"Youn--- Captain Rowen"

"What is it, old Wen? I'll not depart with the situation as it is. If I have to, I'll force your hand if nee--"

"Hahah. It is not that. I understand your resolution to these villagers. I'm here for just a personal debriefing on our current situation."

As the old man took the seat opposite the young man and their conversation began, the eyes of the young man were closed as his brows furrow in exasperation.

“Still not there.”

“In time, no need to force yourself.”

As the old man seemed to console the young man, the eyes of the clad man opened to stare at the old man seated at the other end of the table in a rather foul mood.

“So what do you have other than ” This is a bad idea. I won't let you go into the border mountains”.”

“Well, aside from that, the situation is not good. We are approaching the 800 number, and we still have some villages to accommodate. The number of livestock can be sustained with the greenery in the surrounding, but that won't solve the major problem of stable food in the long term. What has the captain in mind to do with the villagers? Protecting them forever is not possible. Moving them again, even farther from the bandit's influence? Close to the powers of the county, it is problematic too, a thousand people and a large number of livestock, might not seem a large problem, but they are a problem nonetheless. No one will take them for free, not to mention if we leave, protecting them from the encroaching bandits will be a problem. Creating a settlement in the forest might seem a good idea, but there is no rank cultivator in any village, and the forest is crawling with ranked beasts. They might not be overly strong, but for the hunter-gathering villagers, at their best, they might hunt a bear or kill a mountain tiger, a random violent, ranked predator will inflict heavy casualties. So Captain Rowen, what do you intend to do?”

“Kill the bandits. Let this one be the permanent camp.”

“Ahmmm, I won't let you go. And defending what are going to be the 1000 plus villagers with 50 guards is not realistic from both quality and quantity.”

“You aren't going to make things easy, old Wan.”

“No young mas--- the path of a general is not easy, just moving the army to fight is not everything. You'll have to think about the enemy and those you protect.”

“It would be much easier if you could help, or the county commander would have sent a real captain."

“You are a real captain.”

“With my cultivation rank? I've been given the rank not earned.”

“Maybe, but no one is more serious than you are. So I think you are more than deserving of the rank of captain.”

But the young man did not seem to be convinced of old Wan's words.

“We could try asking for reinforcement from the general of the south.”

“A coward. That man won't give his men unless the king himself will ask. He's too afraid of the prairie kings. If it were the west general, we wouldn't have to deal with the bandits in the first place, or at least we could get reinforcement.”

“I've heard that the vice general of the south is much more agreeable than the general.”

“That may be, but reinforcement would take at least one month to arrive since we are dealing with bandits of rank six, and if that's the case, they'll not have the urgency to move fast."

As the old and young were discussing what next moves could be made to resolve the situation, they realized that nothing good could be agreed upon.

“We should wait for the vice-captain to arrive from his round-up of the villages and then rethink our strategy first."

"Indeed."

“The scouts should have some new information too.”

As silence befell the tent where the two-man, a subtle change in the atmosphere occurred as heavy tension covered them both. The young man took a rather small black cube that had its angles smooth out while placing it on the table as another round but clear crystal appeared out of nothing for the young man to play with, as he asked another question to the old man.

"So, have you any information about the "snow"? My sources had nothing to say."

As the young man was playing with the crystal in his hand, Making the old man revealed a hopeless expression as a blue oval rock materialized out of nowhere to be squished for a moment while making the surrounding air change as their voices seemed to be filtered and changed in tone.

"This is not something from official sources, as even knowledge about this is somewhat lacking in the kingdom. However, I've heard nothing more than somewhat of a code "When Kings argue, armies are drawn. When Emperors argue armies are dead"."

"Old proverb--- it's that true.

"This is all I could dig, but the silence of the kingdom's powers is saying a lot off, either way this happens deep in the prairie, so it's hard to confirm anything. The risk of something happening again is still there, as this place is like a poison that no one wants to approach. This is why I didn't want you to come here."

As the conversation ended and the room fell back to normal, the expressions of the two-man were rather unsure of what to say as the situation of the "snow" was not something that they could even debate upon.

"Well then, we’ll help the villagers settle whatever they decide to move or not."

"Very well, Captain."

"Adrian should have done the last round-up of the village. He should return by tomorrow. I hope nothing has happened."

"In that case, I'll return to my rounds. I'll see if I can catch any spy or scout.

As the old man rose from his chair and walked outside the tent, the young man resumed his close eyes meditation, as the outside of the comment was bustling with the villagers and some of the guards.

But at the same time, far from the camp and far from the Down River village far north and deep into the beginning of the border mountains, in a valley which cliff was carved out as numerous windows could be seen, six-horse men were closing in. As they approached the main double stone door entrance, a man’s head could be seen above as he nodded at the six before the stone door was open to make the horseman enter.

As they entered, a somewhat foul stench hit the six as faint cries of women could be heard in the distance as a long corridor leading to a small hall with multiple other long galleries.

As they were jumping off the horses, several weak-looking men came out of a corridor and took the horses with them.

And as the six-man were going down the central most corridor for several hundred steps, a massive door made of stone blocked their path. The man ahead of the group took hard steps

as he applied a relative amount of strength to open the door in front of him.

“So you are alive. I started to think that the county guards might have killed you.”