444 Chapter 444: Mountain Base

I filled Feng Hai and the others in, and the mercenary leader listened with a furrowed brow. Taking a deep breath, he glanced in the southwest direction, as if by doing so he could somehow spot the base and the personnel running it.

"Any clue as to who those people are?" he asked gruffly. I understood his mood because I also realized that anybody setting up base camp in Yao Cai Mountains couldn't possibly be some random civilians coming out for herbs gathering. Having already anticipated his question, I had one of my Corvus soar closer to the base, his keen eyes picking out the finer details.

"Damn."

"What is it?" Redfield demanded impatiently when he heard me curse under my breath. I grimaced and opened my eyes to look at him.

"They are wearing black cloaks."

"…huh? In the mountains? Is that some kind of new fashion style? Well, maybe they do need the cloaks to keep themselves warm, given the cool climate, but…"

"No," Brent cut his subordinate off. "The black cloaks most likely indicate that these are members of the Dark Church."

Silence fell over the gathered group, and the mercenaries exchanged uneasy glances. The Dark Church again. Come to think of it, I remembered that Dad and I once ran into some secret research facility in the mountains a few months ago, when I tagged along on one of his missions overseas. They were creating biological weapons and ended up getting slaughtered by the same monsters they were breeding.

What was with the Dark Church and setting bases up in mountains? Did they like the terrain or something? Admittedly, the remote nature of mountains and their distance from civilization made them perfect as a hideout, to conceal their agenda and operations away from the public and from authority. Best, nobody would be able to disturb them or disrupt their research, and unless we were coincidentally in the mountains for some reason, nobody would even think to find them here.

Now that we had stumbled upon them, I had no idea what we were supposed to do. Attack them?

"They probably are the ones who collected the Belfrost Flowers," Brown put in, having heard my description of them ferrying cargo. "That's the most likely scenario – I don't think it's a coincidence that the tracks lead in the southwest direction, and the Dark Church happens to have a base southwest of here."

"Why would they be collecting Belfrost Flowers and other medicinal herbs, though?" Glacia was confused. "I thought their aim was to wipe out humanity and allow the monsters to reign supreme on Earth. Why would they be gathering medicinal herbs?"

"Who knows?" Redfield clenched his fists. "But whatever their reasons, it definitely can't be good. Maybe they're stocking up on their own first aid and medicinal supplies because they can't get medicine the conventional way."

"Perhaps," Brent conceded. "But it would be easier to just hire healing mages, and I know for sure that the Dark Church counts several healing mages among their number."

"What should we do?" Glacia asked Feng Hai, who had remained silent all this while.

"I say we attack them!" Redfield exclaimed, and then he blinked. "…um, after we confirm that this Ling Dan isn't here in the Yao Cai Mountains, I mean."

Everyone glanced at him, but nobody objected or voiced their support. They were feeling conflicted. On one hand, our priority was indeed to search for Ling Dan, but nobody felt comfortable leaving the Dark Church be. Whatever they were scheming out here, it would most likely contribute a lot toward their goal of eradicating mankind.

"Our mission is to find Ling Dan and bring him back to help Ana," Feng Hai declared with a nod. "However…"

He glanced at me, and I nodded, having Corvus do another sweep. But I didn't see anything new, and told him as much. Even so, Feng Hai's expression remained unreadable and he sighed.

"…it is possible that the Dark Church might be in the Yao Cai Mountains for the same reason as we are. No, it's even possible that they might already have found and captured Ling Dan."

"Huh? How do you know?" Brown asked, puzzled at how he made the leap in conclusion. Feng Hai shrugged.

"Just intuition."

"Boss, that's not very persuasive," Brent growled.

"I know, but…think about it. It's not a coincidence that they are in the Yao Cai Mountains, and then you have the rumor that Ling Dan – the legendary receptarier – is holed up somewhere in here. I'm pretty sure the Dark Church has other, easier methods of obtaining medicinal supplies than just picking flowers and herbs in such a remote region. If they went through the trouble of setting up a base in the Yao Cai Mountains, of all places, then…"

"It's a long shot, and you don't have any proof." Brent and the others did not look convinced, but Redfield jumped at the chance.

"We should investigate the base and find that proof! If not, we can just retreat and search elsewhere!"

"It's also improbable that this Ling Dan wouldn't notice the presence of so many people in a place where he's hiding out to stay far away froom people," Brown conceded. "He would most likely leave for a more…secluded location."

"…or he might have been captured by these Dark Church bastards…" Redfield clenched his fists tighter. "In which case we have to rescue him."

"We need to find proof that he's being held by the Dark Church first, or we'd just be wasting our time," Brent pointed out.

"Good thinking." Feng Hai nodded, and then turned to Brown. "And that's where you come in."

"I understand. I'll pick a team to infiltrate the base and search for the target." Brown was already consulting her data pad and swiping stuff off, collating whatever information she could and selecting her team.

"Thanks. I'll be counting on you."

Obviously the scout team didn't set off ahead yet. The enemy base that I had spotted was several kilometers away – about ten or so. It was going to be a long trek, and we had to remain on high alert for any monsters that we might encounter on the way there. Not wanting to waste any time, Feng Hai ordered us to set off immediately the moment we were ready. The support teams packed up their equipment, dismantled their heavy weapons and placed them back in their storage devices. After ensuring that they didn't leave anything behind, the mercenaries began the long journey toward the Dark Church's mountain base.

"We're leaving?" Adrian asked when I approached him and Melina. "Have we found whoever it is we are looking for?"

"Not really," I admitted. "But we have found some sort of clue."

"Clue? What sort of clue?" Melina asked curiously. She glanced at the mercenaries, who were beginning to move in a staggered line, covering each other and watching out for dangers. Already the scouts – those not selected by Brown for the infiltration mission – were already moving ahead to navigate a safe route for the rest of the group to follow. Upon seeing that, she nodded. "You know which direction to go in?"

"Yeah, we do." I wondered if I was allowed to tell them what we found. Considering that they would find out sooner or later, and that the officers were already filling their men in on what information we had, I might as well. "Be careful and stay sharp. I spotted what seems to be a base of the Dark Church. You know how dangerous those fanatics are, so stay on your guard. We're checking their base out to see if they kidnapped Ling Dan or he agreed to work for them or something, and from there we might either withdraw or launch a rescue mission…depending on what we find."

"You think the Dark Church might have abducted Ling Dan?" Melina asked, looking horrified. She had evidently heard the rumors detailing the sort of horrifying fates that befall those captured by the apocalyptic zealots.

"It's a possibility, and we're going to confirm it right now."

"Why don't we just call them the Black Vatician already?" Adrian moaned. "Dark Church just sounds lame. Black Vatician sounds a lot cooler. And anyone with half a brain cell knows who you are referring to."

"Copyright reasons," I replied, as if that explained everything. There was a reason why I wasn't a versatile summoner. It wasn't solely because I was as stupid, retarded or weak as the readers made me out to be. I had to avoid copyright infringement as well.

The journey to the Dark Church's base took us a whole day. Halfway there, we had to stop and set up camp in the middle of the forest. The support team worked quickly, setting up a manmade barrier by using a combination of engraved runes and hi-tech generators, which allowed the mercenaries to huddle within. Once inside, we were able to turn on the lights and heaters without fear of being spotted by the monsters or human enemies.

"We aren't there yet?" Adrian asked. I shook my head.

"Not even close. There's still about five kilometers to cover…theoretically, but given the rough terrain and obstacles…we might have to take detours and go around stuff, which means we might have to trek longer and take more time than anticipated."

Trekking through a forest wasn't as simple and straightforward as most people thought it would be. Even back in my previous life, during my army days, it was basically one of the arduous aspects of military training. You would often come across impassable terrain such as steep slopes that were too hazardous to traverse, unexpected ravines or holes, maybe a lake that didn't appear on the map, or the trees and foliage were so dense that it would be too difficult to cross between the plants, even with bashing. On paper it might seem a short journey if we cut across the forest in a straight line, but in reality we had to make dozens of detours, going around obstacles such as the aforementioned thick foliage or plant lifes, circle round the foot of an unusually steep hill, and seeking alternative paths when running into dead ends (yes, there are dead ends in a forest – not exactly walls but walls of wood, roots and trees). Furthermore, with the equipment and weapons we were lugging with us…yeah. It was a really difficult trip.

Don't believe those xianxia or cultivation stories where you see those cultivators or martial artists easily vault through the forest, where the terrain seemed so sparse and easy to navigate. Reality was not that convenient. Again, forget your prior experience of hiking in the woods or camping in reserves – those were done on manmade terrain. They might be as close as nature as you could get, but ultimately these were trails and paths cleared out by humans to make your "nature" experience as easy and convenient as possible. And those martial artists jumping from tree to tree...that wasn't going to work in real life. in a dense forest like this, the trees were so clustered and packed closely together that jumping from one tree to another would most likely result in you crashing through multiple branches, getting smacked about by wooden limbs and sent crashing to the ground. To navigate through the trees, it was much more efficient to swing from branch to branch…just like monkeys. So forget all those webcomics where you have martial artists jumping from branch to branch. That just didn't happen in reality, not when you took into account how trees actually grow and cluster together.

Well, the point of that wall of text above was to describe how extremely difficult it was to trek through a forest. It certainly was no walk in the park, that's for sure.

"I see."

Melina's voice was soft and she was gently massaging her legs. The journey had been hard on her – without training or conditioning, she still somehow managed to keep up without complaint, keeping pace with the mercenaries and completing the journey. Adrian too, but he was a bit more…vocal about it. Even so, I was impressed with the kids' determination to not be a burden. They had done very well and come so far without breaking.

"Get some rest," I told them. The three of us shared a tent, which I had managed to pack because Feng Hai ordered me to get one. Fortunately, the Silver Wolves paid for my expenses since they were hiring me for this mission, so I didn't have to pay a single cent for the tent. I was glad I didn't stinge and purchase the cheapest and smallest tent. Truthfully I had picked this one because it was black in color, and black was my favorite color. As God willed it, it turned out to be the correct choice as it was spacious enough to house the three of us. Melina nodded and rose to her feet wearily before crawling into the tent, When Adrian didn't move from his spot, I gave him a verbal push. "We'll be having a long day tomorrow, and quite the distance to cover, so it's best to recover as much strength as possible."

"What about you, Brother Richard?"

I stood up and stretched before smiling.

"Sentry duty. I'll go sleep after my shift is done." I grinned mischievously. "Must be nice to be kids, eh? You don't need to do sentry duty."

"Aren't you a kid as well?" Feng Hai appeared behind me, almost taking me by surprise. He gave me a hard look. "You don't need to do sentry. You can leave that to my men."

"Nah, I want to do it. Besides, my abilities allow me to be a better sentry than most of the others here."

"That's true," Feng Hai conceded grudgingly, remembering that I could summon multiple pairs of eyes and ears to help me out. He then turned to Adrian and grinned devilishly. "As for you, young man, you have no excuse. It's bedtime for you."