Chapter 41 - Emergent Crisis

Olga Federation Camp.

Behind the thick wall-like defense by the guards, inside the Wooden Tavern, there sat a Young-man on a wooden chair. The front of that chair was a study table of a similar texture.

There was nothing aside from that and a single sized bed in the whole Tavern and that too resembled a makeshift room if some professional eye were to observe carefully.

The room had three candlelight sources and under that dim illumination, the young man appeared to be writing something in some obscure language with an ink quill on a yellow shaded thick parchment-like paper.

Suddenly his eyes opened wide and in a dramatic fashion, his hand slipped causing it to come crashing down onto the Ink bottle that was rested aside.

The Black ink spilled on the paper and stained his hand yet he didn't seem to care, he appeared to be in a daze.

"What was that??.." he murmured slowly.

With his other hand, he quickly ruffled his Robe and took out a lustrous metallic ball.

The ball shone in a magical blue light abruptly, the light traced along the ball filling the deep empty crevical lines, after which the young-man brought it close to his mouth and spoke in a low voice.

"Lanzen…be careful, I felt a presence, a presence of a powerful spirit, it scanned over the whole camp, there might be a spirit sorcerer sneaking around."

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Bilal wasn't aware of the chaos he had caused in the camp and outside which may lead to some untold consequences, and that too just by tracing the System Map once.

Being done with the System, he gave the Owl tattoo at his arm a deep and comprehensive gaze, with some superficial pondering he gave up eventually because no matter what he does the Tattoo wouldn't give any response. He even tried scanning it with the System, but it too didn't bore any results.

Too tired to do anything, he laid down on a thick hide mattress, which was present in a bundled of two in the corner of the room, as one would expect it was their arrangement for sleeping.

Softly massaging his aching arms and legs he soon fell into a state of drowsiness and despite in guard against that kid he inadvertently fell asleep.

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The next morning.

Bilal sat leaned his back against the wall as soon as he woke up and stretched and yawned while faring his gaze across the room carefully, he saw a skinny child in ragged clothes sleeping right beside him on another cloth mattress, it was Trake, his adoptive little brother, which he met yesterday.

'You gotta be careful, Bilal, what if he suddenly decides to sleep your throat in sleep?' he told that to himself vigilantly.

"System, what time is it?" Bilal enquired.

[Replying to Host, It's 8:30 AM]

It still was early as he didn't have to work now, he would've panicked if not for him, not on Earth anymore.

Curious to take a look outside, he stood up slowly from his Hide Mattress and walked towards the door.

Opening the door latch in a rough manner he exited the room.

As he exited, a familiar feeling invaded his body top to bottom, it was glistering and warm.

It was Sunlight!!!.

"Wasn't Sunlight too was blocked by that m…."

Before he could complete his words, he was stopped seeing the clear azure sky above his head with no sign of that strange Fog or any other type of obstructions.

His gaze made his way towards the ardent shining source in the sky- The Sun, the sun of Yreka, it's the brightness of Dawn was showering the camp's land Golden, the light was warm since it still was morning.

Bilal looked directly at the sun, aside from having a line thick Black ring on its circumference, it was no different from Earth's Sun.

He found it strange but he shook his head and looked around. The vicinity around his room appeared empty, there came not a single soul in sight, no Soldiers, no workers nor any other person.

A few indistinct chattering voices eventually came to his ears as he roamed around and reactively he made his way towards the chatter, he observed a group of seven to eight Soldiers each of them had held their wooden spear in arms seemingly alert, they looked to be chatting amongst themselves.

"Would we ever be able to cross Saint Equina's Forests?...."

"We don't have much choice, he had left for the City-state at Midnight…"

"Every tribe near us is exterminated including the Wind Spirit, we don't have anywhere to seek refuge"

"We're doomed…."

"Indeed…"

Eavesdropping at those not-so-positive words and their gloomy expression up close, he interpreted that something very wrong has happened recently.

As he came closer, a crooked toothed soldier standing adjacently in the group crossed gazes with him abruptly and asked

"You're Bilal right?"

"Yeah" Bilal replied to that Soldier, whom he'd found familiar.

He quickly recognized him immediately, the Soldier was from yesterday and had witnessed his spar with Dayes.

"Didn't I tell you fellas about the yesterday's spar?…he's that guy…." the crooked teeth Soldier spoke loudly amongst his fellows and introduced him to them.

Bilal smiled and exchanged some basic pleasantries with them, a few shook their hands with him as a form of welcome, some were enthusiastic and some remained indifferent.

But he didn't care for their views and asked the crooked tooth soldier directly "When would the recruitment test start? It's today, right?"

"You haven't been informed?" Crooked teeth displayed a surprised reaction and oddly stared at Bilal.

"I just was woken up, following your voices I came here" Bilal stated the truth.

The crooked toothed Soldier looked at his fellows, together they took a few steps back and started conversing something in a fairly low volume and some indiscernible eye gestures.

They all turned around and let the crooked tooth Soldier speak.

"While you were asleep quite a few things have happened and the usual plan is now voided, please talk to Dayes as we aren't sure whether to tell you of it or not." he paused a second and said "He's currently at the Wooden Tavern, making some sorts of arrangements, you can go and meet him there"

The others chimed in as well

"Yes, yes…"

"We have no qualms telling you, but I'd be best for you to hear directly from him"

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'Cheh, deliberately mystifying stuff' Bilal scorned those soldiers mentally and moved directly towards the heavily guarded Tavern from yesterday.

Along the way, he transversed through the fake market and encountered the workers…their numbers had definitely dwindled, not even one-fourth could be seen of their original numbers.

Soon, he reached the wooden tavern, to his surprise it wasn't guarded anymore instead the door was wide open and a few soldiers could be seen shifting and packing huge loads of stuff. On a wooden cart, they shoved the stuff swiftly.

Behind those dudes was the Buffy Dayes seemingly directing them.

"Dayes" Bilal called from behind.

"Eh Bilal, you haven't been told right?" Dayes enquired.

"No, I've just woken up"

"Ohhh, it's actually like this, you knew of that Mage in this Tavern, right?" he inquired.

"Yeah, you've told me yourself" Bilal browed lightly.

"He was the one who responsible for our return journey, he would've been the one to appraise Magical Talents of the candidates and take us back home via a Teleportation formation, but last night he unexpectedly opened the formation and escaped on his own" Dayes said helplessly.

"So….what do we do now?" Bilal asked as he apprehended the situation quickly.

"We basically can't do anything but throw our lives trying, Saint Equina's Forests covers the whole three directions East, West and the North of this place, on the South, there are Nux Plains stretched over thousands of miles and beyond that comes Redrock Fire Mountains" on his face an aura of despair flashed "On our own, we'd never be able to commute through the Mystical Redrock Fire Mountains let alone the humongous Saint Equina's Forests"

"We are abandoned here with supplies, not more than to last more than 4 days," he said solemnly.

"Can't we just Hunt for a few days and wait for reinforcements?" Bilal suggested.

"Hunt? Have you seen today's Sun? The darkness descent phase of the Dissonance has begun today" he questioned.

With the mention of the Sun, Bilal remembered it having a Black ring on its circumference, he interpreted it as normal, but it appeared to not be the case so.

"I've seen it, you're talking about the Black ring?"

Dayes paused for a second and said "You're from this Tribal zone, so you may be ignorant of the significance of that Ring, it represents the start of Dissonance and bestows earth-shaking boosts to creatures having affinity to Darkness, Saint Equina's Forests are well known for their Dark sprites and Nocturnal Evils, knowing this no reinforcement would be willing to come, the greater we try to fight the situation the lesser chances of our surviving"

"So what do we do now?" Bilal asked with worry-filled eyes.

"We're arranging a small caravan for journeying through the Redrock Fire Mountains, it would provide us a greater chance rather than just sitting here, this place would be flooded with Dark creatures within just 2 nights, including me and you there are a total of 13 combatants with Mortal Apprentice attainments, we also have 2 Mortal Initiates and our captain with an Attainment of a Mortal Adept" He paused for a second and continued "And there are also a lot of Tribal refugees remaining in Camp, they might be able to handle miscellaneous work, many have escaped since we've let them because there's no point in holding them, they would just be dead weight"