Chapter 444 - Rebellion’s Continued Growth

Once the blizzard that had locked down the rebel strike team and freed prisoners began to subside, they began their journey once again, heading to a rebel base.

Of course, this was not their main base, as each of the freed prisoners that they were recruiting still needed to be scrutinized to make sure they were not agents working for the kingdom.

"He is telling the truth."

"He is telling the truth."

"She is telling the truth."

"He is lying. I believe he intends to betray us when the opportunity arises."

Going through all of the prisoner, Tesia with her ability to understand a person's true nature, questioned everyone.

However, unlike how she used to be, always having a slight smile on her face or at least giving off a peaceful aura. Now she was stone faced and seemed like a robot.

She had certainly taken the death of her brother very hard, and at least for now, had done everything she could to suppress her emotions.

It was quite sad to see, since she used to be so vibrant, but now was almost dead inside.

Still, she was doing her job well, and helped to out twelve people that had intended to betray them, three of which were actually agents of the kingdom.

Luckily preparations had been made before hand so that no one had been able to send a message while they were on the move and disclose the party's location.

"Well, I am certain that none of them plan on betraying us right now, thought that could change in the future. I recommend that you keep an eye on each of the great knights and elite mages especially." Tesia said to Marek after finishing interviewing the last person.

After that she got up and excused herself, saying she would go back to her room, and that she could be found there if anything was needed of her.

Sighing, Marek was not certain what to do with Tesia's current mental and emotional state.

Unless she was given a task to do, all she did was sit alone in her tent.

When meals were ready, she would eat alone, and was just generally unfriendly and cold to anyone that tried to talk to her.

'Hopefully some time is all she needs. If this keeps up, she may not be fit to be a captain anymore.' Marek thought as he watched Tesia walk away.

Now that all of the freed prisoners had been looked over, and the ones that would be problems had been taken care of, it was time to get back to work.

First and foremost, Marek and the rebel captains came up with a good loyalty test.

The freed prisoners led by Argus, were going to attack and raid one of the kingdom's adamantine mines.

Adamantine was one of, if not the most important resource that Tralenstein had. Their kingdom, making a good deal of its money through sales to foreign merchants who brought the rare and powerful metal to other nations that did not have their own supply.

So, if the released prisoners were able to successfully ransack one of these mines, it would go a long way towards advancing the rebellion's goals and to prove their allegiance.

As for Marcus, he had absolutely nothing to do with this mission.

Now that the prison break was over, he was back to his usual job. Being a cargo plane.

The rebellion's supplies had started to dwindle during his absence, and now he was having to work overtime. Flying from the borders of the kingdom of Borealia to pick up supplies and taking them all over to the rebellion's bases.

It was grueling work, but he was the only one with the unlimited stamina, large item box, and necessary stealth capabilities to pull it off.

This went on for a couple of months and soon the beginning of winter was upon them.

Still at the very least, he had been given a pass this year from reporting to help in the kingdom of Borealia in compliance of the contract he signed, as he had already been working for them as a liaison for the Tralenstein rebellion.

Yet, on the day of the first snow fall, Marcus received a message from Lyra that something big was about to happen, and that he was expected to be in attendance for the meeting where for the first time all of the rebellion's higher ups would be gathering.

"Got it. I just need to deliver the inventory I have now to the base in Valenris, and pick up Roxene. So, I should be able to be there by tomorrow." Marcus said in response to Lyra's summons over his sending stone.

'Guess I need to speed up a bit.'

Going all out on flying, Marcus increased his speed drastically by burning through his spiritual energy at a tremendous rate.

Luckily, he was already close to the city of Valenris where one of the rebellion's most important bases was located.

Once he had arrived, he unloaded everything he had in his item box and the numerous magic bags on his person, before taking off to where Roxene currently was.

'Ah there she is.'

After flying for around six hours Marcus finally made it to wild area he had left Roxene in.

Floating down to her, Marcus reappeared right next to her, and was immediately greeted by a series of surprised yaps followed by angry growls.

However, before any of the surrounding wolves could make a move against him, Roxene let out commanding growl, and all of the wolves obeyed their alpha's command and backed down.

"Looks like you made yourself at home. When you said you wanted to take this time to get stronger and explore on your own, I never figured that you would assemble such a large pack." Marcus said as he looked out at the dozens of different wolves that were following his beast companion.

In fact, it was a bit surreal to see since Roxene looked quite tiny in compassion to most of the wolves in her pack, as she was still growing and was only around fifty percent bigger than when she had first popped out of her egg.

'Yes, I happened to get in a tangle with an alpha wolf over one of my earlier kills and won. After that I slowly built-up a following as more packs challenged me, until I became the queen of this forest. But I am glad you are here. As much fun as this has been, the charm is starting to wane, and I miss sleeping on a clean bed and eating your cooking. So, I am ready to leave whenever you are.'

'Are you sure you want to leave all of these guys on their own. What will happen once you are gone?'

Scratching her ear, a telltale sign she was not really interested, Roxene said, 'I really could not care less. They all began following me on their own, and I truthfully have little in common with them. None of them have intelligence, so it is akin to if you were surrounded by normal monkeys.'

Shrugging his shoulders, Marcus gave one last look at the pack of wolves that had assembled under Roxene's banner, before putting her into his companion storage and disappearing.