"The fourth group made contact with the cultivators," a messenger reported as soon as he entered the mobile commanding center.
For how few horses the entire group had, this was the best way to put them to use. Instead of making them carry people who could easily keep up with a horse's running speed, all four of them got employed to pulling a single carriage Layn's men managed to construct on the go.
Inside the carriage, the cream of the top of Layn's group sat. Mirroring the seating arrangement of how they used to sit back in the kitchen of the camp, they all stared down at the makeshift map that Layn created.
"That means they should be somewhere around here," Markus said, placing a simple, wooden pin on the map. "How long since you received the news?" he asked the messenger running beside the carriage's open door.
"Three hours, sir!" the man reported.
"Good. I'm sorry to ask this of you, but you will still need to go for one more round," Markus informed, lowering his head as he made the request.
"Sure thing, boss!" the mercenary that Markus hired back in the warcamp smiled instead of whining. "As long as I can help and I have the strength to do so, I'm willing!"
'To think that the invasion would bring about this kind of change,' Layn thought, casting a glance at the back of the departing man.
Even though all the messengers were pushed to the brink of exhaustion, not a single one of them complained.
"It appears that when faced with the return of the old regime, they finally started to see the benefits of sticking with us, didn't they?" Markus muttered, voicing out exactly what Layn was thinking about.
"People only start to value the things they have when they are on the verge of losing them," Layn replied with a maxim he learned back in the future. It was one of the many sayings that he had to learn by heart back when he had just become an officer in the military.
"It's hard for me to even see what they do value so much," Markus muttered, a puzzled expression on his face.
"It's hard for us because we never lacked those things," Layn replied, brushing his fingers against Irea's hair.
Irea was the only one who wasn't awake right now. Given how the commanding center had to operate around the clock, there was a strict schedule as to when one would sleep.
Even though people with their degree of power barely needed any sleep to keep going, that didn't mean the lack of rest wouldn't influence their cognitive abilities.
"Anyway," Markus shook his head, getting rid of all the spare thoughts. "Right now, everything seems to be going according to your plan," he said, raising his hand and rubbing his chin while staring closely at the position of the various pins on the makeshift map. "It appears the cultivators swallowed the bait all the way. What worried me, though, is the lack of news about the monsters," he said, pointing his hand towards the map.
On it, there were only three kinds of pins and a single stone. The stone represented the position of their own group, while the pins, each colored red, green or black, represented Slavians, Cultivators, and monsters, respectively.
"You might find that surprising, but the monsters seem to be the only ones intelligent enough to see through my intentions," Layn said, disregarding the surprise it was bound to cause.
"What do you mean by that?" Yelna raised her eyes and voiced her concerns.
Hearing her voice, everyone in the commanding center froze in shock.
Between Layn praising the monsters for their intelligence and Yelna speaking, it was later that caused greater shock.
"I believe our earlier attempt to push them against slavians is what botched the current plan," Layn explained his thoughts. "Since they learned that we wish to pit them against each other, they are bound to be more cautious about such traps in the future," he said, moving his hand towards the south side of the map, where only two pins were present.
While two known position of the monsters' grouping was already enough to guess the vector of their movement, when compared to tens of pins representing both Slavians and Celestials, it made everyone act vary about their movements.
"So, the fight will turn three-sided instead of four-sided. Is that what you want to tell?" Al asked, raising his eyes at the archmage.
Ever since the execution of the plan began, he turned nearly as silent as Yelna.
"What I'm worried about is the monsters attacking only once the fight will near its end," Layn replied, pointing his hand at the black pins. "At the current rate, they are going to arrive a bit later than we would like them to," he said, comparing the distance between the black pins and the stone to the distance between the green and red pins and their own position.
"Report!" Another runner appeared by the open door of the carriage.
"Speak," Markus replied. In the end, he was the one in charge of receiving reports and turning them into points on the map.
"The Slavians left their fortress and are marching towards the ridge!" the runner reported.
"Your call number?" Markus asked.
"Echo five, boss!" the man reported.
"So they should be somewhere around..." Markus muttered to himself before turning his face to the runner again. "The timing?"
"Two hours!"
"Good."
Markus placed the pin down on the map, only for a wrinkle to appear on his forehead. "Wait, if it's only two hours..." he raised his eyes at Layn. Yet, instead of saying anything, he looked over to the messenger again. "Thanks for the information, but I will have to ask you to make one more round."
"On it, boss!" the man didn't seem to mind another task at all. Rather than that, a strange light of excitement could be seen in his eyes.
"Then go!" Markus urged the man, waiting for him to leave the proximity of the carriage before turning his face towards Layn.
"At the current rate, the slavians will arrive faster than we expected," he said. "If we don't hurry, they might even occupy the ridge before us!"
"I guess it's the time, then," Layn mentioned while shaking Irea's shoulder.
Her sleep was pretty shallow, allowing the girl to wake up within seconds.
"I guess it is," Markus echoed his friend before standing up and jumping out of the carriage. In just a few more seconds, everyone left the wooden cart.
"Irea, could you?" Layn asked while watching how the horses continued to pull the carriage forward, the distance between the group of leaders and their former vehicle growing by a second.
"Like if you couldn't do it yourself," Irea protested slightly, still drowsy after the short period of rest. Nevertheless, she stepped ahead of the group and clasped her hands together.
She then slowly pulled them aside, acting as if some kind of force was desperately trying to make her close them again.
'So she managed to understand the vectoring principle already,' Layn thought, recognizing the spell that he taught the girl just before it was her turn to go to sleep.
"GO!" Irea shouted, still abiding by the bad habit of voicing out her commands.
The outstretched ball of magic collapsed between her hands. Yet, instead of imploding on itself, the force of its collapse was redirected towards the carriage.
The wagon, outside of the map and the few seats, was filled with only one thing. The dried-out grass that Layn has already proven to release quite a lot of smoke when burned down.
Irea's bolt moved forward so fast that an onlooker could easily believe it simply teleported. And once it touched a matter that was dense enough to infringe on its movement, its momentum-born stability broke down, releasing the energy of the bolt out to the world.
And there was one manner that the world usually dealt with excessive energy.
The carriage exploded in flames less than a second after Irea released her bolt. It only took less than a minute for the massive cloud of smoke to form above it, quickly rising to the skies.
"The beacon is lit," Al muttered, gripping the ax in his hand a bit tighter. A hint of excitement flashed in his eyes.. "Let's hope everyone will notice it."
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