In the barracks, Garan briefed the guards about the situations outside as well as some new monsters that they had encountered.

One of the things he mentioned was the reappearance of an intelligent monster. They had only encountered it once when they were a village, and this second one—a monster at town-level—had been far more dangerous.

If Althea and Garan hadn’t dealt with it, it would’ve taken at least half a dozen other people at the monster’s level to deal with it. It might even be more if one counted the ’lackeys’. They could even set traps.

The only comfort was that they were extremely rare. As for whether they’d encounter more, time would tell, but if it happened, it would likely be a bloody encounter than not.

Basically, unless one was absolutely confident to deal with an intelligent monster, it was better to escape.

While Garan’s baritone voice echoed in the meeting room, another voice would sometimes combine with his.

"Wwaoooo! Waooo!" The milky voice exclaimed as he clapped his hand, looking at his father with admiration.

This was none other than Meatball, of course, sitting on a high chair right next to Garan in the meeting room.

Interestingly, because the couple wanted to maximize the few days they had in Alterra, the couple decided to do a ’bring your kids to work’ day.

The kids were still a bit listless due to their illness, but whenever they were with their parents, they were at least more like themselves, so no one minded the frequent interruptions.

For the whole day today, the couple would carry a baby each, switching midday.

The baby’s presence was also part of the guard’s training, in a sense, because if they showed signs of cackling, Garan’s sharp eyes would capture it, and they’d gain a few laps in their daily laps.

It was very hard. Whenever he finished a solemn sentence, the baby would say something as if in agreement.

"Another agenda is setting up a training and mining ground in the Undead zone," he said, and this made most flinch. Only the key people, like Loki, were aware of this plan, so everyone else was quite surprised.

They knew the leader went there, but they didn’t know the leader was setting up a base!

Loki stepped forward to explain the details. Garan was never a talker, so whenever something required an explanation, he’d assign someone else to carry the burden. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Loki explained the location, the threat-level, and the resources involved. The most important part was that those who had been stuck in the early level 20s for so many months finally had hope!

Garan nodded. "Assign batches to head out to missions to deal with the Undead and mine the new resource. Except for team leads, the rest should be those within levels 18-25."

"Daaa! Yahhh!" Meatball sounded at the side.

"We will set up a temporary base in Metteo Town while Dune Town prepares for upgrade—"

"Waoooya~"

"Arrange at least two spies to settle in Metteo—"

"Wahooo~" Meatball yelled again, trying to get his father’s attention.

No matter how hard the guards tried, even if they stopped breathing, they could not hold back their laughter in the end.

"Pffft—"

And when one couldn’t hold on, it was like a dam, and boisterous laughter and cackles resounded, breaking any semblance of solemnity in the room.

Garan sighed, patting the baby boy’s head and ruffling his brown hair.

While he might look tired at first, the small smile on his face was undeniable.

...

Later that night, the couple started distributing the aether crystals to their family and friends.

As they had decided on the night before, each core member—Harold, Sheila, Eugene—would have five cores each. The ministers—Oslo, Mathilda, Volohov, Gru, Rosalind, and others—would receive three each.

For them, they could choose to use it themselves or give it to others.

The original core forces of Alterra, the soldiers who went through thick and thin with Garan, and this included Gian, received three each as well.

However, they were required to use it only on themselves, and they would absorb each at the same time with a few days in between.

As for the other things, the couple just gave a few instructions. Basically, since the missions involved their children, unless there was something urgent happening in Alterra, they would not delay their trip any more than it already was.

The night of their departure, the couple once again went to bed with their children. They seemed to have sensed that they were going away again, and they stuck to them like little spiders.

Even Meatball, who had always disliked his father’s hard muscles, couldn’t let go of him now. It was very adorable.

For the trip the next day, the couple would take a mission to Bleulle. They chose Bleulle so they could directly take the teleportation array.

While the array would send out names of departures through the array and would even notify arrivals to the Lord, it wasn’t like there was someone specifically monitoring for their names.

Even if there were, they could change their names via the token mask. Further, no one could block departures through the arrays. As long as the person had already paid, even the Lord wouldn’t be able to stop someone from using the array, so they weren’t worried about getting blocked by him.

The Lords could only block departures, but this was assuming they monitored their teleportation arrays. Otherwise, people could just flow in accordingly.

Ultimately, Warrior City was the target location. It was actually still quite far away from the orc territories, but it was the best area to ask for help when dealing with that region.

There were no innate Lord in other races. The orc and half-orcs who had their own territories had taken over the tokens of the original human owners. So far, the known orc territories had a decent relationship with the people of Warrior City, and the couple particularly needed that connection.

Through Otto, they were introduced to some contacts there. They might know more about the details of the next mission, or at least more about the place, and it would definitely help them avoid too many detours.

They had given the people there some information through letters, but since they’d go through there anyway, they might as well get acquainted.

The two did not absorb crystals that night, as it was recommended to gap them at least a few weeks in between (though the couple didn’t seem to need this gap), which was just as well since they wanted to bond with their children more.

Just as she was about to fall asleep, she did not expect to hear a familiar ding in her head.

[Farm (Lv2) has met the requirements for upgrade. Would you like to upgrade to Farm (Lv3)? Cost 10 gold per farm unit]

She blinked, flinching, her eyebrows shooting up. She was fairly sure that the upgrade to level 3 required a Town to be level 3.

"Mama...?" Pepper, who was in her embrace, mumbled beside her. She must’ve been woken up when she flinched earlier.

Althea paused, embracing the babies a bit tighter, giving them soft kisses on their heads.

Night, night, my precious babies.

The farm can wait a day.