At this time, Ansel and Winona were looking at each other, glaring. They stood at an alley somewhere after ensuring that the designated people fixing and arranging the aftermath were already at work.
"I thought you told me to leave you alone? What are you doing stalking me?" Winona asked, giving Ansel a bad look. "And stop looking at my hair!"
Ansel's jaw tensed as he looked at her face, trying to pull his green eyes away from her hair as ordered (though to no avail, which irked her even more).
Instead of saying something that made sense though, he let his guilt cloud his brain. "Look, just accept my apology and gratitude already so we can get this over with!"
He said this like a spoiled brat who made Winona roll her eyes.
"FINE! I forgive you! Now, go!"
"What?" Ansel furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at her. "Not enough!"
Winona now looked confused. "What the heck are you on about this time?"
Ansel was also a bit confused as to why he was acting this way. If he felt bad about her hair, he should just apologize and compensate her somehow! Then he could leave her alone and do his job! What was he doing acting like such a brat for?!
Then his sister's words rang in his ears.
'You two are bound to end up together.'
Ansel cringed. Nononono! NO!
Winona had no idea what was going on in his head. She just looked at him like he was a crazy person and gestured to walk away.
Ansel snapped out of it and held her arm. She frowned and turned to him, ready to nag, but when she met his green eyes, it showed uncharacteristic seriousness and the words died in her throat before they could be uttered.
Her heart skipped a bit and her mouth dried for some reason.
Probably from annoyance, she thought.
But before the atmosphere between them could form into something concrete, a loud sound caught them both by surprise.
They turned to look at the source of the sound, which was followed by a vertical trail of colored smoke, catching people's attention.
"A rescue flare?" Ansel said, immediately distracted. It was even a blue one.
Each member of the guard team had a rescue flare. It was a product of Winona's team. This one had no need for gunpowder and could be created with the materials they already had available.
The flare could be made with potassium nitrate (which they had a lot of, considering their fertilizers and saltpeter), sugar, and cardboard tubes. The only one they needed to find alternatives to was Aluminum, but they found Zinc in Limestone Valley so it was good enough.
The challenge was that it required higher temperature, but the advantage was that it had longer visibility.
With their current materials, three colors of flames could be made: Blue with copper, Yellow or Orange with sodium, and Violet with potassium.
Every guard received a yellow or orange flare, captains would have violet, and the elders would get blue ones.
Similarly, the Guards who were assigned to guard the elders and their families also received blue ones during their tasks. To save on manpower, all the families were gathered into one place, which was the Gaea Villa.
A blue one, in that direction—
They gasped at a realization, immediately rushing towards it and forgetting everything they had been arguing about.
Gaea Villa, an hour prior.
Heso and the remainder of his team camped near the villa area, taking advantage of the dense foliage to hide themselves.
Even when the fight was at its height in front, they didn't join, because not long after the war started, they received instructions from the lord:
/Make sure to hit them where it hurts/
As for why Baltimore didn't use this as a threat, it was because he knew attracting Garan back inside would just ensure the favor was tilted on Alterra's side. They couldn't attack but they could defend. None of his people below the level cap would be able to get past Garan's ice walls.
Even he could barely handle them.
Anyway, after leaving their hiding spot, they had to go through various adventures and sentry attacks. It was not easy to get through to go where they had to be in the Farm Villa area.
Although there were minimal guards around and the sentries were not that dense inside the territory, there were still a lot of citizens on watch!
Everyone was mobilized in Alterra. Basically, if they weren't working in a factory or weren't guards, they were still guarding all parts of the territory from the safety of their homes, ready to go out with their weapons (or shoot from their balconies or windows with bows and arrows).
This wasn't a formal order, but there were contribution points attached to the capture or the killing of enemies.
At some point, they were showered with bows and arrows and the only reason they survived was because their levels were much higher than the shooters.
Still, it alerted the guards who soon hunted them down! Although the Alterran levels were lower, their organization was something else, let alone there were a few elementalists among them!
Things got worse when the half-orc joined in. They had to leave four people behind just to deal with him! Fortunately, it rained so their scents were washed away, and the damned half-orc didn't follow them anymore.
Many times they wanted to just abandon the mission. But they knew the lord was a vindictive man. If they didn't even do this, they could get hunted down!
Anyway, by the time they reached the vicinity of the villas, only the level 15 Heso was left with five other members, all of whom were above level 10, and most of whom with some degree of injury.
Eyes filled with deep anger, they all glared at the house just beyond the scope of another damned sentry.
They would hurt these people so much!!