Heaven's Greatest Professor

"Believe it or not, we\'re just waiting for you..." May said as she gave the woman a seat in the log. "I hope your journey has been smooth sailing throughout, Lady Cassandra."

"It wasn\'t smooth, per se," she said, "but we are luckier than most."

"Unfortunately, from here on out, nothing will be even faintly close to smooth," Warden said.

Cassandra nodded, agreeing. "I\'d be lying if I said we hadn\'t considered withdrawing from the subspace. But we\'ve got this chance under great pressure; not everyone is willing to leave empty-handed. So, here we are..."

"Have you found every one of your team?" Warden asked. Jenni from the Azalea team was still with Agnes. Considering the current situation, getting Jenni anywhere near the warp gate would be a disaster for her. Warden was confident that the captain would keep the girl out of danger. He could focus on his own part without worrying about that.

"Sadly, no," Cassandra said ruefully. "I\'m still missing a couple of my sisters and nine of the people we took from the military. I hope they are all well."

"Oh, right, have you gone to see Barn?" May cut in. "He was on your team, correct?"

"He is," Lady Azalea said. "I just came from checking on his condition. Your healing has taken care of most of the trouble. I think he\'ll wake up soon. I have to thank you for that, Miss May."

The half-elf actually blushed under Lady Azalea\'s intense gaze and gratitude.

"It was nothing too hard," replied the pale-faced half-elf. "Anyway, aren\'t you supposed to explain more about what you found? You\'ve left me in suspense since you came back."

"I\'ll quench your curiosity soon enough..." Warden said, and brought out a couple of sandwiches from his subspace. "Want a sandwich?"

Before May could utter the words, her arms already snatched one of them. "Yes, thank you!"

"And you, Lady Cassandra?"

"I\'m good, thank you."

Warden nodded and ate the sandwich first. "From what I have gathered, there are approximately three hundred forsaken guarding the gate nearest to us."

"You went to scout there?" The raven-haired woman raised her eyebrows. "That\'s risky."

"That\'s what I was telling him!" May said while chewing on the sandwich. She stuffed it all into her mouth.

"Ignoring the hundred plus Goblins and Orcs, there were over forty Trolls guarding the gate."

Lady Cassandra gasped as her thoughts whirled.

"This would have already been tough if we had all our numbers together," May said.

"That\'s not all," Warden said. "There were multiple teams of forsaken, mostly orcs and goblins, creeping around to hunt humans."

"Good thing I stopped Tayl Alebson from charging down with his team," Lady Cassandra said, letting out a deep breath. "I don\'t know how long he\'ll listen to me. The man is headstrong as a mule; reasons don\'t enter his thick skull."

"Right?" May was happy with someone understanding her dilemma.

"I think the best way to go from here on out is to plan with everyone together," Warden said. "And obviously, to look for more people. A few elite teams could deal with the forsaken running wild, but for the ones guarding the gate... we\'ll need something heavier."

Cassandra nodded. "Do you have something in mind?"

Warden was still formulating a plan and wasn\'t sure if it would work. "I was wondering, how good is the eyesight of the forsaken?"

"The goblins can see clearly at night," May answered. "While the orcs are as good as any rankers... The trolls, however, are somewhat weaker in this respect."

Hmm, considering the main problem would be the trolls, this plan might work, Warden mused. He hadn\'t tested it in an actual experiment, but he had high hopes for moonspawn blood.

"What are you intending?" Cassandra asked, arching her brow.

"Something to blind the forsaken where they stand," Warden said.

"Oh, is it like the moment when you act mysteriously cool and send everyone to fight without explaining anything?" May asked.

Warden laughed, wondering who had treated her like that. He could imagine her crew leader Marcus, pulling this kind of stunt.

"May, go ask Cole if he\'s capable of an Isolation script," Warden said. "If he is, ask what tier and how fast he can work."

"I don\'t have to ask him; he can make Isolation scripts, he used them throughout our journey," she said.

"And what tier is that?"

May didn\'t have an answer. "I mean, he\'s an Adept Runesmith. Well, almost. So probably an adept tier?"

"This isn\'t how it works," Warden said. From what he had gathered, the Arcane Society acknowledged any runesmiths who could create three Tier-3 runes. While Isolation Runes are not the most complicated—not like anti-gravity—there was a fair share of a learning curve and difficulty in mastering it.

Most adepts in the Artificer Department couldn\'t manage it, so Warden could only hope.

"Go call him," Warden said. "Wait, don\'t call him."

For a moment, Warden forgot his role and began issuing orders.

"Ask him, and tell me or Lady Cassandra about it." Warden gave her another sandwich as a reward, which she gleefully accepted.

May departed to do her task, while Cassandra stared at him unblinkingly, suspicion evident in her eyes.

"What?" Warden inquired.

"Why do I feel like you\'re going to throw all the job of arranging your plan to me?" she hit right at the mark with that one.

"Because you\'re very intelligent," Warden grinned. That was indeed what he had been thinking the moment he devised the plan. Of course, in his original plan, he considered May to be the sacrificial lamb—wait, that\'s a bad term for it. "Candidate"would have sufficed better.

However, Lady Azalea\'s appearance only presented Warden with a person with the right set of skills for his plan to work perfectly.

Lady Azalea wasn\'t amused with his praise, however. "While I do acknowledge your expertise in stuff like Runesmith. . . I will not advance with your plan without hearing about it. As May already pointed out, it was foolish to dash towards disaster just on some mysterious plan."

It was evident she did not hold the same confidence in him as someone like Agnes did, though Agnes, too, would have asked for details for throwing herself in something like this.

Good thing, he didn\'t have a Chunni hero complex. Warden could discuss it all with her, and even hear her suggestion if there was a need. And there certainly would be a need, considering one mind could only come up with so much.

However, before he was to explain his not-so-brilliant plan, Cassandra opened her mouth, realizing he agreed to explain his plan.

"Are you plan on keeping this foolish disguise even now?" she asked, her piercing purple eyes boring into him.

"I don\'t know what you\'re talking about."

That answered the question for her. "So you\'re going to keep being the janitor, huh," she said. "I hope you\'re not foolish enough to be like that when all our lives are at stake."