(Vladmir"s POV)As the evening falls, we return to the main base. I have already built the Ghost Academies, as well ordered from distance for the ghosts to be trained. I also gave some new orders through communications, and that is to hide the existence of the ghosts from our new people. After all, the ghosts will be a state secret.
And now, in my personal command center, I greet the first ever battalion of 500 ghosts of my army. The ratio of man and woman is a bit off balance, with 60% of them being woman. All of them are dressed in ghost clothes, the man looking manly and the woman s.e.xy.
One of them takes a step forward, the one that I told to elect as leader. A beautiful, perfectly balanced body hugged tightly by the ghost suit, snow white skin with long, black hair tied in a ponytail with freckles falling in front of her forehead ad beautiful green eyes of the color of emeralds, a full head taller than me. Since I"m still a child.
She falls to one knee, putting her rifle in front of her, bowing her head to me. The others follow suit, properly divided in five lines of one hundred ghosts, all kneeling in front of me. Thanks to my new senses, strained from previous battles for the new outposts, now could feel the psychic energy emanating from them, turning the air heavy with psionic waves.
All of their minds, strong, yet submissive and completely focused in my protection and adoration. I smile as the leader ghost introduces herself.
(Magna): "Commander, I am Magna Star, elected leader of the ghosts. With your permission, we will serve you until our deaths and beyond."
(Vlad): "Stand." I order to her. She gets up, with a light smile in her face. "Welcome to the Glorious Armada, Magna Star. I have a lot of plans for you and your battalion, so please, start to select your troops, lieutenant colonel."
I say, promoting her to the rank necessary to lead her troops. The puts her rifle over her shoulder, her surprisingly big b.r.e.a.s.t.s moving slightly as she shifts the weight in her feat from to the other.
(Magna): "As you wish, Commander."
(meanwhile, Hara Kingdom, King"s private office, 3° person POV)
A man leans back against the chair, sighing as he ma.s.sages his own shoulders from the stress of paperwork. The crown lies on the table before him, made of pure gold and decorated with jewels, showing clearly that this beautiful crown belongs to a rich and powerful king.
And in the chair, a bit less dignified due not wearing his kingly clothes, is said king. Golden, short hair that would shine with the actual glint of gold in the sun. Muscular body with a healthy tan, clothes that are clearly expensive and a handsome, yet serious face with strange golden eyes.
This man is King Richard Hara, one of, if not the most powerful king of the world. And at the moment, he is stuck doing paperwork. Recently, one of his border towns were burned, and he is now dealing with the paperwork resulting of its destruction. As he goes back to work with his feather pen, someone knocks at the door.
(Richard): "Come in."
He says, without even looking up from his papers. The door opens, a thin man walking through the door. He is dressed in expensive and quality clothes as well, in a western style like his king in front of him. As said before, the man is fairly thin, as well tall with a black mustache and black hair, swept back in his head.
Pale skin and brown eyes, with an average face, not too handsome but not ugly either. Except for the clear bags under his eyes and the glint of a genius in his eyes, this man is unremarkable is most ways. Despite that, this man still has a high ranking in the n.o.ble court as the counselor and secretary of King Hara, Faust. He stops near the table, falling to one knee with his head lowered.
(Faust): "Your Majesty, we"ve found traces of the ma.s.s slave escape from some time ago."
Richard stopped writing, looking up from his paper.
(Richard): "So? What can you tell me?"
(Faust): "As Your Majesty knows, they devasted the slave city that kept them in and managed to run away from our armies. However, we found trails of them due the recent destruction of our border city and found traces of beastman in the Southern Forest." He says, looking up to his king. "We are close to tracking them, but they went too deep into the Southern Forest. I don"t know if they are inside our borders anymore."
Richard scratched his chin, pondering. His own grandfather had leaded the campaign to suppress the nearby tribes of beastman, expanding the kingdom and causing a ma.s.sive slave influx. That caused a ma.s.sive economic boom to Hara Kingdom, and losing a lot of their descendants, as well freshly captured slaves, was a good blow to the border economy of the kingdom in that area.
Tracking and capturing them would be the best course of action… if they were inside the borders of the kingdom, that is. You see, two generations ago, around one hundred years, slavery was something that was accepted, but was a dying custom even then, and Hara Kingdom"s crusade for slaves was ill-seen by other kingdoms.
However, by then, Hara was the strongest kingdom around, and no one would oppose them openly or do anything about it besides frowning in their expensive cushions. However, Hara wasn"t the only one to raise to power in this last century. While the economic boom was enough to solidify their power, other countries took on their own raising and are now around the same level of power.
And they do frown on slavery but cannot do anything about it inside the borders of the Hara Kingdom. However, if they see the army moving outside of it"s borders to attack a beastman city with the intent of seeking slaves, they would certainly call that a just cause to interfere and cause animosity between them.
Not only that, the kingdoms of Zetia, Ferlun and Oratoria, the three great powers that surround Hara from the east, west and south respectively, are on a mutual help alliance, as well a protection treaty that demands that if one of them enters battle, the other two must a.s.sist.
The leader, Oratoria, is a deeply religious country, and the one that leads the fight against slavery as it preaches for freedom. The other two, Zetia and Ferlun, were converted to their religion and joined them to a great commercial and military raise in a short amount of time.
And between Hara and Oratoria, lies a natural barrier known officially as Southern Forest… and among the people as Death Forest. Although it isn"t true for the whole forest, some of it"s areas are filled with deadly fauna and flora, filled to the brim with dangerous monsters.
Although it is the dream of conquest for anyone wanting power due the enormous reserves of natural mana crystals and high density of mana, a gold mine for anyone with magic, the same thing sp.a.w.ns creatures and distorts nature in monstrous forms and giving birth to several horrors.
Because of that, as well the uneven and confusing geography of the place, it"s nigh impossible to create a big city besides a few safe areas that are at risk at any given time. and if the beastman ran to there, the no man"s land… he won"t be able to make any more anytime soon to take them back and destroy their spirit.
(Richard): "For now, send our soldiers to the ruins of the city that was destroyed. Under the pretense of reconstruction, send scouts to the forest. If other countries start to meddle, we"ll do the Annual Training for our magic academy. We can cover with that. Be sure that our Shadows go as well."
He said, decisive. Faust bows his head deeply.
(Faust): "It"ll be done, My King."