Volume 11: Chapter 1 - Leaving the Stronghold

Volume 11: Chapter 1 - Leaving the Stronghold
Xiao Jin yelled out, while expressing a gaze in hopes of seeking help. “Master please help me!”
I suppressed my laughter and patted his huge head. “Xiao Jin, my good brother, you’ll have to suffer. I can’t control Mu Zi! I can only wish you the best. That’s right, where are the prince, Big Brother Shan Yun and the rest?”
Xiao Rou replied, while playing with Mu Zi. “They have left. They wanted me to pass a message to you saying that since the situation here had been stabilized, they have headed back to train the troops in preparation to fight with the Monster King and that if you needed help, you can go to the Kingdom of Xiuda to find them. An old man also said that he’ll be leaving his son in your care. It’s that fierce guy.”
The prince was in such a rush! I thought, ‘The reason for the prince to leave in such a hurry must be related to why the Aixia and Dalu suddenly became hostile previously. The prince might also have difficulties due to their last minute changes. It’s also good for him to leave as it’ll be awkward for the people of Xiuda and Aixia to interact with him here.’
It must naturally be Zhan Hu when Xiao Rou said that the prince had placed him under my care. I smiled. “You’ve to be careful in what you say. If Zhan Hu were to hear you call his father fierce, he won’t let you off easily. Haha! Mu Zi, that should be enough. You guys should also stop bullying Xiao Jin. We should head back now.”
“Alright! That’s great!” Xiao Rou leaped towards me. She had changed into her squirrel-like form when she neared my body, landing agilely on my shoulder. Mu Zi chuckled after she got down from Xiao Jin’s back as she caressed his enormous head, she said, “Xiao Jin, you won’t get mad at me, right?”
Xiao Jin mouth muscles switched a little before saying, “Of...Of course not. Master, where shall we head to?”
I smiled. “Let’s head back to the Demon-Beast alliance’s camp before returning to the base that you almost destroyed after two days.”
Xiao Jin replied, “Alright, all of you can get onto my back now.”
I embraced Mu Zi’s lovable body before elevating from the ground to land on Xiao Jin’s back. I laughed for a while before saying, “Let’s go, Xiao Jin.” Xiao Jin had brought Mu Zi and I towards the sky by the flapping of his enormous wings and towards the Demon-Beast alliance’s camp.
…………
We stepped on the journey to head back to the base after three days. I realised that nobody among the First Guardian Battalion had died or suffered from severe injuries after checking their condition and numbers. There were only a negligible amount of people that suffered light injuries. It seemed that our First Guardian Battalion’s powers were extraordinary. The Guardian Battalion was entirely made up of Radiant Knights or those that possessed powers nearing the Radiant Knight’s rank, even if there weren’t many of them.
I didn’t let Ke Lun Duo come along with us this time as Mu Zi and I felt awkward with him following around when we were together.
Since the majority of the group couldn’t sustain flight for a long period of time, we decided to head back to the base by foot. Our advancing speed was still extremely fast even if we were travelling by foot. Our base, at the mountain range that intercepts all three kingdoms, was in view after using just a couple of day’s time.
“Haha! We’re almost home. I wonder what changes will have happened of our home after this few months.” Dong Ri commended. Everyone’s mood raised as we saw that we were reaching our base as we had come back after succeeding in what we wanted to achieve after all.
Xin Ao smiled. “There’s definitely going to be changes as our base will have differences in almost every ten days. Perhaps, our number of brothers has already reached beyond ten thousand already.”
I frowned. “Even though there are plenty of places for us to set a base among the mountain range, how will the plants and animal resources keep up with our demands if the number of us has increased too much? We’re currently always spending after all. What should we do as the wealth that I carry on me will definitely have its limit.”
Xiu Si nodded. “Zhang Gong makes sense, but since the resources in the mountain is abundant, including the crops we grow, we won’t need to worry about our food supply. However, those necessities that are easily used up must still rely on the three kingdoms to restock them as a solution. There’ll definitely be a day when we use up all the food resources if we just consume them from the mountain in the long run.”
Zhan Hu suggested, “We can just ration them and just endure until the Monster King appears.”
I shook my head. “No! We definitely can’t do that.” I looked at Mu Zi nodded in agreement. She seemed to have the same thoughts as I do. I smiled and said, “Mu Zi, explain it to everyone.” Mu Zi was the Demon’s princess after all. I always felt as though there was an estrangement between her and everyone since their interactions with her weren’t long. Thus, I must make everyone to accept her by her performance as she was also one of us. Actually, Mu Zi, who had been undergoing royal education when she was young, was much better than me in strategizing.
Mu Zi smiled at me and said, “What Zhang Gong said is right. We really can’t head down that way. We’ll leave the matters of whether our dwindling resources can sustain us until the Monster King appears and whether we can win against the Monster King aside. Has everyone thought about how shall we retire the brothers that have followed us after everything is over?”
Mu Zi words momentarily made everyone to fall into deep thoughts.
Zhan Hu replied, “The people from the God’s village will be easy as we can just let the few elders bring them back to their village. However, those people that we recruited will be more problematic. We can’t just tell them to disperse after accomplishing our tasks.”
Gao De replied, “What shall we do then? It can’t be that we have to ask for some money from the three human kingdoms to dismiss them? Those people that are relying on us shouldn’t be in it for money, right?”
Xin Ao replied, “We’ll just disband them since it’s not for money.”
Mu Zi shook her head. “No, we can’t do that as we’ll lose the hearts of the people if we were to do that. We must give them the best way out. Big Brother Gao De had also said previously that those that follow us aren’t always due to money. The majority reason in them following us is due to your God envoy’s identity. I had heard from Zhang Gong regarding the God’s village. Even though our current number of people is a little too much, we can totally establish another God’s village here. Everyone here are experts with strong cultivations. We can even set up a small mercenary team to accomplish easy tasks to earn living expenses.”