"How is it? Have you found Isaac?"
Gwen paced about irritably.
The battle had not taken much time. After all, the Resistance Army vastly outnumbered the other side, and taking control of Slading Fortress had not been much of a problem. After they chopped off a few nobles' heads, the locals seemed far less hostile toward the Resistance Army.
But Isaac had vanished.
Gwen had gone to considerable trouble to contact Isaac's subordinates—the Ashen Alliance members who had been stationed in Slading Fortress ahead of time.
But they had only received Isaac's order to open the city gates and cooperate with them. Once the battle began, no one had seen him again.
"Could he have gone back to the camp?" A few Resistance Army members scratched their heads and spoke uncertainly.
"Impossible. There should be no one left at the camp. Before setting out for here, I sent people to tell them to relocate. They should be arriving soon."
As soon as Gwen finished speaking, Grisha ran in from outside, slightly out of breath as he said to Gwen, "G-Gwen, everyone from the camp is here!"
They hurriedly set aside what they were doing and headed toward the outer walls of the fortress.
The moment she reached the city gates, Gwen saw a long procession slowly making its way over from the distance.
A rider was speaking to someone at the gate. When he spotted Gwen, he happily waved. "Boss Gwen, we're here!"
Gwen recognized him. Reed—a brave hunter and one of the first to learn how to ride a horse. He had only returned to the camp to recover because he had been injured in an earlier battle.
"How was it, Reed? Did everything go smoothly on the way?"
"Not bad." Reed smiled bashfully. "We ran into a small