Orrin crawled under one of the wagons and thought through his situation. It might be time to give up and get out of here. He’d learned too many new things and failed to find the Demon Lord, which was the entire point of this anyway. For whatever reason, the Dark Horde failed to notice him creeping around the camp. The group of demons that Orrin had just finished eavesdropping on was likely the same ones that Valerie spotted. The Demon Lord was not here. The information he was working with was flawed and continuing on at this point was dangerous and reckless.

  Like that’s stopped us before, Orrin ridiculed himself as he dragged his body through the mud and away from the main thoroughfare. If Daniel was here, he’d at least do some damage before he left.

  The things the demons had talked about ran through his mind. They didn’t know about the new Outer Wall until they’d arrived. That meant a lack of scouts and spies. Something made them come all this way though. What could that be? Orrin stopped crawling to swipe a beetle off his hand. As far as I know, Dey doesn’t send invading parties out into the demon lands.

  While he was curious why the demons thought they were going to be invaded, Orrin could barely contain himself in his desire to ask Silas about demon cities. He’d always found it a bit odd that nobody knew much about this side of the world but there were always bigger problems to solve. From the few descriptions he’d heard of these lands before, Orrin thought it was a wasteland filled with wanton murder and mayhem.

  That one guy talked about taxes. They don’t seem much different than the people of Asmea, except for the higher average level.

  Orrin shook his head as something dripped on his head. He glanced up. Some of the sauce from the demon’s bowl was getting through the slates of wood. Orrin hesitated before running his finger against his hair and bringing a red-tinged finger to his tongue.

  I can heal myself if it’s poison, Orrin reminded himself before he took a lick. Spaghetti? Really?

  The fact that these invaders could level up beyond one hundred was cause for concern in the short run. The majority of the defenders would be lucky to reach level forty before they died. What worried Orrin most was whether those in charge knew and lied to the general population.

  If people believed they could reach level one hundred and never progress, it set a limit for humanity. True or not, people would set the timeline of their lives to reaching that target. As far as Orrin knew, nobody in Dey had reached level one hundred. In fact, he didn’t even know who held the highest level. What would it do to society when they found out that level one hundred was not only attainable but surpassable?

  But why would my stats only increase to one hundred if it wasn’t the max level? Orrin second-guessed himself. Maybe one hundred is the stat maximum and people got it confused over the years?

  He was of half a mind to use [Identify] on a few more people. The level disparity made it difficult to gather more information. When Orrin read the level of someone around his own level or lower, he could gather information about their stats, skills, and spells to a frightening degree. However, he’d learned early on that when someone had more levels than him, the blue box showed less. That was why the demon lady’s stats hadn’t shown up. He’d gotten stat blocks on only a few of the random people in the supply line but nothing jumped out at him as strange or abnormally high. It was just the actual levels.

  Of course, none of his theorizing mattered in the long run. The group of demons wanted to exterminate them. Anytime someone talked about ‘Pure’ in regard to other people, that was a bad sign. Luckily, it seemed the demons were as united under the Demon Lord as everyone thought they would be.

  Silas will know about the Accords and have some reason for not telling us, Orrin thought as he waited for a dozen orcs carrying huge wooden boxes on their shoulders to walk by. How many more secrets is that man going to keep from us?

  There was no reason to continue searching the camp. The Demon Lord wasn’t nearby. Orrin’s [Camouflage] wouldn’t help him if he decided to continue his search, and without a clue as to why he wasn’t immediately spotted as an enemy while the other scouts had been, staying longer was an unnecessary risk.

  “At least Daniel will be happy he didn’t miss any action,” Orrin muttered, just before someone grabbed his foot and pulled. He scrambled for a hold on the ground but the wagon wheels had turned up the grass into a muddy sludge. Orrin was unceremoniously dragged from his hiding space and held upside down by his ankle.

  “Look what I found,” a grating voice accompanied the smell of rotting fish as Orrin was turned in the air. A massive orc, maybe ten feet tall, held him out with one hand. A two-handed battaxe was gripped in his other hand, looking more like a toy in the meaty-fingered grip. “Another shirker? Where are you supposed to be, little one?”

  Orrin barely kept himself from blasting spells at the orc. If he could talk his way out of this, getting back into the camp was still a possibility. Once he went nuclear, there was no going back.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I… I was trying to clean up someone’s mess,” Orrin lied quickly and pointed at his head, still slick with red sauce. “There’s a bowl somewhere around here and I need to get it back for cleaning.”

  He was proud of his quick thinking. He was less pleased with the result.

  “Kitchen scullery workers don’t leave the cleaning area. Jehap is big but that doesn’t mean stupid. Who are you?” the orc narrowed his eyes as he leaned in.

  “I’m not on duty right now,” Orrin answered, readying his spells. This isn’t going to work. “I was passing by and saw a demon throw the bowl. It was—”

  “Oh. Why didn’t you say it was one of them bastards?” Jehap the orc used his other hand to turn Orrin in the air and place him down, standing right-side up. His massive blade came within inches of Orrin’s scalp. “They’re always lording over us all. It makes sense they’d treat the entire camp like their personal trash heap. Oh. You were looking in the wrong place. The bowl is in the cart, not under it.”

  Jehap reached over the side and picked up the still partially full bowl. He thrust it into Orrin’s arms. “Get going then. Maybe put in a good word for Jehap. A double-ration here or there would be nice.”

  Orrin nodded and bolted. He wasn’t sure if he was heading in the right direction to sell the lie to Jehap but the more distance he made from the tall murder machine, the better. He tried going hazy with [Camouflage] again but it continued to fail until he crossed the border fence. Orrin used [Gust] and practically flew back to where he’d left Valerie what felt like hours ago.

  Checking the position of the sun, it couldn’t have been more than half an hour. He renewed all his wards and kept an eye on [Map] as he made his way back toward the Outer Wall. It was only when he got closer that he realized they’d never talked about how he should get back over.

  Brandt kept his eyes on Daniel as he argued with another [Builder]. They’d descended from the Outer Wall to discuss the fall-back walls that were being built even as they spoke. A simple wooden table groaned under the massive amount of paper plans. The dwarf shouted as he pulled out a different blueprint.

  “Here it is. This contradicts what you want. Why have a wall that falls down on the enemy? That is a waste of time. We could slow them down even more with a sturdy wall to—”

  Daniel leaned forward and flicked the dwarf between the eyes. The smaller man blinked twice and tried to tackle Daniel over the table. Brandt was a tad quicker and held the snarling dwarf back.

  “I don’t care who you are, I’ll kill you and bury you,” the man shouted as he struggled against Brandt.

  “Daniel, please apologize to Urtrat,” Brandt said in short bursts as he tried to hold on. The dwarf was more agile than he appeared. “You didn’t need to do that and you know it.”

  Daniel ignored Brandt and moved closer to Urtrat. He raised a hand, fingers folded to deliver another flick. The dwarf flinched.

  “There,” Daniel said softly and stepped back again, dropping his hand. “That is why. You’ve been arguing over and over against my suggestions, Urtrat. I know you want to build a big strong wall and repeat it over and over. I want the horde to flinch and pause at each wall, not knowing if this one will fall on them, burst into flames, be filled with our troops, or just be a big boring wall. Every moment they waste considering is another life saved because we had more time to prepare. Do you understand?”

  Brandt was impressed at how well Daniel was learning to deal with the dwarves. Urtrat grumbled but stopped tugging forward. When released, he grabbed another rolled-up wall plan and spread it on the table to ask more questions. Neither one spoke of the flick.

  Daniel glanced back up toward the wall behind him multiple times. Brandt knew what he was worried about. He was scared for Orrin as well. The unassuming kid had grown on him and even rescued him from certain death and more torture. This plan they had come up with was stupid. Almost as bad as his own attempt to kill Lord Sanerris. At least Brandt had training for that sort of thing. Being a [Knight] wasn’t all about protecting in the light. He’d carried out his share of cloak-and-dagger missions for Lord Catanzano. Brandt had simply underestimated his target.

  Madeleine… Madi, as she was increasingly making everyone call her, was up above, he knew. She stayed close in case Daniel tried anything. The relationship between Orrin and Daniel was a tricky one. Brandt had seen something similar in brothers who joined the guard together but these two were nothing alike. Madi was keeping watch for any signal from Orrin. She had a [Locationist] ready to [Teleport] her closer. Daniel didn’t like that part of the plan, either. Something that Brandt very much agreed with. Sending Orrin in was a calculated risk. Letting Madeleine Catanzano, the daughter of a lord of Dey, go close was suicidal.

  Yet, somehow, Brandt felt at ease watching Daniel explain how traps should be set at random intervals in the Pass with markers that could be removed quickly by retreating troops. He knew fighting was coming but this [Hero] and his friend kept saving them all.

  “Attack from above!” a clear voice rang out from the ramparts. Echoes of the same repeated a moment later.

  Urtrat scooped the papers up into his arms and ran. Daniel’s large sword appeared in his hand, his feet already hitting the stairwell up to the top of the Outer Wall. Brandt charged behind him, taking the steps two at a time. Not for the first time, he wished his armor was lighter but he would have to cut quality or pay triple the price for better materials. Sweat ran down his back as he burst through the door at the top a second after Daniel.

  “Where?” Daniel’s question turned a few heads and swords and staffs pointed north where several men were grappling on the ground.

  Daniel and Brandt ran forward to find Madi bodily throwing their own men to the side. Broken glass on the ground told Brandt they’d used the spell orbs made for use in emergencies. What confused him was the same men and women he knew had the orbs were lying prone where Madi dumped their breathing bodies.

  “Brandt. Daniel. Good. Help me get these idiots off him. They tackled him as soon as he jumped up here,” Madi said as she pulled on a foot. “Idiot.”

  Brandt tried to figure out what was going on until he saw a familiar face in the middle of the bundle of limbs.

  “Sorry guys, I used [Gust] to send myself up the wall but I overshot it a bit. I didn’t mean to fall on that guy, I swear,” Orrin smiled guiltily from under six fully armored warriors. “At least we know their response time is good.”

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