Chapter 176 : Chapter 176

Chapter 176. Departure

At the gate of Whiteflower City, a black horse stood beside the city gate while two people talked nearby.

“Elan, I wish you good luck.”

As Finley looked at the black-robed figure before him, his feelings were extremely complicated. He knew that the only reason he had been able to become the lord was because of her help.

Without her, he might have been defeated by those two knights working together in the very first duel.

And he also knew that, with her strength, there was no way she would be content to remain in Whiteflower Territory as some leisurely knight passing her days in comfort.

So after becoming the lord, he had not even tried to persuade her to stay.

Fulan smiled and said,

“Finley, I also hope your territory remains peaceful.”

At that moment, Finley suddenly said,

“Oh, right, Elan. Do you have a source for that thing you had Stefan carry in the last duel? I even sent people to Ged Town, but they still couldn’t find it.”

Fulan rubbed her head. After the last duel ended, Finley had become very interested in the long spear she had specifically handed to Stefan and kept asking her what it was.

At the time, she had only told him that she had bought it from someone in the Alliance.

That long spear had been Fulan’s custom-made version. She had engraved a spell pattern on it similar to an explosive burst of airflow.

When it was used, it would directly release 【Steam Jet】.

But just like a magic scroll, it was a one-time-use item. Every time it was used, the pattern had to be engraved again before it would work.

And the spear would fire five bullets at once. She had not even designed any bullet-loading function for it. The bullets had all been placed inside before the weapon was completed.

So that spear had been a disposable item from the very beginning. Fulan had made it beforehand, and seeing that Stefan had been unable to do much of anything, she had handed the thing over to him.

So Fulan directly said,

“Sorry, Finley. I got that item from a mage of the Alliance. Since you couldn’t find him, that means it was probably that mage’s personal creation. Even I don’t have any way to contact him.”

Finley stroked his chin and said,

“Well, I suppose that makes sense. If something like that had already gone on public sale, its impact on the battlefield would have been far too great.”

Finley accepted the fact that he would not be finding that item, then continued,

“Then I wish you good luck.”

“And I wish you the same.”

After saying that, Fulan swung herself onto the horse and headed toward the Northern Frontier.

---

At the Northern Border Pass, the Bloodwolf Knights stationed there were already seething with resentment.

If they had not all been First-Tier Professionals, then after staying here for more than a month, they probably would not even have had the strength left to feel resentful. They would already have been frozen half to death.

Over the past month, this had become the most unforgettable month since they had become official members of the Bloodwolf Knights.

Every day, all they did was eat, sleep, and then sleep and eat. When it was their turn to stand watch, they went and stood their shift. That was how they lived out this monotonous existence.

It was not as though no one had thought of simply practicing swordsmanship here, but after a few people gave it a try, the idea quietly died.

Every time, they had to endure the cold and go out into the wind to find an open place to train.

Before they had even swung their swords more than a few times, their hands would already be freezing with pain.

And even if they forced themselves to continue, the physical exertion would leave them needing to eat two extra black loaves as hard as stone.

Just having the cold wind pour into their mouths made them miserable, so no one suggested any extra exercise ever again.

Now, several of these knights would secretly curse their captain whenever he was not looking.

Though they did not dare disobey their captain’s orders, this much suffering had still filled them with quite a few complaints toward him.

The scene shifted elsewhere. Connor, the captain of the Bloodwolf Knights, held a Tracking Insect in his hand and looked at the mage standing before him.

That mage wore a purple robe, and judging from the pattern on it, he was a mage from the Elemental School.

He had black hair, a sharply raised nose bridge, and eyes full of impatience.

“Have you finished checking yet? I still have to go to the Northern Society.”

Connor looked at the Tracking Insect, which had just been fed an Enhancement Potion. It was still in a faint and completely unable to effectively track the thing they wanted.

“Search him.”

With a wave of Connor’s large hand, several nearby knights on guard duty pounced forward, pinned the man to the ground, and began searching his body.

“Hey, what are you doing? The Alliance is so close to here, and you still dare to do this...”

His angry curses did not make a single person stop. The knights pulled quite a few materials off his person.

Connor spread open the paper and saw the mage’s registration information.

“Dorian Sloan, a Formal Mage promoted in Highland Province, affiliated with the Elemental School. Applied to join the Northern Society ten days ago...”

Dorian himself also knew that the people before him were members of the Bloodwolf Knights. If things went badly, they really might kill him.

So he only struggled a little and did not dare make any bigger move.

At last, just as the knights were practically about to turn even his underpants inside out, the Tracking Insect finally revived and began slowly circling inside the bottle.

That indicated Dorian had no possibility of carrying the thing they were after.

“Get lost, kid.”

Another knight waved him off.

Dorian could only force down his resentment, stuff his belongings back into his bag, and continue toward the Northern Frontier.

After taking two steps, he turned back and cursed the knights.

“Just you wait. Once I get to the Northern Frontier, I’ll have the Northern Frontier Battle Mage Corps come deal with you.”

After saying that, he quickly strode into the gorge and did not dare look back again.

The knights were unmoved by those words, because they had already heard their captain explain it before.

“For something this minor, how could the Northern Frontier Battle Mage Corps possibly come? Even if they killed all of us, what they’d get from me still wouldn’t be worth the cost of coming all the way here.”

Connor continued to gaze at the distant horizon, but there was some confusion in his heart. Why had more and more mages been passing through here recently?

During the first thirty days of their stationing here, they had not encountered a single mage. But in the last ten days, this was already the fourth mage they had seen.

Had something happened in the Northern Frontier to draw so many mages there?

Connor shook his head and stopped thinking about it. He was not a mage himself, so there was no point thinking about it.

Instead, he roughly calculated the deadline he had originally set for himself and found that only three days remained.

That made his brows knit tightly. He wanted to say something, but in the end it all turned into a weary sigh.

This was the first time he had felt even a trace of uncertainty in his own persistence. His mind was now filled with the thought: Was I wrong?

Just then, the sound of hooves came from the distance. It was a black horse, with a black-robed figure seated on its back.