise them!" Thelisia seemed disappointed that she wasn't on there, saying, "Boo! I wanted to see a sketch of myself!" Lionel quickly said, "Trust me, Thelisia, the last thing you want is a sketch of yourself on something like this." Thelisia seemed lost in her own world, saying, "If they want to sketch me, I'll have to show them my good side," then suddenly striking cute poses.
Lionel took a seat, staring at the warning poster. Leonardo then spoke up, saying, "While this is a form of acknowledgment from the human army, I do believe issues will arise from this. The human army will be more on guard now at all times. Once loyal followers of the Freedom Legion could possibly turn us over to the human army." Lionel then said, "We just need to hope it doesn't come to that. People that volunteered to join and not forced to join is an act of loyalty that should never go unnoticed. Tokuda is a living example of that. He's loyal to us but ditched the human army partly due to being forced to join." Tokuda nodded, not really seeming to want to talk about it any further than that. Lionel continued, saying, "That's why we need to end the war as soon as possible, so innocent people that support our cause aren't being caught in the crossfire." Lionel looked at the other commanders seriously, then said, "I believe we have enough strength and numbers to attack King Ziam's castle." Leonardo then spoke up, saying, "While this is true, I do believe we need a bit more patience to get everything in order-" Lionel quickly cut him off, saying, "Time is a luxury we don't have right now. We can't afford to sit around anymore, not when our time's been limited by this damn warning poster." Leonardo sat silently, understanding where Lionel was coming from. Lionel sighed, saying, "We'll stick with Ezekiel's plan that he had originally. Draw the main force out, then have his party infiltrate the castle, kidnap the king, and force a surrender. Any complaints?" Tokuda, Thelisia, and Leonardo said nothing. Lionel then summoned a messenger to the meeting room and told them, "Let Victoria know that we're attacking King Ziam's castle in two days." The messenger nodded, then left the meeting room. Lionel then said to the other commanders, "Gather everyone. We need to let them know of our final push in this conflict."
Everyone was gathered, and Lionel told them what was going to happen. Many of the soldiers had mixed feelings about attacking the castle so suddenly, but they all agreed on one thing: they just wanted the war to be over, and want it to be over as soon as possible. Ezekiel and his party were also present during this, and Ezekiel was thinking over some things in his head when he realized that the announcement was already over and the crowd was dispersing. We're about to attack unknown land when we haven't even scouted it out, thought Ezekiel. Ezekiel realized that things could get extremely bad if not planned out properly, so he quickly ran over to Lionel, asking, "Do we even know what this land is like? The land we're about to attack?" Lionel nodded, saying, "Of course, Ezekiel. We have the map that Victoria drew for us." Ezekiel shook his head, saying, "That's not good enough. I need to see the land for myself in order to properly strategize this whole thing." Lionel scratched his head, thinking for a moment, then said, "Fine. Go scout the area. It shouldn't be too far from where we are, either. Maybe at most a half a day by wagon. I'll also have Victoria meet with you out there so she can give you some last-minute information. Since you'll already be in that area, send us a report back here with someone about what we're going to do." Ezekiel nodded, rounded up his party, and they all headed out to the future battlefield.
A half a day's travel by wagon later, they finally approached the designated area. Ezekiel took a quick look around at the general landscape from a tall hill, finding it to be mostly a flat forest area. He saw the river that Victoria had mentioned, flowing left to right from his perspective. Behind the river was a giant castle protected by stone walls all around. The castle itself was elevated on a hill, but it seemed that there was a spiral dirt road carved into the sides of the hill, leading up to the front gate of the castle. Wanting to get a better look, Ezekiel took out his spyglass that he made a while back and used it to look at the castle better. He spotted a few guards outside of the castle gate and spotted many more guards along the walls of the castle. This isn't just a castle, it's defended like a damn fortress. King Ziam must really be a big shot if he's just chilling in there, thought Ezekiel. Ezekiel then spotted a few big black pots lining the top of the castle walls. Ezekiel then asked, "What do those big black pots on top of the walls do?" Tokuda used levitation magic to see through the spyglass to see what Ezekiel was talking about. At first, he was surprised that there was a tool to make things larger to the human eye, but after getting over his surprise, he took a good look and said, "Ah, those contain tar. When attackers start scaling the wall, they pour boiling tar onto the attackers." Bear then said, "Damn, that sounds like a terrible way to go." Tokuda nodded in response. Ah, I forgot that it was a medieval defense strategy in my world. I'm surprised they're using it here. I had a feeling that it was familiar, thought Ezekiel.
Ezekiel had a general sense of the layout of the geography and began formulating his plan. The guards on top of the tower would be a problem, and the tar was even a bigger problem. Ezekiel looked at Tokuda and asked, "I know how to deal with ground forces in the forest and river, but what do you think we should do about the castle?" Tokuda then said, "Lemme think on that for a bit." Ezekiel took ahold of the spyglass again, looking at the forest. Ezekiel then turned to Rina and said, "You could have your archers scattered through the trees. Ambush them, basically." Rina nodded, saying, "That would be good. Catch them off-guard and have the upper hand." Ezekiel scouted the area more, then he realized that he completely forgot that he might have unexpected reinforcements. Ezekiel looked at Suko and asked, "Hey, do you think you could summon a dragon or two to help us out? It's basically guaranteed victory if you can." Suko scratched his head, saying, "I probably could. I'll have to talk it over with Leader since dragons don't really meddle in affairs not involving them." Ezekiel grinned, saying, "Good. We could really use a dragon." Ezekiel then said, "Mia, Aqua, Kairi, since you three know magic, I'll need your help setting up magic traps. Rina, since you're an elf, you probably know about some traps too. They'll help whittle down the enemy a bit." The four of them nodded, and Tokuda suddenly said, "About the castle, since we're going under the wall, we need to try to find a blind spot where the soldiers won't be able to see us coming so we can dig without trouble." Ezekiel nodded, liking the plan, and wrote a quick report. Ezekiel handed the report to Bear and looked at both him and Tokuda, asking, "Will you two be alright delivering the report back to Lionel?" Bear glanced over at Tokuda, and Tokuda glanced at Bear. Bear turned back to Ezekiel, shrugged, then said, "I guess we'll be alright." Tokuda nodded, and Ezekiel prayed they wouldn't get into another fight. Ezekiel took out the things he would need from the wagon, and Tokuda and Bear then hopped in the wagon and went back to the Freedom Legion base. Ezekiel looked back at the landscape, grinned, then said, "Let's get to work."
Ezekiel, Rina, Kairi, Aqua, and Mia got to work setting magic traps throughout the forest. They had a lot of magic paper, so they put magic symbols on them and set them on a variety of things. The idea was that they would act as landmines, triggering certain magic when someone got too close to one of the magic papers. Kairi placed magic paper that had wind magic symbols on them that would blow away anyone. Aqua placed magic paper that had water symbols on them that would use a variety of water magic to whittle down the enemy. Mia placed magic paper that had black magic symbols that did a variety of horrifying things. Rina didn't use magic paper, as she made hunting traps big enough for humans. All of them also set small indicators neat the traps to let them know where they were so they didn't accidentally walk into their own traps.
Ezekiel soon found himself near the river, and he wanted to take a look at it to see what he could do with it. Ezekiel quickly did a taste test to see what type of river it was. Unfortunately for him and his idea, it was a freshwater river. Freshwater isn't as good as conducting electricity as salt water is. We may have to dump a lot of salt in this river beforehand in order to shock the water and the incoming human army troops wearing metal armor, thought Ezekiel. He made a mental note to go grab some bags of salt when he could and continued placing down magic paper traps.
Kairi was placing her traps when she found herself thinking about her family. She hadn't seen them since they visited them in Borene Kingdom, and she hoped that they were doing alright. She wondered if they would approve of her doing what she was doing now, fighting in this war of equality, fighting for something bigger than herself instead of being the food critic that she was. In a way, she felt that it was her way of repaying the demi-human family that had taken care of her when she ran away from the war orphanage all those years ago. Her thoughts dwelled on them for a bit, hoping that they were doing alright after the outcome of the Humanity War. Kairi never saw herself as a fighter, but when push came to shove, she knew that she could handle herself, especially when she wasn't just fighting for herself. After realizing that she had been lost in thought for a bit, she quickly snapped back to reality and kept placing her traps.
Aqua had decided to take a small break from placing traps, and she was now sitting down in the shade of a large tree. She saw Kairi, Mia, Rina, and Ezekiel working diligently, placing traps one after the other. Aqua's gaze set on Ezekiel for longer than she realized, intensely blushing to herself once she realized she'd been staring at him for a while. She looked down at her feet, hoping that Ezekiel didn't catch her looking at him. Aqua shyly glanced up at Ezekiel, and she realized Ezekiel didn't see her. Aqua looked back down at her feet, thinking about Margaret, the magic shop, and Wolfwater as a whole. She missed all of it, but she knew Margaret probably would've told her to adventure out and make a name for herself as a great wizard. Margaret was ecstatic to see that Aqua had finally made friends and wanted to venture out on her own, but what would Margaret say about her fighting in some sort of scaled-down Humanity War? She suddenly realized that she didn't know all that much about Margaret, despite being by her side for many years. In fact, it seemed hard for her to recall any of her past. Deciding not to think about it too much, she decided that her break was over and got back to placing traps.
Rina was setting up her basic hunting traps, but upscaling them so they could trap a human. Setting up these kinds of traps made her miss home a bit. She began thinking about when she would go hunting with her older sister and always get praised by her mother and father when she brought home a big deer or even a bear. She began wondering how her own family was doing, as she hadn't seen them for some time, ever since she was shipped off to be a slave for the human army. She wondered if her big sister and mother met the same fate as her, hoping that they weren't shipped off like she was. I guess that's partly why I'm fighting this war. To make all races equal and not have the humans stand over any one race like they did with elves and demi-humans, thought Rina, as she hoped that no other elves had to suffer the same fate as she did. Now more motivated to do her part in this war, she placed more and more traps down.
Mia was placing her traps down when she summoned a lone skeleton to help her out. The skeleton only had a rusted chest plate with the letter J carved into it. Mia realized that she hadn't summoned Jay (she named the skeleton Jay a long time ago) in a while since she hasn't been alone in a long time. She thought back to the days when she was truly alone, the days when she hadn't met General Alexander or Ezekiel. Knowing black magic, she was always shunned and chased out of towns, so she had no one to rely on for help. Feeling lonely, she wanted to try to summon a skeleton for the first time. The result was Jay, a silent skeleton with the letter J carved into his rusted chest plate. Mia always commanded Jay to do things for her, and over time, she saw him as a big brother of sorts. Jay helped Mia feel less lonely, and she felt a strange bond between them form, even if it was one-sided. Although she knew that Jay had no mind of his own and was only doing Mia's bidding, she knew that Jay would always be there for her. She felt bad about not summoning Jay in a while, but if Jay was alive, she thought he would understand and be happy for her if he saw her now. Her mind then drifted to General Alexander, the first person to take her in. The last time she saw him was inside of a cell inside the Freedom Legion base, but he didn't seem to mind it one bit. If anything, he seemed much more contempt with how he was now, almost as if he broke free from something. Her thoughts then settled on Ezekiel, the second person to take her in, as she caught a glimpse of Ezekiel placing down his traps. She realized that she had seen both sides of this small war by being with these two, but truly couldn't decide who was right. However, she had found herself on the side of Ezekiel, and she didn't want to question her own loyalty to him, so Mia and Jay continued placing traps without another thought.
Meanwhile, while the others were placing down their traps, Suko had summoned Leader in the middle of the forest, away from prying eyes. Leader asked, "Why am I here, Suko?" Suko responded, "There's a battle that might change things like the Humanity war did. I just want your help, man. You'd basically guarantee victory for us." Leader quickly said, "You know we don't mess with human affairs, Suko. No matter what you offer, we cannot provide assistance. It's not our war and it's not our business." Suko grinned in a devilish manner and asked, "You sure you wouldn't fight for a dragon-sized bottle of alcohol? Maybe even two?" Leader thought about this long and hard about that, then said, "N-No promises! I'll need to talk to the others." Suko chuckled, saying, "We could use the help. We really could." In a flash, Leader was sent back from where he came from, and Suko was left wondering if Leader would actually come and help. The dragons didn't help in the first Humanity War, so why help in the second one, thought Suko.
Bear and Tokuda were heading back to the Freedom Legion base when out of nowhere, Bear asked, "What was my father like?" Tokuda looked at Bear, asking, "You don't remember?" Bear shook his head, saying, "My father wasn't around a lot since he was a general in the Demi-Human Federation, and that was a long time ago." Tokuda then said, " I see. He was a lot like yourself, actually." Bear then asked, "Really?" Tokuda looked ahead at the road in front of them and said, "He was a good man, a great man to me, in fact. He showed compassion, even to his enemies. With how nice he was, you'd find it hard to believe that he was someone that had the capacity to kill others. Also, he was very understanding. Despite being a human and a demi-human, he was able to look past the surface of one another and see that we were pretty similar." Tokuda looked at Bear and said, "He's one of the few people I would consider to be a true friend of mine. He's the reason that the Freedom Legion is even a thing." Tokuda thought for a moment, then asked, "Have you visited his grave?" Bear responded, "No. I had no idea there was one for him." Tokuda then said, "I was the one to make it for him before I deserted the human army. After this whole ordeal is over, we could visit it together. I think he'd be happy if we did that." Bear smiled, saying, "If he's a good friend of yours like you say he is, I think he'd be pretty happy about it." Bear then looked at Tokuda in a serious manner and said, "I'm sorry for the way that I used to treat you, and wanting to murder you and all." Tokuda softly smiled, saying, "You had no idea, Bear. No one really does, and I don't blame you for it. You might not be the Red Bear himself, but you're pretty damn close." Bear laughed at that, and any tension between Tokuda and Bear that was once there no longer existed.
Back at the castle forest, Ezekiel, Rina, Aqua, Kairi, and Mia finished placing down their traps. Suko met up with them shortly after they finished, saying, "We might get help, we might not. Leader is still a bit unsure." Ezekiel thought for a moment, then said, "I see. We need to assume the dragons won't be coming to help then, so we need to plan for that." Ezekiel then pointed at the castle and said, "We need to start mining under the walls there in the meantime. We need to finish it by tomorrow so we have quick entry into the castle." Suko scratched his head, asking, "How are we gonna do that without tools?" Ezekiel simply responded, "We've got magic, don't we?" Suko nodded, still unsure what he meant by that. Ezekiel started walking towards the castle, and the others followed behind.
They soon reached the bottom of the castle walls undetected. Looking up, Ezekiel assumed the wall was at least 50 feet high, so he was relieved to suggest the idea of going under the wall instead of over it. Ezekiel started to dig, and the others followed suit, using various magic to dig their way into the ground. Ezekiel used his wind sphere as a drill of sorts, cutting into the dirt and stone with a ball of wind magic at high speeds. Kairi had the same idea and began using strong gusts of wind aimed at the dirt to make indents into the ground. Aqua used a constant stream of water magic to carry the dirt and stone away to keep it from going back into the tunnel. Rina used enhancement magic on her arms to pick up heavy stones and pound them into the dirt. Suko hardened his arms and began punching into the ground, breaking any rocks he came across. Mia summoned Jay and a few other skeletons with mining tools to provide more manpower.
Ezekiel realized that they were making a lot of noise while working together at the same time. He decided that they would take turns to reduce the noise so the guards wouldn't get suspicious of it. Every so often, when one got tired, they would switch with someone else. The skeletons that were summoned didn't take breaks, so the tunnel was dug quicker than Ezekiel expected. By nightfall, the tunnel was basically complete, but Ezekiel wanted to wait until the day of the attack to open up the tunnel to the other side of the wall. All of them were exhausted at that point, so they began their trek back to the other side of the forest, going the long way around to avoid setting off their own traps that they set.
All of them were quite hungry too, and Ezekiel decided that Lad Steaks were in order, as they haven't had them in quite some time. As normal, no one could get enough of Ezekiel's delicious lad steaks, and once everyone was finished eating, they sat around a campfire, staring at the stars. It was quiet, peaceful, and serene that night. All of them fell asleep around the same time, almost forgetting that they were about to end a war in two days.115Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOQMvQp5gT3
