The rest of the day Ajax spent doing the same tasks as all the other hunters. As he got assigned to another of the quadrants that they had split the surrounding area into and proceeded to hunt for a few boars. The area was relatively full of them and by the end of his time there he had killed four of them. He could have gotten a lot more of them but the hunter team as a whole decided not to change the ecosystem of the forest so much.
The other part of his job there was to set up new traps. Despite having trained in setting up traps before doing so here was a whole different experience. Not only did he have to set up traps in an area that was already trapped, those traps were placed there by his allies. This gave him a lot more freedom. In the first area where he put traps he had to make sure that the traps themselves were self sufficient to alert the presence of the enemy or a significantly dangerous animal. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⁂𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⁂𝕟𝕖𝕥
Here he had a lot more freedom. The first few hours of his time in the quadrant consisted solely of investigating and analyzing the traps laid down by his fellow hunter. The traps were all the usual variants that Hatchet had taught him for the last five years so it didn’t take long to see how they worked. One thing he did pick up on was that while this hunter' traps were not all that different from his, in fact they were less reliable in differentiating between animals and spies, they were a lot better hidden with a much more sensitive trigger.
He took quite a bit of time but he wasn’t able to find out how it was that these traps blended in so much better than his own. If it wasn’t for his relatively high perception and stealth skill he would have missed a few of them entirely. In fact he wasn’t fully confident that he hadn’t missed and maybe even triggered a few of them already. Thinking back this area was the one that the lead hunter was in charge of the day before.
With these different traps already present here he had a much wider field of options. A full third of the traps he placed today had been much smaller in scope, this was because the trap's result was not to alert the base but in fact trigger one of these other traps. This was not to say that he didn’t have trap chains in his first set-up. But because the result would be to always alert the camp he couldn’t be as stealthy. He fully planned on discussing and learning from this hunter before the end of this conflict.
On the way back to the camp he climbed up high on one of the trees near the edge of the forest so that he could get a good look down at the main camp. From there he saw that not only was the set-up much more complete than the day before but also that they had started to build their own watch-towers. His report from this morning about their presence in the enemy camp must have moved up the timeline for his own leadership.
Looking carefully he worked out that the soonest the first engagement would happen will be two days from now. No way they would be ready to march out before then. As he descended he headed back and dropped off his butchered kills to the cooks. All of them were very thankful for his extra attention to butcher the animal in the field, this let them have a few blood drained portions they could start preparing for dinner.
He didn’t see either Kate or Tom for dinner, he mostly kept to himself before the other hunters joined him at his table.
“Alright let's talk about how everyone's day went today.” The leader started.
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The other three hunters consisted of two older hunters, the team leader and a veteran who triggered none and one respectively, and a younger hunter who looked to be about Tom’s age that triggered five. It seems that the veteran hunter had been through Ajax’s section and had even complimented him. He had noticed the trap he triggered right as he did but there was nothing he could do to stop it from alerting the camp.
As he got back to his tent he found Kate and Tom already there, they had had dinner before him.
“Hey, do you know what happened with the bug in the end.” he greeted his brother, but was understandably a little on edge about the whole thing.
“Hey.” Tom returned the greeting. “ Yeah, it seems like it will all be alright, at least for now. The commander sent me a message for Baron Stillwater’s heir instead of the whole leadership. He is looking to impress the higher nobles so he didn’t even look into it once he got the news that we have a bug placed.”
“You mean he didn’t ask about who put it there?” Kate asked.
“No, the commander just said that we have access to a bug already and he just went with it. The archduke’s daughter and the duke’s granddaughter did look like they might look into it but it won’t happen right now. As soon as the duke realized what we had he got a shift together to be listening at all times. They are even building a small shed outside the camp that will just be in range to pick up, since these things have such limited range.”
Well that was slightly concerning. Ajax didn’t know whether it was better or worse to be on the radar of a higher tier noble. Unlike the low nobles they almost always had people lining up to join their house willingly so there was no need to kidnap others. On the other hand they had a much stronger pull to get away with it.
“What impression did the high nobles give you?”
“The archduke’s daughter is very competitive, always out to prove herself. The commander thinks this is because she has always been coddled by having a high number of guards, being the only direct heir of a six hundred year old archduke with countless older cousins and nephews makes that a must. This is probably the first time she got to go out with only one guard.” Tom said. “ She seemed very decisive and active in the strategy meetings I saw.
“The duke’s granddaughter on the other hand is a lot more withdrawn. She didn’t seem at all interested in most of the things that were discussed. She also seemed a little shy, mainly keeping to herself and the archduke’s daughter. The only time she got involved was when it had anything to do with magic, she seemed very enthusiastic about it.” he explained. “According to the commander, with her grandfather being who he is, she could have only turned out one of two ways : obsessed with magic, or completely over it.”
“If she finds out that you are a fifteen year old level twenty-four commoner with access to mana it might be a problem. Doubly so if she finds out about the way you use it in your fighting.” he warned.
“What does that mean?” Kate asked. She had heard that he had access to mana but didn’t know that he took a different approach to its use from the conventional ones.
“I don’t use runic engravings or chanting.” Ajax said.
“He uses mana a lot more like a monster does. He imbues actions directly or keeps a steady flow in a specific effect.” Tom explained. “It is a lot less mana efficient and the output is also lower, but the speed and versatility he has with it is quite something.
“But then how will you take part in combat if you can’t use your mana without drawing so much unwanted attention?” Kate asked.
“I’ll just simply fight without it. According to Hatchet, I fight around level twenty-six without my mana, a bit more work in my skills and I can push a bit further.” Ajax said.
“Wait, how strong are you otherwise?” Kate asked. While Ajax had mentioned that he had stockpiled some points without spending them for the duration of his Apprenticeship he never told them how high his stats had gotten.
“Right now, around level forty-two or forty-three, but Hatchet thinks I could push that fifty with my fighting style once I get more used to the new stats.” Said Ajax, while he had gotten used to his stats with normal activities, morphing his whole style to accommodate for doubled stats was always going to take more than a week of sparring. “Well, that and getting my skills leveled.”
At that bomb both looked at him with wide eyes, they had expected him to be stronger than average for all his hard work but neither had expected him to be able to hit above twice his level.