Although Rafinia had a few screws loose, her strength as a High-rank Knight was the real deal. Having this hot-blooded idiot serve as the vanguard and rearguard during battle was actually quite reassuring.
After all, all you had to do was wave the banner of the path of justice and the righteous cause in front of her, and the young knight would immediately charge forward like a red-eyed mad bull, heedless of her own safety.
"Alright then, I'm leaving it all to you!" the young knight declared carelessly, turning her retainers' faces green in an instant.
"My lady, the master sent you out to broaden your horizons, not to join an army. If you do this, it'll be impossible for us to explain ourselves…"
In the end, the eldest of the retainers steeled himself and stepped forward.
Bang! Before he could finish speaking, a small fist landed squarely on his right eye. The young woman's delicate frame belied the power of a High-rank Knight—no mere retainer could withstand a blow like that, and he crumpled to the ground.
"This is so humiliating… absolutely humiliating…" Rafinia's entire body trembled with indignation. "A man with no sense of justice whatsoever, and he's one of my retainers! That's an insult to my very being!!!"
"What about the rest of you? Does anyone object?"
The iron gauntlets on Rafinia's hands let out a crisp creak, and the remaining retainers immediately shook their heads, abandoning the poor fellow on the ground without a second thought.
"Problem solved!" Rafinia clapped her hands together.
"You lot… follow me!" Black lines of exasperation appeared on Leilin's forehead, but in the end he said nothing and took the lead.
…
Inside the military camp.
"Hey, Leilin, we've got a problem…"
Olan's face was awash with worry. He barely even noticed Rafinia behind Leilin, radiating an air of utter despair.
"What is it? Is this about the assignment after Kaslai's interference?"
"You already know? That damned half-breed bastard—if not for the innate talent of his bloodline, even three hundred years wouldn't be enough for him to reach High-rank
Olan cursed bitterly. Life in the military camp had eroded even an elf's customary grace.
"Innate talent of his bloodline? Half-breed bastard? Ha ha… Olan, I never knew you had such a talent for this sort of thing…"
Leilin laughed out loud. After the Chip's analysis, he knew that Kaslai not only carried elven blood—he also seemed to possess draconic bloodline.
With the combined influence of three bloodlines, the label of "half-breed" was well earned. But both dragons and elves were excellent caster bloodlines, so the fact that Kaslai had advanced to High-rank Wizard before the age of two hundred made him the textbook example of a lucky heir born with a silver spoon.
"Oh! We have a guest! My apologies!"
Only now did Olan spot Rafinia behind Leilin. The young knight, for her part, seemed surprised that an elf would spout such coarse language.
"This is Rafinia, a High-rank Knight. She's an old friend of mine, and she'd like to join us!"
Leilin introduced her to Olan first—basic etiquette among the nobility.
"And Rafinia, this is Olan. It's not usually like this…"
"A High-rank Knight? Not bad, not bad! Is this the backup you brought in for this mission?" Olan's eyes lit up.
"No! It's purely a coincidence, actually. And I still don't know the details of the mission…"
At the mention of business, Olan's expression turned serious.
"The mission this time is—annihilation! We're tasked with destroying a Beastkin encampment. There are at least five High-rank professionals inside, and possibly even a priest of the God of Hunting. Damn it, this mission is practically sending us to our deaths…"
Olan spoke with barely contained fury.
"What about that elven mage? Did our patron manage to negotiate anything?" Leilin was referring to their backer on the other side.
"The other side was dead set on this. They have one of their own elite squads executing an equally dangerous mission, and both the Senate and the City Lord approved…"
Olan smiled bitterly. "The best they managed for us was a squad of recruits and some supplementary supplies, but the mission itself hasn't changed!"
"We don't need the recruits. They have no real strength, and they'll only disrupt our coordination. How about we let Rafinia join instead?"
Leilin suggested.
"Mm! That's exactly what I was thinking! I know those greenhorns better than you do…"
Olan nodded in strong agreement.
"Then… would you be willing to join the City Guard and serve in my squad, Lady Rafinia?"
Olan asked with a solemn expression.
"Of course! Uplolding justice and punishing evil—that is the purpose of my journey, and the knight's path I will walk for the rest of my life!" Rafinia's face seemed to glow with inner light.
"Excellent. Welcome aboard. From this day forward, you are a teammate we can trust to guard our backs!" Olan said with great earnestness.
He seemed to have a genuine fondness for this pure-hearted young knight.
As for Rafinia, her easygoing nature meant she blended into the team in no time.
Seeing the matter settled, Leilin requested all the available intelligence on the mission, then left the camp.
He wandered aimlessly through the streets before suddenly slipping into a narrow alley.
A dim layer of spell-light began to spread across Leilin's body, eventually concealing him entirely from view.
"Young Master!"
In a nearby civilian house, Leilin met with Tifa.
Tifa had changed his face again, his entire body wrapped in a black cloak from which an eerie aura radiated.
Upon seeing Leilin enter, Tifa immediately bowed respectfully and set up a powerful barrier of isolation.
At his current strength—approaching Legendary rank—unless the Chosen City Lord were personally tailing him, no one would be able to detect what was happening here.
"You're almost ready to break through…"
As the deity Tifa worshipped, Leilin had the deepest sense of his condition. The energy within Tifa's body had been nearly completely purified, putting him just one step away from the true threshold of Legendary rank.
Observing another person's progression toward Legendary rank was of tremendous inspiration and benefit to Leilin in his current state.
"The realm of Legendary—within the world of the gods, that constitutes true power! It's also the beginning of the path to godhood. It seems it's not as simple as mere purification of strength…"
Although Tifa wasn't a pure mage, the insights Leilin could glean from observing him were still immensely valuable.
A faint luminance flickered in the depths of Leilin's eyes as the Chip faithfully recorded all of Tifa's physical data and fluctuations in aura.
"Good. How have things been lately?" Leilin asked casually.
"I've gathered a few more followers, but we've already attracted covert attention from certain factions… Also, since news of the approaching war has become impossible to suppress entirely, it will likely spread to the general public soon. Prices for grain and weapons in the black market have been climbing steadily…"
Tifa delivered his report with meticulous precision.
He had been a devout follower of the Feathered Serpent God
Sending Tifa out to covertly amass a force under the cover of his near-Legendary strength, ready to act at a critical moment, was one of Leilin's trump cards.
After all, Tifa was a veteran powerhouse who had navigated the world for years, with no shortage of cunning and resourcefulness. Backed by Leilin's funding, the plan had been proceeding smoothly.
Through the resale of certain scarce goods, he had even managed to accumulate considerable wealth.
"For now, while the war hasn't broken out, the top priority is to keep ourselves hidden. Once the Orc invasion truly begins, no one will have the leisure to pay attention to us…"
Leilin stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps… our great and benevolent City Lord will issue a general mobilization order or something similar, which would be the perfect opportunity to legitimize our organization…"
A general war mobilization order amounted to recognizing private armed forces and calling upon them to contribute at their own expense.
When the battle truly reached a critical point, the Silver Moon City Lord would certainly not be stingy with empty titles.
"Understood, Young Master! Your will shall be carried out!" Tifa nodded solemnly in acknowledgement.
"One more thing—do you recall a large encampment in the Dark Night Forest?"
Leilin produced a military map and pointed to the location of this mission.
"This place…" Tifa's brow furrowed, as though he had encountered something troubling.
For someone like Tifa to react this way indicated something highly unusual and dangerous.
"What is it?" Leilin asked immediately.
"It's a Beastkin encampment in the wild. I've had a few dealings with them…"
The people Tifa had recruited were hardly upstanding citizens—they were elites from the underworld, and there might even be Beastkin among them. Having contacts with the Dark Night Forest and even the Black Blood Tribe was entirely normal.
"What's their strength like?"
If it was something that could make even a near-Legendary powerhouse uneasy, it certainly wouldn't be easy. Leilin had known Kaslai would assign him the most difficult mission possible, but it seemed even his expectations were being exceeded.
"There exists a presence that I can sense as genuinely dangerous… And moreover, they have a priest of the God of Hunting among them…"
Any being who could make Tifa feel threatened was at least a powerhouse of his own caliber. And a group with a priest was an entirely different tier of combat capability.
"If the Young Master insists on attacking this encampment, please allow me to follow covertly!"
Clearly, Tifa had little confidence in Leilin's chances of succeeding at this mission.
"Mm. Besides you, I want every strong ally we've recruited to move covertly to the area…"
Leilin wasn't about to play the hero. After all, he was still merely a Level Twelve Wizard, and even within Silver Moon City, there were plenty who outranked him.
"Still, compared to the overwhelming tide of Orcs and their Legendary powers—or worse, the Orc gods standing behind them—the Black Blood Tribe is relatively weak…"
Leilin sighed.
Given the difficulty of this mission, completing it would likely catapult him into the middle echelons of Silver Moon City's power structure. And climbing to a higher position by accumulating merit before the war was exactly the plan he had drawn up from the start.