Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 88

Dante stepped out of his tent, finally.

He felt like a pampered noblewoman, his face now caked with layers makeup. It was Victoria’s fault, he didn’t know how, or even why she was at fault, but he knew it was her fault.

She applied it in a way that made his features less sharp, but that was basically useless. If anything, it only made his appearance look realistic, but just barely.

Upon stepping out of his tent, he immediately became aware of the fact that his efforts were in vain. Everyone who even glanced at him seemed to completely absorbed by his appearance, several of them starting up a conversation with each other about him. As a predominantly male camp, many of the conversations about him were less than flattering. The few women who did see him instantly perked up, and more than a few of them stealthily readjusted their assets and rearranged their hair. That had the added effect of making the men next to them more alert toward him, not necessarily hostile, but not far from it all the same.

This was hell.

Dante ignored the crowd that was passing by and moved further into the area where the combatants in his unit should be.

He was pleased to see that the Warriors were vigorously sparring. All of them were drenched with sweat, indicating that they had been at it for quite a while.

Off to the side, Daniel was competing with the archers. They were all firing into the makeshift targets that made up the archery range, and all of them hit the center of the target every time. It made competing somewhat pointless in his opinion.

And the last group was huddled around Tabitha. The priest was knitting away as she spoke about the Goddess, while Jayden and the magic Classifications were sitting around her. Oddly enough, one of them was actually listening to her, and even more oddly, that person was Jayden. She had his rapt attention, and as Dante got closer, he noticed that Jayden was wearing more than one piece of poorly knitted clothing.

Dante’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Jayden, he seemed to be acting out of character.

The Ranger with the mana breaking ability, Thomas, happened to glance back as he drew near. He stared in shock momentarily. “Holy shit…” That brought everyone everything else to a stop. All of them were alerted to his presence, and more than one stared with their mouth agape.

Dante’s expression dulled. They all looked at him like he was less than human, a stare that he was familiar with. Fortunately, it was somewhat different than what he experienced in the past. It was still frustrating though. He hadn’t gotten close to any of the combatants in his unit, and now he was starting to hate them.

Thankfully the Warriors, Tabitha, and Jayden were calm, to their credit, but the others were annoyingly surprised.

Jayden stood, dusted himself off, then walked over. “Dear brother, you have been gone for almost a month. I was beginning to worry, but you look better than ever. Far better actually.”

Dante ignored him and looked at Daniel instead. “Daniel, go find Addison and bring her here.” His cold voice garnered the desired effect, and Daniel quickly left without argument. After handling Daniel, Dante addressed Jayden. “What level are your Classifications?”

Jayden smiled, as though in triumph. “I have specialized both my Classifications twice.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed slightly. A noncombat Classification that had specialized two Classifications twice was more than just a bit dangerous. “You have a cooking Classification and a Strategist Classification, what do they do?” He had never really come into contact with either of those Classifications, but knew that both were in high demand, in different aspects.

Jayden waved a hand dismissively. “They’re inconsequential, I can assure you. My cooking Classification only increases my cooking talent, unless I handle special ingredients. And my Strategist Classification aids me in examining likely outcomes, as well as deducing the likelihood of those outcomes.”

Jayden somehow managed to be annoying and amusing at the same time. And that was an annoying combination. “I want to take out the enemy mage unit in the eastern front, what do you think we need to do to accomplish that?”

He had spent an entire day in his tent while Victoria acquired the makeup for his face. He had passed the time by listening in on the conversation of others with his newfound hearing ability. He had almost constantly heard mention of three ‘unstoppable’ mercenary groups under Warlord Karabell, and anyone who mentioned them sounded completely fearful of them. The three groups fought independently from each other. They set the pace for the war, and were the reason for the three large fronts.

Warlord Karabell’s mercenary group fought on the main front, they were a ragtag mixture of elite close combat combatants as well as magic and ranged Classifications. From what he heard, they fought in perfect harmony, laying to waste any common mercenary groups that got in their way. That group was currently being held at bay by Warlord Vidal’s mercenary group. The two had fought to a standstill, neither side having an advantage. The main front was directly in front of the main camp, and had the most combatants fighting there.

On the western front, a mounted mercenary group completely dictated the battle. They used speed, sweeping through on fast hybrid creatures to decimate any combatants that got close to them. That mercenary group sustained the most losses of the three, but that didn’t say much. It was also the largest mercenary group that the enemies fielded, made up of several hundred riders. Both warlord’s forces sustained the most losses on the Western front, and it was the second largest front.

On the eastern front, there was a mercenary group that was made up entirely of magic Classifications. They utilized a barrier that stopped incoming projectiles, but they could still fire off projectiles from inside. It was unbreakable from a distance, and thanks to the help of other mercenary groups acting as vanguard, no one could get close enough to enter the barrier and stop them. They were the weakest out of the three, and fought on the field with the lowest number of Combatants, but they hadn’t sustained a single loss since the war started.

He had chosen to reenter the war on the eastern front since it was the tamest of the three.

There was no need to give Jayden details on the group he had mentioned. Everyone in the camp already knew about them.

Jayden had a look of contemplation on his face. It was the first time that Dante had seen him act seriously. “You would need to blitz them. Without getting inside the barrier it would be impossible to wipe them out completely, and they would just retreat if they thought that they were going to be overwhelmed. It would also be impossible to set a trap prior to the fight since the field is being watched.”

Jayden paused, his eyes wandering as he thought it over. “There are actually hundreds of methods that have a high probability of success, but almost all of them will require a large number of losses on our side.”

Incurring losses in war was to be expected, but if Jayden thought it worth mentioning, the losses would likely be significant. “Almost all of them?”

Jayden’s eyes stopped wandering as he looked at him and smiled. “Dear brother, I’m not sure what you’ve heard since you were gone, but our side is a bit strained. In fact, our situation is quite dire. Our tactics will be limited by the types of Classifications that we have access to. If you manage to get your hands on mounted troops or Classifications that excel in speed, the fight won’t be much of a problem at all.”

That meant they would need to wait for Addison, who he had already called for. Dante looked away from Jayden. The others in the Redwing unit had all stopped their individual tasks, Tabitha being the exception, she was still preaching. No one was listening though. He took another look at Jayden’s poorly knitted scarf and coat. “Why are you wearing that?”

Jayden looked down at the indicated items. “I suffered a minor loss shortly after you became sick, and miss Tabitha had been reluctant to heal me. It took quite the effort, but now she is more than willing to help me with the even the smallest scrape.” He said the words with a small amount of pride, and Dante was pleased to hear that his orders were being carried out. He had told the Warriors to ‘deal’ with Jayden if they thought he was getting out of hand.

To the side, he heard the sound of footsteps, and he turned to see Daniel and Addison. As soon as Addison saw him, she literally froze in place.