The guards working under commander Grievous managed to set up a much better camp than I expected. After all this was only just a one night stop before we would reach the meeting place where the Baron’s son and whatever other noble commanders would join us and the rest of the conscripts. The terrain where we would fight was specifically chosen so that a river, a forest, an open plain and a small pass were all included in the approximate geography.
To me this seemed like an odd place for the skirmish to take place considering all the different ways it could backfire but I wasn’t part of the command structure, and if I was lucky I wouldn’t be noticed by it either.
After ‘not realizing this was a one night stop’ and going back out to ‘collect the traps I laid down’ I returned without much fanfare and passed the second bear corpse on to the cooks after removing its mana core. While I did receive some good natured jokes from them on the topic they left it at that, clearly I wasn’t the only one with too much enthusiasm and too little paying attention.
The cooks were all good at their job. Unlike all the ‘army food’ stereotypes I was expecting from my previous life I received a juicy bear steak, though some decently leveled skills probably had something to do with that.
After finally turning in for the night, happy with the fact that neither I, nor Kate, had to take a night shift for the camp's protection, we stayed up a little longer while Tom went straight to sleep.
“So, who was that asshole that tried to pick a fight with me earlier?” I asked Kate,
“That was Spencer.” she said as a frown flashed over her face. “He is the first generation son of a landed knight. He isn’t the heir of the estate either but has adopted the commoners are beneath him attitude despite that he will most likely end up as just a common branch family with the title of noble in name only.”
“We had met about four and half years ago, a little after your visit in fact, when Tom was getting scouted to join this unit. We didn’t really interact much and just kept our distance from him without much problems. All of this changed when we finally entered the unit three years ago.”
“You see, healers are quite rare for the guard so their assignment into units isn’t really formalized. Most of us don’t join units usually preferring to work the barracks. My wanting to join a unit combined with my talent caused quite the stir for a few months. You see it was customary for a healer to join the same unit as their spouse should they have one in a unit. The other commanders weren’t happy not to be able to grab and use me for political advancement with the local nobility.”
I just shook my head at the situation, it didn’t even deserve words to acknowledge how stupid it was.
“But that's nothing more than an inconvenience. The thing you should be more worried about is the fact that you are level twenty-four at the age of fifteen.” She changed the subject to something I wasn’t expecting.
I looked surprised at her for a few moments. Though the fact that she had this information certainly made Tom’s subdued reaction at my killing a level twenty-five bear make a lot more sense.
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“How do you know my level? The recruiter who enlisted me didn’t have an inspect skill that could see levels.” I asked curiously. While I was surprised at her knowing this, it wasn’t something that I should be paranoid about, she had much more sensitive information about me than my level.
“The commander’s aide, Walter, also has an inspect skill. His can only find out the level but mistook you and Tom for being much closer in age and just let it slip. Thankfully only Tom, the commander and I were with him when he did and the commander told him to keep it to himself.” I sighed with relief as she finished speaking.
“I’ll have to thank him for that.” I mumbled.
“You probably should, but that is not urgent. While the commander is going to keep his aide from spilling the beans about your surprising level and age combination that is all he is going to do. When we meet up with the main forces tomorrow there is a chance that whatever nobles got invited here might have someone with them that also has the inspect skill.” she brought up a good point I hadn’t realized.
“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll try to make it so that I am always busy and gone somewhere in the forest should they make their way through camp.” I started with the foundations of what could only be a shaky plan.
This was even more true considering my interaction with the other hunters. Shortly after Idelivered my second bear to the cooks the three of them all had a quick word with me. Unlike Spencer they all seemed genuinely happy with my competence to hunt and congratulated me on my kills, they also let me know not to bring in that much food at once if it’s not requested since it would either overwork the cooks or send the unit into a food coma, and those were not mutually exclusive.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get to level twenty-four so quickly? I am barely at twenty-three.” she said.
“Hmm…” I took a few seconds to ponder how I would answer that.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just forget I asked.” She quickly said when she noticed me not answering.
“It’s fine, you already know quite a bit about me and have already proven trustworthy with that information so I might as well tell you.” I reassure her. “Would you mind if I explained on the trip tomorrow. It's a bit of a lengthy explanation and I’m going to tell Tom as well so I’d rather only do it once.”
With that out of the way we both went to sleep. The following morning the speed with which the camp got packed up and we started moving surprised me. Everyone had put in an hour’s work packing up before people started having a meat heavy breakfast in small groups. It wasn’t more than two hours before we were fully packed up and already moving.
As we moved Kate, Tom and I got a bit of space between us and the group as I started to explain to them how exactly I leveled so high and about my extra stats. They had proven trustworthy so sharing that with them was a good step towards letting go of my paranoia.
“So you’re saying you already have more than one thousand stats total?” Kate asked me after I finished the overview of my explanation.
“Yep.” I answered “In fact, since you are a caster that means you probably split your stats with only a few points going into any physical ones besides vitality. If we could somehow get you to also be able to save points to spend later I think you could squeeze out a few more forced points in them.”
This idea had only occurred to me after seeing how heavily she was breathing despide the relative light weight she had on her back for the duration of the march.
“You know, that’s not a bad idea. It’s not like I use those stats for anything really, so any point I can avoid spending in them is another one I can put towards another stat.”she seemed positively giddy at the idea.
“Do you think you could teach me about that as well?” asked Tom.
“I might be able to but I don’t see any real benefits in it for you. Even if you save up the points, it will be decades before you even raise a single point in any of your physical stats so I highly doubt saving them will help you since you will be very weak for your level if you do.” I pointed it out to him.
“Won’t that be the same case for Kate, about the time it takes?” he asked a bit downcast.
“Not really, since her physical stats are not that high she will have a lot of an easier time raising them. With them in the 30’s range I am guessing, based on this trek, it might take her a month or two of a strict workout regimen in order to gain one or two points that should be sustainable until she reaches the late forties.”
Kate’s mood lifted considerably at the idea that she could still work to gain almost two level’s worth of stats, it was almost like she took a stamina boost and had pushed through a march to the meeting point without taking a break on the wagons like the mages of the unit.
Once we made it close to the meeting point we all spent the next hour setting up our permanent spot. Our tents were specifically made so we managed to combine the six that we had, counting the spares Kate insisted we take with us, into a large tent with three compartments. Two for them and I to sleep in and another we would use as a living room.
Not three minutes after we were done, someone, Walter I suspect from the look he was giving me, showed up at our tent. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⚑𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⚑𝕟𝕖𝕥
“Tom, you are to report to the commander now.” he nodded to Tom who started walking towards the command tent. “Kate, Ajax, he said you could join him if you want since this will probably affect you too.”