The words that Prince Corbin had spoken to Karl while they were on night watch suddenly came back to his mind. ‘If you don’t learn to say no, they will keep sending you on nearly suicidal missions until one actually is.’ That advice seemed to fit this situation very well, and the pressure to please so many important people and go along with their requests was strong.
“I am going to need some more details about this mission and the situation in the area before I can agree to go anywhere. The last I saw, that entire region was unfit for human habitation, and that was before the Frost Giants showed up.” He replied.
One of the ministers gave him a disgusted look. “Refusing your first mission as a Commander doesn’t portray your character in a very good light. Cowardly, some might call it.”
Karl rolled his eyes at the man, who was no Elite, just a pencil pusher. “And what words do they use for a Commander who takes his team into a war zone without a clue or a care in the world?”
The Minister stammered for a second before Karl continued.
“A martyr, that’s what they call them. Because they wind up dead. Now, who has the details, or am I headed to the Church’s mission board to occupy my time?”
For a second, he thought that he saw respect on Colonel Valerie’s stern face, but when she motioned for someone to bring forward the map, that was long gone and her standard working glower was back in place.
The official who brought forward the map rolled it out on the table between Karl and the High Priestesses, and Karl immediately noticed that there was almost no detail on it.
“This is the most recent official map.” The man insisted.
“With no troop deployments or enemy combatant numbers?” Karl asked.
Tessa looked over at the map and shook her head before turning to her order’s High Priestess.
“Do we have numbers for this? If they’re not cooperating, it might be better to go through you.” The War Cleric asked.
“We were speaking to the Commander.” The official informed her in a dry tone.
Karl shrugged. “And we operate as a team. Now, are you going to quit messing around, or are we going to have to decline your request? If you want us to deploy, you’re going to have to share enough intel for us to make a proper combat assessment.”
Colonel Valerie raised her hand to stop any more arguments, and took out a small box from her pocket.
Inside were two sets of rocks, one in light blue and one in green. First, she set out about a hundred blue stones near the border. Then she began setting out green stones of various shapes and sizes.
“This is the current deployment situation, as of my last meeting. The stone sizes are the maximum detected rank within the enemy formations, each stone represents roughly a hundred Frost Giants.
The round green stones are Elite teams, the diamonds are Military Elite Companies, and the squares are conventional artillery batteries.”
Karl looked over the map and did some basic math.
They were screwed.
There were more stones measuring Frost Giants by the hundred than Commander Rank led teams in the area, and Karl wasn’t certain how useful artillery was going to be. It was great against Common Grade and Awakened Threats, but There were Royal Rank Giants in the Frost Giant nation, and they were Commanders when fully grown.
“The teams that are already there. Are they being sent ten or twenty at a time?” Tessa asked.
Valerie remained silent for a few seconds while the Cleric waited.
It was the official who brought out the map that cracked first in the tense atmosphere.
“They’re being sent in five-person teams.”
That was just an all around terrible idea, in Karl’s opinion. But they could link up once they were in the field and make stronger teams for actual operations, the same as they had to do last time.
“Why are we so pressed for numbers? There are far more Commanders than this, and there aren’t even a significant number of soldiers. When is the rest of the army being mobilized?” Tessa asked.
The official looked to Colonel Valerie, as he wasn’t approved to give out that information.
“The other Giant Clans have been pushing the borders as well. They have declared a grand alliance of the Giant Tribes, and we believe that they intend to take the entire Golden Dragon Nation in one offensive push.” Valerie informed them.
“Then Prince Corbin?” Karl asked, digging for deployment information, as there were no larger stones along this border.
“Has been deployed next to the Stone Giant Clan’s border. That is where the Spellblade Sect’s towers are, so he has chosen to defend his home territory along that stretch of border.”
You couldn’t fault him for that. The Lithium mines were near the centre of the nation, so they would be one of the last spots to defend, unless there was some massive breach. Karl’s family would be one of the safest.
Colonel Valerie took out another map that had hundreds of marks on it, and showed the entire nation’s borders. There were only three spots that they weren’t under attack. The magical nation had marks noting that they were deployed along all the borders they had with monster populated nations, the beastkin nation appeared to be in full lockdown, and the Divine Beast Nation had no marked forces deployed anywhere on either side.
That was still the vast majority of the border under attack at once.
If they were using this angle to guilt the more powerful Elites into fighting, they had a pretty good sales pitch, now that they actually started to show the details and not just try to demand that he help out without any information.
“My team will need a fifth if we’re going to agree.” Karl sighed.
If things got any worse, there would likely be an official draft, and then he would really get thrown into the worst of it along with all the bookish sorts like the ones at the last deployment with the Mackenzie family.
Alice nodded. “You have your pick of the Ascended Rank students to fill your team with whatever role you think that you need.”
She already knew that Karl had a fairly well-rounded set of pets, so they weren’t particularly short on anything if the two clerics and Dana were all going with him. She assumed he would pick another mage to take her place, as she would be taking care of more official government business and arranging deployments of their agents with Colonel Valerie.
“Can you give us a few minutes to discuss this in private?” Karl asked.
“Of course. We will be waiting here when you return.” Colonel Valerie agreed easily.
Karl led everyone up to his room, and Lotus immediately flopped on his bed.
“Well, this is a clusterfuck, isn’t it? We will all be fighting soon enough, so it seems better that we pick the spot we want to fight from the start.” The tiny nature priestess announced with a deep sigh.
Dana nodded. “She has a point. I definitely didn’t expect to be sent straight to war the minute that we agreed to stay together, but if we are going to have to go, we should pick our spot.”
Tessa smiled at her. “You’re still a student, so it would be an option to stay here for likely another year before you got too close to the Commander Rank, and they started pushing for you to go wild with the supplements.”
“Sure, stay here as the second string genius, falling further behind by the day while the other students only look up to me because the one with real power is gone? I don’t think so.”
There was definite bitterness in Dana’s tone. It made Karl wonder how often she found herself compared to him and his insane growth rates. It was just unrealistic to expect any other Elite to keep up with this pace. He not only had the beasts pulling him forward, but he had more access to the System Interface than most.
He could see his skills and add them. He even had enough to get another one right now. He could actually get two, if he picked from the defensive side, or the first rank of the offensive side, but he wasn’t sure what they would need yet, and he didn’t want to leave his team unbalanced.
