Chapter 337: Chapter 337

Chapter 337: Shadowy Clouds of War

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

Spring was always short. A brief bout of spring showers heralded the gradual shift to warm weather.

Compared to the Northlands still in the throes of frigid winter, this place was far more suitable for humans to inhabit. At the very least, the wood spirits loved this climate. Warm, humid, and filled with sunlight, this area was particularly suitable for plants to grow.

However, a rancid smell of undeath was brought to us by the south wind. Dark clouds arrived in the sky together with a sudden drop in temperature. Nature seemed to be reminding people that the hot summer had yet to arrive. At the very least, the final spring frost still needed to be experienced.

Since the new seeds for the Forest of Dreams sprouted into what greatly resembled oak trees, the new and evolving section of the Forest of Dreams now had the charming name of Oak Town. The undead’s unexpectedly late arrival caused the defenders of this town to feel both worry and happiness.

They were happy that the shadows of war seemed to come later than expected by several days, which meant that they would have additional time for combat preparations. They were worried because, based on the typical rules of war, the longer the enemy took to gather themselves the stronger and more numerous they would be.

The undead had been expected to arrive two days ago, but there were no signs of them at all. Many veteran adventurers had already mentally prepared themselves. Since the undead were taking so long to arrive, perhaps they had recalled their troops from sieging Nightrain City—the eventual undead army’s numbers would be hence ridiculously large.

“It would be nice if they would wait for another ten days or two weeks. I’ve heard that many people in the Mage Country are interested in obtaining Justice Points. Perhaps they’ll come over to join us.”

Yet the thick smoke that suddenly arose could only mean that no reinforcements were arriving as of yet and the undead had finally arrived as expected. Before a thick blanket of clouds covered Oak Town, a Pegasus Knight approached the town. The rider was shouting before he even landed.

“They’re here, they’re here!”

Who was here? Everyone understood without it needing to be said out loud, yet nobody panicked.

“Close the gates!”

“Notify all the sentries and hunting teams outside that they’re to immediately return to Oak Town.”

“Nobody’s notified the wood spirits and our leaders yet? Someone, hurry and deliver the message!”

This was just how adventurers were. They were raucous and disorganized, yet also filled with motivation. In just a few minutes, every single person knew that the battle had come to them, and they busied themselves in preparations for battle.

There was no longer any need to conceal their combat preparations. The veteran adventurers among them were capable of judging the enemy army’s size and projected arrival time simply from the dust plumes they kicked up in the air. The estimated time of arrival for the undead’s vanguard knights was two hours, but the adventurers were long prepared for this and started taking action.

Large amounts of bows had previously been placed on Oak Town’s castle walls. The archers began testing their bowstrings, while treants pulled themselves out of the grounds. The adventurers manning the stone catapults began their final calculations of the ammunition they possessed.

In just slightly under an hour and a half, the first wave of skeleton knights arrived. The silent skeleton knights were sitting on decayed saddles and had tattered spears as they surrounded and circled around the castle walls, searching for weaknesses in their enemy’s defense. If any place seemed weak to them, they would have attacked it. But, in the end, they retreated without making a move.

“Have we arrived late?”

The death knight Haben finally abandoned the idea of forcefully attacking this location. Looking at the scene before him, for the first time in his undead life, he doubted the Undead Emperors’ judgment. He felt that the Tark Republic had underestimated these plant lifeforms by far too much.

The largest tree’s root brought Amelia’s power over to the newly-born “oak trees,” helping them to mature. Meanwhile, even more “oak trees” had begun to sprout, hence increasing Oak Town’s power even further. Once the cycle of nature was established here, most could tell that this place was already a nigh impregnable fortress even with its unassuming name of Oak Town.

The castle walls grew taller and taller, while squads of treants patrolled every inch of space. The most incomprehensible part was that this green fortress was visibly growing outward. Its surroundings would turn green, inch by inch, while trees would shoot up at a pace visible to the naked eye. Trees were sprouting on this desolate land more than ever, transforming the barren area to grassy plains and forest.

This was the miracle created by the divine power of nature. And soon, these newly-born trees would become even more nourishment for Oak Town to grow. Smaller plants of nature would naturally become part of the larger cycle of nature, with one cycle creating another before everything finally achieved a balance. By that time, even if an enemy approached this area they would be met with endless enmity and would cause eyes to stare upon them.

Upon discovering that the enemy’s defenses were already complete and that using only skeleton knights to forcibly attack this place would be a meaningless sacrifice, the vanguard commander Haben did not hesitate to choose to temporarily retreat until the undead’s main forces arrived.

Simultaneously, the adventurers’ leaders were in the middle of a military meeting at a temporarily constructed command center in Oak Town.

From a certain standpoint, the wood spirits were truly playing the part of NPCs. They obviously lacked complete trust in the adventurers, not to mention that the two parties had different strategic objectives to begin with. The wood spirits wished for Oak Town to successfully grow and were willing to sacrifice anything. Meanwhile, the adventurers sought to maximize their personal benefits, which meant that two sets of leaders arose in Oak Town. But, as of now, they were still very cooperative with each other and had few disagreements.

One set of leaders was from the adventurers’ alliance, while the other acted as the decision maker of the wood sprits. To be honest, this was likely going to become the typical cooperative working method between local forces and Contract Heroes. After all, local forces would forever wish for their subordinates to obediently carry out each and every one of their commands.

When looking at it from the employer’s angle—to use the pieces at your disposal in the most efficient manner—it would be best to pay money to hire temporary allies to become cannon fodder and undertake the most dangerous roles. After all, any local leader would want to preserve their own elites they worked so hard to raise. But the adventurers’ alliance needed to consider the interests of their own. They would even want to maximize their benefits without losing a single life if at all possible.

Both sides had different standpoints, so of course there would be disagreements.

Cooperation, communication, an appropriate amount of trust, and a faintly unsaid employer-and-subordinate relationship that wasn’t absolute. Both sides would keep a certain distance from each other and still try to seek benefits for themselves while chasing after the same goal. That seemed to be the best choice.

This current adventurers’ alliance was led by roughly a dozen veteran adventurers. They were either the leaders of the largest mercenary groups or were well-known and well-respected adventurers who were elected to represent all the freelance adventurers.

“There are approximately sixty to eighty thousand undead. Judging by the flags, there should be approximately ten Undead Lords in their army. Their leader is Davey from Asolivis…”

Unlike the freelance adventurers who would only see the skeleton knights behind them, any medium or large-sized mercenary squad possessed their own investigative methods. Some had aerial knights scout out in the sky, while others relied on prophecy mages’ prediction spells. It was only natural that they already understood the situation of the undead army’s main forces.

But when all the numerous investigative methods brought reports to the adventurer leaders, and they put the information together and verified that it all seemed quite reliable, the tent acting as the temporary command center fell completely silent. It wasn’t because the undead were far too strong, but rather…

“This seems wrong. There are too few of them. Could this be some sort of trap?”

Yep, this was completely different to their expectations. The undead that arrived were far fewer than expected. Originally, everyone expected that every single Undead Lord in Asolivis would move out to attack, and that the total undead forces would well surpass several hundred thousand. However, only one-tenth of the expected undead forces had arrived.

Some sort of pincer attack? Feint? Bait? Or just abandon this location and send their main forces elsewhere? Numerous thoughts appeared in everyone’s minds. But since there were far too many possibilities, nobody dared to come to a conclusion.

Suddenly, a messenger pigeon flew into the tent and landed on Kaise Elowen’s hand as he was pondering this situation.

“…It would seem that our employers have their own additional sources of information.”

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This was a message from the wood spirits to Kaise. It basically said that due to certain reasons, most of the Undead Lords had refused to participate in this battle and that some of the gathered Undead Lords had suddenly left the army, causing the attacking undead forces to be far fewer than expected. The message ended by saying that the adventurers could rest assured in fighting only against this number.

“Certain reasons? It appears that our employer doesn’t completely trust us?”

The moment Kaise finished telling the other adventurer leaders about the message, some commented in obvious displeasure. The adventurers risked their lives to fight for the sake of their employers, but the employers showed such open distrust. It was no wonder they would be dissatisfied.

Yet a white-haired elderly adventurer helplessly shook his head. This person was Alo Simu, the ex-head priest of the former Mother Earth Goddess religion. Now, he was a somewhat famous adventurer.

“Heh, let’s be honest with ourselves. Do we truly even trust our companions? Let’s not even mention that incident of a few days ago.”

Alo was obviously referring to the spy incident that occurred just recently. Ever since this incident was uncovered, many adventuring squads became far more vigilant. There was no knowing if their own squad had a secret undead spy.

“I also heard that the wood spirits even invited another helper. I heard that the person they invited was a major personage who’s in the top 30 of the fairies’ ranking lists?”

“The Eich’s famous warriors ranking? That’s highly unlikely. All the top 30 are considered national treasures by each country. How would they possibly accept being hired so easily? And if there really was such a famous warrior here, he would have long since been given the right to command us. It’s not like we don’t know when to defer to others.”

“…Did you all forget? The fairies put out more than just one ranking list. They have an even more famous and authoritative ranking list.”

“…The Calamity Rankings!? Someone who’s in the top 30 of the Calamity Rankings!? Are you sure they’re here to help us, not to kill all of us together with the undead?”

Shocked, everyone instantly fell silent for a moment. The meaning behind the Calamity Rankings was that “If you accidentally meet someone on this list, don’t consider resisting or even dream about killing them. Hurry up and run for your life.” The lower-ranked individuals on this list were all monsters like Immemorial Dragons that were far stronger than the average SemiGod. As for the top 30 on the Calamity Rankings, they were basically all mega troublesome individuals who refused to die and had lived for over a thousand years.

“Someone in the top thirty who’s willing to be hired? Is it the Plague King or the Volcano Tyrant? No matter who it is, it’s not a good thing!”

The Plague King was a classical alchemist and an expert in potion-making. Originally, he was someone who researched medicine that could cure plagues. But, for certain reasons, the people he was hoping to cure ended up being burned alive as sources of the plague, and he who was originally a doctor was declared a heretic and desecrator by the Holy Church, ending up on their hit list.

In the end, he really did become a heretic. While taking a revenge, he released the mutated virus that he had carefully cultivated. He transformed the entire church district that his enemies resided in into a living hell. Nowadays, the Plague King was on the most wanted list of more than twenty countries. Despite this, he still lived just fine.

He was also one of the few “Calamities” who were quite active in Eich. He was even known for being quite willing to be hired. Of course, nobody hired him to cure a plague—they hired him to create plagues. Apart from the fact that he hated the Holy Church more than anyone—he was always willing to take revenge on them—he was actually one of the most harmless of the top-ranked Calamities. Still, he was able to achieve #11 on the Calamity Rankings despite being so weak that he didn’t even have a power level or know how to fight. It was just that the moment he died, all the mixed viruses he carried on him would instantly be released. It was said that these viruses were so potent that they would kill off literally half of Eich’s entire population. Even the Holy Church would only pretend to hunt him and not dare to actually touch him.

While the Plague King was a human calamity, the Volcano Tyrant was an actual natural calamity. The Volcano Tyrant was a gigantic magma scorpion who fed on the heat of the land. Said to typically reside in volcanic areas, he was rumored to have the ability to cause volcanos to appear and erupt at his command. The truth was that every time he appeared, volcanoes would always accompany him.

This magma scorpion had no match in all of Eich. He was highly intelligent and loved to feast on blood, flesh, and souls. That was why he accepted contracts to hire him. Although he only accepted payments of SemiGod Equipment, the royalty could still afford to hire him. However, he rarely got any jobs. Not only was this because of the fact that he required seven hundred human sacrifices given to him in addition to a SemiGod Equipment as part of his “hiring free,” the moment he appeared on any battlefield, it was always a loss for both sides.

After all, any land that people were fighting over, no matter how fertile, would be transformed into a volcanic area. Any strategically important location would become nothing more than a lake of magma. This would be an incredible loss no matter which side won in the end.

Precisely for this reason there was a private agreement amongst all countries that any country or individual that hired the Volcano Tyrant would become a public enemy. However, there were always people or countries who were forced to the brink. Although the Volcano Tyrant had very few employers, he would be hired once every few decades, which was more than enough for him to eat his fill until years later.

Since the Plague King was “critically important” to keep alive, he managed to make it all the way to #11 in the Calamity Rankings, while the Volcano Tyrant who actually caused far more large-scale disasters and death than the Plague King was a mere rank #29. This was quite indicative of what type of individuals were on the top 30 of the Calamity Rankings. And now that there was a rumor that the wood spirits had hired a Calamity in the top 30, meaning that this Calamity was most likely ranked even higher than the Volcano Tyrant, this naturally caused fear and panic in the adventurers.

“We can’t let this be! We absolutely have to make the wood spirits tell us the truth about this!”

While this scene was in utter chaos, Kaise received another message, this time from his mercenary group. He heard the news of what he wanted to know.

“…As I expected, all the members of that ‘Wood Spirits are so Cute’ team are currently absent from Oak Town?”

Meanwhile, the undead were quite busy right now as well.

From a certain standpoint, I was even somewhat impressed with and pitied the Undead Lord named Davey.

The older one got, the more afraid they would be of death. Intelligent undead weren’t synonymous with fearless insanity. With so many undead apparently going missing, many Undead Thanes started thinking about the future and how to best survive when the Undead Lords above them started disappearing.

“I apologize—I have some personal affairs to deal with. I wish you all the best of luck.”

Unless the reason for the mass disappearances was solved, not a single Undead Lord was willing to stay in this undead army. After all, far more than simply low-level undead were disappearing. There were plenty of Legend and even Saint-ranked Undead Thanes and Lords that ended up vanishing.

Even though Davey pleaded for assistance from the Undead Emperors, he received nothing in return. In such a situation, unless the source was discovered and eliminated at its foundation, nobody would want to stay here and suffer a mysterious disappearance.

As the list of the missing continuously increased, Davey himself was in a state of utter confusion. However, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He only had one chance here. If he failed… the Undead Emperors wouldn’t care about the reason. A failure was a failure to them. Anyone they considered useless would be dumped in the trash heap, and Davey would lose everything he possessed—and he would have to deal with the Undead Emperors’ rage to boot.

When the news that all the undead that abandoned Davey had nothing befall them at all, even an idiot would realize that Davey was being targeted by something or someone scary. It was quite obvious what choice an undead should make if they wanted to remain safe.

The most important part was that Davey himself was unable to come up with ideas to recuperate his army’s morale… To be honest, not only him but even if I was in his position I doubted I would be able to find out what was wrong.

“Mars” was still in the process of being born. Not a single investigative magic spell would be able to discover an individual who wasn’t even born yet. Meanwhile, the undead were undergoing their “combination sacrifice,” committing instinctual acts of suicide. A single summons would make them feel as if they wanted to go out and take a walk, and without knowing any better they would end up dead. This type of scene was absolutely abnormal and impossible to defend against.

If Davey had been able to dismiss his army, reorganize it, and investigate fully, of course he would have been able to discover the problem. However, he had no time to do such a thing.

And that was how his army, originally 300,000 strong, became no more than 50,000 or 60,000 undead by the time they reached Oak Town. The great majority of the few troops that remained were Davey’s personal troops, the type that signed a soul contract with him where Davey could kill them with a single thought. They were absolutely loyal to him because they were forced to be.

But, even so, Davey remained filled with confidence. Every single day, I could hear the unhurried sounds of him playing his violin. This music-loving Undead Lord seemed to still be in a good mood and even performed miniature concerts every day. However…

“He must be feeling nervous inside. He’s probably just trying to maintain his usual façade, which actually exposes his inner fear.”

“Indeed. When on the battlefield, it’s simply enough to raise one’s guard. Doing this makes him seem all the more uncertain.”

Harloys and I simply watched the fun, but to tell the truth, I was still rather doubtful.

After all, the Undead Lords may have been willing to watch Davey fail, but the Undead Emperors would absolutely refuse to allow the wood spirits to expand their territory. The Undead Emperors would certainly summon Davey back if this was a battle that was doomed to failure. And Davey himself was definitely not the type to walk down a path he was certain to fail.

And that was how I concluded that Davey must still have some sort of ace up his sleeve, one that could overturn this situation.

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