Early in the morning, Neuman sat in his new tent, waiting for his meal to arrive. Just a few moments ago, someone informed him that his meal would be brought to his tent.
This was different from before. Previously, he had to eat his meal in the communal canteen with other soldiers. But now, he had his own tent and his food was personally delivered.
When the food arrived, he ate it quickly, knowing that most of the soldiers in the camp would be leaving for the raid.
After finishing his meal, Neuman stepped out of his tent, waiting for the commander. He still had no idea how the commander was connected to him or why he even gave him the healing potion, as it was quite costly.
This thought had been lingering in his mind, but he didn't know how to approach the commander regarding this matter. He knew that the commander must have noticed this problem, so he was waiting for him. Otherwise, if he were to talk about this, he would arouse more suspicion.
As he was waiting for the commander to arrive, he noticed several young men his age gathering near the commander's tent, chatting with others. Until now, he had only seen middle-aged soldiers. He guessed that they might be the children of nobles, just as he suspected himself to be.
Others also noticed him and glanced at him briefly before resuming their conversation. He could sense the scorn in their eyes but chose to ignore it and continued to wait for the commander.
After some time, the commander finally emerged from his tent. He wore gleaming silver armor, free from dents or scratches, unlike others, whose armor bore signs of battle.
After coming out of the tent, he looked around and then nodded to Neuman, and without saying anything, he started to walk to the area where the speech was given yesterday.
Hundreds of soldiers stood in formation, neatly aligned in rows, a stark contrast to yesterday's disarray. As the commander stepped forward, a powerful stomp echoed through the ground as every soldier struck their foot down in unison. Their voices rang out together.
"Greetings, Commander!"
The commander gave a firm nod before speaking, "Soldiers! Today marks a pivotal moment. We will reclaim this city from the grasp of these vile beasts. Are you ready for battle?"
"Yes, Commander!" yelled all the soldiers in unison.
"Then march forward, soldiers!"
After that, the soldiers began to move out of the camp in an orderly manner, and after some time, the entire battalion split into two groups and went in different directions.
Currently Neuman was with the commander and was walking along with one of the group. There were some nobles in the group, while the remaining ones left with another group.
After walking some distance, the group came to a stop near a huge cave entrance. Neuman previously didn't come near this area so he didn't see this cave.
The commander came to the front of the group and said, "Most of the rats have been killed in the cave, but there will still be many rats and we have even found that some of the rats are even poisonous, so be extra careful."
After saying this, he motioned for everyone to move, and as everyone slowly started to enter the cave, five people in light armor came forward. After that, those men raised their hands up; slowly, they closed their eyes and started to chant something.
Neuman started to feel the magic power in the surroundings slowly gather towards those men and form a small ball of fire, which slowly started to enlarge and became the size of a human head. After that, all of them walked a certain distance with some soldiers providing some guard to them.
With this, all of them entered the cave. The entrance of the cave was quite big, which allowed all the hundreds of soldiers to enter the cave in two batches.
Most of the soldiers holding weapons were walking in the front, while three guarded the magic users; the commander, Neuman, and the nobles were walking after them, and the remaining ones guarded the back.
Just as they walked inside, they met a group of rats, but in a moment the ten to twenty rats were killed by the soldiers ahead. After that, all of them continued to march forward and came across some rats occasionally.
Half an hour later.
The group has walked inside the cave, which is quite deep and they are still going forward. Suddenly, everyone stopped, and the commander walked to the front, looked back at the group, and said, "We have reached the end of the passage, where many rats are gathered, including the so-called rat lord."
"We'll rest here for ten minutes; after that, half of the soldiers will enter the end passage and half of them will guard the passage and kill all the rats that are escaping."
With that, he again came back to the center where Neuman and others were standing; on the way, Neuman killed some of the rats that bypassed the barricade in front, and those rats were quite big in comparison to the rat he had killed yesterday, at least double the size and much more ferocious. But in return he also gained more exp and even leveled up.
"All of you will follow me inside and will eliminate all the beasts inside; some captains and I will fight the rat lord. The rats inside are much more powerful than the rats you have encountered till now." said the commander and then he looked at Neuman and said in a low voice, "Be careful."
After ten minutes of rest, the commander said, "Do your best to survive." With that, half of the soldiers entered the end passage. Neuman also followed the group heading to the end passage.
After walking for some time, he noticed that there were many rats on the way, but most of them were scared of the ball of fire and started to run back and some of them ran out of the passage where a group of soldiers were already waiting for them.
Not only that, a foul smell permeated the surroundings, and it only continued to increase as they entered deep while killing the rats.
Neuman was also killing the rats that were attacking the group and continued to follow the running rats slowly.
After another ten minutes of walking in the passage and killing the rats on the way, Neuman gained a lot of exp and leveled up twice. But it didn't take long, as the group came to the end of the passage soon.
There ahead they saw a huge inside cave with hundreds of rats swarming inside, gnawing on different things inside, and the thing at the center shocked everyone.
It was a huge rat with gray hairs on its body; it had a huge tail that was around 5 meters tall and it had a metallic luster on it. Just as the group noticed the rats, the rats also noticed the group.
Seeing the burning ball of flames, the rats, including the one at the center, became agitated and started to screech and without wasting any time, all of them started to run towards the group.