“It seems that the attack has caused her to lose a few marbles.” Liandra remarked.

The three of us had reconvened after that ridiculous statement from Radeca.

I nodded in agreement. “I hope you’re not serious, Radeca.”

“Hm? What seems to be the matter?” Radeca blinked, surprised at our reactions. It was almost as if she expected us to simply go along with her seemingly suicidal plan.

“Radeca.” I briskly walked ahead of her and stopped her in her tracks, planting my hands firmly on her shoulders. “We are not walking straight into a fortified checkpoint. We won’t even see the soldier that you’ve placed so much of your faith in. The moment the exterior guards see us, they’ll just arrest us on the spot, and we’ll be forced to fight again.”

Radeca shook her head. “Of course not. The guards of this checkpoint are under his direct command. We shall be fine. You will see.”

Despite Radeca’s overflowing confidence, I would very much rather not wait and see what would happen should we actually decide to waltz straight into the checkpoint in the middle of the day.

However, I was pretty sure that she had no intentions of amending her plan, so it was time for me to change tact.

“Does he know that we’re coming?”

“He does not, but I will simply request to see him once we arrive.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. Either Radeca still hadn’t fully understood the position that she was in, or she simply had an incredible amount of faith in this soldier of hers. Either way, I wasn’t taking any chances.

“We should contact him now, just in case. Got a way to do it?”

Radeca nodded in response. “Of course. It shall require some preparation, but I should be able to do so before we arrive. What would you like me to say?”

“Just tell him we’ll be coming. If this soldier’s as loyal as you say he is, then we’ll get through the checkpoint smoothly, yeah?”

“Of course.”

The three of us took a brief break, letting Radeca work her magic. As an elf, she had an innate ability to commune with nature spirits and could even ask them to perform mundane tasks such as delivering messages, provided she was polite enough about it.

Instead of sitting around and doing jack shit while Radeca spoke to fairies, I chose to make a contingency plan with Liandra.

“What do you mean you can’t fly?” Liandra squinted at me in disbelief.

“Exactly what I said, Liandra. I can’t fly.”

She’d asked this same question multiple times over the past few minutes, and I really didn’t understand why it was so difficult for her to believe that I couldn’t fly.

I mean, last time I checked, the humans here weren’t innately capable of flight, and neither was flight magic commonly known. In fact, it was actually fairly complicated according to Liandra.

I hadn’t thought much of it when she hovered all over the place, but after I recalled that Liandra had been the only mage within the entire academy that actually had the [Flight] skill, I suppose she was actually quite the impressive individual.

“Anyway, whether or not I can fly doesn’t really matter. Liandra. We can just bust straight through this passageway here and you’ll fill everything behind us with poison mist.” I tapped one of the narrower corridors that connected to the structure’s main foyer on the diagram of the fortress that Radeca had drawn for us.

Her perfect recall of the building’s floor plan was pretty damn surprising, but it turns out that the royal family in the Sylphid Alliance was made to memorize the floor plans of every important structure in the nation, and that meant the fortresses which guarded the border checkpoints.

It was honestly pretty incredible that she was capable of drawing up the building’s floor plan on command though, seeing as its halls were rather labyrinthine and convoluted in design as it was made to confuse attackers.

“I suppose that would work, but escaping up the stairs and flying away is much easier.” Liandra replied. “Plus, it’s narrow enough for them to stall for time once we get to the other end.”

I frowned, and Liandra explained that even if I could kill a bunch of them in one blow, they could just jam the exit of the hallway one at a time. 

While I didn’t think that would be an issue since I’d simply get out of the hallway faster than they could move into it again, Liandra thought that my plan had too many risky elements in it and depended on an abundance of “I’ll just beat the shit out of them” far too much so we were back to the drawing board.

We looked at a few more options, but in the end, the two of us didn’t manage to actually put together anything coherent enough to be called a plan before Radeca was finished communing with the nature spirits.

“I guess we’ll just be shooting straight through them if shit goes south.”

“I guess so.” Liandra agreed, though she didn’t seem too happy about it. I wasn't either.

It didn’t take us long before we reached the gates of the fortress guarding the checkpoint. As the three of us came into view of the sentries, they all stiffened despite Radeca leading the way.

Shit... Was Radeca’s confidence really just bullshit this whole time?

Much to my surprise and pleasure, the sentries simply opened the doors for us without conflict as Radeca walked past them as if it were the most natural thing ever. 

Another guard inside led us up a flight of stairs and toward a set of large steel doors. They were simple and unengraved, but looked thick and heavy. If not for my physical prowess in this world, I would probably have quite a bit of trouble opening them.

Despite their weight, they opened with barely a sound. However, none of us expected the person that was waiting for us behind them.

Liandra’s eyes widened in surprise whereas Radeca’s lips parted in surprise. As for me, I simply smirked. Somehow, I had a feeling that this conniving rat bastard would be here.

“Took you all long enough. Shall we get down to business?” Cyrus said with an annoyingly mischievous grin.