"Hey, Ann, getting ready to go out so early in the morning?"

"An, you really can't sit still. You just came back yesterday, and you're going out to hunt monsters again today!"

"An, how about joining my mercenary group? With your strength, I can make you the deputy leader of the mercenary group!"

Anno rode Sasir on the way out of the city gate, and some passing professionals greeted him.

An Nuo responded one by one, and rejected the invitation of a level 21 mercenary to join the team for the third time.

This is the eleventh day since Anno arrived at the northern border fortress city of Warrengel.

Warrengel is built on the mountain, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.

The surrounding terrain is mostly cliffs, deep mountains and dense forests, making large-scale marches impossible.

It would be very difficult for the Demon King's army to avoid Warrengel and enter the Kingdom of Nigar from the surroundings.

Therefore, once the war begins, the Demon King's army will definitely attack Warrengel.

However, Warrengel is not the only city resisting the Demon King's army on the front line.

There is a fortress city about 100 kilometers away in the east and west directions.

All of them are built at key locations to guard against the Demon King's army.

All three fortress cities are equipped with large teleportation arrays.

Once a war breaks out in one of the cities and an emergency occurs, the armies of the other two cities can provide timely support.

As the largest fortress city, Warrengel has an army of 50,000 people!

According to the calculation that a standard legion of the Kingdom of Nigar has 5,000 men, there are ten legions of troops stationed here.

In addition, because it is located on the border, it often encounters harassment from the Demon King's army.

Almost a third of Warren Gulch's 100,000 residents are professionals.

However, most of them are first-level professionals.

According to the information Annuo has gathered recently, Warrengel has more than five high-level professionals in charge all year round.

In case of emergency, high-level professionals far away in the royal city can also provide timely support through the ultra-long-distance teleportation array in a short time.

After conquering Sasir and leaving Hull City.

It took Anno only two days to reach Warrengel, hundreds of kilometers away.

Then he began to go out of the city to hunt monsters, preparing to break through to the fourth level.

The city lord here, General Alick, strongly encourages professionals and mercenaries in the city to go out of the city to hunt demons.

Any monsters that are hunted can be exchanged for bounties at the military exchange office by presenting the receipt.

An Nuo has gone out of town twice in the past ten days.

In total, more than sixty third-level demons were hunted down.

Nowadays, he is considered to be well-known among low-level professionals.

That's why so many professionals greeted Annuo on the way out of the city.

A group of professionals looked at the backs of Anno and Liz riding away on the giant wolf and sighed, "This guy is really reckless. Others go out of the city once a month, which is considered frequent. Every time they go out of the city, they may never come back. He has been out of the city for the third time in less than half a month."

"He's really capable. Didn't you see that he always brings back a lot of spoils? The number of monsters you hunt in a year may not be as many as he has killed in the past few days!"

"An should be preparing for a breakthrough to the fourth level."

"Everyone has guessed it, but we can't be anxious at this moment. Once we leave the city, it's the demon clan's territory, and we may run into them at any time.

If you encounter a mid-level monster, your life will be in danger.

If you ask me, the last hurdle is better to be gained through meditation.”

The people around all looked at the person who was speaking and asked jokingly, "Is this why you were stuck at level 20 for two years?"

"I fucking…"

…

After leaving the city gate, Liz, who was sitting in the back hugging An Nuo's waist tightly, put her face against An Nuo and asked boredly, "Master, which direction are we going this time?"

"Well, the first time I went to the west, the second time I went to the north!"

An Nuo replied: "We killed a large number of monsters in the first two times, and wiped out several weak tribes. Although there are some professionals going out of the city to hunt monsters every day, no one may notice what we do. But to be on the safe side, let's go to the east this time!"

"Hey, how many times are we going to go out of town?"

Sasier, who was carrying the two men, suddenly asked, "Haven't we heard before that the Demon King's army was going to attack the Kingdom of Nigar?

Warrengel has already started preparing for war. Isn’t it too dangerous for us to continue hunting demons in their territory?

First of all, I don’t want to die!”

Hearing Sasier's complaint, Liz said disdainfully: "You stupid wolf with no brains and a cowardice, war can't be started just by saying it.

Even if the Demon King's army was preparing to attack the Kingdom of Nigar, it would take at least several months to prepare.

Didn't you notice that the demons we encountered before were all low-level?

When intermediate-level monsters begin to appear frequently in the area around Warrengel, it will mean that a large force of the Demon King's army is coming.

That’s when the war will really come!”

"Tsk~, idiot succubus, do you believe I can throw you off?"

Despised by Liz, Sasier suddenly increased his speed while shaking left and right.

Anno and Liz, who were riding on it, lost their balance instantly.

"Sasir, that's enough!"

With a "well" character on his forehead, Annuo grabbed Sasier's hair with one hand to steady his body, and hit her on the head with the other hand.

The latter felt pain and immediately stopped his small movements.

"Master, look at her!" Liz took the opportunity to stick to An Nuo's back and said in a teasing tone, "This stupid wolf doesn't take you seriously at all. You should have listened to me in the first place!"

"Idiot succubus, try saying that again?"

When Sasier heard that Liz was trying to persuade Anno to kill her again, she immediately got furious.

Although they signed an equal contract, Annuo could not take action against Sasir due to the influence of the contract.

But this doesn't mean that Anno can't kill Sasir.

The easiest way is to let other professionals do it.

"You two, can you please be quiet!"

An Nuo stroked his forehead, feeling a little headache.

Ever since Sasier signed the equal contract with him, she and Liz have been quarreling every day.

The two seemed to be natural enemies, and they would quarrel over anything.

If it weren't for Annuo's coordination, there would be no way that Sasier would let Liz ride on her.

"After the first two battles, I am only a hair's breadth away from breaking through to level 4. This time, I only need to hunt down three or five more level 20 monsters to level up.

The operation this time was roughly the same as before. We would first search the area 20 kilometers around Warrengel to see if there were any monster strongholds or nests.

If not, explore outward a little bit more.

You can’t run more than 50 kilometers to avoid running into mid-level demons!"

"knew!"

Because Sasier was beaten for being naughty, he became much more obedient.

No conversation along the way.

…

The first day's search did not find any third-level monsters, and Annuo easily dealt with the few small fish and shrimps he encountered.

On the second day, we encountered a monster team led by a third-level monster, but the highest level was only level 17.

Anno is still just a little bit away from reaching level 21.

At noon on the third day, Annuo had run to a place 25 kilometers away from Warrengel.

While Anno was eating dry food, Sasir returned from a forest and told Anno that there was a pool of water in the forest and a group of orcs of the evil camp lived nearby.

An Nuo immediately went into the forest to check the situation.

"There is actually a lizardman tribe here. They are still building wooden houses. They must have just migrated here not long ago. The quality is pretty good. There are more than twenty third-level houses."

After turning on [Natural Camouflage] and observing the Lizardman camp for a while, Annuo found that there were no fourth-level Lizardmen, so he decided to take action at night!

When night fell, except for a few lizardmen on duty who dozed off by the fire, the higher-level lizardmen went into the well-built wooden houses to sleep, while the lower-level ones lay directly by the pond, snoring with straw covering their bodies.

No lizardman noticed that forty ghosts were approaching the camp silently.