Quick instantly understood what Nalant meant, and excitement spread across his face.
If his lord was willing to settle things by force, Quick would naturally charge forward without hesitation. But after his excitement subsided, he considered the practical problem. "But, my lord, we don't have enough people! That camp we just saw is heavily fortified, and there are at least forty guards on the wooden walls alone!"
Quick wasn't stupid. He knew how great the disparity in strength was between the two sides. With just their handful of people, they weren't enough to capture that camp, which was practically a fortress.
"My lord, should I shoot them at night from around the camp? If I go every day, I can gradually weaken them!" Vivian suddenly spoke up, breaking her long silence.
She was just as furious as Quick that Dili had threatened her lord. She simply wasn't good with words, so she hadn't said anything.
Now that she'd heard her lord wanted to eliminate the camp, she thought her archery would be an excellent way to do it.
There was a fifty- or sixty-meter clearing around the camp, but that wouldn't be a problem for her marksmanship.
"No, Vivian. I want to deal with all of them at once, so we can't alert them to our plans!" Nalant shook his head. "We'll have to think this through carefully. The caravan has to leave tomorrow, or we'll miss the count's summons. We'll deal with the camp after you return from Tulip. That will give us time to prepare properly."
"For now, we have one more thing to do: find out exactly how many enemies are in the camp. Then I can plan our next move once we're back." Nalant knew that he'd need to make thorough preparations before he could take the camp. The few days the caravan would be away would give him just the time he needed.
"Yes, my lord!"
Nalant then had Sherry guide her bees toward the camp. Several bees silently circled the whole place, and before long they brought back information about the guards.
According to Sherry, fifty-one people inside wore the same clothes as Quick and the others. That meant the camp had fifty-one fully armed guards.
Another thirty people had no weapons or equipment, like Vivian. They were most likely the mining serfs in the camp.
There were more guards than miners. This made Nalant all the more certain that whatever was in the camp had to be valuable.
Once their investigation was complete, Quick called back the two guards watching the prisoners, and the group continued down the road.
Because there were so few serfs on Nalant's land, there was only one road. It circled the entire Storm Territory.
They didn't need to retrace their steps. They could simply follow the dirt road back to the castle.
As for the captured guard, Nalant didn't keep him alive. Now that he was at odds with Quinte, he couldn't let the guard go back. He had Quick take care of him, then dig a hole and bury him. That was the harsh reality of this world.
"My lord, the bees told me their home is nearby. Could we go take a look?" When they were still five or six miles from the castle, Sherry hurried over to Nalant and made her request in a low voice.
"Oh? It's nearby? Of course we can!" A beehive meant honey. If they could bring it back, they'd have a steady supply of honey from then on.
"Thank you, my lord!" Sherry was overjoyed.
She knew the honey would belong to her lord, but what she liked was guiding the little creatures and playing with them, so she didn't mind at all.
The hive wasn't far from the road. Nalant brought only Vivian and two guards with him as he followed Sherry into the wilderness.
"My lord, it's over there!" After walking for seven or eight minutes, Sherry pointed excitedly at a tall tree.
Everyone looked over, and sure enough, there was a beehive in the tree.
It was the biggest hive Nalant had ever seen. It was oval-shaped, at least a meter tall and seventy or eighty centimeters across.
The bees near the hive seemed to sense their approach and were already buzzing around in the air.
"My lord, wait here. I'll go talk to the bees first!" Sherry said at once when she saw them.
"Be careful!" Nalant nodded. They didn't have Sherry's talent, and if they went over there, they'd get stung until they looked like bears.
"I know, my lord!" Sherry wasn't afraid at all. She followed a few bees in front of her and slowly approached the hive.
"My lord, there's a rock here. You can sit down and rest!" While Sherry communicated with the bees, Vivian cleared a large stone for Nalant to sit on.
Nalant didn't hesitate. He went over and plopped down on the stone. He'd worn full armor today in case they ran into magical beasts. Although he'd changed into the Inscription Armor they'd taken from the Headless Knight, it still weighed forty or fifty pounds. After the bumpy journey, he was utterly exhausted.
That was why ordinary people didn't wear iron armor, no matter how strong they were. First, it was far too expensive; second, they simply couldn't handle it. Iron armor was the exclusive domain of Title Knights.
"My lord, are you thirsty? Would you like some wild fruit?" Nalant had only just sat down when Vivian looked around, her eyes suddenly lighting up. Then she asked like a thoughtful young wife.
"What wild fruit?"
"My lord, this little tree here. It may look hard, but it's delicious inside, and it tastes sweet!" Seeing Nalant's curiosity, Vivian quickly led him over to a long, stick-shaped "wild fruit."
"Eh? Isn't this sugarcane?" Nalant examined the "little tree" closely and exclaimed in surprise. It was a little thinner, but it was exactly like the sugarcane from his previous life.
"My lord, what's sugarcane? You recognize this wild fruit?" Vivian was taken aback. Only the villagers of Misfortune Village knew about these wild fruits.
Many girls in Misfortune Village weren't strong enough to farm, so they had to search through the weeds for anything edible. When they were desperate, they even ate tree roots.
When Vivian had first arrived in Storm Territory, she hadn't yet shown off her tailoring skills. Once, she'd been so hungry that she'd dug up tree roots to eat in the wilderness. That was when she accidentally discovered how delicious this "little tree" was. It couldn't really fill her up, but its sweet juice gave her a good deal of strength.
Nalant couldn't sit still any longer. He went straight over to the "little tree."
"It looks exactly the same: purple skin, joints all the way up like bamboo, and leaves growing at the top." Nalant immediately drew his sword and cut the "little tree" off at the base.
He needed to taste it before he could be sure. Finding sugarcane in this other world really was a surprise.
Chomp! Chomp!
"So sweet! It really is sugarcane!" It wasn't as thick as the sugarcane from his previous life, but it was surprisingly fragrant and sweet. Nalant was certain it was sugarcane from another world.
"Haha! Well done, Vivian!"
Nalant was overjoyed. In his previous life, sugarcane was a delicious fruit, but its greatest use was making sugar.
And in this world, sugar had yet to be invented. Honey was the only way nobles could get anything sweet.