"Don't you think the Lord is weird"

"In what way?"

​​

"That betrayal never comes from your enemies thing, it's like he doesn't know the definition of betrayal, it can literally never come from an enemy"

Ika complained, feeling that YuJu wasn't in the right mindset

"Well clearly he didn't mean it that way, I believe he wanted to tell us that making allies openly would only expose our back to them, when one didn't know of your exitance he had no way to harm you"

"And you think that's the right course of action?"

She presented yet another question toward Sa, one that was more of personal nature

"It's hard to say, if we are talking logically then it just as may be the best possible solution to guarantee our safety even if it may not serve the human race fully"

She paused for a second to punch a hole in the ground and put a seed in the middle of concrete before pouring a vial of cyan liquid, then continued

"But if you think about it, if we, one of the strongest forces in our race, die due to trying to save it then when disaster strikes again who will be the shield? The weaker people we managed to protect? Or the backstabbers who care not for their race? In the end, the world we are in is different, it is not like winning one war means there will be a grace period to build numbers before bloodshed is needed again, every time the leaders die it just means humanity lost that much more power, and then again and again, by the time the new generation is born there wouldn't be anyone left to even guard against normal beasts much less disasters like this one"

Sa ranted, her eyes never stopping once however as she measured the rubble before her to determine where the next seed will be planted, Ika on the other hand seemed bothered by her answer, bothered by how much it made sense

"So your saying we should sacrifice the weak to keep the strong alive? Then what? Who will we protect when everyone else is gone?"

"Ourselves, it's not like you became a vampire to protect the people, you became one because you didn't want to die"

Sa's sharp reply caused her to flinch, that struck a nerve

"Eventually we should be strong enough to build a nation, much like how humanity started fighting in the wilds before slowly taking over, it didn't take a day or two, and it sure as hell demanded plenty sacrifice, as long as we make it as a race however then everything will be alright"

Punching another hole and putting the seed and liquid in it Sa dusted her hand, finally this boring task was finished, so she turned to Ika who was walking behind dejectedly

"This is all logically of course, I still think we should try to cooperate than hide ourselves"

The dejected woman lifted her head in surprise, finding Sa to be smiling, after all this reasoning she still chose the most ignorant sounding option

"Why?"

"Because I'm human, and that's what humans do"

Truly….Shake~

"Oops, we better get out of here fast, seeds are about to sprout"

The two quickly evacuated the quacking land, running as far as their feet could take them as huge vines started to break the paved earth, shooting out while wreaking havoc all around

"What did you plant in there?!"

"Well, my Lord wanted the concrete gone for the forest to be developed properly, and I'm too lazy to get some thralls and do it the slow way so I figured out how to make some super huge vines using Wild Growth and some stuff I asked Subrina to make, though they will die in seconds, and they are much too unstable forgoing any notion of control"

Ika couldn't help but feel that this woman was just as monstrous as the rest of them, its been five days only since she got her hands on the secondary Wood Whisperer class yet she'd already figured out such a unique way to make use of it

'Am I the only one who is useless?'

She thought, everyone was showing their ability in some way, Zero with her unnatural strength, Nee with her control over massive numbers of thralls, and now Sa with an out of the box thinking that birthed new methods of using normal skills

'No, my skills counter wraiths, I must use this opportunity to show my worth as well'

It seems she wouldn't be spending it as idle as she would've wanted, as to why she wanted to prove herself all of a sudden? Simply put it was the herd mentality, no one wanted to be left out, especially not with a merciless leader

Two hours later the ground which once was paved with concrete now showed the hard dirt under, what's left around was large amounts of rubble and withered huge vines the size of houses

"This should be enough, can you get your thralls to clear the mess? I'll prepare all the plants my Lord delivered to me in the meantime"

"Alright"

The two worked efficiently, mostly because they got along well, if this had been any other pair then there would be no synergy at all, even with Nee as she would probably leave all the work to Ika

Speaking of the manipulative vampire she had her own hands full at this point, much to her displeasure

'Slow down, give them room to run, don't split from the group and come back, and you! That's not where you suck blood from!!'

Hidden in the shadows she was commanding tens of totally transformed thralls, to the point they looked nothing like the humans they once were, her duty being scaring every human camp she could find into evacuating the area and heading toward the Somia guild

'It's going to take a while to get enough control to raid the biggest settlement'

Her thralls were strong enough to scare them away already but she couldn't exactly control them too well, if things got messy then there would be casualties, just like the few deaths that occurred on this trip

'Well, its good that I'm alone, at least I don't have to report any of these casualties'

Everyone was busy with their own duty, except Zero who was guarding the den leisurely

'Wish I could be back there resting right about now'

That would be most optimal, she knew how important this war was to everyone though, for it not only would it decide the fate of humanity, it would also decide their superiority in the future, something that depended heavily on their contribution

'I'll take this opportunity to get close to the Lord, maybe I will even be made into one as strong as that armored one'

Confident in herself despite the lack of roles she schemed, much like everyone else, though they did it for their own reasons

Well, most of them were, Mia however was stuck with the most tedious and lackluster task of them all

'I don't believe I have to babysit this woman!'

She yelled in her mind for the umpteenth time, watching Sofia decide between the designs for the underground buildings that would be home to the arriving guilds

"The designs you're suggesting are indeed very nice, I don't think they are practical however, seeing as there could be many refuges coming shouldn't we make it more open to house as many people as possible? If we section rooms off like this then a lot of space would be lost"

Sofia gave her thoughts on the matter, little did she know they only thought of housing guilds, the rest of the human race could build for itself if they wanted a roof over their head

"If we do get that many numbers then surely it would be easy to build more at that point, let us go along with this structure for now okay?"

"Hmm, well if you say so, but what about these bone towers you want to build? What are they supposed to do?"

"It's a surprise"

More like she didn't know either

"You are getting more and more mysterious aren't you Mia"

Sofia smiled, not at all bothered by these unexplained actions, there was never once a surprise from Mia that didn't make her happy, surely this one would also be a boon to them

"Say, aren't you too free? Usually, you would be running off to your business, how come you're staying here especially when time of crisis has begun"

"Are you kicking me out? My, never thought I would be unwelcomed even n the guild I helped build"

"No no no, I was just, you know, asking, your welcome to stay here whenever you'd like, I'd love it if you did too!"

"Hehe"

She chuckled, boring as it may be it was also fun to tease this woman, seeing her franticly trying to explain herself with juggling motions never ceased to put a smile on her face

'Such quiet times…..It would be the last for a long time'

Indeed so, the storm was brewing, this was merely the calm that they would think back to n times of war