"Hilichurls!"
"Run! It's a Hilichurl King!"
"Where's the Tiller?!"
"Tillers are holding it back!"
"Get to the camp!"
Faint campfires flickered through Tsurumi's fog, a beacon for the Khaenri'ahn scout team. Their camp, bristling with Tillers and two Heavy Units, could fend off a Hilichurl King. After setting up base, they'd sent an elite squad with two Tillers to probe the mist. Tsurumi's warped ley lines bred monsters and fiends aplenty—even Hilichurl Kings weren't rare. Barely into their expedition, they'd stumbled into a hilichurl tribe and were routed, chased by a frenzied Thunderhelm Lawachurl. Without the Tillers, they'd be dead.
"Damn it!" The ornate-armored knight blew his warning whistle, but the fog muffled it. Sprinting toward camp, he heard answering whistles and relaxed slightly. He burst into the base.
"What happened?" the lead knight demanded.
"Large hilichurl camp—multiple Kings," a scout panted. "Tillers are covering our retreat. Others are still in the fog. It swallows light and sound."
More knights staggered out of the mist, followed by thudding steps. Tillers assumed missile-firing stances, launching a dozen into the fog. Explosions scattered the haze, revealing a battered but combat-ready Thunderhelm Lawachurl. The blasts drew more—three more Kings emerged, roaring, behind the wounded one.
"How's there a super-sized tribe here?" the lead knight cursed, unshaken. Their Tiller-heavy camp could hold. But then, two more Kings appeared, dragging Tiller wrecks, followed by waves of hilichurl archers, shamans, and berserkers.
"Retreat! Tillers cover! Rearguard, activate Heavy Units! Scholars, prep potions! Knights, engage!"
Chaos erupted. Tillers clashed with Kings, quickly outmatched until the Heavy Units tipped the scales. Scholars lobbed Hydro-Cryo potions, freezing Kings with Cryo reactions. Knights battled berserkers up close. Time blurred in the fog. The hilichurls retreated, leaving three King corpses and countless others. The camp held, but at a cost: eight knights dead, most others wounded, three scholars killed, one critically injured, one lightly. A thirty-man team, gutted by a third in three days. Three Tillers were totaled, three repaired with scavenged parts, and one Heavy Unit's energy core was damaged by an arrow, barely patched by a scholar.
"Now I get why this place is forbidden," the lead knight spat. "Only monsters survive here. Where's my deputy?"
"Dead, sir," a knight reported.
"You're deputy now. Tally losses, distribute medicine."
"Sir, meds are low—too much used, and healing will drain more," the new deputy warned.
"Minimal treatment then," the knight sighed. "I expected ancient beasts, not a hilichurl camp wrecking us."
"Any finds, expert?" he asked the scholar.
"Some," the bespectacled scholar said. "Water and sea are normal—we can fish and catch crabs to avoid starving."
"That's it?" the knight groaned.
"No ruins or prior team traces yet," the scholar admitted. "We haven't explored."
"Rest and recover," the knight muttered, shaking his head.
Time raced; Inazuma endured eternally. Over three years passed. Today, the Rock-Shadow-Thunderlight Brigade—Reisen Riou's black-ops squad—faced their final assessment for graduation. Passing meant Ei would personally secure their Doushin status; failing, they'd wait for Reisen Riou's slower process. The four—Bankaku Nisei, Gensei Jirou, Kagei Banma, Arakawa Jirou—took it seriously.
"Why Rock-Shadow-Thunderlight?" Raiden Makoto asked, eyeing Reisen Riou. "No Geo or Electro among them."
"Perfect for deception," he grinned. "Who'd suspect a team with that name has neither?"