Alongside the two hundred that Alexander trained, fifteen hundred adventurers had come to participate in the war. Apparently, most of them looked pretty pissed at the enemy state for trying to obtain their territory again after just two years. In any case, it was quite the larger number despite the situation, so Billy was imagining how much damage those guys could cause if they were left to run wild.
"Marie's group suffered great losses the last time, so I am going to put her in charge of Alexander's students and the Reinforcements of Heinhall state," Jean declared.
"Did you hear that, boy?" Marie asked. "Follow my commands unless you want to be punished."
"I feel like I will suffer more if I follow all of them…" Billy frowned.
"Gerald and Gustav will lead their own gulls members, I will grant you free reins to move as you see fit on the battlefield, that should add some unpredictability to our side," Jean said. "We will depart tomorrow in the morning, so prepare yourselves as you see fit."
It seemed that Jean would come as well… while apparently, he had a good head of tactics, Billy wasn't so sure if he should come. It would only entice the enemies to get his head.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Let's drink until we fall today," Marie said when they left the fortress.
Billy sighed when he heard that. She didn't waste time, and she was already giving them unreasonable orders. However, Gerald and Gustave didn't seem against that idea.
"You look confused kid," Gerald said. "We need to relax at times like these, or uneasiness will be passed down to our subordinates. Unfortunately, our lord isn't that good at doing that."
"The taste of alcohol is even better after one day of battles!" Marie said. "By the way, where are your girlfriends?"
"I don't have girlfriends… one of the girls is quite important, so we had to leave all the others behind to make sure that she wouldn't come," Billy explained, and Alexander nodded.
"I assume you hide things from her… they don't look like they would just watch and listen obediently after saying that you would come to a war," Marie said. "You will be scolded when you return."
"That is the least of my problems," Billy said.
In the end, the group ended up going to the nearest tavern and began to drink. Billy and his group only drank to relax a little, but the others were quite the heavy drinkers, so they kept going until midnight. Much to his surprise, they woke up early the next day like nothing was wrong.
Usually, adventurers don't use horses, so they began to march while most of the soldiers used horses. Still, their pace was basically the same. Regardless, Billy asked if Pierre could lend him some equipment, and he nodded. It took a while, but Billy enhanced most equipment of the people of his town. Naturally, he used more mana on his father, Nikola, and Alexander's equipment. Speaking of equipment, Alexander had his bow and spear, and when Billy checked his status, he confirmed that his dexterity increased by fifty points, but he still was twenty points behind Lily.
"It seems that you have practiced with the bow, but you are not quite there yet," Billy said. "I suppose you could have caught up in the remaining month."
"You can tell?" Alexander said. "Well, I entered that dungeon with my bow alone many times. While I sweated cold many times while thinking that I was a goner, thanks to all that. I improved quite a bit."
It was quite weird for a spearman to become that good at Archery, but it only showed how much Alexander was a fool in love. Nevertheless, Billy looked behind and saw the kids that he had taught over the last few months, and they were looking at him with weird eyes. Was it admiration? It couldn't be anger… unfortunately, most of those were guys, and Billy couldn't think as to why Alexander sold his good points to them.
"By the way, your confession was useless, Lily still is that oblivious about your feelings," Billy said. "That is what you get for not following my advice completely."
"That is fine, I was expecting that much," Alexander said. "Still, the next time I will defeat her and then be more clear about it."
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"I am sure you will get the cold feet as usual," Billy said.
While Billy was talking with Alexander, he used Appraisal to update his list on the skill shop. There were some interesting effects here and there, but nothing too awesome. As expected, even though the beetles' dungeon was producing those gems, they had some limitations.
"What do you know about the enemies?" Billy asked. "I am sure you heard a lot of interesting things and Jean kept quiet about not making himself even more depressed."
"Well, weirdly enough, the strength of Toles state is pretty much the same as this one, they have three dungeons and want more to produce more powerful individuals," Alexander explained. "Apparently, the more dungeons a state has, the more powerful they are."
Billy more or less knew that, since the materials of the dungeons could be that useful. Still, he cursed his lack of caution for not doing more research about the other states. It wasn't like he was slacking off, but…
"The real problem is the other state backing Toles state," Alexander said. "They are the Neles state and they have some particularly troublesome individuals… apparently, they can tame monsters to do their bidding."
"Really? That seems interesting," Billy said, visibly interested in the subject.
"Can you please be less oblivious to this?" Alexander asked. "We are going to face them and they might kill us with that."
"It is precisely because of that that we need to understand their abilities and find a way to find a weakness, " Billy said.
".... You are right, I guess that is like you to think that like that," Alexander laughed.