Morning came to the apple orchard. The thick fog dispersed, the sun shone brightly, and the temperature began to rise rapidly.
The soldiers from Eveningstar Town began clearing the battlefield. Shock lingered on every face; even veterans with more than a decade of service could not contain their astonishment.
Over four hundred corpses! Two camps! A kobold Draconic Sorcerer! A hobgoblin warlord!
Three people?
Gods, my lord above, were they serious?
More than three hundred professional soldiers had come to the orchard, along with another three or four hundred part-time troops.
"Hey, Old Mark, have you ever seen anything like this?" a young soldier asked, surveying the craters, the charred goblin corpses, the kobold remains hacked into tiny pieces, the two heads displayed in the center of the manor, and the exhausted Purple Dragon Knight, cleric of Selûne, and female barbarian sitting against a wall.
"Never!" Another veteran shook his head, still shaken. He pointed at a blackened crater. "But I've seen this before. Know what it is?"
"That's a crater blasted out by a Fireball. One Fireball can kill more than a dozen fully equipped soldiers, lad." The veteran showed off his experience, yet could not hide his shock. "Those three... how did they do it?"
"Never mind. This isn't the time. Get moving!" The veteran had no time to marvel at the battle's carnage. He hurried to clear the battlefield.
He was already thirty-five this year, an advanced age for a fighter. Unless fighters reached Master rank, their stamina began declining after thirty, and their physical capabilities deteriorated rapidly across the board after forty. Professional soldiers were therefore often forced to retire around thirty-seven or thirty-eight, transferring into part-time reserve forces such as guards or patrols. Those who reached Master rank could maintain their physical strength until around