Jack and Jeanny spend one day reorganizing everyone. The 90,000 native soldiers and the 250,000 outworlders brought by Jeanny were being formed into a mix between natives and outworlders. 100,000 of this mixed army stayed inside the fortress with commander Armstrong in charge, while the rest head towards the northern hills with Jeanny.
They made camps along the protected part of the hills and started to make barricades using woods from the trees around the hills. This make-shift barricade had no defensive property but it was still better than none.
Within the army that Jeanny brought, some orc players were in the march. These orcs were Everlasting Heavenly Legends' guild members. At first, before the army departed from the capital, these orc players were confused about what would happen if they join the war. They were fighting the country they were from, after all. Luckily, the all-knowing Peniel was there to explain to them.
If these orc players joined the war and fought against the Verremor nation, they would no longer be considered part of Verremor. They would get banned from Verremor cities and considered hostiles, the same as human players.
However, this didn't mean they had to quit the guild that joined the war. If they still wanted to be a part of the Verremor nation, all they needed to do was just stay out of the war. As long as they didn't land any attack on Verremor soldiers during the war, they were considered uninvolved.
Even if they walked around Verremor's cities later with their guild tag Everlasting Heavenly Legends, they would not be considered enemies despite the guild fighting against Verremor during the war. The most they got are probably unfriendly stares from the native orc soldiers.
The orc players that came here were ones that already decided that they did not need to stay in Verremor. Peniel even said that if they joined the current war and got a decent enough number of contribution points, they might be considered allies by the Themisphere kingdom. Hence, they would no longer be barred from Themisphere's cities and could carry on activities like any other human players in this country.
On the next day, after making sure that everything was fine, Jack said goodbye to Jeanny, Armstrong, and Guss. He then left with Paytowin.
The scouts that Jack sent out brought a report informing them that the previously defeated orc army had joined with their main army. They would probably be marching here and arrived in one day. Jack left the matter of dealing with this army to commander Armstrong and Jeanny. He got another role to play in this war.
John sent Jack their current coordinates. Jack and Paytowin teleported to fort Themisphylae since it was closer to depart from there. When he was using the teleportation chamber in the fort, he tried to register so he could teleport here again from any city if needed, but he found that he was unable to.
"The fort's teleportation chamber isn't like the city's zone portal," Peniel explained. "It had a short range. You can see that the places you can teleport to are very limited."
Jack checked the teleport destinations, there were only two options to choose from, Themisphylae and Thesewal. The latter was greyed because the zone portal there was unusable since it was automatically destroyed when foreign forces occupied the town.
After teleporting to fort Themisphylae, Jack took the time to meet with Fierce Flame and Ahab. Fierce Flame was leading the outworlder force that was stationed here.
Fierce Flame informed them that the Verremor's army had been sending some regular siege attacks, but nothing that could threaten the fort. The rebuilt fort at this pass was indeed very sturdy. She mentioned that the native soldiers told her the story about the big battle on the first day. They were having trouble because of the mythical-grade war chief from the enemy's side, but luckily Duchess Isabelle arrived in time to deal with the war chief. Nothing worrisome again since then.
Jack thanked Fierce Flame for the info. Since there was nothing to worry about, Jack and Paytowin departed. They traveled with haste using their unique-grade steeds
After one and a half days of travel, they met with the shock army led by John. John had taken a roundabout way to avoid detection. They moved to the furthest frontier between Themisphere and the Fulgur region before heading in.
With Jack joining and taking over the lead, their marching speed increased due to Jack's Runestone of Marching. Additionally, since this army was marching under John's strategy, they also received a movement boost from John's War Tactician title.
After entering the desert landscape of the Fulgur region, they continued along its edge. They had not yet marched into the central part of this region where the supply line should be located.
Along this edge, they saw the sea in the distance.
Jack looked towards it and wondered what adventure the sea of this world offered. He had not yet traveled to any coastal area.
"Does Themisphere have a navy force?" Jack asked Peniel.
"No, they only have a small coast defense force," It was John who answered. The guy was riding next to Jack.
"How small?" Jack asked.
"It's just to defend one coastal town," John answered.
"Themisphere only has one city that is connected to the sea," Peniel explained. "If we didn't turn into the Fulgur region yesterday and instead went straight on, we will arrive at that city. Further from that city was the border with the Sangrod Empire. The neighboring countries of the Sangrod empire and Verremor nation were the countries that had more lands facing the sea."
"In that case, shouldn't the Verremor nation have a better navy force then? Why they didn't attack us from the sea?"
"Verremor indeed has better navies compared to Themisphere," John answered. As he prepared the strategy to fight this Verremor invasion, he learned lots of information about Verremor from the reports gathered by Themisphere's intelligence network. "However, they have to go through a natural barrier if they want to invade Themisphere from the sea."
"What natural barrier?" Jack asked. "Is it those rocks?" On that distant sea, Jack saw several sharp rocks jutting out. They did look dangerous if ships crashed into them.
"Those rocks are part of it," John answered. "The one Themisphere city that connected with the sea is not an open sea, it's a gulf."
"Gulf?" Jack looked to the sea. He didn't see any land on the opposite side. This was one very large gulf then.
"This gulf is the home to the merfolk race," John said. The others who heard it became interested and they came closer to the two.
"Merfolk race?" Jack asked.
"The merfolk is a minor race of this world. They are sentient like the seven main races and can communicate using the common language," Peniel explained.
"Is it like the cat folks?" Leavemealone joined the conversation.
"Cat folks?" Jack asked.
"It's humans with cat faces," Domon, who was also nearby, answered. "They can talk. We make good friends with them. They were the ones who gave us hints about where Haon did the ritual and got his White Tiger Emperor form."
"You make friends with them? They are supposed to be aggressive," Peniel said.
"They did fight with them at first," Carnelia, who was flying together with Peniel, said. "Luckily, they didn't kill any of the cat folks."
"Well, I heard them talking. So, I just incapacitate them. I don't just kill anyone I met like a savage," Domon said.
"Anyway, the merfolk race is not part of the seven countries," Peniel resumed her explanation. "They also don't act as a country. They simply lived in their water and mind their own business. However, if anyone dared trespass on their water without permission, they will strongly retaliate. A large navy force is surely not permitted to cross their territory. That's why Themisphere is safe from sea invasion despite having only a small sea defense force. But on the other hand, Themisphere is also confined due to the same reason and is unable to develop a large navy force."
"Merfolk…," Jack turned to the distant sea again. He was intrigued. "So, this Merfolk have their own civilization? Do they have a city under the water?"
"They have," Peniel replied.
"But don't expect anything advanced in their city," John said. "You can consider them like a primitive society. Don't expect trading shops or production facilities that you can use inside their city. Most of the time outsiders are prohibited to go near their territory and will be attacked on sight. You can even consider them as one very big monster settlement."
"They are not monster settlement!" Peniel uttered.
"I'm just saying it in case he has the idea of visiting the merfolk," John replied. "But then again, we do indeed plan to make a trip to that gulf before this invasion war happened."
"Oh? What for?" Jack asked.
"Do you forget we are already at guild level 4? Same as the Hero Altar, we can build another structure so we can get a second guild guardian, and we already did."
"Right, I forgot about it!" Jack hurriedly opened his guild interface. After searching for a while amongst the built structure, he finally found the one he was looking for.
"Undersea Cave?" Jack asked. "Is it under the lake near our headquarters? So, are you planning to get an aquatic-type guild guardian? That's why you want to go to that gulf?"
"Yeah. We got information of a powerful sea beast underneath there that had just given birth," John answered. "It is best to catch one that is still in its offspring state, right? Like how we do it with Penny."
"How the heck did you get that kind of information?" Jack asked.
"He got it from a fortune teller," Bowler informed. "It was from a quest that we went together. The quest involved helping a fortune teller and in return, the fortune teller divines any information that we asked for. John asked for info on a potential aquatic guild guardian."
"I see. But why aquatic?" Jack asked. "We seldom deal with the water environment. If we get an aquatic guild guardian, then we can't summon it when we have a battle on the land."
"The aquatic monster that we are going for is an amphibian, so it has no problem fighting on land as well," John said. "The one weakness of our headquarters is the lake. We should have a defense there before someone uses it on us. Also, if you have seen the map of this world. You will see that later when we go up against Liguritudum, there will be times when we are required to fight on water."
"Fight on water…?" Jack muttered.
Jack remembered when Master kidnapped him, the landscape in Liguritudum was mostly mountainous regions. He didn't see any body of water there except for the lava rivers.
Understanding Jack's confusion, Peniel explained, "Liguritudum is a mountainous country, but it borders an inland sea. One-fourth of the country's area is also composed of multiple islands that filled this inland sea."
'Sea Battle,' Jack thought. That would be one different experience. He somehow felt excited thinking about it. He was looking forward to the time when that happened.
