Chapter 78: The Woolfs Are Coming
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
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As the loud and rushed noise of the bell spread across every corner of the Harry Castle, Abel began to lose focus on the base that he was forging. It was a 120 skill base that he was making, but would only take a second for him to accidentally snap it into two.
Abel threw the broken sword away with his thong. He rushed out of the workshop and ran towards the plaza inside Harry Castle.
“What happened?” Abel grabbed one of the guards and asked.
“Worgens were discovered outside the fort, sir Abel,” the guard quickly gave a bow to Abel.
Abel stopped the guard before he was about to leave, “Come with me. I need you to help me put my armor up.”
Regardless of its type, wearing armor was a very effortful thing to do for knights. Abel didn’t have his own underling knights. The twenty men Marshall sent him were more like bodyguards than underlings, so it got weird if Abel were to order them to do anything other than fighting.
If Abel were to have his own underling knights, he would have a lot less things to concern himself with. Underling knights could do many things for him, such as helping out with chores, maintaining armors and weapons, taking care of horses, changing armor for his master, supplying extra weapons, and etc.
Despite the amount of potential Abel had shown, not a lot of people knew that he was already an official knight. Honestly, he preferred not telling people. Most people who found out were pretty strong themselves (e.g. Dickens), and they knew how hard it was for Abel if they revealed his true powers.
Abel was just a little over 170cm in height. The blue armor he was wearing was a perfect fit for him. It was the right weight, too. It wasn’t heavy enough to slow down his movements.
Apart from his armour, Abel also had his ice magic sword on his back. In his right hand was a red-based shield with the unicorn crest on it. Lastly, he’s held a five-meter, 300-pound lance in his left hand. These were the equipment he was wielding when he was climbing the Harry Castle wall.
“You’ve come, Abel,” Lord Marshall greeted in his golden bull armor. For a man who had been waiting for a Worgen invasion for days, he seemed very relaxed at the moment.
“Any changes on the battlefield, Uncle marshall?” Abel asked. As calm as Lord Marshall seemed, his eyes were clearly strained with bloodshot. Besides, the golden bull armor takes a lot of time to wear. Maybe Marshall just hadn’t taken it off for the past few days.
“Those worgens are starting to gather up. Apparently, they want to assemble a unit powerful enough to play a game of cat and mouse with us!” Marshall replied, then turned towards his men with loud laughter, “So we are the mice, and these dogs want to be the cat! “Fine, then,” I say. We’ll just knock their fangs out when that happens!”
In contrast to the serious atmosphere back then, the soldiers suddenly began to laugh out loudly. Abel knew Lord Marshall was trying to cheer them up. If these guards were too anxious about the upcoming battle, they wouldn’t even perform half as good as they normally would. “Where are the knight servants?” Abel suddenly realized and asked. Shouldn’t these men be inside the fort at a time like this?
“Oh, they are inside a secret tunnel outside the fort,” Lord Marshall replied, “These worgens don’t know what formations are, so when they all gather up, we’ll teach them a lesson in military tactics.”
Lord Marshall seemed very confident about that. Out of the five high-ranked wolfriders that were already discovered, he was sure he could take two to three of them (with his two magic swords and the golden bull armour, of course). And, while not a lot of people knew how strong Abel was, Marshall could tell how strong he was by practicing with him very frequently.
Not just that, Abel also crafted magic weapons for the twenty knight servants. He didn’t forge the swords and round shields himself, per se, but the magic he enchanted on them was just as powerful as any other of his work.
If Lord Marshall was to use an ordinary weapon, he couldn’t even defeat any one of the knight servants with a magic weapon in hand. Any attacks would be futile against a shield that was strengthened with magic. After an attack was neutralised, the ice magic sword would slow its enemy down for an endless stream of consecutive attacks. There was nothing you could do once you’ve been caught by it.
That being said, Lord Marshall wasn’t planning to let these knight servants face the high-ranked wolfriders. He was very much in agreement with what Abel’s saying. As strong as the magic on the round shields were, any powerful attack could easily destroy the material that they were built from.
It took time to activate magic effects. When a weapon hit a shield, the shield had to be strong enough to take the hit before the magic runes started doing anything. Technically speaking, an eighty skill round shield was clearly flawed in their design.
Still, a small unit of twenty knight servants could launch a very devastating sneak attack to those worgens, who were ignorant of the powers of magic weapons they had. The first strike would be the most deadly one. From Lord Marshall’s point of view, instead of having the knight servants inside the castle for defense and no offense, he would much rather use this firepower for a surprise attack on the battlefront.
About 100 meters outside Harry Castle, more and more wolfriders were starting to gather up. Eventually, they stopped appearing on the battlefield.
“Five high-ranked wolfriders, fifty intermediate wolfriders, and one hundred beginner wolfriders. They are going big, aren’t they?” Lord Marshall exclaimed.
It was noon now. Instead of choosing nighttime, which would’ve given them a lot more advantages, these prideful worgens chose to attack Harry Castle in the middle of the day.
“Don’t worry about them if there isn’t a commander,” Abel commented. After seeing those wolfriders himself, he started feeling a lot less anxious.
These wolfriders from the Woolf family were very easy to recognize. Five of the high-ranked wolfriders were wearing steel armor plates, and fifty of the intermediate wolfriders were wearing leather armor plates. The 100 low-ranked wolfriders were not wearing any protection on them at all, which reflected how much shortage the Orc Empire was in for armors. In the human world, every official knight would be granted his own armor, weapons, and other gear accordingly.
All of the wolfriders had long spears as their weapons. While the appearance of those spears was all the same, the low-ranked wolfriders had ones with less metal in them. The intermediate and high-ranked wolfriders had either more metal in the spears or pure metal in the spears.
“Would you dare to go out now, boy? Why don’t we rush out and hunt them down?” Lord Marshall called out. As he said this in his shiny golden bull armor, he was like a god of war in front of the soldiers standing on the wall.
“You bet!” Abel replied excitedly.
“Send out the horses!” Lord Marshall shouted to his men.
Pretty soon, two war horses, wearing half-body armor plates were sent out. These two mars were just recently bought from the Duchy of Thunder. Because of how heavy the golden bull armor and Abel’s 300-pound lance were, regular horses weren’t strong enough to ride them around.
With the help of the knight servants, the two got up on the horses fairly quickly. As Abel sat on his one, he rubbed its back with his hand for a bit. He hadn’t ridden it much after it was bought, so the most he could do now was improvise as he goes.
As the war horses trotted away from the castle, Abel intentionally rode his one behind Lord Marshall. He whispered the enchantments as softly as he could, and a peculiar aura began to surround himself and his horse. Apart fro Abel, there wasn’t anyone else who possessed the Power of the Will. If there was, that person would feel a very overwhelming and distant force coming towards him.
Abel was already used to this. Every time he massaged Black Wind with his mount enhancement technique, he would feel the same suffocating force with his sixth sense.
The more Abel used his mount enhancement technique on his horse, the more he began to gain an understanding of its spirit.
From what he could see, this was a very innocent and pure horse, which was destined to be a war horse since it was born. For all the training it had received, its sole purpose was to serve the knight it was supposed to carry. From its simple perspective, it was nothing but a part of its rider.
The more Abel read its mind, the more he felt moved by its unconditional trust towards mankind. How can a creature maintain such spirituality and humility? Without such qualities, no knights would be strong enough to survive on the battlefield.
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