The Golden Experience Point [Part 1]

Chapter 98: "Let's Marathon Ruins Today!"

"All right! It's about time we headed to the next town!"

With the sun hidden behind clouds and the townspeople all turned into zombies, Blanc's group immediately set off for their next target.

"Of course, but there are two roads leading out of this town, one northwest, and one southwest. Which one should we take?"

"Ah— Did anyone run away from this town?"

If someone did, then the direction they went should lead to another town.

"Please wait one moment."

Carmine went to question the spartoi. Since Blanc and the mormo girls didn't go too far into the town, they didn't see everything that happened. After a bit, Carmine returned with a report.

"A number of people fled to the northwest on horseback, apparently."

"Northwest, huh..."

The ones who escaped were from this town, so it would follow that there would be something in the direction they went. If their town were being attacked by monsters, then people would run to seek aid, and they would thus want to go toward another town that they believed to be reliable. Continuing that train of thought, the helpers would need to be stronger than the current town was, and the ones who ran away would know at least a little information about the tricks Blanc's group had up their sleeves.

"In the best case, as long as they're not stronger than this town's defenders were, then we should be completely fine, but..."

"If they went to even a moderately large city, then even without considering quality, they could possibly have pure quantity to oppose us. And our forces number a mere thirty."

Azalea was totally right. She had to think hard about this.

"This is completely hypothetical, but have you considered that the northwest route leads to the closest town?"

If their goal was to call for help as soon as humanly possible, then distance was a huge factor. What Magenta said had a point too.

"Hmmm... I don't think I'm really good at thinking about stuff like this... Even after all that, I'm still not sure which one would be better..."

"The one thing we can say for sure is that if we go northwest, whatever town we find in that direction will already have been informed about us."

"Furthermore, if we wait here for the sun to go down and no reinforcements come, that means they've decided to abandon this town, and it would then be better to assume that they're preparing to intercept us at the next town."

Whether they knew about Blanc's forces or not was paramount. If they didn't know anything at all, then, as long as there wasn't a single powerful fighter there, even if it didn't look like her side could win, it shouldn't be impossible to retreat while the enemy was still making preparations. However, if they did have information on Blanc's forces, and they were ready and waiting for her, then that increased the amount of risk substantially.

"...All right, let's head southwest. We might have to travel further, so let's go faster this time. Or like, could we march double-time? We don't get tired or anything, right?"

"Common sense dictates that no army would ever do something like that, but..."

"If you're talking common sense, I bet there aren't a lot of armies made up of skeletons either."

"I suppose it might be fine..."

So that's what they did.

Less than an hour later, Blanc was listlessly perched atop the three named spartoi, Scarlet, Vermilion, and Crimson, in a Japanese cavalry battle-style arrangement.[1]