Blacksmith vs. the System

Once I saw the fortress that was built deep into the valley, with enough effort put into its construction to make it difficult to notice from the sky, I didn't rush down immediately no matter how tempting it was.

Instead, I first picked an empty cave with a concealed entrance halfway down the mountain where I could drop down without being noticed, and started watching the place. My job was made easy by the fact that they didn't have any patrol running at the side I was. There were several guards, but they were concentrated on the other side.

It was negligent, but it made sense. The biggest thing they feared was accidental discovery, and having hundreds of soldiers running around would be counterproductive to that aim. After all, even with a cursory aim, they could have noticed my presence easily.

The darkness of the night wasn't too far away, so I decided to spend my time observing the area, trying to pick a vector to approach from. If it wasn't for the advantages granted by Perception — which I suspected a considerable portion of the scouts would possess — I might have tried to sneak in, but I chose to wait, watching from a great distance.

Unfortunately, that was not a good way to gather information. The patrols didn't change, but that was a poor way to make a judgment. So was the size of the fortress. Admittedly, the fortress looked too small to host more than a few dozen people comfortably, but with a dungeon gate there, that was not a good way to make a judgment either.

There might be just a dozen people like I suspected, or they might have an army hidden inside. I had absolutely no way of making sure.

"Maybe a little trick is in order," I muttered as I went out to pick a small branch from a tree. Cutting one might get their attention, but growing one inside would not.

Once inside the cave, I used it to grow a few trees before cutting them into pieces. Soon, I was looking at a hundred human-shaped cutouts. Not enough to trick anyone during the day, but the same wasn't true at night, which wasn't too far away.

Though, the real trick was that, a few of them had tiny metal amulets, which would slowly radiate mana if I put a crushed piece of shell inside, radiating the sensation that someone was using magic against someone with Essence.

The rest of my time, I spent digging a tunnel to the bottom of the valley, right under a very sharp cliff where I couldn't be seen from outside the moment I stepped out. As I worked, the night arrived, covering the valley in darkness. Afraid of being noticed, they were using no illumination sources.

"Let's see how they'll react to fear," I muttered. Sneaking into the fortress was a challenging option. Unless, of course, they had something they feared distracting them. And, since they were plotting to take down a fire mage, what better way to do that.

"Time to test how effective my new trick is," I said as I grew another tree in the cave, but this time, I focused on one idea.

Flammability.

The results were spectacular, creating a tree that did a nice impression of a chemical fire starter. I grew ten logs, and positioned them correctly. Yet, before making a move, I did one more thing. I dug several areas on the face of the mountain, doing my best to destabilize the whole structure.

Only after I activated the metal talismans, I lit them on fire.

By using my neglected Fire Bolt skill.

[-100 Mana]

It wasn't just a sense of poetic justice that made me use that spell. It was likely that they had someone who could feel mana, and a fire spell, however basic, was a good way to alert them. And, with them raising the alarm, the guards would be met with several huge cylinders of fire.

It was like an old-fashioned magic trick, giving a hint, and letting the audience come to the wrong conclusion. Only, in this case, the reward for their cooperation was not entertainment.

The logs blazed into life as they rolled down the hill, creating an incredible commotion. Even as shouts of alarm rose from the fortress, I delved into the tunnel I had dug, rushing to the bottom of the valley while staying hidden, unable to help but feel tense, afraid that I would find enemies waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, there was no such thing as absolute safety in battle.

When I arrived at the bottom of the valley, I was met with a small army spilling out of the fortress, confirming my worst fear. Especially since, their presence didn't mean that I could simply retreat.

The only good thing was that they didn't look like a regular army. They wore familiar black armor, and the weapons they were wielding were equally impressive, but the way they moved didn't feel like an army that was familiar with working together.

And, currently, they were between me and the fortress.

I switched to my hammer, and swung it against the face of the cliff I picked for this exact purpose.

[-25 Mana]

The modified move from Quake Hammer did wonders destroying a large section, but I moved as fast as I could to deliver three more attacks, hoping that it would be enough even as I depleted my mana to merely ten points.

It was.

The whole face of the mountain, with the vegetation on fire from the earlier logs, shifted down, creating a minor landslide. Unfortunately, while it could have easily taken down a mundane army, it merely inconvenienced the current one.

After all, I wasn't the only one with supernatural abilities.

However, it was enough to create chaos. Some of the army had dispersed despite the orders, running away in fear. Some rushed to the mountaintop, moving around the small landslide I had created, toward the shadows that they could see at the hilltop.

Several people delivered orders at once, while the force split into multiple smaller ones as they tried to position themselves against the threat.

Meanwhile, I quietly modified my armor to look similar to theirs, renewed my mana by cracking a shell, and dropped my spear and hammer alongside my pack, bringing only a small satchel. I looked like just another soldier. I rushed forward, the cacophony allowing me to mix in with the group that looked the most disorganized.

It was an absurd trick, one that shouldn't have worked, but I moved forward, aware that I had only one chance. Of course, I dared to do so because I could see that the general makeup of the army wasn't too different from the ones that attacked me and Eleanor.

Should it come to that, I was confident that I could cut a path through them and escape, even if they had someone who had people that could rival Eleanor before she received my sword. The same wasn't true if they had someone that could rival Maria … but, if they were willing to commit such an asset, they would have approached in a more direct manner.

It wasn't a perfect analysis, but sometimes, pretty good was the limit of what one could achieve.

I moved in, the chaos of a poorly organized army helping me to hide my presence, particularly since I could see even more people, and the high amount of people attempting to leave the dungeon didn't make doing so any easier.

Luckily, with the ongoing chaos, no one really paid attention to me even as I entered the fortress … only to freeze. I was expecting a dungeon gate.

Instead, I found two.

One of the gates was identical to the dungeon gates I had been passing repeatedly. A glowing, ethereal light.

The second was interesting. For one, it was larger, with more intense energy, but the more surprising part was the lines of energy: pure black in a way that reminded me of tainted energy. The process was equally interesting. The dungeon mist was roughly visible at the cracks, but it didn't spill out.

What spilled out was tainted energy.

Then, right at the gate, stood a man wearing robes, radiating mana even as he kept his hand on the dungeon gate, using it to slowly widen the cracks. He looked lost in his task. Though, even as it spread through the cracks, I couldn't help but be disgusted by his mana.

He had four guards, each looking more formidable than the ragtag army that was busy panicking, ignoring the crowd. They didn't look like tangling with them was a good idea. Luckily, they seemed to be distracted by the commotion outside, one of the guards asking the robed man to stop. But, it looked like whatever he was doing wasn't something that could be interrupted with ease.

Even as I glanced at the situation, I wondered what it meant for them to do what they were doing so openly. Were they that confident that their ragtag army would keep it a secret? Were they not concerned about their secrets being revealed… Maybe they were confident that, as long as Charisma was used, their secrets would stay safe.

Or maybe, they planned to silence the whole army to keep their secrets hidden once they outlived their usefulness.

That last one, in particular, was too horrifying of an idea, but from what I had seen, Thomas didn't seem to be particularly respectful of human life.

The forces that we suspected to be behind him, were even less so.

I paused, thinking of my options. I could limit myself to the safe gate. But, doing so would rely on one very dangerous assumption: that the two gates lead to the same dungeon. An assumption that would cost us dearly if it wasn't true.

I decided to check it first.