"Hah," Anna snickered, "It seems Steward Warren highly values the investments he's made in our town and was willing to take significant personal and financial risks to secure his interests."
"If the profits are big enough, merchants can become some of the bravest and reckless people," Sasha concurred with a grin, "Regardless of his motives, though, if Warren is willing to help us, we certainly won't refuse."
"Our thoughts exactly," Drake agreed, "Together with Warren's party, we set-off towards Redwood Town at dawn. It's just… we underestimated the danger and suffered quite a bit on the road."
"En," Anna nodded solemnly, "Most of our group was made up of Vein Opening Realm Practitioners, while a few among Warren's party were in the Core Formation and even Sea Establishment Realm, but that ultimately wasn't enough."
"We didn't encounter powerful Wild Beasts along the way, but there were just too many enemies in the First and Second Order, forcing us to constantly fight which eventually wore down our defences," Drake grumbled.
"Were there many casualties?" Sasha asked worriedly.
Letting out a long sigh, Drake nodded, "More than half of us were injured; some critically at that, but by some miracle from the Heavens, no one actually died."
"Good job making it here under such difficult circumstances," Celestina praised, "But we all have work to do now, so let's get to it."
The next moment, though, she followed up in a cold tone, "As for Count Baker and Herald City's Garrison Commander… I'll deal with them later."
…..
After helping his mother to the infirmary, Lucas followed his father out to the Manor's yard where he came across the sight of 5 carriages, all hitched to pairs of white horses. Upon seeing these beasts and examining the auras coming from them, the young boy finally understood how his parents had managed to make it back to Redwood Town so quickly.
Each of these 10 horses was a High-Rank Second Order Wild Beast, making them much stronger than any of the mounts which could be found around Redwood Town. Not even the horses that were used to pull Maddison Roth's convoy were comparable to theses steeds.
"They're called Cloud Treading Colts; they're a kind of standard mount for the kingdom's cavalry forces," Drake explained from the side, well aware of his son's innate curiosity.
Taking note of this, and seeing 10 men and women in matching armour standing nearby, watching on as some 50 others were unloading supplies from the wagons and carriages, Lucas was a bit confused and had to ask, "I thought you and Mom couldn't convince the garrison in Herald City to lend us any help? Why are there soldiers here, then?"
Hearing his son's inquiry, Drake's face scrunched up a bit as he explained, "Commander Hughes managed to get us these horses from the garrison, but the condition for loaning them to us was that a Squad of soldiers had to accompany us."
"So, these soldiers came to supervise the use of the army's Cloud Treading Colts?" Lucas hypothesized.
"Well, something like that," Drake muttered.
"I see…" Lucas nodded, finding nothing wrong with this line of thinking. The Cloud Treading Colts were clearly valuable beasts, so it made sense that the army wouldn't lend them out easily.
On top of that, even having 10 more trained soldiers to help in the defence of Redwood Town was a good thing.
As Lucas continued observing the scene in front of him, though, he quickly realized that something was off.
Among those unloading the wagons, quite a few had damaged armour or visible injuries, but while the armour of the soldiers from the Harold City Garrison was scuffed up and dented a bit, it was generally still in good condition.
Additionally, very few of these 10 had any kind of serious wounds.
Another point that stuck out was that while the members of the convoy and volunteers from the Town Lord's Manor were busy emptying out the wagons of supplies, these soldiers weren't helping at all.
This was a sharp contrast when compared to the soldiers who had arrived yesterday together with his Master, and the ones who arrived soon after with Commander Clark, making Lucas raise his brow at the stark contrast between the different groups.
Technically, they all belonged to the Rockwell Kingdom's military, and as far as Lucas could tell, these 10 soldiers from Harold City were mostly in the Vein Opening Realm, with just 2 of them being in the Core Formation Realm.
Simply put, these local soldiers were much weaker than General Balfour or Commander Clark's subordinates.
Although Lucas was a bit confused at first, when he saw the looks on these new soldiers' faces, he quickly realized what was going on.
These people, or at least the ones who had taken their helmets off, all wore sour expressions filled with a mix of unwillingness and disdain. Clearly, they didn't want to be here and had no intention of helping out from the start. Lucas even caught some of these soldiers grumbling aloud about 'having to accompany these peasants to this dangerous place'.
The callousness of these soldiers stood in stark contrast to the warriors who had accompanied his Master and reminded Lucas that not all people were capable of coming together in times of trouble. There would always be those who wished to skirt responsibility or avoid trouble, even if it brought difficulty and harm to others.
"Were they like this the whole way here, Dad?" Lucas quietly asked.
"They certainly weren't happy on the road, but it wasn't this bad," pursing his lips, Drake shook his head, "Perhaps because Warren and the members of the merchant guild were with us, the garrison soldiers restrained themselves a bit more, but now that they're not here…"
Taking another look around, Lucas noted that Steward Warren and the others from the Rising Sun Merchant Guild were nowhere to be seen. They had all come together with his parents, but after arriving, it seemed like Warren and his group had gone somewhere else, perhaps to the infirmary to get their wounds treated.
While these soldiers' naked display of contempt and refusal to make themselves useful was irksome to Lucas, he figured this was an issue for his Master or someone higher-up in the military to handle, so he just shook his head and turned to his father to ask, "Dad, where's the new furnace you bought?"
Upon mentioning the new furnace, Drake actually produced a bright smile as he pointed to the covered wagon at the end of the convoy and said, "I got lucky and managed to buy a furnace which is capable of working with Mid-Rank Mortal Grade Tier 3 metals!"
Raising an eyebrow, Lucas wondered why his father had purchased such an expensive furnace; after all, almost nothing in Redwood Town was made of Mid-Rank 2 metals, much less Mid-Rank 3 materials.
"One of the blacksmiths in Herald City was swapping out his old furnace for a new one, so I managed to snatch it up for cheap," Drake boasted, answering his son's question before he even asked, "It's a bit worn as it's second-hand, but for me, it was a huge bargain."
Drake was clearly quite happy with his recent purchase, probably thinking it would allow him to advance his blacksmithing craft once it was set up. However, upon remembering the situation they were currently in, Drake's expression and shoulders sank, like all the air had been let out of his body.
Patting his dad's back, Lucas tried to comfort him, "Don't worry about it, Dad. We'll all be moving to Misty City in the near future, so there's no need to feel sorry about leaving this furnace behind."
"Thanks, Son," Drake sighed and said somewhat listlessly before suddenly frowning and turning to Lucas to ask, "Wait, what do you mean 'we're moving to Misty City'?"
Turning to meet his father's eyes, Lucas tilted his head in confusion for a moment before realizing he hadn't explained just what becoming Celestina Balfour's Disciple entailed. "I'll tell you and Mom about it later. We should get the new furnace working first."
Although he was curious about what his son had just said, Drake knew what his priorities were, so he decided to set the matter aside, "Alright, as soon as the rest of the supplies are unloaded from the wagon, we can take it back to the house and get the furnace installed in the smithy."
"En, for now, we should start gathering the other craftsmen in town," Lucas commented.
"That's right," Drake agreed, "We'll also need to see what kinds of leather and metals are available to craft the modified harnesses with."
There was a lot to be done, and very little time to do it in, so the father and son duo quickly made a plan and were about to get to work when a clattering sound came from nearby, followed by a number of loud voices.