Well, it has been about a week since we hunted that minotaur. There has been nothing of note in this while. That is why I haven't bothered to record anything till now. The trip has been surprisingly smooth for how messy it has been since the beginning. There haven't been any flying undead chasing after my ship ever since we got rid of the minotaur. I guess he was the one commanding them after all.

  I wonder why the creature had come after us. I am sure that the necromancers are somehow involved in all of this.

  Well, I have to thank the gods that there have been no more fights. That is because I am not sure if the ship would have been able to take any more punishment. I had to slow down the ship just to make sure that the patches that I had made on it did not open in the middle of the flight. (I might be a genius at formation magic, but I am passable at carpentry at best.)

  There is no way that I am telling this to the strikeforce, though. They have already managed to make things so annoying. This is going to wreck the little authority that I have with them. Though judging from the way that things are going, my authority is not going to last for long.

  Even now, they are ignoring quite a few of my commands. Now is not the time to be distracted by all of this. I have expected something like this to happen. I just need to remember that my work is just to ensure that troops are focused on the task at hand. Nobody is wasting their time on pointless fights. It is going to be harder without me being able to command them but it won't be impossible. It was nice to be able to command them.

  After all, we are going to be entering the territory of the bone fort soon enough. That place is going to be dangerous enough that they should unite for a bit.

  Anyway, I want to see the place now. I have heard so much about the bone forts. The folks in the south hire my master the most. My master doesn't tell much about the work itself, but I know that they hire the man to fix their forts. I have always wanted to see the place with my own eyes.

  Sadly, I will not be getting to see the bone fort this time. There is no way that they will be allowing outsiders like us into such a vital location during the death wave.

  After all, if that bone fort were to be destroyed, then everybody in the surrounding area is going to die. I am including ourselves in the list as well. After all, my ship is just one bad fight away from becoming a wreck again. We really need to land the ship in a safe place right now. I will be able to patch up the ship a bit better if I just had a bit of time.

  We also don't know which power is ruling over the place. All we know is that they are supposed to be one of our allies and that we are not allowed to harm them in any way. As for how we don't know such a basic thing, you can blame Anthony for that. The man is not willing to share anything with the legion, and that means he is telling us nothing.

  To explain our situation a bit better, I will have to explain how people survive out here. You see, the bone pits leak out so much death mana that it makes our surroundings unlivable. The death mana in the place is not enough to kill a person immediately. (You need to get very close to a bone pit for that to be the case, it seems.)

  The death mana here is still enough to make the ground unfertile. Almost nothing can grow here naturally. Even if something does grow, eating it would be suicidal. The only way that any power can survive in this place is in the bone forts.

  A bone fort is a massive fort that is meant to protect a few vital formations. These formations are what allow people to survive here. The first formation sucks out all of the death mana in the surroundings of this place. The surrounding hundred kilometres, if I am being precise.

  The second formation is a storage formation that absorbs all of this death mana and projects it. This formation is essentially cycling death mana in fixed loops. My master compares this to how we are cycling vital mana inside our bodies.

  The reason that they do this is that this acts as a bait for the undead in this place. Rather than harassing the living people, the undead then focus on the bone fort. That also means that right now the bone fort must be experiencing a hell. All of the surrounding undead are attacking the fort with their full strength.

  This provides relative freedom to the people who surround the bone fort. The closer that you are to the bone fort, the safer you are supposed to be. That means that as long as these formations are there, people can settle anywhere nearby. They would be able to grow farms and do other such things. This they do in the form of expedition towns. These towns are essentially villages that have been built by the folks in the bone fort. Each town is meant to have a specific purpose. This is usually farming, but it can also be different things such as smithing, construction and so on.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  These towns tend to be pretty hard to establish, based on what I have understood. Firstly, they are outside the protection offered by the bone fort. They could also be attacked by undead at any time of the day. It is just much rarer than anywhere else in the pits.

  Right now, we are not going anywhere near the bone fort, though. We have two reasons for that. The first is that they certainly would not be trusting any person who is coming into their lands right now. There is quite a bloody history of sabotage and ruin in this place to allow something like that.

  Other than that, we also face the problem of the fact that Anthony is a part of the group. A troop of sentinels and Searchers would be enough to put whichever power in that place on their guard. The man is not even willing to tell us who rules this bone fort. I have to assume that it is a volatile relationship at best.

  Then there is also the fact that our targets would not have gone anywhere close to the bone fort. No power would be willing to accept a necromancer in their lands. They would be hunted to their death if they were to enter the safer parts near the bone fort. It is also unlikely that they are out there. Putting a necromancer in front of these creatures is like putting a full meal in front of them. They won't leave them alone. It is possible, of course, but they won't be able to build such a base in a few days.

  That leaves them with only one place to go in our vicinity. (At least according to Anthony.) That would be Expedition Town 33, or as it's called around here, "the casino". Thankfully, Anthony was willing to share about this place at least. The place had initially started as an expedition town at the very edge of their borders. It became clear within a few years that it is impossible to maintain this place.

  The bone fort would have had to commit too many resources to the output it gave them, it seems. That is why the folks from the bone fort had abandoned this place. They supposedly just left the town one day, leaving its people to defend themselves.

  Not that these buildings were left abandoned for too long, though. The abandoned buildings of this place were quickly taken over by criminals. These criminals were on the run from the folks in the bone forts, so this became a perfect place to hide.

  Soon enough, the place became a hotbed of criminal activity. The most profitable of these was the casino. This casino grew so popular that the people began to call this place as the casino. The people who ran the casino came to rule over the place.

  Well, I have given all of this history to give a basic idea of what we are dealing with here. As you can expect of a place with this type of history, the folks at the casino are not the trusting sort. They live in a state of constant paranoia.

  First of all, they have to ensure their safety. The folks at the bone fort are naturally not going to be sending their soldiers to protect this place. (I am sure that they consider this place to be a cancer.) That means that the people there must be facing the full impact of the death wave on their own. Doing that requires them to commit quite a significant chunk of their resources.

  At the same time, they have to be careful of any strong person who might appear in this place. After all, it could be somebody from the bone fort as well. The wave would be the best time to destroy this place as well. The death wave would shatter this place if its key defenses were destroyed.

  All of this means that the people would have very little trust in anybody coming from the outside. Our identity as part of the black mountain will also not help us here. If anything, this will make things worse for me. After all, the folks in the bone fort are our allies. I don't know if the people in this town would appreciate that particular fact.

  This all means that it is going to be quite a mess to enter the place. All of this, I have described without considering the vampires as well. I guess that there are the necromancers as well. Necromancers are still something that I will be able to manage easily. Anything related to death magic is viewed through a lens of fear in this place. That puts them in a weak position. They certainly won't be acting freely.

  The vampires are going to be a nightmare, though. They are the masters of whispering doubt into your ears. They are in their natural element in this town, where nobody trusts anybody else. I am sure that if they wanted to, they would have everybody in this town at each other's throats by the end of the month. (And more importantly, they will have everybody on our throats.)

  This means that things are going to get quite deadly once we enter that town. The vampires would have done something to make the hunt impossible. (or very hard at least.) The only thing that is in our favor is that the vampires have to protect the necromancers as well. That means we can beat them as long as we don't do anything stupid.

  Now, John and his bunch are going to be no problem. After all, with the number of vampires that we have hunted, there is no way that we will be caught off guard. Similarly, the Searchers must have studied extensively about the creatures. That should be enough for them not to underestimate the vampires.

  The Mayfires are also not going to underestimate the creatures. After all, the vampires had managed to take over a significant chunk of their castle in a very short time. The only problem could be that the Mayfires have no idea about just how tricky it can be to fight these creatures. Still, they won't be doing anything to actively make our position worse.

  Right now, the only possible problem in our strikeforce is the Aegis. They certainly have never fought against vampires. If they were not being led by Anthony, I still would not be too worried about them. After all, his underlings seem to be the reasonable sort.

  The only problem they have is that somebody as volatile as Anthony is leading them. There is no way that I can let Anthony do anything stupid right now. Well, we will manage whatever happens as it happens. Thinking about the Aegis is going to make all of my hair fall out, you know.