Seeking to establish contact with Erune's Southern Army yielded no results; the mercenaries sent towards the Glarahal Mountains either never returned or brought back useless information.
Brand knew that those sent mercenaries weren't necessarily reliable.
Not every mercenary in this collective was fully devoted: Fern, Crenxia, and Yuta each had their own plans, while most held a mindset of merely getting by.
Some who were sent directly escaped, a situation Brand was aware of but had no intention of enforcing compliance—it was pointless.
Only those who truly stayed to endure hardships with him were dependable.
Of course, Brand wasn't going to sit idly by while the shadow of war from the direction of Pallas loomed ever darker over Tonyger day by day. He arranged for trusted individuals to continue searching through the mountains via Shafelund for traces of Erune's Southern Army.
Meanwhile, the construction of the territory proceeded systematically—
