“Are we really okay to be like this, sir?”
“We received an order to closely monitor him, sir.”
“If something were to happen while we’re like this……”
Beings deeply wearing thick robes murmured in worried voices.
Their gazes headed towards above an arm-wide tree.
A young man of beautiful appearance, who unlike others was taking off the robe alone, cheerfully smiled and shook his head.
“There’s no need to worry. Since that guy, he’s nothing much compared to what they think.”
A voice full of certainty.
The young man’s skin was whiter than flour and his ears were much pointier than ordinary people.
The young man who was sitting on the wide tree and the ones below who were deeply wearing robes were not humans but all elves.
“‘He’s an incredibly dangerous and smart man so monitor him thoroughly’? Huhuhu. Even so, it’s at a level of humans.”
Somewhat arrogant voice and expression.
He looked towards the south and formed a bright smile.
Far away, the Mediasis Castle was faintly visible.
“Even if something were to happen, we can run there in no time and resolve it. Don’t worry so much and all of you rest well. Since you should be tired because of the monitoring that continued for months.”
“But……”
The elves wearing robes were still of worried voices.
The young elf faintly frowned.
“You can’t trust my words? From your eyes, does that man called Clay look that dangerous?”
Snappily asking sound.
The elves wearing robes quickly shook their heads.
“O, of course not sir!”
It was the truth.
Clay.
Although they were monitoring him because of an order, he didn’t seem to be an individual who particularly seemed dangerous or needed to be guarded against.
He certainly did show excellent appearance in fief administration or ration supplying, but only at that much degree.
However they thought, he wasn’t an individual who could be a danger to the actions of the Queen of the Elves, Piscis.
Furthermore, the power of druids that was the most foundational amongst the powers Clay had were on the contrary and basically originated from elves.
Perhaps not between humans, but when elves looked at him, Clay was only and merely a human slightly smarter than average humans.
“All of you rest plentily and preserve your stamina instead. Since it seems the queen has showed herself. A large war will soon begin. We will use our strength at that time.”
At the young elf’s words, the elves wearing robes hesitated for a moment, then slightly lowered their heads.
Although their hearts felt uncomfortable as it felt like they were going against Piscis’s order, but at the same time, a complacent thought that what could possibly happen also was held.
They turned their heads and glanced at the south where the Mediasis Castle was, then soon scattered into places deep inside forests.
A plan to receive the forests’ spirit and deeply rest for a while.
Thanks to that, the tight net of guard and surveillance became lax.
Luck, which was just as important as skill and talent, had moved towards Clay.
‘Huu. Just how did it come to this?’
Clay stood at an office windowsill and exhaled a long sigh.
‘I merely wanted to serve a good person and change the world at first, but……’
A good person.
Of course, a merely good person was troublesome.
The person had to have even the strength and ability that could change the world.
At the same time, the person had to recognize his ability and give fair treatment.
‘I thought that if it was the Lord, he was someone worth serving.’
In fact, Roan held the strength and ability to change the world and was a good person who even had the heart to widely care for and cherish many people.
But only one thing.
‘Even though I have raised so many achievements until now, just because of a single reason that I had spied and eavesdropped……’
Roan took away Clay’s every status and power, then dropped him to the very bottom.
In that process, Clay for the first time felt defeat and powerlessness.
He was embarra.s.sed, and so raged.
A crack formed on his pride.
Originally, Clay was of a personality that only felt satisfied when treated as much as his ability.
He slowly prepared a revenge.
The n.o.ble intent to unfold his abilities for the world and his master’s teachings were long forgotten.
The leisure in his heart that he would go into the mountains and spend the rest of his life reading books if there was no one good enough for him to serve too had disappeared.
Blinded by his abilities and talent, Clay became unable to see the ideal that he had originally dreamed of.
‘If there is no one particularly worth serving, I can personally change the world.’
If it were his talent and abilities, it should be plentily possible.
No, it was possible.
‘The preparation to fly up too is already finished.’
Now was the time to slowly flap his wings.
Clay turned around and looked at the man lined up on one side of the office.
“Duke Webster has died.”
Truthfully, he was bewildered when he first heard the news.
‘Since he was my reliable back up.’
But even so, his plan was not caught on a brake.
Clay instead planned to take the unexpected situation as a chance to rise to a place a level higher.
“We will take over the Duke Webster House.”
As a matter of fact, a situation where the druids he commanded like limbs had already taken places in the Webster Duchy.
Seizing the Duke House and the Duchy that had fallen into chaos wasn’t a very difficult work.
“Take this.”
Clay extended a thick bundle of paper.
One amongst the immensely ordinary-looking men stepped forwards and received that bundle.
“What is this, sir?”
“It’s the Count Lancephil House and the fief’s fortunes that I had furtively liquidated.”
If possible, he wanted to liquidate the mana stone mine or the numerous companies, but Roan had completely controlled those sides.
If thoughtlessly touched, a trouble might instead be raised.
“They’re things whose cleanup is already finished, so carefully move them to the Webster Duchy.”
At those words, the men reading the bundle of paper asked in worried voices.
“Even this much is an incredible amount. Is it possible to secretly move this much amount, sir?”
“Even if we say that we could somehow slip through the castle gate, we won’t be able to pa.s.s through the fief gateway, sir.”
“Since the Lancephil County’s gateway sentries are famous to be meticulous, sir.”
At the worries that poured down, Clay formed a faint smile.
“I have already moved my hand on that side.”
It was a voice composed but full of certainty.
‘However much the lord is virtuous and brilliant……’
Nothing said that the subordinates below him were all clean.
Wasn’t his inside already black?
The Count Lancephil House was currently one of the strongest powers in the Rinse Kingdom.
Although talented individuals were racing and flocked up thanks to that, petty individuals who were blinded with power, wealth, and honor were also swarming just as much.
Clay had conciliated and persuaded those with talent amongst them and made them into his side.
That was an extremely simple and easy task.
‘Since I can simply promise 200 to those who want 100.’
Something Roan could never do.
Roan’s fairness had instead worked as a poison.
Compared to him, Clay gave all one wanted, even if somewhat excessive, as long as one had abilities.
Thanks to that, he was able to subtly form his own faction inside the Lancephil County.
“Then we will now go, sir.”
The men, at Clay’s words, greatly relaxed and soon exited out of the office.
Clay, who was left alone, checked the numerous plans inside his head.
At that moment.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Together with a sound of knocking on the door, a familiar voice was heard.
“Administer Clay. It’s me, Pichio.”
Clay’s forehead faintly creased.
‘Why does the Captain of the Mediasis Guards Pichio want me?’
A sudden visit.
‘Did he perhaps feel something?’
His powerful sixth sense was something Clay too was vigilant against.
Clay thought for a moment, then let out a cough.
“Please come in.”
Already, a faint smile hanged on his faint.
Ggiig.
Soon the door opened and Pichio appeared.
His expression was somehow urgent and the color of his face was white.
Pichio slightly lowered his head, then spoke in a sharply trembling voice.
“Administer Clay. Please save me.”
*****
“Princess. It seems we have to change our destination.”
Princess Katy’s guardian knight Abel Raimos lowered his head with an apologetic expression.
Katy, on whom a tired look was clear from the arduous journey, asked with a puzzled look in her eyes.
“What do you mean, we have to change our destination?”
“That is……”
Abel hesitated for a moment, then answered in a quiet voice.
“It seems his majesty the king is not in the capital, Miller, but in the Longfort Castle located on the edge of the Grain Mountains in the west.”
It was the news that his subordinate knight had heard just now while going to a nearby town to purchase commodities.
Thankfully or tragically, they still hadn’t heard the news that Roan had attacked and conquered the capital, Miller.
“Hmm.”
Katy, together with a quiet groan, turned her head and looked at Pierce.
Naturally, the Abel’s gaze as well as those of numerous knights too headed towards Pierce.
Pierce, looking at the uncomfortable gazes that suddenly poured down towards him, made an awkward smile.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“That is……”
Abel couldn’t easily continue his words.
Pierce’s destination was still the capital, Miller.
On the other hand, Katy’s goal had now changed to the Longfort Castle.
Meaning that they couldn’t continue together their journey any longer.
But.
‘Now is a situation where we can’t tell who is enemy and who is ally.’
Because of the limited information, Abel couldn’t properly grasp the current situation.
Although Simon was the main instigator of everything, he still thought that it was the numerous n.o.bles rising in revolt.
‘The situation isn’t good. We need Pierce.’
Pierce’s might was a level equal to a knight order or above.
At least for Katy’s safety, he was absolutely needed.
But even so, they couldn’t forcibly demand him to accompany them.
‘It’s not even close with skill or pure force, and he isn’t a person who would yield to authority and power.’
The inside of his mouth tightly dried.
Unable to do this or that, he merely rolled his eyes this way and that.
At that moment.
“Could you please take me to the Longfort Castle?”
Katy looked straight into Pierce’s eyes.
They weren’t expression and voice of obstinately demanding.
Instead, a plaintive and desperate look that couldn’t be seen before.
Pierce cheerfully smiled and shook his head.
“No. I don’t think that can be. I have to go to the capital, Miller.”
A knife-like refusal.
“Hmm.”
Numerous knights including Abel leaked groans with uncomfortable looks.
They hadn’t known that he would refuse so coldly.
Katy wordlessly stared at Pierce, then slowly nodded her head.
“I understand. I can’t force you. Then let’s separate about here.”
“Yes. Then I will now be going……”
Pierce quickly lowered his head, then gathered his things and moved his steps.
A look without a hint of hesitation.
Katy, Abel, and the knights, for a while, stared at Pierce’s back.
A heavy silence hanged.
“Princess. It would be good if we soon start as well.”
Abel spoke up first.
Katy, still chasing Pierce’s back with her eyes, wordlessly nodded her head.
Soon, Katy and the knights, with Abel at the lead, moved their steps towards the west.
The goal was the Longfort Castle.
It was the land of the dead where a dark shadow hanged.
*****
“Now it’ll soon be Infec region, sir.”
The commander who led the scouting party pointed towards the west.
Infec was a place located in Rinse Kingdom’s West and the majority of the region was made up of mountains.
Currently, the Longfort Castle where Simon was gathering his force was located in the west even inside the Infec Region.
Roan, who was leading the Lancephil Fief Regiment, moved while riding a warhorse and looked at the Infec Region.
When he flowed mana into the Kalian’s Tears, a place far away was seen largely clearly as if it was in front of his nose.
‘Hmm.’
Roan’s face slightly twisted.
‘Has it already begun……’
The sight of the Infec Region that spread before his eyes.
That sight was in one word desolation itself.
The season was now pa.s.sing through Midsummer.
Greens overgrowing and life overflowing was normal.
But the trees of the Infec Region were all twisted dry and the earth was plainly revealing its dark-brown flesh.
Even more, big and small rivers were of almost dried out appearances.
‘It should be because of the Legion of Dark.’
It was the same even in the last life.
When Simon awakened as the Mad Monarch and began to rampage, he created the Legion of Dark.
Every place the Legion of Dark marched and conquered, it spread aura of death.
‘In the last life, we didn’t know the exact reason.’
At first, they thought that it was a type of black magic or an undead legion that used evil mana.
But the Legion of Dark actually showed absolutely no reaction to holy knights and priests’ holy power.
People’s prediction had comically missed.
Ultimately, the ident.i.ty of the Legion of Dark fell into the unknown.
But it was different in this life.
Roan precisely grasped their ident.i.ty.
It was thanks to the hexers’ memories.
‘It’s similar to undead, but to be exact, it could be called a doll legion made with hex.’
The hexers, who had awakened Simon as the Mad Monarch, placed on living humans as well as corpses a powerful hex and made a puppet legion that they could control as much as they wished.
‘Things called hex dolls……’
The biggest difference between hex dolls and undead was that while undead destroyed the land of a region with the aura of death it exuded itself, the hex dolls sucked up the life around them and desertified the region.
The hex dolls used the life around them as energy.
‘Thankfully, they cannot revive once killed until the hex is placed again unlike the undead.’
In short, it meant that they weren’t difficult enemies as long as they do not panic and become afraid.
But.
‘The corpses used as hex dolls are……’
It was a problem that they were families and friends of soldiers who they had to personally clash swords and fight with.
In the last life, numerous soldiers held hearts at the tips of their swords and lost their lives from the hex dolls’ attacks while hesitating.
The hexers then revived the dead soldiers’ corpses again as hex dolls and the Legion of Dark rapidly expanded its power the more it repeated battle.
‘Here, even monster legion joins in.’
And not just ordinary monsters, but the much more powerful and atrocious monsters of the Grain Mountains.
‘It will be an arduous fight in many ways.’
A battle they hadn’t experience until now would unfold.
Roan deeply breathed in.
In no time, the head of the legion neared the edge of the Infec Region.
Neeeign!
The cavalry that was leading the legion’s head faltered and stopped.
The warhorses cried out long and hesitated going forwards.
They had detected the thick aura of death that radiated from the land.
‘It’s same in this life. It became a difficult battle because of this.’
Roan brushed the warhorse’s neck with his palm and spurred the horse.
Clop. Clop.
The warhorses shook their necks left and right and moved their steps.
Finally, the Lancephil Fief Regiment entered the Infec Region.
“Uat! What is this, this goose b.u.mping feeling……”
“Doesn’t it smell like there’s a rotting smell?”
“Besides that, look at the scene around us. This here’s a completely different world.”
The soldiers murmured and sharply shook their bodies.
A completely different world had unfolded when they stepped over a single line.
Roan raised his fist and halted the march.
Suddenly.
Kkggeuaaaaaa!
With a bizarre sound, the dark-brown earth trembled.
Simultaneously.
Ppssck!
Weapons where dark-red blood clots were disorderly stained thrusted up above the earth.
They were truly an uncanny sight.
< Amaranth (14) > End.
Translator : CSV
Proofreader: Fujimaru