Kelvin didn't feel so enthusiastic about his mission. He scoffed and said, "I have a theory about how the previous paragons died."
She rolled her eyes again. She even threw her hands up in a fit and said, "If looking forward to exciting events is a crime, then sue me."
He scoffed at her antics. "You're lucky that I can't sue you for wishing bad things to happen to me.".
"Fine, what do you want to do?"
He replied immediately, "I just want to find an energy mine or any valuable resources that I can exchange for merit points or keep for myself for wealth."
Wrath sighed. "Boring. It is a good thing that I can't die, or you will kill me with boredom."
He ignored her complaints and stepped out of the barrier of the camp.
The barrier had been enlarged to cover more ground ever since the battle that took place six months ago. The space was expanded to make room for the robot army that had been manufactured.
Unfortunately, they never got to use the robots because the elves gave up. But the robots will be available for reinforcements. However, he hopes he won't need to call for reinforcement.
His mission is basically to scout every inch of Lignum. He won't be walking around aimlessly, of course. He is looking for signs of underground settlements, secret uprisings and rebellions, hidden resources, and, most importantly, the entrance to the core of the world.
Cutting down trees is still a mission, and it is one that many soldiers are picking. It is safe and not risky at all. Soldiers who pick this mission will not encounter any danger, and they will surely earn merit points through it.
But he didn't pick that mission because he was tired of cutting down trees and because he had received an unexpected influx of merit points recently, which had given him the freedom to take more risky missions.
There is some danger involved in the scouting mission, and he might not earn anything at all from it. But he is not lacking in merit points, so he decided to go for it.
He won't earn any merit points unless he scouts an area of Lignum that no soldier has ever reached or finds one of the numerous objectives he is searching for.
Fortunately, he is not alone in his scouting mission. He has a tool that will do the bulk of the work for him.
The mark on his hand will do most of the scouting. All he has to do is bring it to new places and close to special places.
He also has a hover bike. So transportation isn't a problem.
He is hoping for some sightseeing and to encounter something valuable that will make him rich. But he will also be content with sightseeing and an uneventful scouting mission.
He got on the hoverbike and drove into the distance. His journey took him past the wounded landscape of the battlefield. It was a wound that surrounded the base, so he couldn't avoid it.
At first, it looked like there was nothing wrong. It just looked like he was standing on top of a rock because of the solidified, glassy ground.
There are sometimes groves and pits, but alone, they don't give the full picture. It is until the surrounding lush forest that one notices the oddity of a ground-level mountain in the middle of a forest.
The fact that no tree can grow in the rocky zone won't mean much to anyone who is seeing the scene for the first time. But to someone like him who was there when the area first became dark, was frozen, and then glassed by fire and plasma, he understands exactly what was lost.
Then he thought about his mission and what will happen to the Lignum once Yggdrasil gains total control of it.
At that point, the world will be mined for resources that he is on his way to find right now, and the entire world will be turned into a seedbed to produce powerful slaves for the Yggdrasil civilization's war all over the galaxy.
He shook his head and said, "We are the demons they say we are."
Wrath, who was reminiscing about the battle, looked at him and asked, "Why do you say that?"
He shrugged and said, "I am only saying the inhabitants of Lignum are right to call us demons."
Wrath sneered and said, "So what if they are right? Being right doesn't mean anything. Being strong is all that matters."
He said, "I know that. But knowing what I know about the things that will happen to this world, I can't believe that the elves will just give up. I am still suspicious that they have something planned, such as making us scatter, which will weaken our base and make it easy to attack."
Wrath shook her head and said, "It doesn't matter what they have planned next. We have already entered the third phase of the invasion, so it is unlikely that they will be able to turn things around and defeat this expedition."
She pointed at him and said, "You can still die, though. But your usefulness for the army is at an all-time low currently, and the expedition can still win without you."
He said sarcastically, "Well, isn't that good to know."
She said innocently, "I'm just saying it as it is. Your chances of death are low but not unlikely. So I might still get to see some action."
"Right. You still want me to run for my life, calling for reinforcement."
She admitted it, "A lady can only hope."
He shook his head. "I'll just let your hope for a near-death experience slide. Not that I can do anything about it. But tell me about this third phase of the invasion. Command didn't say anything about it. How many phases do we have?"
She replied, "I have seen many worlds invaded several times, and while the invasion might start differently and with different tools depending on the war, the mode of operations is the same throughout every war."