"That was some insane speed you had there… I barely could follow with my eyes," Svan said.
"Well, it was a combination of two powerful techniques I came up with recently," Billy said. "Unfortunately, one of them requires an insane control over mana, the other is something that you can learn, if you try to improve your Fierce Aura."
"Fierce Aura? You mean our battle aura?" Svan asked. "I wonder if that can be improved… I guess we never thought of that since we didn't feel the need."
"Thinking that you are above the others in some aspected is pretty much the same as deciding to stop your own improvement," Billy said.
Once you reach the apex of something and you realize that others can't keep up with you, things might get quite stale. Svan couldn't disagree with that since he also stood at the top of martial might for a while, and after winning the tournament in his state, he stopped improving himself. Sure, he fought his enemies whenever possible, but that wasn't enough. He had to be defeated by Billy in a fist fight with just a few punches to realize that he could improve a lot more. In any case, that was the incentive that he needed and Billy could tell that Svan wouldn't stop right there. Not to mention, he even helped Billy learn several things.
In any case, instead of asking how he could do that, Svan decided to think by himself how he could. Thanks to it, the trip stayed rather silent until the next battle, even though he was leading hundreds of his people. Regardless, the next battle was a bit harder since they found the next group of monsters in an open field, and they couldn't use the terrain to their advantage. Thanks to that, a lot of barbarians got hit and wounded by the crows. Since the moles didn't have any coordination between them, Billy could wipe them out one at a time and prevent problems.
The group made a lot of progress on the first day, but then the leaders realized that they would have a problem on their hands soon. A very serious problem… While they could intercept all the monsters along the way, that would tire them out quite fast. They didn't have time to sleep much, with less than four hours between battles.
"This will make things a bit difficult, but during the day, we will have to stop for at least half an hour to recover from the battles," Beatrice said. "That will give us some time to get our stamina back in order to not let the fatigue get in the way. At night, we should move away from the path of the monsters."
"Are you fine with that? They will attack your hometown," Svan said.
"Only two groups will attack them and they still have more people than us, so they can handle that," Beatrice said. "We need to save this much strength to make sure that this operation won't end in a failure."
Beatrice had a point, and Billy was quite surprised that she could make that choice considering that it would cause problems for her hometown. Still, they needed that much to reach the enemy's territory as soon as possible. In any case, as long as Billy's trap kept working, it was hard to imagine people back there suffering any defeat.
Once the group moved away from the route used by monsters and set their camp near the borders, and behind some hills, Beatrice brought a map of the area to study it with the others. She was surprisingly open-minded when it came to planning, considering that she was the leader of the entire operation.
"Tomorrow, we will cross the border, and those are the towns and cities along the way that we will have to pass before reaching the enemy's base," Beatrice said while pointing to some points on the map. "Thanks to the geography of the terrain, we will pass close to them, so some confrontation will be unavoidable, and things might get dicey adding the monsters to that."
The map was quite colorful to represent the terrain ahead in detail. Ceglia state had quite the number in terms of mountains, and there were cities between them, so to reach the capital of that state, they would have to move while zigzagging. The towns and mountains were quite the problem, but without them, they might reach the enemy in five days. On those two days, they will rest during the night and walk during the day, but once they cross the border, it will be better to reverse that. They will leave some traces behind, but Billy could erase most of them with his magic. He could also build an underground shelter for all of them for the day, but it won't be that comfortable.
"It might be a bit dangerous to cross the mountains with this many people, but if we accomplish that, we can avoid being detected for a while," Beatrice said. "This is probably the best route…"
"Are those cities and towns walled?" Billy asked.
"Some are, some aren't," Beatrice said. "The big ones are, but the small towns don't have the resources to build those… Why do you ask?"
"I think I can keep them inside the walled cities and I also probably can do the same with the towns," Billy said. "We won't have to waste time with fights."
"If possible, I would like not to involve innocent people in this," Beatrice said. "Only their leader attacked us thus far, so we didn't want to start a feud with that state that will last for hundreds of years."
"I probably can stop them without resorting to killing anyone, but I think it would be better to deal with the soldiers if they insist on getting in our way," Billy said. "Even if we win, we will be in the middle of their territory, several days away from our allies, after all.
