'This guy...He kept the Ingenuity infusion techniques from me? I know he definitely did it on purpose, that lesson was completely Ingenuity focused!' William lampooned internally.
He put his annoyances aside, though, and dug through the various items lodged inside the loot crate. He was indubitably stressed right now, so he didn't bother with intricate designations and just tossed the various items to the people he thought would best fit them. He didn't keep any of them, except for a purple ingenuity-infused pendant.
He gave every member of his squadron a purple-infused pendant and defensive coat(Aside from Fei Kangzhen and Li Jiaojie). So he could keep track of them. During this, he chose not to use Author's Note on them.
Then, after all supplies were distributed, he had something to say to all of them.
He scratched his face awkwardly, struggling to come up with the right words. Eventually, he began to speak, slowly and carefully.
"Alright, people, I'm gonna make this quick. We're going out there to save our comrades. If you'd like to stay behind, say it now. And once we're out there, I give you full permission to run away and abandon me if the situation is dire enough." William took a deep breath before seeing the group's reactions.
To his surprise, everyone had the same spark of conviction in their eyes, the determination to save what was taken from them, even though most of them had only just met each other.
William sighed internally.
'A person is smart, but people are dumb. But in this case, I'm the stupidest of all...'
He formed a fist with his right hand and placed it over where his heart resided, speaking a few words before turning around and departing.
"Devote your heart."
His coat fluttered in the wind as he dashed forward; his people followed along.
'Okay, now to catch up with Sang Pianyi's group...I need to make sure they're alright.' William stressed to himself. Due to the pendant's effects, he could sense them, far ahead of William's group.
They had to move on foot; however, a group as large as theirs would undoubtedly draw attention. This was a problem, or it would have been.
"Boss, Feng Xiu has a core ability to help with stealth. Should I ask him to assist?" Li Jiaojie asked William, it seemed he had spent quite some time amongst the people at the watchtower, more than William anyway.
William nodded. A short while later, a rather scrawny-looking young man came to the front. He bowed respectfully whilst walking. "It's an honor to speak with you face to face, boss. We usually never see you on the lower floors of the watchtower." He grinned happily while talking. "A-anyway, I am the Reader of Illusions. I can likely conjure us an invisibility illusion to let us disappear in the sight of onlookers, would that be useful, sir?" Stuttering slightly due to nervousness, he explained his power.
"That'll work wonders, I appreciate it, Feng Xiu." William smiled at the man warmly, causing him to recoil slightly from joy.
A strange translucent bubble would appear around the cohort, looking ordinary from the inside, but hiding their presence from everyone outside of it.
"Incredible..." Fei Kangzhen praised the man, causing him to smile joyfully. It seemed he truly enjoyed helping others.
'Such a pure soul...'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
While they marched, despite the gloomy, quiet atmosphere, William's mind was quite loud. He had realized a few things, mainly one.
'That these few days, i've been planning and planning, all for nothing. I haven't once taken charge and actually fought for the things I cared about since I fought with the King, all I've done is wait. And even that fight, the preparations I made only barely allowed me to beat of version of him that was holding back his true strength.' He thought self-deprecatingly
Perhaps he was. Nevertheless, William felt more and more uncomfortable as time went on. Especially after seeing how much his people looked up to him. It was rather amusing, he barely knew any of them and yet they all knew of him and respected him.
William ignored the Narrator's yapping and continued his march, they had been travelling for around half an hour, however, the distance between safe zones was grand, and would usually take around of day of walking to reach, this was rather problematic, but they had consolation knowing that at most they would only be an hour or two behind the Lord of Shadows forces in arrival, in fact, if they ran they would likely outspeed them given that they had to transport several carriages full of people, who would probably attempt to fight back. So all in all their chances weren't half bad.
Along the way, there were several bathroom breaks to which they had to stop by some local malls, which had running electricity and bathrooms thankfully, they had spent the majority of their time just chatting and marching towards their destination. The Ludus Company was kind enough to send William the exact coordinates, even though William could have just looked it up on the internet, which he plugged into his phone's GPS.
Although the reason they were marching was rather dark, the journey along the way proved to be rather bright. They ended up getting to know one another alot better, and talked about anything that came to mind, such as their first story, and what adventures they went on. For someone like William, it was like having a group of friends he could count on.
Except, he couldn't count on these people.
*Plonk*
William was suddenly swatted by a fuzzy paw, it was an angry-looking Xiao Wei.
'Oh right...I forgot about you buddy...' William laughed nervously, to a clearly unamused Xiao Wei.
To help console her, William plopped her on his head to serve as a nice place to rest.
The group was overjoyed to see Xiao Wei appear. It seemed she had built up quite the reputation as the resident "pet" of the watchtower, always wandering the place when William left her alone, which caused many rumours of a stray cat to be spread around. Which were dispelled by Li Jiaojie and Fei Kangzhen, who knew of Xiao Wei's origins through them and William's yap sessions.'
They all huddled around her with stars in their eyes, as if in the presence of a divine being.