Chapter 295 — Kin?

This sudden news threw Su Jilin (Lin) into complete disarray. The first thing that came to his mind was not how much trouble the border lockdown would cause his own crossing, but what this turn of events would mean for the situation between Typhon and Ansell!

Relations between Typhon and Ansell stood at their coldest point in history—but even at that freezing point, a layer of formal declaration still separated them from all-out war. The two nations had not yet come to blows, not merely because the moment was not ripe, but because their respective highest echelons were still engaged in final consolidation and preparation. The situation on the Ansell side remained unclear, but within Typhon the war party had already gained an absolute upper hand; only the last remnants of the anti-war faction and the neutrals now stood as the final obstacle before that emperor of grand vision and ambition.

Yet though the anti-war camp had dwindled, it was not entirely without a voice; a few nobles of real power were still seeking ways to stall this great war, and Archduke Pei Yi—who had originally championed the war but in recent years had gradually shifted toward neutrality—would be the decisive factor. His stance would determine whether the anti-war faction could keep up its delaying game...

The "Wolf General" An Luo Wendell, currently stationed at Winterwolf Keep, was the granddaughter of Pei Yi Wendell.

Word of the battle at Winterwolf Keep would certainly be rushed back to the Typhon Empire with all possible speed, and the details of the fighting would be laid before Archduke Pei Yi. Not long after that, the intelligence of the monstrosity attack on southern Ansell would likewise follow the same path to Typhon—and the reverse would hold true as well. The Loren family stationed along the Ansell border had surely already received news of the assault on Winterwolf Keep, and soon that Francis II of Ansell would be seeing these reports too.

Information in this age traveled slowly and full of holes, yet those with power and position still had ample means to obtain such intelligence at the earliest moment, cost be damned. So what effect would this intelligence produce?

Any leader with even a modicum of sense and vigilance would recognize the threat of the Gondo Wasteland.

Seven hundred years had indeed made the human kingdoms complacent, sluggish, and lax—but that vast Gondo Wasteland lay sprawled just beyond their borders; so much history of the ancient empire's fall sat in their libraries; so many portraits of heroes who had fought the wasteland's monster tides hung on their walls (not counting a certain someone who had died seven hundred years ago and suddenly clawed his own way out). So long as those kings and ministers had not utterly lost their wits, the moment they received intelligence of aberrations surging out of the wasteland, they would immediately recognize it as a tremendous threat: a common enemy.

Right now Su Jilin wanted only to know how large the attack on Winterwolf Keep had been, and how heavy the losses. Adventurers always had a habit of exaggerating when describing circumstances—especially the male ones, who after his cross-dressing could be trusted in perhaps five sentences out of ten when speaking before him. Su Jilin did not quite understand why this was so, but he knew he must filter the intelligence he had heard properly.

The aberrations that attacked the Cecil Territory had eventually numbered over three thousand, and among them were large individuals capable of unleashing powerful magical bombardments—a monster army sufficient to destroy a small or medium-sized human city. Yet all of them had fallen outside the southern walls of Cecil. Still, those absurdly powerful armies of the Cecil Territory could not be compared with ordinary forces at all... If Winterwolf Keep's troops, with their level of defense, faced the same number of aberrations, how would the battle go?

And Cecil had experts in dealing with aberrations, whereas the human army at Winterwolf Keep had never faced such an enemy—that was another factor to weigh...

Su Jilin frowned. There was too little intelligence; he could analyze nothing. But he felt that if Winterwolf Keep had truly suffered grave losses, it would inevitably affect the war sentiment at the highest levels of the Typhon Empire. Granted, a war machine already set in motion was not easily halted—but the anti-war faction might afterward regain a vital say...

The war might be postponed. And if the aberrations invaded in great force once more during that interval, then it was not impossible that the war would be snuffed out altogether...

Su Jilin shook his head and took a deep draught of the beer in his cup. He thought he might be too optimistic. He had always viewed humans with optimism, yet across seven hundred years of wandering he had witnessed far too many foolish human maneuvers. Short-lived as this race was, it possessed astonishing creativity and learning capacity, but its "shortsightedness" was an even greater headache. People with truly far-seeing eyes, like Gao Yang Cecil, were rare among this race. So perhaps the rulers of Typhon and Ansell would pay no mind to these threats at all, and would go to war regardless...

Just then the voice of the adventurer beside him cut into Su Jilin's brooding: "Beautiful lady, you look troubled. Is there anything I can help with?"

It really was no easy feat for that burly, rough-hewn adventurer to play the elegant gentleman. Su Jilin made that appraisal inwardly and returned a courteous smile: "I want to get through the checkpoint into Typhon. Can you help?"

The adventurer's expression stiffened slightly, but he pressed on: "What would you be wanting to cross the border for at a time like this?"

"I'm going to the elven monitoring station on the Typhon side," Su Jilin said frankly. He was not worried about revealing his destination here. "I haven't been in contact with my homeland for many years. I never expected that friction among humans would cause elves such trouble."

"Er... passes are only issued to Typhon folk, or to foreigners and outsiders who have a guarantor in Winterwolf Keep," the adventurer said, scratching his hair. "I have a pass myself, but I'm not qualified to vouch for anyone else..."

"And your guarantor?"

"My guarantor was a knight of Winterwolf Keep, but he was sent back to the rear some days ago when the garrison rotated."

Su Jilin waved a hand. "Then I have no need of you."

Su Jilin of course knew that passes of this kind generally required a guarantor—especially for a foreigner like himself. Ordinarily he would not have worried about it; he had no shortage of acquaintances in Winterwolf Keep. But right now the last thing he wanted was to deal with his "acquaintances" there.

The elven ranger tuned out the adventurer's remaining words and began to think of alternatives. The tighter border security was indeed an unexpected complication, but it was hardly enough to leave a ranger of his experience without options. What had truly shaken him was simply the news of the attack on Winterwolf Keep.

As for how to cross the border—he had methods aplenty. Slip quietly around the entire cordon with a ranger's skills; or make a bold dash straight through the no-man's-land; or find a few local toughs with some connections to fix him false papers. Any of those would do. Even if in the end there was truly no other way...

At worst he could grit his teeth, pull off the wig, and report to Winterwolf Keep directly under the identity of "Master Delin, the martial monk." But honestly, that was the last resort of last resorts. If there was even a sliver of a chance, he would rather not take that road—too much of a black mark on his history. If not for that summer decades ago and the cheap glue that had made the wig slip off... Forget it. Don't think about it.