275 Kian’s decision
Adventurers, on the other hand, all had rings with teleportation crystals and moved all over the island. Fusing teleportation crystals into rings was better than carrying them loose and the guild shared it with all the adventurers who participated in the operation.
“The tide of battle is turning! Keep pressing them and don’t let them regroup!” Elish screamed at the adventurers, at the same time expending a large amount of mana to cast a mass curse of agonizing pain and hitting several demihumans at once.
“I’m busy right now so I’ll talk to you later Kian!” Elish was still holding the comm cube, but had to switch off to focus on the battle now that they were at a decisive moment.
“See you later, Elish.” Kian left with a wry smile, but Elish had already hung up. Lastly, Kian called Zulu, who was leading an attack on another island.
Zulu was the guild master of Tivan kingdom and although the kingdom was not in immediate danger, Zulu still rallied the adventurers of Tivan kingdom to support Kian.
“Kian, have you finished the second camp yet? You really are on another level.” Zulu answered the call within seconds and to Kian’s surprise, he was resting sitting on a tree trunk.
He looked exhausted, but his relaxed expression showed that the battle had ended in his favor, instead of them retreating after the operation failed.
“Yes, and I still plan to knock down other camps. I just called to confirm how you all are doing, but it seems like it’s unnecessary. You were the first of the three to knock down a camp.” Kian spoke half surprised half relieved.
He knew that Zulu was the strongest among the three guild masters, but he didn’t expect that he would win so quickly. Zulu was a necromancer, but he didn’t control large armies like most necromancers.
.....
Instead, he controlled a few dozen special undead as elite units. Undead like Lichs, death knights and zombie assassins were some of their undead.
Most were powerful beastmen from the realm of Brumia, while some of the liches were elves. Zulu was not as powerful a necromancer as Louis, but he had a large collection of undead of his own.
Zulu was also a warrior and mage, so he wasn’t as dependent on the undead as other necromancers.
“Do you think you’re in a position to attack another camp with your current forces?” Kian asked hopefully, noticing that Zulu had no visible injuries and despite being spattered with blood, his equipment was undamaged.
“Are you kidding me?” Zulu exclaimed as he cursed Kian’s ancestors for raising someone so clueless. “I’m completely out of mana and I’ve lost half of my undead.”
“Several adventurers are also seriously injured and the light mages are busy treating them. We also had some dead who didn’t get treatment in time and even the living are exhausted and out of mana.” Zulu bit his lip in frustration, feeling that the deaths were his fault.
As the leader of the operation, he felt responsible for the deaths of adventurers, and despite knowing that death was inevitable in war, it still hurt to lose comrades in battle.
“Okay, sorry for pushing you like that.” Kian apologized, noting the anguish in Zulu’s expression.
“Kian, I know it’s a little late to ask this, but are you sure it’s a good idea to get involved in this war without notifying the realms? We had a job in this war and we could be judged for getting involved directly.” Zulu asked worriedly.
Kian had decided that he couldn’t stand back just watching the humans get defeated again and decided he was going to get involved, taking down as many demihuman camps as possible.
He shared his decision with the three guild masters, who tried their best to convince him to put the idea behind him or at least inform the order and church of his plan to attack the camps, but Kian was adamant in his decision.
Kian knew that the three kingdoms would immediately accept the guild’s help and go back on their words to keep the guild out of the war to avoid monstrous tides.
The order and the church wouldn’t refuse help either, although the order probably wouldn’t bow its head because of your arrogance.
Kian feared not that the kingdoms would reject them, but that they would accept them and try to force adventurers to join the army. Adventurers were free-spirited and didn’t follow anyone but their own interests.
Even Kian and the guild masters had to pay an exorbitant amount using guild funds as rewards for adventuring parties.
If the kingdoms tried to pressure the adventurers, it was possible for them to run away and hide so as not to get involved in the war.
“I’d also like to prevent adventurers from getting involved in the war against Doravon, but I can’t stand by as I watch the realms slowly being destroyed.” Kian answered without hesitation, making Zulu sigh in frustration at his stubbornness.
“The adventurer’s guild is also established in the three realms and we cannot allow them to be destroyed. Our adventurers also have families and everything they built is in these realms, so they will also have to fight eventually.”
“I already know all that, but my question is another.” Zulu cut Kian off before the latter could delve into his rant. “Why didn’t you tell the kingdoms, the order or the church about our participation in the war?”
“If you had informed them, we could have done a joint operation instead of carrying out a clandestine mission like this.” Zulu asked something that was bothering not only him, but Florence and Elish as well.
Kian was very adamant about not letting the operation leak to anyone outside the guild and although Zulu questioned him about why, the former didn’t explain. Zulu was loyal to Kian and obeyed, but he couldn’t help but question himself.
“Why do we need to show the strength of the adventurer’s guild if we want to avoid being swallowed up by the kingdoms and be able to maintain the independent organization status we’ve maintained until now.” Kian began to explain his thoughts.
“I created the guild to be an independent organization where warriors and mages could develop without bending the knee to the realms, joining the corrupted order or the fanatics of the church.”
“I don’t agree with the way these two giant organizations act and I refuse to submit to either of them, but for that we need to prove that not only me, but you also have enough strength to be respected and not absorbed.”
“And the best way to do that is to prove that we are capable of destroying the camps that the order and the church failed to protect.” Zulu added and Kian nodded in agreement.
“I didn’t explain it to you right away just because we didn’t have time to discuss it and Elish and florence would definitely try to convince us to share the information and coordinate with order and crurch.” Kian finished recovering his mana and stretched his body, ready for another battle.
“Florence I don’t know, but Elish would definitely do that.” Zulu had to agree with Kian’s opinion. Since the beginning of the war, Elish had been pestering them to get involved in the war.
She wasn’t very patriotic, but she had family scattered across the Belaster kingdom and several of them were forced to evacuate to save themselves.
“I’m going to hang up now, Zulu. When you’re done resting, don’t forget to collect the corpses and pile them up somewhere for the order collect in a few hours.” Kian said goodbye and hung up the call, closing his eyes as he concentrated on his next destination.
There were nearly a hundred demihuman camps, but Kian could only destroy a dozen a day before he had to stop. Even stopping to rest and taking mana regeneration potions, it would be impossible to do more than that.
If he abused and drank too many potions, his core might overheat from absorbing too much energy in a short period of time. Kian was extremely powerful and could withstand many more doses of potions than the average warrior, but he preferred to avoid taking risks.
‘The nearest camp is almost 200 kilometers north of my position, but it’s a town I’ve never been to before. I won’t teleport to save mana and I’ll run there, but it will take a while.’ Kian thought and started running at a moderate speed so as not to get tired quickly, although a moderate pace for him was the same as a beastmen tempest eagle flying with acceleration.
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