Reading the status effect was a shock. Despite working himself hard everyday he hadn’t experienced anything like this before. Then again he also never spent more than at least three times his stamina a day for two weeks straight before. He wondered, since there was no way the nobles in charge didn’t know about this, were they simply planning on winning the war before the next level of it kicked in?

If they were that would have been a strange strategy, one little strike could have their forces grind to a half and gain the debuff early making a mess of everything. Unless whoever was leading was sure they could motivate the people to keep fighting, of course, a big reward was a viable way to do so.

He came out and found his brother sitting at the table lifelessly playing with the energetic shadow cat.

“Morning., you have Fatigue too?” he asked.

“Hmm, morning” he responded, only seeming to process the words a few moments after. “Yeah, I got it too. Apparently everyone under level thirty with a pure physical focus was expected to get it.”

“How bad is it for you, 20%?” he asked, wanting to check the different levels.

“Nah, I focus quite a bit on Endurance as a guard, mine’s only 15%.” he answered

As he answered he carelessly moved the piece of string he was using to engage the cat. This caused it to knock over both helmets they had left on the table the previous night. The first landed relatively harmlessly on the ground, but the second had landed on top of it causing a loud metallic BANG.

“UHHHH” came from the partition on the other side of the tent. “Can you two keep it down, please.”

Kate looked much worse than the two of them combined. The two of them looked like they woke up after an average party where they drank a bit too much. Kate on the other hand looked like a freshman after a night of initiation.

“Let me guess you have Fatigue. Too?” he asked in almost a whisper.

“I wish that was all I had. Unlike you who only ran through your stamina, this constant fighting made us healer run through our mana several times over as well, I got Drained too.” she complained.

“I take it Drained is the same but for mana?” when she nodded he kept on going. “How bad is it, numbers wise?”

“Fatigue is at 30% from all the relocating with no rest because of healing. I got lucky on the Drained. A few, let's say choice individuals, decided they weren’t hurt badly enough to slum it with the beastkin healer and wanted to wait for a human. Once one did it others followed so I got away with only a 10% on that one.”

Despite the tiredness in her voice he could still hear a bit of resentment. Considering how close they were to a human supremacist Kingdom he could understand where some of those ideas came from but found them utterly ridiculous.

“Worst of all though is the Empty effect.” she finished.

“What is that?” he asked, for once the confused look Tom sported let him know it wasn’t just him that didn’t know.

“When you suffer from both Fatigued and Drained at the same time you get stuck with Empty on top. A downside to hybrid fighters in terms of long term exhaustion. It lowers all your stats by the average of the two. Right now I am down 20%.” she said as she got to the table, gathered the furball with both arms and proceeded to use her as a pillow.

“You really don’t realize how much you miss that five Endurance and Dexterity until it’s gone.” she lamented.

“I’ll go grab us breakfast, managed to talk to the cooks last night after I learned what is likely to happen today so I should be okay to bring it back here so long as we return the bowls.” Tom said as he got up from the table ignoring Fluffy’s attempts to ask for help.

“I’ll come help you carry it.” Ajax made to get up and follow but was stalled by a shake of the head.

“Stay here and get your rest. I know you are going to be hunting tomorrow. Considering that we are down to our last waterskin and how you looked the first time you came back from wherever it is you go to hunt I’d say you need as much rest as you can.” Tom said before dipping out of the tent.

“You aren’t planning on going anywhere dangerous with that Effect still on are you?” Kate looked up, giving Fluffy the chance it needed to escape without dislodging her.

“I probably would but I doubt I can. The way I see tomorrow going is a slow group hunt to gather as much as we can with minimal effort.” Ajax reassured her.

If it was up to him only he would most likely have gone for the pond. After the last few ambushes he left a good few wounds on the bear, enough that he was confident to take it even with the lowered stamina. He even wanted to try to see if there was anything to gain by beating such an opponent while having the status effect.

Sadly the plan for tomorrow had already been made after dinner when the commander pulled them aside. While he was able to stay out considering his age and experience, no way it wouldn’t be suspicious to do so before heading out by himself.

They two both waited in comfortable silence for Tom to return. Ajax, having sat down and leaning back on his chair until Fluffy came to him, plopped a water bowl down before nudging his foot with her head. “Meow”

Having gotten the message he slowly rose himself and got out the last water skin from his backpack and poured almost half of what it had left in the bowl. The rest should be enough for tomorrow and the next morning before he would come back with more.

Fluffies new diet definitely agreed with her. In the last two months she had almost tripled in size and no longer fit on any of their shoulders, a fact that not only displeased her but also didn’t stop her from trying. This was also questioned by the commander but the answer of eating through five years worth of mana cores seemed enough to mollify him.

Her increased size also came with an increase in power speed and magic. While she still didn’t pose any real threat to anyone that was part of the guard unit she showed her increased specs the two times she had taken the food from some of the low Dexterity guards. While she couldn’t outlast them or outrun them in a straight line she was fast enough and unpredictable to grab the food and lose them through the camp.

The higher ups thought it was great and instead of reprimanding Tom they decided it was a perfect exercise for the guards, after all they had to be ready to react at any time. The game was something he was looking forward to when meat would be back on the menu as anybody who had their food taken had to catch the cat and present it to the cooks to get replacements.

Tom returned with arms full of bowls containing the mushy rations and a few pieces of dried jerky for Fluffy.

“Say, Ajax, how close were we to … your hunting spot yesterday?” Tom asked after taking a seat and they all started digging in.

Ajax frowned at the question. This was the first time they had spoken anything about it since he brought it up the first time.

“Not that far off actually, why?: he responded.

“That noble girl, the one who isn’t technically in charge, thought that it was odd they accepted the ceasefire. She thinks there might be a hidden reason as to why they would accept it. Not only that but she seemed pretty sure that not all of their nobles knew what it was either.” Tom said finally relaxing a bit from a pressure he hadn’t known he was carrying.

“Do you think I should come clean about it?” Ajax asked. “ If some scouts find it and they realize I knew beforehand could I get into some trouble?”

“No, you’d be fine,” Kate said in a weak voice. “ If we were losing the skirmish or it was ambiguous then maybe there would be something to worry about. As it stands right now, with how hard we seem to be winning, as long as you hint at the fact that you knew about the way to get them a free bonus and were going to turn it in eventually at worst you’ll get a warning.”

“It might be different if you were keeping it hidden for your own profit but as it is they’ll have no problem with this.” Tom added on.

“Only reason I asked is because I wanted some peace of mind that there wasn’t anything else they were hiding and that we had missed out on something that could cost us by letting them have the hill.” he reassured Ajax.