“Nice place.” Schwarz looked around, and then settled a few bottles on the table.

Claud looked at the drinks and grinned. “Thanks. We never had the chance to hold a housewarming party, so I suppose this would have to do.”

“Still thinking about a housewarming party?” Lily asked, rolling her eyes. “The forces of the great Dark are rolling our way, right? That’s why you’re here. We’ll have to prepare more beds after a while…”

The bartender clicked his tongue. “Tch. I only came to deliver the actual specifics. First, the expedition at the front was completely wiped out.”

Claud, who was picking up a bottle illuminated by the morning sunlight, froze. He had expected a defeat, but Schwarz’s words literally meant that everyone had been killed. However, unless Lesser or Greater Half had intervened, something like this was not possible. Furthermore, if they indeed had intervened, Claud believed that he would have sensed them doing so. The fact that he hadn’t…

“A Bearer of Destiny?” Lily asked, and Claud glanced at her. Indeed, that was the most likely outcome, and his eyes turned to the bartender next.

“You’re fast. The name of the skill is Absolute Terror,” Schwarz replied. “What we know is that the entire expedition had died due to their hearts bursting from terror. We theorise that this ability is based around line-of-sight; all who saw the Bearer of Destiny were frightened to death.”

“What the heck?” Claud tried to visualise the scene, and it came to him really easily. A hooded person, walking across a vast field, and people falling down as their chest burst with blood. A desolate wind blew as people and Moonlit soldiers alike adorned his path forward — Claud had pegged the owner of such an ability as a guy — carrying the stench of blood.

“Yikes. The God of Heart-bursting Terror?” Lily muttered. “That’s a horrible existence.”

“Exactly. You two should stay here and not go out. You two are weak, after all.” Schwarz shook his head. “You two should be bi-folders, right? I mean, it’s expected, really…”

Claud had a strange expression on his face, but he wasn’t going to say anything. It was nice that Schwarz thought that way; it would serve as motivation for the others to get stronger.

The bartender pulled out a box. “Here. For you guys.”

“More lifestones?” Claud rolled his eyes. “No need.”

“I insist,” Schwarz replied. “No need for your ‘no need’.”

“No need for your ‘no need’ to my ‘no need’, thanks,” Claud replied, glancing at the box of mid-rank lifestones. They weren’t useful to Lily, but he could still use them. However, he hadn’t told the others about Crown’s ability to absorb lifestones of any purity and transfer the product to him, so there was no helping it.

“Don’t bother. I’m not taking this home with me,” Schwarz replied. “Just take it.”

Lily placed a hand on Claud’s arm, and then said, “We’ll buy it at the market price.”

“…Fine. But it’s cheap anyway. When the Moons descended, the seals of ancient battlefields throughout the world shattered, releasing six millennia’s worth of lifeforce,” Schwarz replied.

Claud’s vision rippled for a moment, and his mind moved towards the events of that day. After the thunderous strike from Greater Half, the Moons had descended in advance, and enormous amounts of lifeforce fell like rain. He hadn’t gotten around to investigating the event, but Schwarz had cleared it up for him.

“Such a thing happened?” Lily asked, covering for his awkward pause.

“You must have been sleeping at that time. It was at night, after all.” Schwarz paused. “At that time, lifeforce fell like rain. It was a beautiful, blessed sight.”

Claud nibbled his lower lip. “I can imagine that sight.”

“Too bad it’s probably never going to happen again…” The bartender shook his head and pulled out a notebook. “Anyway, can I stay the night? The others are out doing missions to trap the enemy, who’s probably making their way to the main camp now. Also, I wanted to ask if you had any ideas to deal with the Bearer of Destiny.”

“Dealing with Absolute Terror?” Claud bobbed his head. The moment he had heard about the enemy, his mind had started to spin, weaving a few good ideas. “Well, there are a few, but depends on the enemy. For instance, we can use a mirror—”

“We already have that. Next?”

“Trebuchets and other weapons that rely on rocks flying in indirect arcs. Alternatively, someone who has a fine enough Mana Control Proficiency to send curving attacks or to manipulate blasts of mana.”

“That’s something I suggested,” Schwarz replied.

“Traps…well, you mentioned that they were setting that up,” Claud muttered. “How about this? Equip a sizable squad of people with body-sized shields that block vision, and ensure that these shields have spikes on the other side. Making use of little peeks, corner the target and spike him to death or something.”

“Only works if the enemy isn’t a mana-folder, though,” Schwarz replied, scribbling something in his notebook.

“Only works if the enemy is an exhausted target,” Claud corrected. “Just send fifty waves of twenty people each. That should work. Other than that, you can bait out Absolute Terror by sending multiple waves of enemies. After all, all skills have a time limit and a cooldown.”

“I suppose that’s one method, yes,” Schwarz muttered. “Anything else?”

“Hmm.” Claud thought for a moment. Methods that involved eye-contact were simultaneously easy and hard to deal with, but as one dug deeper and deeper, more specialised solutions were required. “Get a blind folder or a folder that can fight without sight. Or use skills to kill the enemy from afar. Strike once, and then flee. Things like that.”

“Guerilla tactics.”

“Okay, so you’ve thought of that, then…” Claud looked at Lily, who had an adorably thoughtful look on her face. “What about you, Lily?”

“Me?” Her eyes brightened. “Explosives! Just bury lots of explosives underground. They’ll be less obvious than traps, after all. Also, we can engulf the target in smoke and then pepper the area with arrows and other ranged techniques. Alternatively, we can just burn the whole place. If the ability works on vision, we can just hide the figure of the target in smoke or fire and kill him in various ways!”

“…I see.”

Lily thought about it a bit more. “We can also seek to find out the identity of the target and hold his family hostage!”

“Great, we have a second Dia.” Schwarz let out a sigh. “Don’t look at me like that. Dia also thought of that idea too, but at least you had a lot of ideas before that.”

“Oh.” Lily shrugged. “But it’s a high-value target. All’s fair in love and war, right?”

“Don’t take this chance to cuddle up to Claud when you say that,” Schwarz replied, annoyed. “Anyway, that’s it, I suppose. I think I’ll have a few good ideas.”

“Of course,” Claud added, “the best way is to take the target by complete surprise. If you have an unparalleled assassin…that’ll do. Or use a skill that has a trapping ability and trap him there for ever. That’ll work too.”

“How many people do you think have trapping skills?”

“Quite a few, I suppose?” Claud replied. “I mean, the Moons control the whole of Istrel. Even if they can’t kill the target, the population is large enough that they should be able to find ninety-six people with trapping abilities that create an opaque barrier or something. Or just use a barrier artefact.”

“…Why ninety-six?” Schwarz asked.

“Well, most skills last for thirty minutes, right?” Claud asked. “So forty-eight for one day, and then double that to account for level 0 skills. Done.”

“You…make it sound easy. But skills can be broken with strength.”

“So they can,” Claud replied. “But it’s just an example, right? And how many times can the target exert his strength? Ninety-six isn’t enough? Then triple that. Make it a nice number. Five hundred. His mana can’t hold out forever.”

“Five hundred to hold down a Bearer of Destiny…”

“A really good deal, in my opinion. Of course,” Claud continued, “I recommend getting a full army to help out once the target is controlled, and they should all be looking away or something where possible. One can prepare a second and third army to act if the enemy breaks out and uses Absolute Terror.”

Schwarz continued to scribble his words down.

“I suppose this is a good argument for all soldiers in an army to have a trapping skill that creates an opaque prison.”

“Exactly,” Claud replied. “Such an army can probably trap key targets and prevent them from harming anyone. Even if they don’t have many or any mana circuits.”

Schwarz nodded. “Alright, that was actually really useful.”

“Excellent,” Claud drawled. “In that case, do you mind pulling out a few more bottles? I’m sure the two of us can enjoy them well.”

“Hmph. Fine.” Schwarz pulled out more bottles from nowhere. “I’m going to stay the night. That fine with you?”

“No problem.”

“Great…now, is there a bar in this town?”

Claud smiled. Even with the threat of a Bearer of Destiny, Schwarz was still Schwarz. “Yeah. We can all go out for some food later.”