SB: Chapter 232 – Ravages Of War

I had half expected a group to show up in the middle of the night at the farm and had split my watch with Ozy at the farm. Losing a spare spatial pouch hurt. At least it was the decoy one I had set up. Well, it wasn’t truly a decoy, but one that had daily necessities and didn’t appear out of place if it was checked.

That was the only reason I had gotten away from that legend. While I was capable of giving a fight, I wasn’t able to win. My odds were far too low. In a way I missed the demons and the frozen land of the beastkin continent. There things had been simple.

No one would think that I would have a second spatial pouch, where I kept all the good things, I couldn’t afford to lose. But that meant if I was stopped again, I would have to fight, there was no other alternative.

I left the farm at the first light of dawn, not wanting to stick around and bring trouble for the family. It was something that I often forgot, but I was one of the top combat powers on the continent. It might not seem that way, but it was due to my sheer versatility, and insane number of skills.

Other individuals just couldn’t compete. That farmer, had 19 skills, and only 2 of them were tier 3. Looking at people like that reminded me that I wasn’t weak. The problem was that I was in the awkward position of being stronger than the vast majority of individuals but still substantially weaker than legends or a group of elites.

An elite was someone like my mother’s squires, above level 80 and highly competent. I could match any of them. A fight would be a coin flip I would win most of the time due to all my skills. My combat experience against others would be about the same and my stats would be behind. But with Ozy and my ability to handle a wide range of threats, I could match them.

The problem with a legend or a group, was that my advantages with my skills and Ozy weren’t enough. I could run and survive and even give a legend a hard time, but it was like a unruly child making a mess in front of an adult. They would never be able to beat an adult, but capturing them or restraining them would be a headache. That was what gave me the ability to even negotiate.

The demons had lost their combat sense from fighting the beastkin for centuries. I had no doubt that the demon that had defeated my mother was a completely different breed. They lacked the understanding that I had and other combatants on this continent had of a wider range of combat styles.

While it might have seen like the wand, they didn’t have enough combat sense to understand the danger of equipment or spell skills in close combat. Something I had trained to use and understand from my mother. Close combat spell skills were tricky to deal with.

Traveling through the countryside reminded me how I was ahead of 99% of the population. But it was that last 1% that would be the hardest to surpass. An elite would have half to a third of the skills I did. It wasn’t something that was obvious or something I thought about often, but I didn’t like being bullied and robbed.

The number of skills I had would compare to a senior legend. But theirs would be higher level than mine. Even an elite I would struggle to match up with their best skill. Thinking about this issue as I ran along the road, made me tempted to use my free stat points to help level things off a bit more.

I could easily reach level 60 with a bit of effort, just about doubling my stat points, making me a solid professional. But I needed to resist for as long as possible. Once I got to the College and then back into the dungeon, everything would be fine.

There was a merchant caravan taking one of the back dirt roads that I passed, but they were on guard and I didn’t want to slow down. Better to keep moving and get as much distance as possible from the nearby fighting. While I might have gotten information, it just wasn’t worth the risk or the headache at the moment.

The fact that a merchant caravan was taking the back roads was all the information I needed to know that the main roads were probably being contested at the moment. If I saw soldiers, I would run away into the forest and live off the land. I had enough coin that farmers would be happy to trade me stuff they had hidden away before tax collectors with weapons came along.

While most farmers weren’t rich, a lot of them had a long legacy from the long peace. With the past wars rarely touching on them. But this conflict was different, it was everywhere, and every scrap of land was being fought over.

There were too many older legends and no one like my mother to crush them. With my father stirring things up initially, the fighting wouldn’t stop any time soon. Probably for a decade at the very least and even then there might still be regional conflicts.

At that point enough people would have died, that everyone would begin consolidating what they had taken and forming new alliances. The nobles that had let their combat strength slip or didn’t have a legend on retainer would be in for a rough time. Social skills were strong, but my father was the exception, not the rule.

I spent another night in a nearby rocky forest. Most of the wooded areas were heavily rocky, making them unsuitable for farmland. Clearing them wasn’t worth the effort in most cases. Steep gullies, hills, and peaks tended to be rockier areas.

Over the years, the farmers had slowly cleared the land of stones, and bitten into the large swathes of forests. Some of them had been elven forests supposedly, but large swathes had been cut down for farmland in the past.

The amount of land that was farmland was quite immense. It hadn’t been as expansive near the coast and hostile nations, due to past wars and conflicts. But the interior of the continent, long controlled by human nations had vast swathes of farmland and farmers.

They provided the vast backbone and economy of the entire continent. About a tenth of the current human legends had a farming background due to the sheer quantity of people. It was also why my mother was so popular with the masses, since she had come from them.

Perhaps there would be a resurgence of wands in the near future. It would be a good business opportunity for farmers not wanting to pay tax collectors, but that would create its own problems. Wands had a ceiling around the elite level. And while too much infighting would weaken humans in relation to the dwarves and the elves.

This was why I had no interest in politics or ruling. Sure it was nice to want to be an Emperor or in charge, but that meant one had to deal with the problems as well. I didn’t have time for that. I had my goal of surpassing my mother, becoming the strongest spellblade.

I noticed two refugee groups traveling as well, carrying carts of goods, animals, and packs. They were probably trying to flee the fighting, but the fighting was everywhere. Every single legend that wanted to claim a noble legacy or a chunk of land for their future descendants was taking action.

And with the legends acting and no one able to reign them all in, everyone else was acting. Even adventurers who wouldn’t normally have gotten involved were making a move to secure a retirement on the surface.

Many of them had fought for decades in the dungeon, but such a life would wear anyone down. People got old, they weren’t able to go deeper, they had too many close calls, whatever the reason many adventurers were seizing the chance.

The nobles weren’t going down easily. They had a large amount of wealth, which they were spending to hire professionals, elites, and the very rare legend who was willing to offer their services.

This knowledge, I picked up on when I occasionally stopped at an inn in a small town to rest or another farm. Chaos was a ladder, and there was chaos everywhere, as more and more people scrambled for wealth and benefits.

The real winners were the dwarves. Every major faction was buying dwarven weapons, dwarven war machines, dwarven carriages, dwarven armor. They knew they couldn’t compete with humanities war potential so they were going to profit it off it instead. I had to give them a lot of credit for their masterful planning and preparation for this day. Unlike the elves, they didn’t care to reclaim lost territory or avenge racial slights from their history. They were just going to let humans kill each other off.

It was only going to get worse before it got better. That much I could easily predict without any kind of divination skill. I knew enough of history and had seen the beastkin continent to know how bad things could truly get.

Unfortunately, history skills weren’t popular skills. I had tier 2 lore skills, which were rare. I knew my upbringing was special, but the more people I saw as I traveled, the more it hit home how lacking other people were.

An adult farmer, just 20 skills, 2 tier 3 skills, around level 20, and less stats than me after decades of work, showed just how big the gap truly was between myself and the vast majority of regular people.

Thinking about all my skills and how much further I had to go in terms of skill levels, it felt exhausting. I knew what I had signed up for, but vast majority of my skills were tier 3 for a reason. They just took too long to level at that point, and I had books of skills I still had to learn.

I would need to work on my stealth and anti-divination skills more before returning to the beastkin continent to complete the quest I had been given. There was no rush, but I didn’t want to delay it either. Each curse skill felt like a chain around my neck. First the quest to destroy that sword and then I would need to focus on getting stronger, a lot stronger if I wanted to deal with Xanatos.

As for the legend who had taken my spatial pouch, I wouldn’t get upset about that. It was a big loss, but ultimately it was my fault for not being careful and he had requested I join him. To refuse a legend to their face was quite rude. If someone other than me had done that to my mother, someone she wasn’t close with, their life would be on the line. I wouldn’t forget Legend Farsight Moss, but it wasn’t the kind of grudge I had with Xanatos.

Ultimately, I had to focus on removing the curse skills and getting stronger. That was what mattered the most. Not getting caught up in revenge or politics.