In the end, Gauss chose to respect his teammates' decision.
Just as he had suddenly realized, they had wills of their own. They were not puppets dangling from his strings.
Over the next few days, time seemed to speed up.
A great many things also began changing quietly around Barry.
The labyrinth was shut down after the authorities released intelligence about abnormalities within it, and adventurers began withdrawing in an orderly fashion.
The number of adventuring teams and adventuring companies returning to Barry steadily increased before the naked eye.
At a glance, it felt like one out of every few people on the street was dressed like an adventurer, and even many of the citizens in ordinary civilian clothes might not actually have been ordinary residents at all, but simply lower-profile adventurers.
In shops across the city, the prices of all kinds of goods—especially essentials like grain, oil, rice, and flour—began rising in silence.
Yet after only a day or two, that surge seemed to be forcefully checked by some invisible hand, settling back down into a range that was still more expensive than before, but not outrageously so.
Even so, when many civilians tried to buy certain special supplies, they were often told by shop assistants that purchases were now limited.
Large numbers of beast-drawn wagons loaded with supplies, civilian goods, and merchandise flowed endlessly through the northern gate like ants carrying food home.
Along the walls, below the walls, and up in the watchtowers, anyone paying even a little attention could tell that the number of soldiers on patrol and on guard had increased considerably.
The griffin riders, those noble figures who in the past only seemed to patrol the sky morning and evening, now looked far busier, flying back and forth across the walls, and between the outer and inner city in growing numbers.
Every one of these signs pointed to the same conclusion:
something important was about to happen in Barry.
Even the most oblivious civilians had slowly begun to notice the unusual changes around them. Some younger people might have sensed that something was wrong, but still believed that if the sky really fell, it had nothing to do with them. Surely the strong would protect them.
The Forest Capital had known peace for far too long—so long that several generations had passed without ever experiencing war.
Their vigilance toward danger and monsters was often worse than that of the "country bumpkins" they looked down on. Many of the civilians living in Barry had never even laid eyes on a monster in their lives, aside from the tamed griffins flying through the sky.
All the news they consumed every day about adventurers, labyrinths, monsters, and treasure felt more like stories happening in another world.
That world was clearly intertwined with theirs, yet it was as if a transparent but sharply defined barrier stood between them, dividing existence into two realms: the world of mortals, and the world of the extraordinary.
Only some of the older people looked on with real concern—watching the patrols on the streets, the constant stream of adventurers moving in and out of the city gates, and urging their children to find time to buy dry rations on the black market and stockpile them.
The Red Dragon Company did the same and began storing up large quantities of supplies in advance.
Groups like theirs were naturally different from ordinary people. They had the channels to buy goods in bulk and were not restricted by purchase limits.
Of course, this was not some special privilege unique to the Red Dragon Company. Nearly every adventuring company was doing the same.
After all, these companies were about to become one of the main forces facing the coming war.
Local adventuring companies might not have the same loyalty as soldiers paid directly by the military, but they were still reliable enough.
The reason was simple: most of the local companies had operated in Barry for many years. Their members' families, headquarters, property, and invisible networks were all deeply rooted in this city.
These were not the kind of assets that could simply grow legs and run away overnight. If the city actually fell, they would be the ones who lost the most.
So there was no need for any ideological work. The captains of every company had long since reached an understanding in their hearts and had already held internal mobilization meetings.
Unless the war became completely one-sided, they would not flee lightly.
That was also why cities were so willing in peacetime to offer large benefits, favorable policies, cheap land for headquarters, and room for industrial expansion to keep adventuring companies rooted locally.
It was a transparent strategy—one impossible to counter—designed to bind those companies to the city as tightly as possible.
As for Barry itself, there were still some "outsider" companies like the Red Dragon Company.
This was the frontline of the coming war. War meant danger, yes—but it also meant opportunity. For example, in order to keep them here, Barry's Adventurers' Guild was offering heavy subsidies, with that money distributed directly to each individual member.
On top of that, their pressure was lighter than that of the local companies. They could watch the situation on Barry's front lines and decide their next move based on how things developed—perhaps even withdrawing later to somewhere deeper inland, like Falim.
For now, it was very much a wait-and-see approach.
"We've stocked enough food for three months. That's sufficient."
"We also have enough potions, medical supplies, and alchemical ingredients to last us a month."
Gauss listened to Chief Steward Ivan's report.
Even though Ivan had already advanced to a Level 4 warlock, his role in the company was still that of chief steward and alchemist.
"Don't be stingy with basic supplies. Buy as much as we need and make sure everything's fully stocked. Once the war starts, transportation from the outside is bound to be cut off. If we try to get things then, it won't be anything like it is now."
"I understand. I'll go back and inspect the storage again afterward to make sure every item is stocked in sufficient quantity."
Ivan nodded.
In truth, before coming here, he had already led people through the warehouse and the contents of their storage bags twice, checklist in hand. But there was no such thing as checking too many times.
For everyone in the Red Dragon Company who knew war was about to break out, their emotions were all mixed together.
There was tension, unavoidable fear, and at the same time a faint excitement that was hard to describe.
It felt as though they were standing at the threshold of some great turning point in history.
Maybe many, many years from now, they too would become part of the stories recorded in history books.
That human obsession with "grand narratives" seemed almost instinctive.
And yet at the same time, none of them had ever experienced a war on this scale before, so naturally they worried about their own fate. No one could predict what the future would bring.
Even Gauss had only ever experienced one thing that really counted as war: the defense of Grayrock Town.
But there was no comparison between that and what was coming now.
The others had not been idle, either.
Albena had already been using her spare time to forge soft armor. After finishing the last set for Serandur yesterday, every member of Gauss's core team now had a close-fitting suit of soft armor.
Unlike ordinary armor, these pieces were much lighter—only twenty or thirty percent heavier than standard leather armor—but because mithril had been worked into them, they far surpassed normal armor in physical defense, magical defense, and flexibility alike.
In the chaos of a real battlefield, that gave the others one more way to stay alive.
Everyone else had also been practicing their own skills.
Gauss, meanwhile, spent a thousand gold coins through Barry Adventurers' Guild to buy a Level 5 illusion spell: Disguise.
That was actually an excellent price. If he had tried to acquire it through the normal market, it probably would have cost several times more.
Besides, after clearing the labyrinth, the Red Dragon Company was flush with money. Even after excluding the resources they could not or would not sell, plus the wages and bonuses already distributed to the members, Gauss still had five thousand gold left in hand.
So he had not hesitated much when buying it.
Money only had meaning when you spent it.
Disguise sounded unremarkable on the surface, but in practice it was extremely powerful.
It could give a target creature an entirely new appearance, including not only physical looks, but also clothing, weapons, and equipment. It could even make major changes to body shape—taller or shorter, fatter or thinner.
Gauss could use it to transform himself into a monster he was familiar with.
He had many options.
Goblin, kobold, lizardman, gnoll—he knew them all extremely well. He could simply adapt to the situation.
And since it was an illusion spell, creatures without sufficiently strong minds had almost no chance of seeing through it.
Even targets with strong mental power would struggle to notice anything wrong unless they got close and paid very careful attention.
And in the hands of Gauss—whose mental strength surpassed that of most transcendents—the spell would only become even more effective.
That was why he had chosen to buy it, and why he had picked it for what little training time he had left.
Compared to offensive Level 5 spells, this kind of support magic was what he truly needed if he was about to infiltrate deep into enemy territory.
Excellent stamina, a Level 5 Disguise spell, and the spatial magic Any Door—that combination was enough to let him move freely through the danger-filled Jade Forest.
And Haliel of the Golden Beak Trading Company had not disappointed him either. Even in a time like this, over the past few days she had still managed to gather more than five hundred additional kilograms of magic clay for him.
With that added on, the total amount of magic clay in Gauss's hands reached 2.8 tons.
When casting, and mixing in some ordinary earth on the spot, he could now create nearly a hundred clay goblins. That was already a very substantial force.
And Gauss had made another unexpected gain as well.
While learning Disguise over these past few days, his clay magic—which he had already been studying intensively—finally broke through again through cross-application and insight.
The new clay magical creatures he created were far more lifelike than before, almost impossible to distinguish from real creatures.
Skin tone, mannerisms, expressions, even physiological structure could all now be replicated with extremely high precision.
Gauss had tested it himself.
If you cut off a clay creature's arm, red blood would pour out. Its reaction of pain was so convincing that nothing about it betrayed the fact that it was a construct of clay. In quiet ways, clay magic had absorbed some of the advantages of Disguise.
Sometimes even Gauss himself felt momentarily disoriented looking at them. If he had not been the one who created them, then with his own eyes alone, he would not have been able to tell the difference.
It was easy to imagine just how much confusion this could create in battle, once those clay monsters were thrown into the melee alongside real monsters.
The clay creatures could coordinate with one another, but the monsters would have no reliable way to distinguish friend from foe, and in the chaos they could easily descend into confusion—or even start slaughtering one another.
And even outside of direct combat, it was still an excellent tool for disguise during long-distance movement.
A single goblin moving alone in the woods might look suspicious.
But a whole group of goblins? Even if other monsters spotted them, they would not think too much of it. They would just assume they were other members of the vast monster army.
With Gauss fully focused on the problem, his progress in Disguise rose quickly as well.
Very soon it had already entered the latter half of Iv2, and by the time he actually entered the Jade Forest to carry out the mission, he would likely have raised it to Iv3 proficiency.
At the same time, in the Jade Forest, layered green canopies rolled like a sea of leaves.
Deep within that ancient forest, the air was perpetually wrapped in a faint gray-green mist like a thin veil.
To human adventurers, the deep reaches of the Jade Forest were nothing like the outskirts.
This was forbidden land, a place where almost no human ever set foot.
And now, through that mist that should have been silent, shadowy figures were moving.
As time passed, those vague silhouettes gradually became clear.
They were monster troops—some tall, some short, all moving in step.
This army was pouring in from the deeper south of the forest, like a slow-moving dark flood.
Even without looking at their equipment, one could tell how elite they were just from the uniformity of their movements, the soundless discipline of their march, and the order they displayed—something almost impossible to associate with wild monsters. In truth, their discipline surpassed that of most armies.
At this moment, race, territorial rivalries, and predator-prey relationships among monsters all seemed to have vanished.
They were being compressed into one unified whole by a higher will, marching together in silence and carrying out the orders of that supreme force.
And even more terrifying was what one saw when the perspective was pulled upward:
this dark stream was only the tiniest tributary.
Across the vast lands of the Jade Forest, countless armies were on the move.
From time to time, the shadows of flying monsters swept across the ground. They skimmed over the forest canopy, scanning every movement within the marching forces below.
Behind that terrifying tide of armies, like ants on the march, there stood a temporary camp.
Countless roots had twisted and woven together into a massive platform, and at the center of that platform lounged a figure lazily on its side.
It was a dragon.
A giant dragon, its entire body covered in emerald-green scales.
Its size was immense, yet there was not the slightest trace of heaviness or bloat to it. Every inch of muscle looked like a work of natural art.
Its scales were a clear, jewel-like green, layered one over another along its sleek body.
When sunlight filtered through the forest canopy and fell across it, those scales reflected countless shades of green—light bud-green like fresh spring shoots, the deep lush green of summer leaves, and the near-black green of deep water in a still pool.
The colors shifted and flowed across it in layers, beautiful enough to rob a person of breath.
That was what dragons were: creatures blessed beyond measure, powerful and beautiful all at once.
When the creator opened the door for them, it seemed he had also thrown open every window, renovated the whole house, and filled it with luxurious furnishings for good measure.
Long life. Innate spellcasting. Physical power enough to crush steel. Scales that covered the whole body in magical resistance.
By nearly every measure that defined the superiority of life, dragonkind stood at the very top of the pyramid.
They did not need to squeeze every drop of potential from themselves within a few short decades the way humans did.
Nor did they need to rely on sheer numbers and constant reproduction the way orcs did to preserve their kind.
A dragon, from the instant it cracked free of its shell, was already born a predator.
It was fated to stand at the very top of the food chain.
And among these natural-born apex predators, the green dragon Aesselas was a genius rare even among dragons.
Among the chromatic dragons, green dragons were by no means considered the strongest.
When it came to pure physical strength, red dragons were the undisputed kings.
Those massive crimson beasts that nested in volcanoes possessed the most savage muscle power among dragonkind, as well as the fiercest breath. A single blast of dragonfire from an adult red dragon could reduce an entire castle to molten ruins.
As for magical talent, blue dragons were the unquestioned masters among the chromatics. Their control over lightning and illusion was so exquisite that even many great elven archmages could only feel ashamed in comparison.
A green dragon's place was probably roughly on par with that of a black dragon—perhaps slightly stronger.
The only one clearly left behind was the disgrace of the chromatic line: the white dragon.
But Aesselas's personal talent was without question outstanding.
True dragons did indeed grow stronger as they aged, but very few of them could reach level 17 at only six hundred years old.
So even among true dragons, Aesselas was undeniably a prodigy.
It had even received multiple summons in dreams from Tiamat herself, Mother of the Chromatic Dragons.
In those dreams, five enormous dragon heads emerged from endless darkness—crimson, deep blue, dark green, jet black, and snow white.
Five necks extended from a single massive body, and from those majestic heads, ten eyes shone with terrible divine authority as they gazed down upon it at once.
Even as an adult dragon, Aesselas felt as small as an insignificant lizard before the unimaginable majesty of Tiamat—the Mother of Chromatic Dragons, the goddess of evil dragons.
Tiamat had tried more than once to recruit it through those dreams, but like most chromatic dragons, Aesselas had rejected her outright every time.
Even under threat and temptation in the dreamscape, it had never wavered in the slightest.
Unlike metallic dragons, who revered their patron deity Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon and King of Good Dragons, nearly every chromatic dragon instinctively distrusted its own "mother."
That wariness was etched into their bloodline inheritance itself.
All chromatic dragons knew Tiamat's greed, her coldness, and her treachery.
And the more talented a chromatic dragon was, the more likely it was to draw that mother's covetous eye.
Tiamat had long sought to create a vessel powerful enough for her to descend into the world again and realize her ambition of ruling the material plane.
And yet below her, the chromatic dragons—her so-called believers—were one and all remarkably unfilial.
The more gifted a true dragon was, the thinner its already shallow faith in her became. Their attitude amounted to, "Believing a little costs nothing," but when it came to anything real, let alone giving up their lives or bodies, they would not even willingly hand over a single gold coin.
True dragons were also very intelligent creatures. From the moment they hatched and received their draconic inheritance, even a hatchling was almost impossible to mislead or manipulate.
Because of that, Tiamat's ambition had remained unrealized. Finding five exceptionally gifted dragons of five different colors was simply too difficult.
The fact that Aesselas had drawn Tiamat's attention again and again was proof enough of its talent.
Its personal strength had advanced by leaps and bounds. It had brought a vast forest under its rule. It was even in the process of constructing the framework of its own draconic domain.
It was easy to foresee that given a few more centuries, this tightly unified green dragon power would grow into a true kingdom of dragons.
At this moment, below the platform before the great Green Dragon Queen, several humans in dark robes were lying prostrate on the ground.
Compared to the dragon, they were as tiny as insects.
"Rise."
Aesselas's voice rang out, low and long.
Only then did the figures pressed tightly to the ground slowly stand.
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
If Gauss had been present, he would have recognized them immediately.
They were members of the Dragon Worship Cult.
This group was made up of lunatics who fanatically revered dragons and anything connected to dragons.
The leader among them lifted his head slightly, not daring to look directly at the Green Dragon Queen's body. Beneath the hood was the face of a middle-aged man.
His eye sockets were sunken, his cheekbones sharp, and his gaze burned with such frenzy and excitement that even his body was trembling faintly.
"Your Majesty, we have brought you detailed intelligence on the Forest Capital and the whole of Coldemerald Province."
He took a dark golden diamond-shaped metal insignia from within his robes and raised it over his head with both hands.
The Green Dragon Queen did not respond verbally, but the moment her gaze fell upon it, the insignia slowly lifted into the air and drifted toward her.
With a thought, the magical device unfolded instantly in midair in a burst of light.
A detailed map spread out before her.
Lines, miniature symbols, and every tiny detail upon it represented different pieces of intelligence.
City populations, the rough number of adventurers, gate positions, defensive kill zones, garrison strength, and the locations of villages and human settlements outside the city—all of it was recorded across this map.
As humans, the Dragon Worship Cult had long operated within human territory, and naturally they had collected a great deal of intelligence.
The advantages they possessed as spies were something monsters simply could not compare to.
So once they sensed the movement of the Green Dragon Queen's armies, the cultists had hurriedly gathered all their information, converged from the various cities where they were stationed, and handed it over through their regional leader to the Green Dragon Queen herself.
As the Green Dragon Queen studied this detailed intelligence on humanity, satisfaction flickered in her eyes.
She already possessed intelligence on many human cities, of course—but nothing as detailed as what these black-robed humans had brought.
It seemed her efforts from years ago—opening contact with and nurturing the Dragon Worship Cult around her domain—had not been wasted after all.
After all, no one understood humans better than humans.
The Dragon Worship Cult could not only provide detailed intelligence, but when war broke out, they could also lie in wait within human cities and military ranks, creating chaos from within and without.