In the barracks, Garan briefed the guards about the situations outside as well as some new monsters that they had encountered.
One of the things he mentioned was the reappearance of an intelligent monster. They had only encountered it once when they were a village, and this second one—a monster at town-level—had been far more dangerous.
If Althea and Garan hadn’t dealt with it, it would’ve taken at least half a dozen other people at the monster’s level to deal with it. It might even be more if one counted the ’lackeys’. They could even set traps.
The only comfort was that they were extremely rare. As for whether they’d encounter more, time would tell, but if it happened, it would likely be a bloody encounter than not.
Basically, unless one was absolutely confident to deal with an intelligent monster, it was better to escape.
While Garan’s baritone voice echoed in the meeting room, another voice would sometimes combine with his.
"Wwaoooo! Waooo!" The milky voice exclaimed as he clapped his hand, looking at his father with admiration.
This was none other than Meatball, of course, sitting on a high chair right next to Garan in the meeting room.
Interestingly, because the couple wanted to maximize the few days they had in Alterra, the couple decided to do a ’bring your kids to work’ day.
The kids were still a bit listless due to their illness, but whenever they were with their parents, they were at least more like themselves, so no one minded the frequent interruptions.
For the whole day today, the couple would carry a baby each, switching midday.
The baby’s presence was also part of the guard’s training, in a sense, because if they showed signs of cackling, Garan’s sharp eyes would capture it, and they’d gain a few laps in their daily laps.
It was very hard. Whenever he finished a solemn sentence, the baby would say something as if in agreement.
"Another agenda is setting up a training and mining ground in the Undead zone," he said, and this made most flinch. Only the key people, like Loki, were aware of this plan, so everyone else was quite surprised.
They knew the leader went there, but they didn’t know the leader was setting up a base!
Loki stepped forward to explain the details. Garan was never a talker, so whenever something required an explanation, he’d assign someone else to carry the burden.
Loki explained the location, the threat-level, and the resources involved. The most important part was that those who had been stuck in the early level 20s for so many months finally had hope!
Garan nodded. "Assign batches to head out to missions to deal with the Undead and mine the new resource. Except for team leads, the rest should be those within levels 18-25."
"Daaa! Yahhh!" Meatball sounded at the side.
"We will set up a temporary base in Metteo Town while Dune Town prepares for upgrade—"
"Waoooya~"
"Arrange at least two spies to settle in Metteo—"
"Wahooo~" Meatball yelled again, trying to get his father’s attention.
No matter how hard the guards tried, even if they stopped breathing, they could not hold back their laughter in the end.
"Pffft—"
And when one couldn’t hold on, it was like a dam, and boisterous laughter and cackles resounded, breaking any semblance of solemnity in the room.


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