Chapter 242
Approaching
Destroying the airborne poison depended on the stratagem creators. As for the soldiers from the Rhea Kingdom, the stratagems alone might handle about 100 of them. Combined with the combat power of the prince and Aman, they might be able to take down nearly 200 soldiers. Ellie wasn’t sure how many soldiers the Rhea Kingdom would send, but her spores, which could decompose internal organs, should significantly reduce their numbers.
Ellie really wanted to leave the poison users for Luke. It was unfortunate that Luke and this camp were in different locations. Otherwise, she could have pretended to encounter them by chance. Additionally, when chaos hit the camp, Luke’s presence would have to take a back seat, allowing Ellie to act. Therefore, she couldn’t bring out the Demon Frog.
The battle between the Rhea Kingdom and the students of Ares Institute’s camp would likely conclude in one night. They had to act swiftly, or the noise could alert the city’s soldiers and hunters. Once they heard and realized Rhea Kingdom soldiers were causing trouble, they would surely come to handle it. Thus, Ellie’s main task was to buy as much time as possible. However, if given the chance...she didn’t want anyone from the enemy to survive this battle!
While the students continued to create stratagems, Wint, Ryker, Prince Jason, and Aman were unaware that they were now the camp’s most valuable assets. The 4 of them, along with Zoey, simply took turns guarding against any beast disturbances. In fact, many stratagems were already in place to prevent uninvited creatures, making their task relatively easy.
If other students saw them, they would be extremely jealous. They initially thought that students from the Stratagem Branch were useless, not realizing their power would only grow stronger only when being with the person who utilized them correctly.
Most students were sent on missions to the 2nd floor of the Tower of Eternity. Only a few first-year groups remained. Aman’s and the prince’s group was like 3 groups working together. They had to hunt 30 beasts per week, a significant number for students still in training. Therefore, only about 5 other groups were on similar beast-hunting missions. However, Ellie heard that 2 groups had already failed their missions and were punished to work with high-ranked soldiers on upper floors, leaving only 3 groups in this forest area.
During this time, Ellie would gather their locations so that when danger came, it would be better to have all the students together in the camp. At the very least, they wouldn’t be killed in vain.
They were just students from the institute, without much combat experience, and all under 20 years old. If they faced those cunning enemies, they would surely be killed.
After doing what she could, Ellie returned to being Luke on the 2nd floor. Fortunately, her status was not ordinary, so even if she took 2 or 3 days off, no one dared to criticize her. Ellie hunted beasts casually during the day, providing more food for her little Apple. However, advancing to the next level was a significant turning point for plants.
Unlike the little Mushroom, which leveled up quickly due to abundant food, the little Apple still had a long way to go to increase its level. At this point, it needed to accumulate toxic energy and then burst to advance to the next level all at once. If unsuccessful this time, it would have to start all over. Thus, it was so patient, waiting to be sure before leveling up. Accumulating power was never a bad thing.
At night, Ellie wasn’t as free as before. She didn’t even have time to train her powers. The light in Luke’s tent was on almost all night before finally going out. While others were exhausted from their day’s work, Ellie had to work many times harder.
During the day, she had to inspect various areas on the 1st floor while also monitoring the nobles’ movements. Ultimately, Ellie’s suspicions were correct. The Hart family had been ordered by the Fernal family to cooperate with the enemy. The prince was being misled into a deeper trap. He ordered strict investigations of the Res family, making the Res family see Prince Jason as a problem even though they hadn’t planned to do anything initially.
Seeing both sides fight like this, the Fernal family enjoyed even more. The Res family had always supported Prince Joseph, like the Fernal family. However, the Res family hadn’t been particularly friendly to the Fernal family. The allure of the "queen" position was too strong, so it wasn’t surprising that the Res family would constantly try to replace Prince Joseph’s fiancée.
Letting the enemies fight each other was pure joy for the Fernal family, but they didn’t realize that this joy was part of someone else’s plan.
Ellie watched them revel, thinking their plan was smoothly succeeding. If she had informed Prince Jason earlier, he wouldn’t have dared to act harshly against the Res family, making the Fernal family fully believe their plan was succeeding. This complacency...allowed Ellie to learn the locations of much evidence. Once this was over...those who rebelled against the kingdom would face severe punishment.
Previously, the Fernal family was only an enemy of the Setter family. No matter how they slandered or took advantage of the Setter family, the Emperor pretended not to see. But if His Majesty knew that he had allowed a venomous snake to grow in the kingdom, making it think it was powerful enough to poison everything, then he should deal with it himself!
Perhaps...the damage that had occurred might necessitate advancing the timeline for the change of emperor. Or...the status of the "Crown Prince" might need to be officially declared, instead of being left ambiguous like this!
Meanwhile, the Rhea Kingdom had remained silent. Even the Seven Night Poison group’s Fourth Unit did not make any moves. They had initially been ordered only to cause disruption. Therefore, even if they failed to act, they couldn’t retaliate immediately; they had to wait patiently. They aimed to let the Ares Kingdom lose 2 of its cities first. Only then would they attack again, reminding them of their ruthlessness!
Seeing the enemy’s despair when they had no way out was quite enjoyable...
This calm lasted only a short time. 2 weeks later, the battle between the Ares Kingdom and the Rhea Kingdom began.
Outside the tower, clashes started at the borders. The Rhea Kingdom sent an army of over 20,000 to seize a village from the Ares Kingdom. This targeted village was under the jurisdiction of the Fernal family. They pretended that their city had been attacked, presenting themselves as unfortunate victims. In the future, any investigation would show that they were the first to be damaged.
But in reality, the true battle had just begun on the 1st floor of the Tower of Eternity!!
“Why did you call everyone out? And these people...why did you tell Second Young Lord to gather them and bring them here?” The prince didn’t understand Ellie’s intentions at all. He was confused by the situation. Earlier, Ellie suddenly emerged from her tent and began giving orders left and right.
First, Aman, Wint, and Zoey were sent to find the student groups as instructed by Ellie. They actually found them, bringing them back together in confusion. In previous days, Ellie called the stratagem branch students out to place new stratagems around the camp.
The area for placing the stratagems were different from the usual ones placed by the stratagem branch students, which were normally set close to the camp’s fence to prevent beasts from causing trouble. The innermost layer consisted of level 2-star stratagems or higher brought by the students from their own families, ready to explode any intruders.
The second layer contained stratagems created by the students themselves, focusing more on quantity. These included Speed Reduction, Topple, and trap-like stratagems. The 3rd layer was said to be Wind Flow stratagems, preventing wind from entering or leaving. The prince was confused about the purpose of this but left the stratagem creators to their work. The beasts on this floor weren’t challenging enough to warrant such extreme defenses, like this was the last bunker of their lives.
All 3 layers of stratagems were close to the fence, arranging layer by layer. However, the new stratagems Ellie introduced were placed almost 1 kilometer away from the camp. He couldn’t see the benefit of such a distant perimeter.
No one realized that all these stratagems were the result of Ellie and her three companions working tirelessly day and night in the secret dimension. She had the Purple Mushroom assisted in breaking down materials. Thus, the components for the stratagems that needed to be honed to a proper size was left to the Purple Mushroom to help. The assembly was effectively done by 4 people working together.
By the time the stratagems for the entire territory were set up, the dark circles under the young girl’s eyes had deepened. As soon as she learned that the enemy had orders to move, Ellie tracked the people from the Rhea Kingdom. Though she couldn’t track them all, she still managed to monitor several key individuals. Upon realizing that they were about to act, Ellie immediately requested leave from the association, citing a need to find equipment for leveling up the Demon Frog in the city. Naturally, everyone was happy to hear this, as a leveled-up Demon Frog would mean increased safety for them all.
Even the association leader asked if she had enough money for the equipment for leveling up. If not...he offered to sponsor her.
Ultimately, Ellie managed to excuse herself. Once free, she immediately appeared at the camp. Her sudden emergence and issuing of numerous orders must have truly surprised everyone.
It wasn’t just the prince who didn’t understand the situation; the other students Aman had gathered felt the same. Only Zoey knew everything, and Wint tried to piece things together. Meanwhile, Aman seemed to have guessed something. It wasn’t because he trusted Ellie too much, but because he trusted his brother even more.
“Did my brother send someone to tell you something...right?” Hearing Aman asked this, Ellie nodded immediately. The girl’s clear eyes caused everyone to pause. No one believed that Ellie could lie with such a clear gaze, which meant she had received some special information from Young Lord Owen.
“I thought so. That’s why I acted quickly on your instructions. If I had been slower, we might not have gathered everyone in time, right?” Aman said proudly. He felt very pleased to be ahead of everyone else in understanding his brother’s thoughts...truly living up to being Eldest Brother Owen’s beloved younger brother!!
Ellie let Aman bask in his self-congratulatory thoughts. She looked into everyone’s eyes and revealed the truth. Although the prince realized he had been deceived, he could no longer change anything. He couldn’t rush back to the city to give orders and request reinforcements. Therefore, he had no choice but to follow her plan.
The movements of the Rhea Kingdom’s soldiers would be halted immediately if the Ares Kingdom’s soldiers knew the prince had been alerted in time. Thus, Ellie could only let them attack first and then let the sounds of battle reach the city. Alternatively, they could send a student to run to the city as a representative. At the very least, it would inform them that the battle had already begun.
"Eldest Young Lord Owen informed me that the Rhea Kingdom plans to capture Prince Jason as a hostage to demand that we trade a city for his life."
“What?!! How dare they?!!” Jason, hearing such an outrageous plan, nearly coughed up blood. Those scoundrels thought they could use him as a bargaining chip? Did they think he would just sit idly by and watch the Ares Kingdom be taken advantage of? Those bastards didn’t know him well enough. If he were captured, he would rather be killed.
“N-no, this can’t be true, can it? If you knew about this, why didn’t you inform the authorities immediately?”
“Yes, why did you gather us like this instead of sending us to the city!?”
“This is madness. We came here to hunt beasts, not to fight the Rhea Kingdom.”
“Exactly. I’m not staying for this. Let’s go back to the city!”
“Yeah, I agree. Better to leave now.” Everyone was talking at once. They were all new to this camp. Prince Jason, Aman, and Wint, although fearful of the fight, never thought of retreating with their tails between their legs. Hearing everyone talk, the three of them looked on with disdain.
Ellie sighed and admitted her fault.
“I apologize for this, but this is just Eldest Young Lord Owen’s prediction. I can’t confirm if this will really happen. Even the eldest young lord himself isn’t sure. They are still investigating, and he’ll inform me as soon as they have solid evidence.”
“So, if I had told you all this and it caused panic, making everyone abandon the mission, would you take responsibility for the consequences? Or would you blame me and the eldest young lord if it turned out there was no enemy movement as predicted? Because that would mean you’d face punishment for failing the mission and for wasting the soldiers’ time in investigating unfounded rumors.”
As Ellie spoke, the students exchanged glances. What she said was true. If they had heard this earlier, they would have rushed back to the city, abandoning their mission. And if the mission failed, the punishment would be risking their lives on the higher floors of the tower... Either way, the situation was frightening!
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