Chapter 120: Unexpected Intelligence
The next day, early morning.
After another day of rest, the “Savior Squad” felt much better. The dwarves had gone to Jima’s dream palace the night before and done some rough repairs on George’s full plate armor. Now, George looked considerably better than he had the day before, his silver armor only a bit dented.
Not long after finishing breakfast, Jima suddenly perked up, quickly standing up and putting down her half-eaten meal. She then ushered everyone aside, revealing a magic circle drawn on the ground, and began a counter-divination operation. The first confrontation ended abruptly when the enchanted candles suddenly burned out.
“I’ve temporarily delayed their divination progress,” Jima said, “but I can’t hold them off forever.”
This meant that the brief rest was over, and it was time to fight again.
George asked, “How long do we have?”
“At least an hour,” Jima said. “It depends on how much effort they put in. Let’s charge towards the city wall; they definitely won’t expect that.”
George pulled up his helmet, which clamped down on his armor, revealing his handsome face. Habitually stroking his chin, he thought for a few seconds before pulling out a map he had drawn yesterday and spreading it on the ground.
It was a map of the fortress, with straight, clear lines. Every area was annotated with neat handwriting, making it very pleasant to look at. George’s finger landed on a spot labeled “Ritual Site.”
“Should we raid them?” Jima suggested. “That’s possible; after all, no one wants to have someone tracking our whereabouts at any time.”
George’s finger moved to a place called “Command Center,” saying, “I want to know their battle plan.”
Great, George’s foolishness was surfacing again—was he really going to save the dwarves from a crisis this time?
Jima countered, “No, if we don’t raide the divination ritual, the quicker we expose our movements, the more dangerous it becomes.”
“I want both plans,” George stated. “Raiding the divination ritual, raiding the command center, and making a retreat.”
Saint Jena interjected, “George, spreading our forces too thin isn’t a good idea.”
This time, Jima didn’t oppose; her attention focused on the “Barracks Area” on the map. George glanced at her, his finger landing on the place Jima was looking at, saying:
“Let’s raid here first to create confusion.”
Jima took over the conversation: “Then regroup and attack the ritual site, taking advantage of the information gap to assault the command center while they’re in chaos?”
“About that,” George replied. “The barracks are packed with ratmen; you hide Jena and use her battlefield divine technique to create conditions for an ambush. Meanwhile, Eve Frostleaf and I will raid the ritual site, and during the fight, you all quickly come to support us. Once we gather, we’ll turn around and raid the command center…”
This plan was well received by Jima. Essentially, it emphasized the mobility of the extraordinary, overcoming the odds in quantity and exploiting an information gap.
She whistled, “George, you really are suited to being a terrorist.”
Eve Frostleaf looked down at her long legs, then swept her gaze over the three dwarves, especially pausing on their short legs, before asking, “What about them?”
Butcher Hociak lifted his axe and directly asked, “Hey, Goblin, what do you mean by that?”
George explained, “There are two plans: one is to regroup at the high ground after achieving our goal and then retreat directly.”
“No way,” Butcher Hociak firmly rejected. “We dwarves are no weak race.”
“The second plan is to use Jena’s battlefield divine technique as the signal, and you will charge directly towards the city wall, which is more dangerous.”
“Let’s go with that,” Butcher Hociak shouldered his rune axe. “Dwarves fear no danger.”
Jima added, “I have no objections; also, I like how you call sneak attacks raids.”
Next, George arranged the work. He had the dwarves study the map, finalize the route, and gave them signal sticks, agreeing on the meaning of each color.
Then he checked the dimensional space bags, considering that when they reached the command center, they might need to stuff many valuable items into the bags.
George helped Jima organize her space bag, saying, “Jima, your space bag is a real mess.”
He turned it upside down.
A bunch of leftover snacks fell out, and empty packages spilled sunflower seeds, jerky, and even leftover chicken leg bones and pantyhose.
An empty potion bottle dropped, and George caught it, glancing at the label that said Healing Potion: “You even stuffed this in; it should really be thrown away.”
Jima snatched the potion bottle back, saying, “No, it can be refilled.”
“There seems to be something big in here.” George reached into the dimensional space bag and pulled out a heavy long ratling. Standing upright, it was almost as tall as a ratman. “What’s this?”
“Ratmen’s weapon, pretty useful, but it tends to blow up.”
“Truly, there’s everything in here.”
As a result, George spent nearly half an hour helping Jima organize her dimensional space bag.
Once everyone was ready, an hour had nearly passed.
Meanwhile, at the ratmen’s ritual site, the second divination ceremony was proceeding smoothly.
In the dim, spacious room, wires flickered with green electric light, and potions based on dimensional stone powder emitted curling green smoke. A statue of a Great Horned Rat loomed above as thirteen ratman sorcerers formed a circle.
One ratman sorcerer with all-white fur, long horns, and a dimensional stone staff tilted his head back, squinting his eyes as he conducted the divination.
The result showed that the enemy was less than seven hundred meters away.
This was contrary to what the white-furred ratman sorcerer had expected; logically, they should have already fled.
This must have been an interference with the divination.
Divining again.
The distance narrowed further, now only three hundred meters away.
A deeply ingrained thought in his mind led him to conclude that this must be an accident.
He performed another divination; this time, his red eyes snapped open in anger: “You! Did you mess up the medium?!”
“Absolutely, Master.”
“Are you kidding me? Do you take me for a fool?” the white-furred ratman sorcerer said. “The divination result indicates that the enemy is in our city—how is that possible? One of the ratmen’s blood must have been mixed in.”
“But Master, none of our guards are injured.”
The white-furred ratman sorcerer was taken aback; he realized something, his body shrank as he shouted, “They’re coming to attack us—”
Suddenly, a hole was smashed in the wall as an armored storm rat burst through with the flying debris, landing in the dark room, its neck bearing a huge gash.
The ratmen looked in shock towards the hole.
George, clad in white armor with a pair of shining wings, was standing on a squeaking ratman, while beside him stood a tall elven archer. Not far behind them, in the barracks, a glowing orb emitted light and heat.
George stepped hard on the neck of the ratman beneath him, snapping it and turning it into white light, shooting directly toward the white-furred ratman sorcerer. The latter, both terrified and enraged, bellowed, “Great Horned Rat protect—”
A flash of white light passed, and the rat head fell to the ground, his back statue of the Great Horned Rat shattered under the explosive arrows.
The remaining ratmen immediately displayed their traditional virtues—escaping at top speed. George chased after them, cutting down foes while Eve Frostleaf expertly blew up the ritual site behind him.
Upon hearing the piercing whistle, George did not linger on the fight; he turned back and raised his hand, issuing a retreat signal in yellow light to Eve Frostleaf. The two ran out through the hole they had come from. Using his legs, George jumped nearly ten meters high, soaring up to the building’s rooftop, gliding just above the surface, occasionally pushing off the rooftop to travel quickly.
Below him, the ratman fortress was in chaos.
Messengers collided everywhere, and some ratmen seized the moment to scramble for valuables amidst the turmoil, of which much was due to Jima’s efforts.
Carrying Jena, Jima successfully regrouped with George and Eve Frostleaf at the ratman command center but found it empty. The local commander was not there, only a few terrified ratmen remained, indicating the cunning commander had sensed danger early and fled from the command center.
They had cleared out all the valuable items from the command center in under ten minutes. Jima suspected for a moment whether George and his team had been robbers.
With the commander hiding away, the ratmen were thrown into chaos, lacking unified command.
Meanwhile, Jima ran while shouting, “The general is dead! The general is dead!”
As she shouted, she waved a branch spear with a rat head dangling from it.
Many ratmen looked over, thinking they had killed the commander, further escalating the chaos.
They successfully regrouped with the dwarves and charged toward the city wall, encountering only endless waves of ratmen cannon fodder trying to block their path. The Savior Squad slaughtered through them as if crossing a puddle of cow dung, easily carving out a bloody path.
The ratmen warriors in the fortress merely watched from a distance, not daring to intervene. With no orders from the commander, they didn’t want to sacrifice themselves to stop the Savior Squad.
The Savior Squad passed over the city wall and sped away, their figures vanishing around a distant corner, leaving behind a smoking chaotic fortress.
That night, this news reached the ears of the Great Horned Rat’s chosen through extraordinary means.
Furious, he publicly tore his face, shouting and screaming, biting his own tail three times in anger before calming down slightly.
“You bunch of useless trash! Easier to fool than a dwarf! They—the particularly sly and worthy-to-die succubus—came prepared. They were specifically targeting me and the Great Horned Rat’s glorious plan!”
Rulu jumped onto the table in rage, his injured tail flicking blood onto the faces of nearby ratmen.
“You idiots! Idiots! Don’t you understand? They deliberately hid in the fortress, waiting for a chance to steal valuable intelligence! Intelligence! Next, they aim to destroy my clock, quickly send more ratmen to protect my clock!”
“Intelligence has leaked! It has leaked!”
At the same time.
Jima pulled a paper from the chaotic pile, filled with dense writings in the ratmen’s language, but with the aid of magical items, she could barely understand it.
She keenly caught a keyword from the pile—a crown.
“Two-headed dragon? Crown? George, come here; I think I’ve found valuable intelligence.”
