Chapter 73. Cooking
They shucked their disguises in the forest, storing them in their rings. The stream near the trash heap served as a good enough place to wash their faces, and the usual two gremlins returned to the site of Rhys’s burgeoning potato farm.
On the way, once Bast had assured him no one was listening or following, and his own senses detected no trash or impurities in unexpected places, Rhys explained his plan to find Straw. Bast nodded along, immediately on board. “Whatever you find out, let me know. I agree, we’re too weak to free him yet, but we’ll need his cell well-scouted for the day we are.”
He also confirmed that Bast’s master was aware of the conqueror and her likely ill intentions. When he brought it up, Bast merely waved his hand. “All the powerful mages in the region are aware of it, and preparing for it. If it comes to a fight, the Alliance will likely fold. Her might is simply too great. We’re hoping to scare her off with a show of force at the tournament, along with some kind of tribute or another…”
“That kind of thing rarely works,” Rhys muttered.
“True, but we’re weaker than her. It’s all we have to rely on.”
Rhys nodded, conceding that point. He pressed his lips together. It wasn’t looking good for the Alliance. “If she attacks, we should run. You and me together.”
A reluctant expression crossed Bast’s face. “That’s what Master says.”
“Oh?” He hadn’t expected a man known as the Sword Saint to be so reasonable.
“Yes. He fears, more than anything, our next-generation talent falling into her hands and getting either perverted to her viewpoint, or neutered before it can take off. There are already plans for the rapid evacuation of the top talents in our region to a place more easily held than Purple Dawn Academy, right on the edge of our border with the Empire.”
“That’s a good plan,” Rhys agreed. Better that they train for a while and be able to fight back meaningfully, than lose their top talent on the front lines, lost to the first wave of the Empress’s attack. It boggled the mind to think of a point as fortified as Purple Dawn Academy as somewhere hard to hold, but then, when he thought about it, it made absolute sense. If they were really on the edge of the border with the next region, then Empress or not, they’d need a well-defended place from which to hold their ground.
There was no point building a fortress deep within the heart of one’s lands, where no enemy would ever reach it. Fortresses were built on the borders, where one needed to reinforce a point to have any hope of holding it. Against a force as powerful as the Empress’s, there might be little hope of holding Purple Dawn Academy long-term, but if a smaller raiding force, or a single school, attempted to enter Alliance lands, then a fortified position like Purple Dawn would give the defenders a hand up to protecting the lands.
“But… what’s the point? What’s the point of all this if we don’t fight?” Bast asked, a bit lost. “I’ve tried asking Master, but he just gives me a look like it’s obvious and refuses to answer.”