Mercenary Empire

"Actually before I leave the city tomorrow, I have very important information I have to tell you."

Seeing that I had a serious facial expression, Eric knew what I was going to tell him was very serious.

"If it's that serious, then this place isn't the place to speak." Eric said.

"Lina lets go." I called out to Lina to tell her that we were leaving.

We followed to Eric to another room.

"Welcome to the Natsu City Command Center."

The room we entered was the Natsu City Command Center. It was big room that had a big screen connected one side of the wall. There were many people in the room as well. They were either passing files to another or they were stationed at one of the computers on all sides of the room. In the center of the room was a huge table monitor. It was showing the image of Natsu City and moving circles around. Each with a name on top of it.

"So what the important information you want to tell me? Eric asked.

I then told Eric everything what has happened to me during the past 12 hrs. The only thing I didn't tell him was the cloaking device I had.

"So you're telling me that the Red Dragon created a mission to eliminate as much mercenaries they can to prevent any cities from hiring them so they can have an easier time invading other nations? And that they have an agreement with the Nation of Iron." (I'll be changing Iron City to Iron Nation since it would sound better in a way)

"Yup, that's what I heard from the Red Dragon Commander."

Eric furrowed his brows. He knew that this information was really important since it had to do something with the protection of Natsu City.

"Did you hear anything else from the Red Dragon Commander? Like when they'll attack or any equipment the Iron Nation will be giving to the Red Dragon?"

"No, nothing, the only thing I know is that the Iron Nation allowed the Red Dragon to use its teleportation system."

"Well that's nothing since like them, we can as well use teleportation. Plus teleportation isn't used as much anymore since power stones has been getting scarce. I can't speak for the higher ranking nations like Iron Nation who are one of the B-Grade Nations but we can't use power stones freely. But I'm pretty sure that those nations above already foresaw such a thing and so is already limiting the use of power stones."

As Eric had his hand rubbing his chin while thinking to himself, he then turned to someone at the main desk.

"West, show us the regional map on the table monitor."

"Sir," West followed Eric's orders and after a few moments of typing the screen on the table monitor changed. Showing us the the regional map.

"So this is where we are," Eric pointed to the star indicating it as Natsu City. He then started pointing to the other nations or cities that were to north, east, and south.

"To our north, we have the D-Grade, Wolf Nation. To our east we have more cities under the Warband Organization like Elliot City so we don't have to worry from that side and we can call reinforcements from them. There's nothing to the west since its just sea but when we look at south, that's where the Red Dragon is at."

West change the focus of the map so that we can only see us and the Red Dragon controlled areas.

The map on the table monitor so that we can only see Natsu City and and the cities controlled by the Red Dragon.

"From what the map is showing, we can see that the Red Dragon is in control of four cities. The four cities are White Tiger City, Azure Dragon City, Black Tortoise City, and Vermilion City as its capital. The closest City to us would be White Tiger City with it being six hours away by transportation.

The Red Dragon is a D-Grade Nation. Compared to us a C-Grade Nation, we should easily defend against their attacks, but since they're under some sort of agreement with the Iron Nation who is a B-Grade Nation. So they'll probably if not definitely will supply them with equipment we don't have access to. Therefore making it more harder to defend ourselves from any incoming attacks."

As a friend I should help so I looked at the map seeing if there is anything I could point out to. After moments of looking I was able to formulate a plan.

"Here," I said and pointed out at an area of the map.

"Here at Felway Marshlands you could pull off an ambush. There is only one road and due to the marsh, vehicles can only go one way and moving through the marshlands by foot would be hell. So as long as we can hit them right before they exit, we could deal a critical blow."

Eric nodded at my idea and added on

"You're right, at the Felway Marshlands we could easily pull off an ambush there. As long we can pull that off, we can delay them for about a day or more depending on the damage we deal. I'll make some preparations later for the upcoming operations.

Now the only thing we have to figure out now, is what sort of agreement the Red Dragon made with the Iron Nation."

"That's gonna be hard," Red Dragon being a D-Grade Nation, it's going to be hard trying to figure out what the Red Dragon gave to the Iron Nation.

"Could it be power stones?" I asked.

"Power stones are rare, but for the Iron Nation to have make an agreement such as giving the Red Dragon supplies and allowing them to use their teleporter for power stones sounds unlikely."

So my guess was wrong. So what would make the Iron Nation agree to a trade with the Red Dragon?

As Eric and I were silently thinking to ourselves, Lina who has been silent the whole entire time finally spoke.

"Wouldn't coordinates to a Lost Ruins be worth it?"

I didn't know what these Lost Ruins Lina was talking about so I asked her

"What are the Lost Ruins?"

Hearing me asking the question, Lina then explained

"Lost Ruins were vaults left behind by those we call the precursors who created those equipment we call lost technology. Those vaults hold valuable lost technological equipment. If you were able to fully plunder the vault, the reward would be immense.

The rewards being lost technology weapons and equipment that could lead to technological advances. But with rewards comes with troubles."

"What do you mean by troubles?"

"The vaults are filled with traps and a lot of AI defenses that would shoot at every intruder it sees. If you're not prepared for the dangers that are hidden in the vault. Don't expect yourself to come out a live.

Lina's voice became dark and expression became grim. It seems that she had some experience with these Lost Ruins.

"But even though there are major danger in the vaults, it's worthwhile to enter the vaults due to the rewards that could be find there." Eric said after he listened to Lina's explanation.

"And if they were to plunder all the loot which are the lost technology weapons and equipment. Their strength would bolster up greatly and could possibly rise up to a Grade-A nation. Supplying another nation and helping to expand for coordinates of a Lost Ruin, it is indeed worth the trade."

Eric said as he nodded.

"But why wouldn't the Red Dragon keep the coordinates to themselves. If the Lost Ruins give so much rewards, why wouldn't they?"

I was rather confused on why they didn't so I asked out to both Eric and Lina.

Lina answered first.

"One reason being that they didn't know the value of the coordinates due to it being the coordinates to a Lost Ruin or that they didn't have the right equipment to explore the vault. In my opinion, it would be the later since Lost Ruins is a common knowledge. But I guess it isn't common knowledge seeing that you don't know about it"

"I was under the tutelage under my old man until last year. The only thing he taught was how to survive and basic knowledge like writing and reading. He told that I should learn about the world on my own. So you can't blame for not knowing, even though it's common knowledge."

Eric then spoke but when he was about to finish his sentence and commotion could be heard at one of the manned station.

"I guess that all we can th-"

"Patrol team 10, I repeat respond. Patrol team 10 please respond!"

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THIS CHAPTER S.U.C.K.E.D! I HATED WRITING THIS CHAPTER I NEVER HAD SUCH A HARD TIME WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THIS. GOD UGHHH. Now that I have yelled out my frustrations and such. im calm.

Thank you for reading!! To help me out please comment on how much you liked or hated this chapter. And please donate your Power Stones. Power Stones is my drug. If don't get my Power Stones I'll die due to withdrawal

I'm gonna be honest here. We have passed the collection of 30 and with that I should release another chapter. But i'm not since when I made the rewards, the collection was already at 29 or 28. So I'm no going to count it. But once we reach 40 in collection, I'll do an extra chapter.

Thanks again for reading!!!