Second Life as a Soldier

Chapter 147 - Path Forward

Closing my status, I made my way to Peter. Over time, my reliance on Peter had increased a lot. It was not just me; he had become an integral part of the squad as well. I had seen almost everyone except Varric and Garran asking for Peter's advice.

For me, it had become a ritual to discuss mission details with him as soon as a mission was assigned to me. Even his approach toward me had changed. He was no longer overtly formal with me when it was just the squad members.

“Peter, we got a new mission. This one is close to your town,” I said to Peter. By now, the squad had finished their daily training exercises and were most likely resting in the longhall.

“Are we going to Velkar Town?” Peter asked.

“No, Frontier Village.”

“Oh, that’s a rough place, Sergeant. I went there a few times before joining the army, and it always seemed to be one extreme or the other—either nearly lawless or locked down under curfew,” Peter said, shaking his head.

“Well, this is why I called you. We will be responsible for the security of the construction team there. And I want to make sure I learn as much as I can. So what can you tell me about the village? How many people does the village have? How many half-barbarians? How many combatants? Any other details you can share?”

“Sergeant, my information might be a little outdated, but that village is complete chaos. There’s constant internal strife between the people from Avalon—mainly those loyal to the village head—and the native villagers who lived there before. Since the village sits on barren land, there are no farmers, which probably makes it the settlement with the highest number of people capable of fighting."

"I’d estimate the population to be around 1,000, with roughly 250 able-bodied men. Of those, around 100 should be natives. We can assume there are about 25 to 50 trained or experienced fighters in total, with perhaps 10 of them among the natives,” Peter said.

Listening to Peter’s analysis, I fell into deep thought. Two hundred and fifty able-bodied men was a huge number for a village, especially considering army conscription. I would need to make a deeper analysis of our unit’s combat strength. If we had too many Tier-1s, the difficulty of the mission could increase even further.

After considering the possibility of local support, I asked Peter, “We have 60 to 65 soldiers with us, so it should be manageable. We should be able to rely on support from the village head, right?”

“I would not rely on that, Sergeant. This is your first time leading an army mission involving civilians, so you might not know that in most border towns, the royal army is not viewed positively. While the village head and his family would not openly oppose the army, that does not mean they will support us. The same goes for the locals.”

"Neither the natives nor the people from Avalon are particularly supportive of the army. Many families have lost brothers and fathers fighting for Avalon. Combine that with constant skirmishes and the strict rules imposed on civilians, and support will be hard to come by. People in villages rarely oppose the army openly, but they can be very creative when it comes to causing problems, mostly by cutting off food and water supplies,” Peter said.

“You are right, I did not even think about that…. Peter, when you say natives, are these people from barbarian lineage?” I asked.

Listening to my question, Peter’s expression changed slightly. From his face, I could tell he was conflicted.

“What is it?” I pressed.

“Sergeant, I’ve never told you this because army officers usually don’t like hearing it, but I know you think differently, so I’m telling you now. Natives do not like being called barbarians or half-bloods. What we call barbarians are actually called Draknir. In their beliefs, all people from Frosthallow are descendants of mountain dragons. They worship dragons as gods… As long as you have even a drop of Draknir blood, you are considered Draknir. Honestly, I don’t know why the army, or any of the literature available to us, insists on calling them barbarians,” Peter said with a frown.

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While Peter might not know about it, I could guess why Avalon insisted on calling the people of Frosthallow barbarians. The reason was obvious: to brainwash soldiers.

It was easier to motivate them to fight against an enemy portrayed as beastly rather than one believed to be descended from dragons. This method was also effective at crushing the morale of natives living in these parts. Peter was an example of that. He did not associate himself with barbarians at all.

The same likely applied to other children with barbarian blood. But if they were called Draknirs, I was sure the story would be different.

This also explained why people with Draknir blood in Avalon defected to the Frosthallow Kingdom. While Avalon and its army gave everyone opportunities to improve and grow stronger, its society was extremely biased against people with civilian backgrounds, and even more so against those with different bloodlines.

At the same time, Frosthallow, despite being an extremely strength-based society—one that cared little for those too weak to fight—still gave its civilians a sense of belonging.

But I was sure this was not something I should say out loud. So instead of talking about the army and its brainwashing, I focused on something that Peter had said.

“You say they worship mountain dragons. Are there real dragons in Frosthallow?” I asked.

“Oh, there are definitely dragons. The royal family is located at their sacred mountain. It is said the royal family’s main job is to serve dragons on the mountain. Dragons are one of the reasons Avalon never pushed farther ahead toward the mountains.” Peter looked me with a slightly ashamed smile. “My house has a small skull of a flying drake that my father killed in the last war. When I was a kid, I used to dream about traveling the world on its back.”

I smiled at Peter’s words. While the thought of traveling on dragons or drakes sounded fascinating, the thought of facing those beasts in battle was equally terrifying. From the grand beast tide, I knew Avalon’s army’s fighting capability in the air was inferior to their on-ground capability. They mostly depended on cannons and archers for that.

“Peter, Captain told me there have been rumors of barbarian sightings near the village. What are the possibilities of those being true?” I asked.

“If the rumors are about a barbarian army, then I am sure they are wrong. But, Sergeant, you should know people in higher tiers achieve feats that feel impossible to achieve…. So if the Frosthallow Kingdom is planning something big, one or two high-tier individuals could definitely cross the border without anyone knowing.”

“Oh well, if it is someone at that high level, we could only pray not to encounter them. Otherwise, we would all be dead,” I said, shaking my head.

“Are there any elemental herbs around there?” I changed the topic to some of the experiments I was conducting.

“Actually, there are. On the way from here to the village, we should pass a cave that has both Water-elemental and Nature-elemental herbs, though I do not know if they will be mature this time of year,” Peter said.

After a brief pause, he continued, “Umm… Sergeant, will you ever tell us why you’ve had us searching for various elemental herbs over the last six months?”

“Hopefully one day,” I said with a smile, then dismissed Peter.

For the past six months, before every mission, I had reminded my whole squad to keep an eye out for elemental herbs because I believed they might hold the key to a breakthrough in mana cultivation. That belief began when I made a surprising discovery. I had always known elemental herbs existed, but when I found my first earth-elemental herb in the untamed forest, what intrigued me more than the herb itself was the surrounding soil. It seemed capable of absorbing earth-affinity mana more effectively than any material I had ever seen.

That gave me an idea. We all know pure mana exists, and we also know it takes at least 80% purity to form a mana core. So what if the mana inside non-affinity mana crystals failed to reach that threshold because it contained too many impurities or traces of other types of mana at the moment of formation? And if that was true… what if absorbing such mana gradually increased the impurities within our own mana channels as well?

To test that hypothesis, I planned to create a rune that could absorb as many elements as possible and see if I could form a core in rune out of non-elemental mana, similar to the core in a mana oath badge.

With how significant that breakthrough was in my eyes, and remembering Lieutenant Cicero’s reaction when I talked about forming a non-elemental core, I decided to collect soil under the guise of collecting herbs. If someday I could form a small non-elemental core outside of the body, I might even think about sharing this with others.