"Why? I think our army can take care of that no problem," Jack protested.

"We can, but dealing with this monster settlement will take up a large amount of our time. We will not be able to finish them quickly. Not to mention there will be casualties when dealing with such a large force of monsters."

"Casualty is natural in battle. We should destroy this monster settlement or else they will become a problem to passing merchants or adventurers," Jack tried to persuade. He was unwilling to let go of this opportunity, not while he had the might of the army by his side.

"Under normal circumstances, yes, we should vanquish them, but we are on another mission. We should make haste, we can't afford to be tied down by this. We will deal with this on our way back after we finish our mission. I'm sure the Duke will agree as well."

Jack could not argue with that, he knew the Duke would also prioritize on hastening the journey rather than spend time dealing with this monster settlement. Since he could not persuade the army to engage this settlement, he could only mark the settlement's coordinates on his map. He would come back another time to deal with it, if it was still standing at that time.

Captain Salem relayed the existence of the monster settlement to the main army. The Duke, as expected, chose to deviate their course a bit to avoid the settlement.

Their journey was largely uneventful after. It did not mean that their journey was anyway boring though, they met various kinds of monsters which opened their eyes to the danger of the wilderness.

There were large slugs that could turn invisible, by the time the soldiers found out about it, those slugs were already attaching themselves onto the soldiers' bodies, sucking their HP. These monsters also inflicted Paralyze status on their victims. If the victim was alone, then these monsters would prove to be very problematic. Luckily there were many soldiers, the ones that saw their comrades got attacked by this slug immediately gave assistance. Good thing these slugs were easy to kill, it was a simple race of time whether they could kill the slug fast enough before the victim's HP was sucked dry.

There was also the Shadow Bat, which was on Jack's hunting list. These bats attacked at night when the army was at rest. They attacked at range using soundwaves, but the most problematic thing about them was that they were very difficult to see in the dark. Their bodies were constantly covered by black fog and blended with the darkness. Luckily the magic units of the army possessed the Illumination spell. A simple spell which only function was to light up the dark, it turned out to be very useful under such circumstances. Jack who also had this spell assisted by casting it at the place that was needed.

Bowler also had an exclusive spell which he had gotten as a member of the Church of Creation, which was highly effective against these bats. The spell was called Brilliant Radiance. It created an intense light that not only removed the fog covering the bats, but also caused them to go blind. And because the bats were categorized as darkness creatures, the spell also dealt them some damages.

One unfortunate thing was, that Bowler did not warn them before he cast this spell. As a result, not only the shadow bats went blind. All the others in the vicinity, players and NPC soldiers, were also blinded by that spell. Fortunately, the blinding effect lasted longer for the darkness creatures so the others recovered first before the bats.

After the battle was done, everyone had a lengthy talk with Bowler about his application of the spell.

There were also strange and dangerous environments. There was one time where they came into a huge valley where one of its sides was lined with floating gigantic roots. Captain Salem warned Jack and the others to not go underneath those roots. Peniel gave the same warning. As a healthily curious creature, Jack had to ask, why?

Instead of answering, Peniel redirected Jack's attention to an ox-like creature in the distance that was being chased by a lion-like monster. The ox-like creature was forced to run into the area underneath the giant roots. The lion-like monster, on the other hand, stopped before it went into the roots' shade. It did not dare to take another step inside. Jack soon saw why. A giant tree stump came down from the floating roots above and squashed the poor ox-like creature below.

Jack winced when he saw the happening. The stump slowly lifted up again, leaving the remaining of the creature which was no more than meat paste.

It was uneventful in the sense that those events and monsters did not pose a threat to the army. During that uneventful but not boring journey, the vanguard troops continued to laboriously collect exp points for the players.

It was on the first day of the second week in their journey that an eventful occurrence finally happened.

Jack had been wondering what would happen if they met an existence like the Land Behemoth. He doubted that numbers would give an advantage against a colossal monster like that. Maybe the army would need to retreat and went a different route like what they did with the monster settlement.

And then a similar existence appeared, he saw it on his radar. A large and dark red dot. The worse thing was, the dot was not slow like the Land Behemoth, it was moving rather fast, and headed towards them.

Not taking any chance, he immediately sent messages to John and Jeanny, "retreat! Retreat! Back to the main army!"

John and Jeanny both sent a confused reply, "why? What's wrong?"

"Just do it, damn it! There is no time to explain!"

He then gave the order for the center wing to immediately retreat. Captain Salem was similarly puzzled but he did not question Jack's command. He helped to organize an orderly retreat.

John and Jeanny saw the center wing moving back and knew that Jack was not kidding. The left and right wings followed suit and turned back.

Soon, the main army was in sight already. However, Jack's heart sank when he saw how close the red dot was. He looked back and saw the monster. It was an enormous reptilian creature.

"A dragon?" Jack exclaimed. The monster looked similar to a classic dragon. It had a reptile head with four large legs and a long tail, except it had no wings like the classic dragon. Its body was covered with crimson yellowish scale. There were spikes at the back of its head extended to all over its back. It was running on all four legs towards them.

His shout caused Captain Salem to look back as well.

"It's no dragon, it's a drake!" Captain Salem informed, then he said, "there is no time, we won't reach the main army before that drake arrived. Battle formation!"

There was no hesitation on the soldiers. They followed the command and quickly got into formation. The left and right wings had been traveling right beside them when they started to retreat, hence now all three wings had recombined into one army ready to face the drake.

The players stood behind the army. They looked at the approaching drake with trepidation. The monster looked even bigger now that it was getting closer.

"Crap! How are we going to fight that?" Bowler spoke out. "How about we retreat further? There is nothing we can do here anyway."

The Man gave him a glare, "I tolerate your cowardice at times, but not now!"

"I hate to agree with him, but I think he is right… this time," John offered his opinion.

"Take out your weapons!" Jack called out, he ignored those talks about retreating. The army was standing their ground, how could he left them behind.

The drake cried out a deafening roar as it charged closer. It was close enough for Jack to use an Inspect.

Grim Sand Drake (Rare Elite monster, Draconic), level 55

HP: 630.000

Okay, they were done for sure, Jack made a final thought.

As the Grim Sand Drake was about to crash into the army, a massive hammer made out of light suddenly appeared out of thin air. It smashed onto the drake's head, causing damage in the thousands and stopping its advance. The hammer then transformed into a large fist and punched at the drake's body. Pushing it back a large distance.

As everyone was astounded by what just transpired, they saw a human figure floating over them towards the drake.

"It's… It's the Duke!" Bowler exclaimed.

"He can fly?" The Man said.

The Duke stopped in the air above as he looked down at the Grim Sand Drake. The drake itself looked up with scorn. The attack just now had surprised it but it did not suffer any significant damage. It roared out loudly as if challenging the Duke.