My Servant System

"So what do we know?"

Lounging on the stone bed that Anput had created, I breathed a sigh of relief as the sun outside never reached me, our decision to 'camp' nearby the battlefield resulting in us getting comfortable as we prepared ourselves for another hectic night.

Rest was very needed after last night, and as the sun climbed its way back towards its zenith we had a lot of time to figure out what was going on here and what we needed to do, so we took that time to take care of ourselves by resting, bathing and eating.

The benefits of a Water Mage were unmatched in areas like this, since a simple spell could create a shower that could - at the very least - remove some of the grime as you took that moment to unwind; yes I could just wash them manually and instantly with a spell, but the act of bathing helped make these moments all the more impactful in terms of mentally healing each of us.

"We know that they apparently can only exist on those parts of the desert that had become covered in their blood, and that they might potentially be stuck in a reanimation loop of some kind where every day they succumb to their wounds before be resurrected every night to fight yet again.
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How this might be a single part of the solution, I have no idea, but I do think the best place to start is figuring out how much land they can acquire with a single body and whether or not that body comes back at the beginning of the night."

Mom's suggestion from the cloistered off shower room made Leone and I exchange a glance as we contemplated what she said, with the Vampire nodding her head and saying "That is definitely the place to start. Maybe we need to 'kill' both of these armies? Or decrease the spread of their influence in this desert?"

"That makes the most sense to me. The first point, anyways. If these soldiers literally explode upon leaving the blood soaked battlefield then that seems like the best place to start, and the trial was talking about the armies in the desert and us surviving them. That seems like a way to survive to me."

"Well, if that's what we want to try, we should also go ahead and start planning out how we want to do this. I think we should take this slowly; the idea of killing hundreds and thousands of people is entertaining, yes, but if we get swarmed again we'll be in one hell of a position."

"Oh, you don't want to have the same fun we had last night Anput~? You seemed to enjoy it quite a bit though..."

Teasing my mate was always fun, especially since she always responded in ways that just made it hard to not tease her some more; playing into it was something she loved to do just as much as I did, and even out here it was the same.

"I did, but wanting to be surrounded by a bunch of deranged, sweaty men and women wanting to kill me isn't really that fun multiple nights in a row, y'know? Besides, I can think of a few different things I wanna do that doesn't include fighting for my life..."

She used her gaze to communicate just what she wanted to do tonight, but sadly we were yet again reminded that there was someone here who I couldn't give release too nor could I rile up lest we find ourselves in a dangerous position.

"Hey, cool it. Focus on the trial for right now, then go make yourself another room to talk like this... Tell me why we shouldn't attempt a deeper run into the battlefield, and what we should do instead."

Mom briefly acknowledged the tensions Anput and I were brewing between ourselves before redirecting us to something else, which Leone was very thankful of as she gave us both stern yet embarrassed looks.

"I think the best course of action for tonight is to construct a defensible position somewhere near the edge of the battlefield and observe from afar. See if they are content to kill one another endlessly or if they are going to be drawn to the outsiders yet again."

"If we utilize our magics in the open they'll be drawn to us. Did you notice that, by the way? The 'redcoats' were only using pure, single element magic while the orange and sand robed soldiers used dual elemental magic. That was why they seemed so angry at one another; likely some kind of ideological difference that drew them to such extremes, and now they are locked in this infinite loop of death and killing."

"So ending the cycle is our goal, but the question is how they want us to do that. Kill just one side, kill both sides, attempt to provide peace..? What?"

Glancing at the shower area, I felt a slight twinge deep in my soul as my Nymphomania skill flared up, the memories of her bare, naked body that I had seen so long ago flashing through my mind briefly... but I wasn't so far gone that I needed to be restrained or anything like that, so I looked back at Leone and focused on her beauty instead.

I still answered Mom since her question was valid, and my thoughts were "We should probably just assume that they want either one or both sides dead in order to clear the trial. There is nothing else we can find within a desert like this; no monsters, no ruins, nothing at all was discovered during our walk."

"So the logical conclusion is that this is a prison of sorts for these two armies, and they are the focus anyways thanks to the trial description. I think that means the way we complete the trial lies with their eradication, and since we are two 'purists' and two 'combiners' there is no way we could potentially save only one side... Not with how strong they are, anyways."

Not going all out on them was really not an option since they were brimming with power and were operating under a mindset that understood that death wasn't really something that mattered anymore, so... we needed to wipe these armies out of existence in order to win.