BXBX NOVEL Chapter 506 506 They're Multiplying
Chapter 506 506 They\'re Multiplying
They cooked up a simple stew of the root vegetables and cabbage, and served themselves a small bowl each, which quickly replenished their aura, and then they cast a disguise spell over the small soup pot and flew away.
Fifteen minutes later, another team showed up, searched the area, and then served themselves a bowl before hiding the pot again.
Then a third team did the same, but the pot was now empty, and they cleaned it with ocean water before tucking it away in their packs to head back to their patrol. So, it wasn\'t a gathering, but the witch equivalent of infantry soldiers helping each other out to regain some of the mana that they had burned off during their shift.
Without proper food or their Familiars, their recovery had to be brutally slow, Wolfe thought. At worst, they might be draining Mana Crystals to recover after their shifts, since they were constantly burning some of what they took in just keeping the spells up to avoid starvation.
The plane should be coming back soon, so Wolfe started to make his way toward the first village to wait for their arrival.
There were a lot more people out and moving about this time, and Wolfe had to put significant effort into dodging them as he went through the fields back toward his starting point. Fortunately, none of them seemed to have realized that he was a low-flying human and not a fast-running monster.
When Wolfe passed the road, there was a new blockade line of tanks and entrenched infantry being moved into place to his east, but the Witches hadn\'t moved yet, either confident in their abilities or not realizing the danger that they were in.
Artillery didn\'t care about line of sight. They were under ten kilometres apart, so they were in range.
They didn\'t fire at him as he passed, though Wolfe could faintly hear the shouting as they caught sight of him with their sensors, moving fast through the grass, with his legs tucked up to his belly to make himself look smaller.
When he finally made it back to the village, he realized he had no way to contact the plane. They would be out of range of the radio at the village if they were in the mountains, and he hadn\'t set a specific time for them to return.
All he could really do was hide and wait, well away from the entrance to any of the villages, just in case something came looking for him.
While he waited, Wolfe sensed a massive amount of magic take effect. Not the sort of creepy feeling that he would get from a huge curse, it felt more like there was Elemental Magic being activated.
His first thought was that one of the villages had jumped the gun and had attacked ahead of schedule, as soon as they saw a target, but that wasn\'t it. Wolfe made his way toward the source of the energy flow and found that the Witches had called in their own reinforcements, human infantry with rifles and a handful of armoured personnel carriers.
They must have brought those for the heavy weapons, as they weren\'t enough to carry even a quarter of the infantry, and there were still more uniformed soldiers coming.
None of them had magic, they were all humans, just like the Grand Dutchies forces, but Wolfe wasn\'t sure that was going to be enough to forestall a war between the two factions if they cut the Grand Dutchies off from their resource fields.
They weren\'t moving out, not yet, but Wolfe knew that he had to get further away to be able to get his ride back home before things got crazy over here. Ideally, he didn\'t want the United World Army to know that he had connections all over the Frozen Wastes. The longer that they thought he was a strictly regional threat from nearly six hundred kilometres away, the better.
Wolfe snuck away from the army and back into a quiet spot where he could listen for radio signals.
He ended up sitting there until it was already dark before there was finally a signal.
[Snowman, this is Glitter Bird. We have been rerouted. Taking the North Route home.]
They must not have been able to shake off the attention of the army and had to flee back through the mountains.
[Understood Glitter Bird. I will take the western route. Please relay for response.]
[We hear you, Snowman. See you soon.]
Wolfe watched the northern sky for signs of aircraft, but it was getting dark now, and there wasn\'t much to be seen, even with magic. But if they were still sending signals, they should be alright, and he would just have to make his own way back to the airstrip.
That was going to be much easier once the sun went down, he assumed. It was almost fully dark now, and without a moon up it would soon be pitch black. Even if they wanted to, neither side would be able to easily locate him using their technological sensors, so he would be free to move west.
He had just gotten comfortable when the ground began to rumble and shake, an unnatural situation in any part of the Frozen Wastes, but not one that was unheard of. In the Wastes, the ground shaking didn\'t mean earthquake, it meant Monster Tide, and that was what was coming Wolfe\'s way.
As soon as the sun had gone down, the Witches had brought a load of monsters through their portals and forced them out across the cursed Talismans and into the wilderness, where they were herding them westward across the prairies, hoping to start a stampede.
On the bright side, that meant that the villages closest to the borders weren\'t going to be overrun. But on the other hand, it meant that everyone else was.