Winter nights are always so long.

The first light did not arrive until about six or seven o'clock, and as it came, the ghouls, who had been eyeing the surroundings all night, chose to evacuate as if they realized that they no longer had the advantage of having the night as a cover.

They had reunited five hours earlier and returned to the camp.

Henry's calm and meticulous command contrasts with the immature marionette-like behavior of ghouls, and it is only natural that the human side succeeds in achieving the purpose of convergence. And when the teams on both sides converged, defended by more heavily armored paladins and stalwarts mercenaries, assisted by mages and ranged hands, and clearly lit by a huge campfire, the ghouls had no chance of turning the tables at all.

The remaining hours turned into a grueling tug-of-war before dawn.

There was no real contact between the two sides, just a test of each other. Ghouls roam around like gophers, darting to catch a few crossbow misses before hiding again.

There are no real encounters and pitched battles, but these things are not gone, and you can't rest and relax. Everyone who had not slept all night had big dark circles under their eyes, nervous and nervous, tired and sensitive, and several people with auditory hallucinations and hallucinations appeared, if it weren't for Orno and Camilo leading the magicians to use their magic power to maintain it, I was afraid that the witch would also take advantage of it.

The feeling of a minute and a second has never been so clear, and they feel it firsthand when they live like a year, like sitting on pins and needles.

Many people raised their heads from time to time, and every few minutes they raised their faces to look up at the sky in anticipation of the dawn, but the winter nights were so long that they were disappointed and hung their heads again.

After the merging of the streams, the number of people is higher, and some people take shifts to rest. But no one was big enough to sleep in such a situation, so they all had to hold on until dawn when the ghouls retreated, and finally breathed a long sigh of relief.

Including Henry and Erica, Orno, Camilo and others, after leading a third of the people with relatively sufficient energy to stay on guard, the rest of the people can finally rest and recuperate.

It must have been impossible to move forward on this day, and it would take them a long time just to recover their mental and physical strength and avoid collapsing from exhaustion.

People were still a little worried at first, even though Henry said that the obedient witch would not send ghouls to attack during the day in order to preserve her strength, but they were still a little uncertain.

It's just that fatigue is real in the end, and after relaxing and reassuring, the soreness of the eyelids closed within a minute, and the even sound of breathing and snoring in the camp came and went.

The sage rode to the outskirts of the camp with a few scouts, and it took them half an hour or so to make a great circle, and the traces of the ghouls stretched far away, and they didn't venture to see how far they had retreated, but they did.

"Find some empty pots, unused iron spoons, and hemp rope. He said this to the scouts, who knew at once what Henry wanted. Anyway, they no longer have fresh ingredients, and the part of the people who chose to leave only brought a small amount of cooking utensils to the battle in order to travel lightly. As a result, even if it was already a minimum of equipment, there is still a lot of redundancy left.

The winds were blowing in all directions, and there was nothing alive but them and ghouls. In this silence, the sound of metal clashing can be heard over long distances, and they can be used as a supplement to the vigilance, and can also relieve some pressure on the tired eyes of the guards.

Even a relatively energetic person is quite tired at this point. The campfire, which had been burning all night, was now much smaller, and the smoke from the firewood made each of them smell choking. The people put the dipping sauce that they had not eaten at night in a pan and heated it on the fire, and ate a not very rich breakfast with hard dough and hot water.

Time passed minute by minute, and after eating something hot, the whole person's mood was slightly soothed.

Tiredness has not really been relieved, but there is still much to be done.

Checking the battlefield and the inventory of personnel and supplies is a top priority, and the numbness and slackness caused by the long-term boring rush made them almost come to a pot by the ghoul raid, and there is no room for any sloppiness now.

The end result was a relief in terms of the loss of personnel and equipment, and although the sentinels who had initially disappeared were not found, there were no real casualties among the elite veterans in the ensuing confrontation due to the ghouls' immature timing of the distance, protected by perfect armor.

Good armor is worth the price, and that alone is enough.

The entire team, which has a high armor rate, will not be easily disemboweled, at least when facing fanged and clawed ghouls, compared to ordinary civilians and low-level mercenaries. Their claws and teeth are difficult to break through the steel plate armor, and even if they rely on their strong limbs to impact and leave a lot of damage on the armor, armor and shields are inherently fatal.

Ghouls can only attack relatively lightly armed crossbowmen, rangers, and mages, but these lightly armed classes are well protected by heavily armed warriors. The witch is still young in tactics, and she doesn't understand that sometimes it is a good thing to pay a price to kill the enemy, otherwise they will only lose more at this time.

However, even if there were no heavy casualties, they even achieved great success locally, and the men on both sides combined killed a total of 69 ghouls with zero casualties. But on the whole, it was they who lost.

Because killing ghouls isn't what they're here for, and it's the enemy camp.

Even if it is conservatively estimated, the small town of Scoti is now one or two hundred kilometers away, and since it was not supported by everyone when it set off before, reinforcements and aid materials will not appear, and even if there is one, it will not be able to catch up.

They are isolated here, and even nature is working against them, and the lack of supplies and supplies is very uncomfortable, not to mention the terrain and weather.

For every day they stayed here, they consumed an extra day's supplies, and for every ghoul they killed, they consumed an extra point of energy. Time is their enemy, and dwelling on the glorious results of the battle against the ghouls consumes unnecessary energy and only causes the really important things to be postponed again and again.

The all-night battle had halted the day's journey, and they should have had to find a way to cross or bypass the swamp. But the warriors needed to rest, and the myths of berserkers in Northland legends such as fighting for days without sleep often ended in death from exhaustion. It's a price they can't afford, and courage and perseverance come in handy, but not every time they encounter the slightest difficulty, they have to come out and talk about it.

Sleep deprivation affects not only the body, but also the mind. Long-term mental tension will make the whole person paranoid and overexcited, once you get into this dead circle, then it is only a matter of time before the remaining two hundred people collapse.

Maintain a good physical fitness and mentality so that they can cope with the next crisis.

The first group of people to fall asleep woke up about ten o'clock near noon, and five or six hours of deep sleep was enough for those who were accustomed to sleeping in the open air, until the current guards ran to the tent to sleep in the tent after helping to warm up some soup and bread.

The sun, obscured by cotton-like clouds, shone gray light one after another, and our Sage Monsieur, who had no dark circles under his eyes, did not go to rest with the others. He sat down next to the campfire, rubbing her eyes, and Mira came over to take a cup of hot tea mixed with water and water - Adolphus, who had been resting for a few hours, sat down while strapping the side of his breastplate, his ornate armor only had a shallow scratch, and it was clear that the ghoul had not really been able to get close to the paladin despite all his efforts.

"The plan was postponed for another day. He said this without a clue, and Henry calmly said, "Hmm." With a sound, he took a branch and probed the fire to allow air to circulate the charcoal underneath.

"Maybe more. The sage said, "I walked around, and the swamp was bigger than we thought, and it was impossible to go around it, and it would be difficult to walk through it. ”

"......" Adolphus turned his head to look at the gloomy sky farther east, the witch was obviously in that direction, and they had to choose to pass through it.

"Probably back tonight. Henry added that he didn't say it, but everyone who could hear him knew what he meant.

"She is probing, she is learning, she is verifying the correctness of her newfound knowledge. ”

"It's still an optimistic idea. Henry put the branch aside, then turned his head, glanced at Orno and Adolphus, and then at Mira.

"The ghouls didn't seize the gap to attack, and while it made the fight unfinished, the stalemate that came into it was only unilaterally against us. ”

"They have a chance, she, a chance to break us without taking it. But if—"

"Just say if. ”

"What if her purpose was to wear us down, to make us nervous, tired, ill-rested, irritable, and split in the ranks, instead of slaughtering us?"

"You mean the witch has mercy?" said Stephen, who had just gotten up, shirtless in the sub-ten temperatures, and took a big bite of the dough when he finished speaking.

“....... Why did she do it. ”

"Why did she keep us-"

"Because there's something in the team that she wants, or rather, someone. The elf's voice rang out from the side, and the people turned their heads to look at her, and Orno's expression was a little complicated, and her small brows were furrowed together by some indescribable entanglement.

Needless to explain, everyone knew she was referring to herself.

"Can this be used to your advantage?" said Adolphus, whose impersonal remarks made our Mila frown. The paladin minister was obviously a man who could do anything to achieve his goals, and even though she knew that she had to use everything she could to have a chance to win at a time like this, she just didn't like the other party's decisive reaction and using Orno as a bargaining chip.

Adolphus's way of thinking reminded her of Constantine, and although there is a considerable difference between the two professions and origins, they have something in common in this so-called "make the best use of things" way of thinking.

If they could use it, they wouldn't care if the subject was a living person.

- If he can do this to Orno, what guarantee is there that he will not do this to you when he is in that position?

The girl's thoughts were pulled back by the sage's next words.

"It's not the most important place. As always, Henry looked deeper and farther than anyone else, and he looked straight into the eyes of the crowd, and both Orno and Adolphus avoided the calm, yet dazzling, gray-blue eyes.

"The point is, if it's all her ploy. ”

"Then the witch. ”

"I'm afraid it's no longer the naïve and innocent person we think it is. ”

He said so, though still speculatively.

A faint uneasiness began to linger in everyone's hearts.

So far, they have been able to win because the witch is immature, she does not know how to dispatch troops, and she does not understand the strategy and wisdom of humans. With a huge amount of power in his hands, he only knows how to throw his head into it, and although this has done enough damage, it still can't compare to the results that can be caused by careful use.

They are desperately trying to catch up and hurry up because they are worried that the witch will evolve and learn to become more mature, but what if she is progressing much faster than people think?

"She's not going to ...... I mean, no one was there to teach her, only instinctual words—" Filippo joined the discussion after waking up, and the young man, with his messy black hair, said it not so much so as to be more at ease with himself.

"How do the trainers of the itinerant circus learn to behave against their habits?"

"If you do wrong, you will be punished, and if you do it right, you will get sweetness. ”

"The so-called tactics and fighting techniques of mankind so far are actually nothing more than summed up in this way, she has experienced a painful defeat, so there has been a change, and anything she finds that she can continue without such a painful experience, she will definitely continue. ”

"All I'm worried about is that it's the instinct and acumen of an immature person. ”

"Or has she reached a critical moment and needs to delay us for another day or two. ”

"Otherwise, don't you think the ghoul's attack came a little late?"

“......”

"Previous encounters with the undead were accidental, simply because these meatless things were too dull. The Earth Dragon is obviously not under her command, and she has countless opportunities to send ghouls to attack us in half a month, but even when there is a disagreement in the team, the witch does not appear when the deserters start to leave. ”

"Until now. ”

"We're really close to where she is, we're getting closer to her sphere of influence. ”

"But if it's not a self-defensive passive defense, but a realization that you've reached a critical moment and want to buy time—"

Henry didn't say any more, and the words were enough to get here, and the silence echoed around the campfire, and the mercenaries and paladins behind him were still busy with various things.

"That's true. ”

"It's not good......"

Amidst the busy voices of coming and going, only the exclamation of Adolphus sounded around the campfire.