At a slope ten miles away from where Abel was resting, about ten wolfriders gathered.
A blindfolded worgen scouted with his eagle’s eyes, “Master Dawson! I think I’ve spotted a mount wolf king!”
“You sure about that?” Dawson asked anxiously. He was shocked to hear this news, but he was angrier that an extremely valuable asset was seized by the humans.
The worgen scout asked for permission, “Should I take a closer look, sir?”
“Of course! Look carefully, soldier. I want you to be absolutely sure that it is a mount wolf king you saw!”
Meanwhile, Abel was drinking the juice that he had stored in his portal bag. He didn’t put it in his Horadric Cube or personal storage box. To keep the temperature cold enough, he just placed ice around it and cast ice magic spells every once in a while.
Suddenly, he put down the cup in his hand. Whoever was spying on them, he was sure that it was trying to get closer.
The blue falcon was descending!
Abel understood right away. He went back to drinking his juice, and he decided not to let the others know about it.
The blue falcon was as fast as an arrow that was falling from the sky. When it was about 200 meters from the ground, Abel made his move. The cup in his hand was instantaneously replaced with a normal-looking bow.
It was a bow enchanted with the rune of “harmonious wind.” It harnessed the power of lightning. Underneath the robe that he was wearing, a light armor covered across Abel’s body. The others couldn’t tell, but the ornament he was wearing on his head was also a very powerful magic armor piece.
Abel was very serious about this mission. Since he was on the battlefield’s frontline, he had to prepare himself against all sorts of different situations. All the armor pieces that he was wearing had runes drawn on them. He would be wielding a staff of leaf when he wasn’t fighting, but if there was the need to, he could always change into his “contract of the Ancient” shield and steel sword.
It was about time that the other five noticed the bow in his hands. Before they could react to it, a lightning arrow was immediately shot into the sky.
The worgen scout continued to report, “I’m certain of it now, Master Dawson, that is a…”
The worgen suddenly changed his tone, “Oh, NO…”
“What’s wrong?” Dawson asked, but the scout was already lying on the ground. There was blood coming out of his mouth. He was dead.
There could be only one explanation for this. A human archer got the blue falcon that they sent over. The exact same situation happened two months ago. Ever since a scout was shot down by a human archer, the orcs ordered the falcons to never lower their altitude. As it turned out, Dawson was too greedy for the mount wolf king.
Still, Dawson was done here. After confirming that there was, indeed, a mount wolf king that was under the possession of the humans, all he had to do was to go back and report about it. As for the scout that got killed, he was sure that he wasn’t going to get too much trouble for it.
“Great!” K3505 called out in ecstasy. For reasons that the squad wasn’t sure of, the blue falcon above them tried to go down, and that gave Abel the chance to bring it down with one shot.
“You’re a sharpshooter!” K3003 called out to Abel. He didn’t expect him to be this good at archery. To his knowledge, there were only two sharpshooters at Miracle City. One of them was Head Commander Edi. Now, after Abel showed what he could do, it would make him the third sharpshooter of Miracle City.
It didn’t make sense, though. Abel was a wizard, and the other two sharpshooters were knights. The other two got to where they were by giving up on a part of their knight’s training. If it wasn’t for the resources that they could access in Miracle City, such progress would’ve been impossible to achieve.
Yet, despite their efforts, knights could only fight for about fifty years or so. The two sharpshooters were very close to that limit. Soon, they would be forced to withdraw from fighting on the front. It was a completely different story for Abel. As a wizard that could live for about several hundred years, he could guard Miracle City for several centuries if he wanted to.
Well, not that it mattered to K3003. He was just happy to be in the same squad as Abel. For him to get the military points he was after, all he needed to was to look after Abel, and even that seemed hardly necessary.
K3308 cheered as he started moving towards where the blue falcon fell. Of course, he wasn’t doing this for the team. He just wanted to pluck out a few feathers for himself. After seeing what he was doing, Head Commander Markham dropped his lunch and went over.
On the way back to Abel, K3308 had the falcon’s corpse in his hand as he plucked the feathers out. Head Commander Markham followed behind him, and he was shaking his head the entire time.
K3008 passed a feather to Abel (not so willingly), “Do you want this, K3516?”
Abel shook his head, “You can keep it.”
Without asking anybody else, K3308 dropped the feather into his own portal bag. K3305 thought that it was a pretty shameless thing to do. Still, he wasn’t going to argue about it. Once something was in K3308’s hands, it’d be very hard to get it away from him.
Abel asked Head Commander Bodley, “It’s getting a bit too quiet, don’t you think. If the orcs did saw their blue falcon getting shot down, they would’ve come for revenge already.”
Head Commander Bodley replied, “You’re right. For the orcs, scouts are even more precious than priests. They would’ve come to us even if it means heavy casualties on their side.”
After a bit more contemplation, an explanation came to Head Commander Bodley, “That’s right! We were probably against just one scouting troop. Let’s wait a bit longer. It could be this afternoon or tonight, but the orcs will definitely come for their revenge.”