The girl’s face turned red immediately. The continuous battles and the management of refugees had made her grow quickly; she was no longer that simple village girl. She looked at Brand and couldn’t help but wonder if it was the heavens who sent such an excellent young man to lead them out of their predicament.
"Thank you, Brand," she said softly, lowering her head.
Brand smiled, but then he raised his head and stared off into the green mountains and fields in a daze. He suddenly remembered Stag Forest, which made him nostalgic. He had traversed that forest alone from Brags to Ridenburg. He remembered there was a wolverine distribution area, and further up, there was an ancient castle, which was one of the places he needed to visit in the future.
Speaking of which, it was indeed time to make a plan.
In the battles over the past few days, he had accumulated nearly 5,000 experience points. However, he couldn’t use all of this experience to level up. The most important thing was to open the Element Pool, which required 2,000 experience points. Brand had already discovered that Destiny Cards were very practical magic items, even though he never heard of anything similar in the game. However, opening the Element Pool had become a pressing matter regardless.
Then there was the occupation of Scholar and the Knight profession. In the game, Scholar was a secondary profession that every player had to take. It not only expanded the ’additional main profession slot’ but also provided a lot of skill experience.
The problem was that the skills of the Scholar profession were too weak, and it took up a secondary profession slot, of which a character had only three.
As for Knights, there was no need to say more. Brand needed a foundation for advancing to Templar, and establishing good relations with the Flame Temple was indispensable.
Moreover, he had just discovered in the past few days that skills were a rare thing in this world. However, he quickly realized that this difference wasn’t because the world and the game were different but because he had misunderstood. If everyone in this world was considered NPCs, then everything made sense. After all, only players had ’profession-specific skills.’
As such, the various quests he knew for learning skills had become a significant advantage, so learning skills needed to be prioritized as well.
He couldn’t help but think that perhaps the heavens brought him here for a reason. After all, the southern Golan - Elson during the first Black Rose War was indeed the least intense battle zone. It looked like a newbie area, allowing him to gradually familiarize himself with this seemingly ancient yet subtly different world.
Even so, he had barely completed the tasks required.
Historically, Instarlon used his third-rate army, composed of subservient undead creatures like Corpse Witches, skeleton soldiers, Pale Riders, Black Knights, and ghosts, to fight Erune to a standstill. This also began the kingdom’s decline. Brand had once scoffed at the decaying Erune, but it was only after leading this group of NPCs that he realized that war wasn’t as easy as it seemed.
Sometimes viewing history through the eyes of a player was overly biased—
History had its inevitable inertia. When it fell into the hands of the Regent Prince, perhaps he or she also found themselves at a loss. It was just unknown what Oberg the Seventh was thinking at this moment.
The decline of Erune wasn’t something that happened overnight.
Brand snapped out of his thoughts, letting out a long breath. In any case, he had at least won the current battle. Since yesterday, they had cleared out a portion of Magus’ outermost forces. To be honest, compared to the first night’s battle, this was nothing worth mentioning—but moving forward, they would soon reach the northern edge of Sharp Stone River Valley.
Then he felt someone patting him on the back. Turning around, he saw Reto, and with him were Batom, Yulier, Votarong, and Mano. He was stunned, wondering why they were gathered together.
"Lord, do you have any plans?" The first to speak was Batom, who had always seemed somewhat shrewd and crude in Brand’s eyes. His conspicuous brownish-red beard made him unforgettable.
"We’ve all discussed it. If you’re willing to take us in, we’d like to follow you," Mano said directly.
These mercenaries had nothing more to say. They were people who made their living on the edge of a knife. After the recent experiences, they found that they were more willing to work under this young man.