The players' march did not go smoothly, but they did not encounter too many obstacles either.
The night was the players' best armor.
The Minisian infantry trying to catch up with the players and stop them were having a rough time. More than half of them suffered from night blindness, so they had to carry torches as they traveled. Otherwise, one careless step could send them tumbling into a hole.
Because of this, the nearly three thousand Minisian soldiers could not march very quickly. The major general leading them soon realized they would never catch the enemy at this pace.
So he sent out a small but more elite advance force to pursue the enemy at a forced march. Once they caught up, they were to find a way to slow the enemy down until the main force arrived.
That was how a bunch of men ended up standing in the distance, firing at the players' marching column.
Dorok found this rather entertaining.
Lead bullets whizzed in from afar. Some skimmed over his head, while others buried themselves deep in the tree trunks beside him with dull thunks. Dorok could even smell gunpowder drifting through the air, mingled with the scent of dirt kicked up by bullets... Oh, that gunpowder smell came from his own shots.
Well, never mind, then.
"Get down! Find cover!"
Someone in the column shouted.
"Are you an idiot? Keep marching!"
"What about the enemy shooting at us?"
"Is that thing in your hands just a fire poker?"
"No..."
"Then shoot! They can shoot at you, and you can shoot at them. Kill them, and there's no problem."
As Dorok fired his fifth shot at the distant sparks, he turned to glance at the two people arguing nearby. One of them had to be some eighteen-year-old