LUSAN

She covered her mouth, chuckling, "It's okay; I suppose I get that quite a lot."

"You don't seem so surprised that you have unwelcome visitors." Lenin declared.

The atmosphere shifted as we all prepared for what would happen next.

"Let's just say I have been in this situation before." She nodded. A while back, the village of Quis arrived, accusing us of trespassing on their land.

Immediately, I let out a nervous chuckle, "Yeah... That was us." I scratched the back of my head as we all shamefully looked away, except Lenin.

Eleanor let out a soft smile that didn't reach her face. "I see. . . We had to pay reparations for something we didn't do, " she declared with a hint of sweet venom. "Not only that, we also had to produce twice the resources to keep up."

I gulped, knowing that we may have fucked up and potentially ruined our chances of even getting what we wanted here.

Before Lenin spoke, Elenoir intervened again: "Let me guess. You came here for something that we have?"

Lenin looks straight into her eyes, "Yes."

"Well, then, you already know the answer. . . No." She declared.

"But we didn't mean to," Tara spoke up.

"Yeah, we can trade you, Solum, so much of it!" Zac added.

She scoffed, waving her hand in dismissal, "You think I'm that superficial and willing to take Solum from your hands?"

Lenin did her best to calm her down, "That's not what we're trying to say."

"That's ex-"

BOOM

A loud noise suddenly appeared, and then a large horn began playing.

"What's that noise?"

Her eyes widened, "It's too soon; they're already here." She muttered lowly as a flame in her eyes appeared. "Just stay here; I'll deal with you guys later."

We watched as she rushed out of the greenhouse.

"We're seriously not going just to stay here, right?" Tara asked.

Lenin chuckled and shook his head. "That's the last thing we're going to do. Everyone, let's go."

We quickly rushed to catch up to Eleanor, only to see everyone cowering in fear. Eleanor was the only one who dared to stand proud and strong.

But I could tell that her body was betraying her, just as everyone else was scared.

In front of her were crowds of rough-looking soldiers, precisely the ones we had encountered last time. They all wore devilish smirks and carried what I assumed were their own crafted weapons.

One of them, tall and muscular, mounted off his horse, his hands on his hips, standing prouder than ever.

"What are you doing here?" Eleanor declared loudly; her voice carried across the plain fields. "You said by the end of the week."

The man chuckled his axe on his shoulder, "By the end of the week or today. What's the difference?" He stepped closer to her, practically towering over her.

All the other people could do was watch in fear.

"Now, dear, give me all your livestock."

"What, all of it? You said you only needed half of it."

"I changed my mind." He spat on the ground, "Give it now or else."

I could see Eleanor shaking in fear, but that didn't stop her from clenching her fingers on the sword's handle and glaring up at him.

He grinned, "Gladly."

WHOOSH

In the blink of an eye, before he could even slice Elenoir with his axe, Lenin had already made it all the way there.

His sword is currently preventing Eleanor from getting hurt.

We quickly rushed over to her side.

"Oh!" the man chuckled. You have some competent people on your side after all. He grinned devilishly, pressing his axe against Lenin's sword, but he didn't budge.

"Do you want to sign your death warrant?" The man stared straight into Lenin's eyes.

CLANG! 

The man instantly fell onto the ground, creating distance from us.

I looked at Lenin in awe, wondering how he had managed to do that.

"You bastard!" The man roared, "I want this village to burn! Now!"

The soldiers charged towards us, and we looked at each other, ready for what was to come.

CLANG! 

BLANG! 

CLANG! 

These soldiers were no joke at all,

One of them charged at me with incredible speed. His sword struck my face. I managed to dodge it, but just barely.

His strike caused his sword to be stuck in the ground as he desperately tried to lift it out of the soil.

Now was my chance.

I charged at him, impaling him with my sword.

I instantly pulled it out, ready for the next foe to come.

While I was dealing with my problems, Tara and Zac could also be dealing with their own.

Zac was waiting for a moment like this; he was bloodthirsty, aggressive, and permanently the most aggravated of us.

Meanwhile, Eleanor was handling her own, taking down a couple herself.

But the real fight was the one that Lenin was currently having with the big guy himself.

However, Lenin was playing around with him, testing his skills.

There was no struggle for him when it came to fighting.

It was like watching Lenin dance around him.

Soon enough, the enemy's numbers dwindled as we sliced through our opponents.

He raised his hand in surrender until that man was the only one left standing, knowing he could not survive.

"We should cut him up into pieces when we have the chance to." Zac declared, glaring over at him as he attempted to move closer to him.

I instinctively blocked him with my arm, shaking my head.

The last thing we needed was for Zac to be ballistic on him.

"As fun as that sounds," Lenin commented, looking over his shoulder, "I don't think that's what Eleanor wants, correct?"

She nodded, "Right."

Lenin returned the nod.

WHOOSH! 

Lenin instantly kicked the man's chest, causing him to drop to the ground; before he could even react, Lenin had already towered over him, his leg on his chest, preventing him from moving.

As his sword was right up the man's face.

Any wrong move now, Lenin could take his life, and it was clear that he wouldn't hesitate to do so at all.

Now the question was, what was Lenin going to do next?

"I'm going to set you free alongside the other men who managed to survive this little predicament." Lenin began pointing his sword closer to his face. "Then, once you return to your village, I want you to report back to your leader and tell him I want to meet with him."

He scoffed, but despite his doing that, his eyes betrayed him. "W-What makes you think I'm not the leader?"

Lenin chuckled, pressing his leg onto his chest, causing him to grunt. "Because if you were, I'd be fairly disappointed."

The man looked at him, and we needed to know that Lenin was telling the truth.

Lenin released his feet from his chest, letting the man stand up.

Lenin nodded at us as we let the enemies get up on their feet.

We watched as they hurried back to their horses, not before the man looked at us, and finally, they disappeared.

"Here." I smiled, extending my hand to Eleanor.

She returned it with a small "Thank you." She accepted and stood up.

We both looked at Lenin, who was watching them quickly disappear.

"How strong is he?" Eleanor muttered.

I shrugged, "Hell, I don't even know. . ."

Lenin made his way over to us with a casual smile.

"We have a couple of days before their leader comes here, " he said.

Eleanor raised an eyebrow in amusement, "How do you know that? Also, how did you even know he wasn't the leader?"

That was something that we were all currently curious about.

"Don't you guys learn military tactics 101? " He joked, but his laughter died out as we gave him a deadpan look.

"Tough crowd," he muttered, clearing his throat. "Well, it'd be too stupid for the actual leader to come here demanding the livestock." He paused for a moment. So he decided to have an enforcer come. To scare you."

"I see. . . It does make sense." Eleanor nodded in agreement.

"Of course, it makes sense." Lenin chuckled, "I would've sent in Zac."

"Hey!" Zac blurted out.

"I'm kidding." Lenin slapped him on the back.

"I guess I have to owe you one anyway, huh?"

Lenin waved his hand in dismissal, "You don't have to owe us anything. I would like to have some time to talk to you about that proposal if it's not too time-consuming for you."

She smiled, "Yeah. . . We can do that."

LENIN

I waited patiently as she looked at the list of requests I had made for her.

Once she was done, she looked up at me.

"This is. . . Interesting, to say the least." She smiled, handing the list back to me, "It's too good an offer not to take, but I can't help but think there's some underlying motive."

I chuckled, raising my hand in surrender, "I promise, there's no secret motive."

Was there?

There wasn't a motive; we needed workers to help Rickston with his architectural project.

She eyed me carefully. "Are you just willing to trade us that many bags of Solum as well? It seems like my village gets the better deal between us."

"Look," I smiled, "If you don't trust us, you can break the deal whenever you want to. You can retract your workers anytime, and we'll still uphold our part of the deal. We'll still give you bags of Solum."

Eleanor chuckled, "I don't know what to say; you're either optimistic or stupid."

I sheepishly smiled, "I like to think I'm idealistic in an unrealistic world."

"An idealistic person, hun?" She muttered.

"I suppose I want to sign a deal with an idealistic person then, on one condition." She raised a finger.

"Sure, that can be settled; what is it?"

"I want to see the work that my workers are doing."

I chuckled, nodding, "That can be arranged." I extended my hand towards her as she looked at me.

She smiled, shaking my hand.

"Now, since we are business partners, I think it's only fair I show you the secrets to why this village is known for its farming."

"You don't have to."

She chuckled, "Trust me, I want to. It's a thank you."

I nodded, "Alright then, lead the way."

———

Whatever she was taking me, I was not expecting her to take me to a place like this.

I didn't even notice that this had been here the whole time.

It's probably because I was too busy focusing on everything else that I didn't realise this was under me.

We went deeper and deeper underground, where more guards patrolled the area.

I was surprised that there were guards even in this village here; where were they when they were fighting those people?

But then she said, "When I was younger, my family used to tell me all these stories about how the Royals of Juvo had the most powerful abilities."

I chuckled, "Where are you going with this?"

She looked over her shoulder, smiling, "Let me just finish." Eleanor chuckled, "Funnily enough, they told me this story about this shrine. It could naturally produce Solum, not just any Solum, but Purpura Solum."

"Did you believe it?" I found this conversation amusing.

Eleanor scoffed, "Believe me when I say this. I didn't believe it at all when I was younger. It was folklore." She paused momentarily, "From what I've heard, the Kingdom of Juvo is far beyond our little villages. They are way advanced."

She wasn't wrong about that at all.

Felix's creations were made long ago when we were younger and having fun at the Kingdom of Juvo.

We were not denying that we were heading into a world of the unknown.

"But that's not the point." We stopped in our tracks as we stood behind a curtain, "Because everything I just told you. . ."

She opened the curtains. "This was completely true."

Any person who heard this information would have been shocked by this revelation.

This was earth-shattering news that would have changed everyone's mind.

But I wasn't just average; I knew something like this existed.

The Shrine of Solums.

These were rare things. Obviously, there was a shrine in the Kingdom of Juvo, but it did surprise me that there had been a shrine here out of all places.

The question was, where are the other two?