Chapter 65 – Pitching Camp (Start)

At this time, the skies were almost black.

The road that Lancas had pointed out was originally desolate and difficult to transverse. Adding on that they had experienced a battle with goblins afterwards, everyone was all exhausted.

Currently, the lighting within the forest was already increasingly absent. The road ahead long couldn’t be seen clearly. At this time, it seemed like wanting to continue rashly and leading the majority of the squad forward, they would not only come across danger, but even risk being lost.

Furthermore, because they had battled with the goblins while journeying, at this time when the battle had concluded, everyone had only just discovered that their current position not only had deviated from the main road, they were afraid that even the small path that Lancas pointed out was also a fair distance away.

As a responsible Commander that was serious, Howard proposed straightaway to create a small squad of people that were strong and in addition, experienced with the forest; to go and investigate the surroundings.

The small squad soon returned. They also brought back bad news at the same time.

Their current position at this time was already quite deviated from the original route. They feared that before the skies were dark, they wouldn’t be able to reach the location they had planned beforehand.

“Rumont, are you hungry?” while watching Commander Howard discuss something with Lancas on the other side, Fafnir was holding onto some meat jerky as he neared Rumont.

Rumont shook his head. “I’m currently not hungry, what’s your thoughts currently? Feeling better?”

What Rumont referred to was the undesirable outcome midst of the battle this time. Because of a moment of carelessness, it resulted in an injury. This kind of depressing event which occurred for Fafnir, who had the aspirations of becoming a mighty renowned Warrior, had made him unceasingly vexed

Honestly, anyone who hadn’t experienced tempering, would all encounter this kind of problem of distress or deficiency. What was important was how to take this problem and deficiency, after the midst of tempering, and gradually change it into superior success and strength.

Rumont found it funny as he watched this man-child in front of him; who was gnawing on the jerky, while gloomily keeping his face scrunched up.

“Great, and you said that you were equal to some might Warrior eh. With just this bit of setback and it’s enough to flatten you?” Rumont jested: “you weren’t defeated by the goblins right. Next time, when you meet goblins again, just be more careful and you’ll be able to recover your face right?”

Fafnir nodded: “mm, that’s a matter of course, otherwise, I’ll really have no way of washing clean this disgrace.”

Looking at it as a Warrior, because goblins were really an uncivilized type, a lowly born existence; their kind was comparatively far from humanity. Eating raw meat, ignorant, with a low fighting ability. Thus, being successfully ambushed by them, as Fafnir saw it, was something difficult to swallow.

At this point in time, Fafnir who was still only full of a Warrior’s glory, was still incomparable to the Adventurers who had matured from already experiencing tempering. In their view, being able to come out alive after a round of battle was already the best result. As for how Fafnir saw it at this time, through the maturing process of a mighty Warrior, they would not permit such a kind of defilement.

Honestly, practically every single young adolescence that had a target they worship or dreamed of would all even have a short period of, as others would see it, relentlessness.

And in the future of continuous battles and polishing, they would cast off their soft and immature exterior, turning mature and genuinely growing up; becoming a true Warrior. Provided that they could prior to maturing, live through each and every battle.

Rumont was currently only a youth, but from his previous life, he was long of an age that was way older than Fafnir. Hence, seeing this man-child in front of him being constantly upset of the smear on himself, he found it both quite funny, as well as a feeling of returning back to his teenage years. Certainly though, ever since he arrived at this place and becoming Rumont hereafter, this kind of feeling would always persist time and time again. Merely, it was never as strong as it was now.

“Fafnir, you need to understand, there hasn’t been a single Warrior that was flawless since birth. Not a single Warrior was a good role model before they were heralded by the thousands. Without experiencing tempering, without raising one’s self each time, they wouldn’t have a way of becoming an outstanding and mighty Warrior deserving of respect. So long as you remember that one setback isn’t considered to be anything, instead from where you fall and where you climb back up is where you should learn from; slowly bettering yourself. So long as you can survive, there will eventually be a day that you will achieve your dream.” Rumont spoke for Fafnir as well as himself to hear, while looking earnestly at Fafnir.

Although his current cultivation was considered to be smooth, and his livelihood also appeared to be quite stable, the foray this time, was even for the struggle for his own land. Only Rumont knew that all of this was temporary.

Wanting to become a mighty Druid, with all that he currently grasped, it was greatly insufficient. As the future came, what he needed to face was possibly an endless amount of difficulties and setbacks.

As for himself, he needed to be accomplished. Such that he could even encourage Fafnir, even if he was once a person of another world, even if on this world he would always have a subtle type of loneliness. But, since he wanted to come settle it, he needed to persist to the end.

Struggling to live. Living well. Living with an unbounded scenery.

“Mm!” on the side, Fafnir nodded, a face full of acceptance. And within his mind at the same time, Rumont also resolved his heart.

“With the present conditions, as I see it, continuing to journey on is not feasible. The sky’s so dark. We should also depart from the pathway that you were leading on; waiting for daylight tomorrow to search again. The problem we should currently resolve first, as I believe, is to find a temporary camp. After all, the later it gets in Briar Forest, the more dangers there would be. We just moments ago had conducted a battle with goblins, currently everyone’s already tired. If we don’t rest, whether we can continue the journey tomorrow is another problem. Commander Lancas, your thoughts?”

When Commander Howard finished explaining his suggestions, he asked Lancas who was listening by the side.

This handsome youth, even though he had just carried out a fight at close quarters, with splashes of bloodstains on his clothes, his manner and speech was still as before, like he was cheerfully strolling through flowers.

It was an easy-going atmosphere brought about from being steadfast. He truly attracted attention on just this point; possessing the charisma and ability of a leader.

“We’ll do as you suggested, Commander Howard. Presently, I also feel that this road is a menace to everybody’s safety. The skies are already darkening. Might as well take advantage of while the skies aren’t completely dark, to send people to search for a place in the vicinity where we could reside in or perhaps pitch a camp. This place is cramped, if we pitched a camp here and if we encountered dangers, we would have difficulties in retaliating.” spoke Lancas, expressing his approval of Howard’s suggestions, while also proposing his own suggestions.

Consequently, the small experienced squad just then, was immediately then dispatched out. As for the rest of the people of the two squadrons, they waited at their former location and awaited for news, preparing to depart at anytime.

Seeing that the small group wouldn’t return for a short while, Rumont then sat at a place that wasn’t too far from the rest of the squadron, opening the small bag he carried and taking out the equipment for drafting a map.

At last, after the second time of entering the forest, Rumont had finally decided to officially begin drafting the map.

“There’s a brook here, I’ll use this pen to draw it……” as Rumont compared the rough sketched and records from before, he collated it together; blueprinting on the official map drafting paper.

The map he created was quite delicate and fine, not only did he mark the pathways down, even the areas with large water sources within the forest, were all clearly marked by him.

Because there was a lot of map drafting equipment, apart from previously using a few rough sketches to be more versed and familiar, he had only became more familiar with a certain textbook. All of it, was conducted as preparations for today’s first official map drafting.

Honestly, the reason why Rumont was taking it so seriously wasn’t entirely because of the Baron’s mission. He who was so prudent, had purchased enough tools because truthfully, from the very beginning, he had decided to give himself a backup copy after drafting the map.

Furthermore, the map he had officially prepared to give to the Baron, was already sufficiently detailed enough. However, what it contained, still wasn’t the complete contents he had recorded on the rough sketches.

The reason why he had written down such various detailed information of the pathways, as well as the information he had obtained from the mouths of the Adventurers, was all for the sake of preparing for his own future operations.

On the map that he would eventually hand over, what he drew was only the routes, geography and large water sources. The map he would certainly leave for himself would be finely detailed; all that he had saw, heard, the various distributed territories of the monsters, water sources, constructs, selected strategic points as well as necessary events to pay attention to and so forth, all of it would be drafted up. As a Druid, along with progressive increases of the future cultivation stages, the forest fringes was sure to be difficult in satisfying his needs, or perhaps, in the later days following, he would again need to enter this forest; he recorded it all down, so that he also have another safeguard.

Just when Rumont was earnestly drafting his map, abruptly, a faint cold intent, had suddenly attacked from his behind.

Rumont wrinkled his brow, raising his head from amidst of his busy work of map drafting, he then saw Lancas standing in a not too far distance, smiling and watching him.

“Rumont, you seem to be always busy? What are you working on?” Lancas came over and asked.

Rumont could only helplessly pack up his drafting equipment into his bag, before similarly returning a smile: “nothing, just my task.”

“Really?” Lancas’ handsome face had maintained a smile from the beginning to the end. Hearing Rumont give a simply reply, he laughed: “I often hear others speak of you. Being able to work with you this time is a great honour for me.”

“Heheh, same for me.”

And at this time, a bout of footstep sounds had arrived from the far distance. Everyone quickly grabbed their weapons and took precautions.

But they merely saw the dispatched squad members returning. Everyone appeared with all sorts of happiness; it seemed that the search wasn’t going to end with failure.

Leading the way was a member of Howard’s squad, as he walked over, he laughed: “Commander, we found a place to pitch camp at. There’s some ruins close by, we can temporary stay there the night!”

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