In the Antire region, there was a city shrouded in smoke; this was the royal capital of the Kingdom of Antire, though it no longer held its former glory.
Beneath the city walls, countless soldiers had set up scaling ladders, attempting to climb them, but heavy objects rained down from above from time to time, making their progress difficult.
Some defenders even threw a pool of red liquid down, which struck the base of the ladders and caused flames to erupt.
Several soldiers were unfortunately engulfed by the fire, rolling on the ground with agonizing screams in a futile attempt to extinguish the flames. However, this fire burned extremely fast; once it touched someone, death was essentially imminent.
As expected, after rolling on the ground for a while, those soldiers became still, leaving behind only charred, burning corpses.
A soldier on a ladder looked back at the flames below and swallowed hard, then looked up to see a defender waiting for him with a short sword... He was caught in a dilemma, with almost no way out in such a situation... Should I go up and face the opponent, or jump down regardless of everything? The fire down there had weakened slightly; maybe I wouldn't die... Ultimately, while hesitating, he was struck in the head by a stone from above and fell seven meters to the ground, landing on his head with his fate unknown.
The nearby flames, which were about to die out, found a new source of fuel and flared up with heat once more.
In the distance, a flag fluttered in the wind. A man in black armor, with a wolf's head insignia on his armband, watched the tragic scene, baring a set of fangs that resembled those of a wolf.
More than once, he had wanted to abandon everything and charge onto the battlefield to attack that city.
But he suppressed his thoughts, telling himself that now was not yet the time.
"Commander, an order from Duke Theodore."
Connor turned his head to look at a knight from the order. The knight was clad in silver-white armor and held a letter in his hands.
"What is that old fellow up to? Did he call us here just to watch these dregs waste away?"
He spoke contemptuously before taking the letter.
"Commander, this is a good thing. Our mercenary fees are calculated by the day. For every day we spend here, he has to add thirty silver coins to our pay."
Said the knight who handed him the letter.
"Hmph!" Connor sneered, then brought up another matter.
"If he hadn't failed to secure the territorial claim for the royal capital, causing us to be constantly rejected by that territory, this would have been over long ago."
"Commander, the territorial token of the royal capital and the heir will be in the safest place. Duke Theodore has no way of reaching them," the knight said.
"Besides, if he really could reach them, he wouldn't have come looking for us."
His implication was that if Duke Theodore could truly reach them, the war would have ended long ago, and they wouldn't have been brought here at all.
"Who knows? Maybe his subordinates want to rebel too."
Connor maliciously speculated about Duke Theodore, laughed a few times, and then opened the letter.
This was part of the contract he had signed with Duke Theodore: all orders had to be delivered via special letters, even verbal commands were not permitted.
This was why, even though he was only a few hundred meters away from Duke Theodore, orders were still delivered by letter.
He spread open the letter, his pupils shrinking slightly as if he had seen something shocking.
"What's wrong, Commander?"
The knight asked curiously, observing the commander's expression.
"Nothing, just that we should be able to go home next month."
Connor spread the letter and explained to the knight.
"An ally of Duke Theodore, a spy from the Kingdom of Kale, has discovered something."
"They found the territorial token for the land north of the royal capital. This item is extremely important."
"They have now found the relevant tokens for all the surrounding lands. With just that one piece of land left, they can use the territories to surround the royal capital."
"This will make it difficult for the heir who just took the throne to easily manipulate the territories for a counterattack. A royal capital like that could be flattened by Duke Theodore alone in a single day."
"That's why I said we can go home next month. It's really annoying; we'll be making so much less money."
Seeing the corners of Connor's mouth turn up, the knight knew he wasn't actually annoyed but was instead relieved that these boring days were finally coming to an end.
Connor continued:
"Of course, those incompetent spies didn't get the token, which is why this letter ended up in our hands. Otherwise, we would have just been camping here for a month before heading back."
He paused, then added:
"The mission Duke Theodore gave us isn't an easy one. It's not difficult in itself, but it might bring some trouble."
"What kind of trouble?" the knight asked curiously.
"That token is currently in the hands of a mage in the Antire region, and we have no trace of that mage's whereabouts."
"Are they asking us to find a needle in a haystack?" The knight frowned.
This wasn't a good thing either. First of all, finding that mage would be a difficult task.
Since those mages knew there was a war going on, they would naturally avoid the conflict zones. Meanwhile, their informants were all concentrated here, and information from the regions that had surrendered wasn't necessarily reliable, making it extremely difficult to find the mage.
Furthermore, this place was too close to the Alliance. Killing a mage was a huge risk. However, for their knightly order, it was just a small matter... "We have to kill two mages this time. Once we kill the first mage, we'll get information on the one carrying the token."
"Two mages..." The knight in silver-white armor had a complicated expression. He was about to offer a word of caution when he saw the excited look on the commander's face.
He wanted to say that the risk of killing two mages was far too great, but seeing the commander's expression, he knew that any words would be useless.
He sighed and said helplessly:
"Fine. Where exactly is the mage we're supposed to kill? Let's get it over with quickly, and then we can get far away from the Alliance."
Connor licked his lips and said loudly:
"It seems he happens to have some business dealings with our Duke Theodore. Right now, he's on another battlefield, collecting corpses."
Then, he burst out laughing.
"Then he probably doesn't know yet that his time is up!"
With that, he turned around and walked toward the camp tent, ready to announce the news.
The knight looked at his back and couldn't help but sigh again.
He knew that his commander's hands were about to be stained with the blood of two more mages, but there was no helping it.
Even if their commander were elsewhere, this job could only be taken on by him.
After all, only Commander Connor, who came from a mage family, could bear the consequences of killing those mages.
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