Overlord Drake silenced a round of incoming questions from the other officers. “Is it possible that some of you might have advanced since you were sent to the battlefield?”
Bob shrugged. “Not me, but I suppose that it’s possible one of the clerics might have. The others are all still too new to their advancement, so it seems unlikely that they would have achieved the next rank.”
Drake was looking more at Karl than anyone else. Karl shook his head. “No, while my class is an oddity, and I might count as more than one Commander, I am not at the Royal Rank. Not even close. I was told that when I get close I will feel the bottleneck in my mental spaces, where I will have to adjust my technique, and they still have a long way to go before that.”
The others nodded, but Tessa shrugged. “I have gained some favour from the War Goddess for my work, but I’m not certain if it is enough to qualify.”
Drake nodded. “Alright, I will put it in my notes. Intervention by the War Goddess should quiet any calls for a verification mission, but someone will likely use a truth spell on you to verify.” One of the officers snorted in laughter, and held up a green disc. They had already verified Doug’s words as truth.
Prince Axel looked excited. “Do you think we have a new High Priestess of the Red Dragon coming soon? Tessa, have you noticed any new draconic features? I would like to know what you have been up to that would have attracted so much of her attention to you, the War Goddess has seemed rather uninterested in this battlefront.”
Doug burst into laughter, and nearly dropped his smoke before Ophelia stole it from him and smirked at the officers as she took a drag.
“Who do you think that the War Goddess likes better than murder hobos on a battlefield? We have been halfway down the border since we arrived, and our total kill count has to be over a thousand by now.” The muscular brunette laughed, then frowned as Doug stole his smoke back and thumped her on the head.
Overlord Drake made a gesture to the officers behind him, and someone brought forward a large red folder.
Inside were typed transcripts that looked like copies of radio transmissions, along with mission reports and the usual paperwork that went with most missions.
Karl wasn’t certain why the folder was red, but he was still having issues thinking clearly, and it didn’t really matter, as Drake was skimming through the contents, so it was all within his security clearance.
“What is this? This string of triple digit kill counts? I’m assuming that is for the combined group?” Drake asked, and the officer shrugged.
Tessa snapped her fingers. “I know what you’re reading. Those days we went hunting reinforcement groups, and split the kill count between the two groups so that we didn’t have to file paperwork for a combined Elite Recon force.”
“So, it’s not just the same number, misreported? Your groups killed the total of the two numbers that day?” Overlord Drake replied.
“Exactly. We didn’t want to mess with the total, as that would change the expectations of the main lines, so we split the kills between us when reporting.”
The officer held up his green disc again, and Drake shook his head in dismay. “And they call the Overlords the monsters among the Elites. Is one of you perhaps auditioning for a position with the Black Dragon, Goddess of Death?”
Doug shook his head. “No, we’re keeping things balanced, we rescued a town full of refugees too, if you check a few more pages in. We’re a bit behind on the good works, but helping reset the climate back to normal has to count for a few balance points.
It’s just that they were sending Awakened Groups with an Ascended leader, and we have a Commander Rank Bloodbath Spider who summons Golems, and a Dragon Hawk with a pure hatred for all things water and ice element. The reinforcement groups died so fast that sometimes the rest of us wouldn’t even get to fight.”
One of the officers chuckled. “What’s next? Stacking so many giant corpses that you create a beacon fire that can be seen from two valleys away?”
Karl’s mouth was moving before his brain realized what was happening. “That’s in the records for sector G-4C. We already did that.”
Doug choked on his coffee, then did his best to return his expression back to neutral.
“So it is. But they didn’t actually see it from two valleys away, only one.” Drake informed him when he found the file.
“Murder Hobo.” Lotus mouthed in Karl’s direction, with her back to the officers.
“You should have seen how sad Remi was when she learned that they wouldn’t appreciate our nice warm bonfire. I almost felt bad about setting it.” Karl whispered back, possibly louder than intended, as a few of the officers gave him amused looks.
“You’re taking this exceptionally well for a novice Elite.” Prince Axel noted, looking at Karl.
Doug shook his head. “He’s got a major concussion. Nothing has actually sunk into his mind yet, and probably won’t until he has a few days to unwind and return to reality.”
The Prince sighed. “I suppose that makes sense. Everyone else but Doug looks some level of traumatized, so I thought he might have some skill that helps with processing and compartmentalizing traumatic experiences.”
A High Priest in white robes cleared his throat from the doorway, and Overlord Drake nodded.
“We will wait until you’re done eating, and then you are all being evacuated back to the Capital for medical assessment and recovery. For those of you who are still in school, your personal tutors will be there when you get there.”
Karl was not looking forward to a helicopter ride with the condition that his head was in, but it seemed inevitable. It would take days to get there down the gravel roads in a bus.
“How is their recovery prognosis?” Overlord Drake asked. “90 days to full recovery.” The white robed High Priest explained.
“That long? We were hoping to get them back in a combat position once the healing was finished.” The Overlord sighed.
The High Priest frowned. “If it’s an emergency deployment, then fourteen days. But surely, we don’t need them back on the line that desperately. The Frost Giants have been devastated by dragons, and this line has almost gone calm over the last few days. Unless they come up with something new tactic or weapon, then we can spare two teams of Elites.”
Overlord Drake rolled his eyes. “Do you think I care about a bunch of Ascended Rank Frost Giants? No, we still need more people on the Hill Giant lines, while I am with the other Overlords, keeping the Mountain Giants at bay.
The Hill Giants are all worked up for no good reason, and they’ve been hitting everywhere along the border. Unlike the Frost Giants, they don’t need to change anything to move their border, and they’re stronger. So, if this combined team can reliably take care of teams made mostly of Commander Rank Giants, then we need them on the other fronts.”
Karl sighed, and Prince Axel smirked. “You shouldn’t have told them that. I know that sigh, it means ‘I foresee complications that might stretch that maximum recovery duration in my future’.”
As if they had practised it, the whole group turned to Karl with looks of clearly fake concern. “That poor severed arm, and the lingering head injury, certainly we won’t be able to deploy so soon.” Lotus joked.
Now it was Prince Axel’s turn to sigh in frustration. “Alright, enough of that. You’re not even trying to fake it properly. But the next time, you shouldn’t be in a scouting role, you will be in a main camp where it’s safer, and you will have support to deal with larger attacks.”
Karl couldn’t help but smile at the sour looks on everyone’s faces. “No offence, Prince Axel, but it’s likely safer for us not to be on the front lines with the rest of the Elites. I have heard on good authority that that’s where the monsters attack.
If we’re in the field, we get to be on the offence, and with one notable exception, where we were outsmarted by a bunch of angry popsicles, it’s been working out well for us.” Karl explained.
[Angry Popsicles, I like that one.] Hawk laughed.