episode_0208

Flying into the sky on a zombie wyvern with the official who was to announce the start of the territory war, I stretched the zombie wyvern’s body to its limit.

Thanks to squeezing the body to the limit, the zombie wyvern’s body became very hot as if it were on fire, even though it had become a zombie. If it weren’t for the cold wind blowing so high up in the sky, even though it was summer, I would have felt the heat too.

But even so, I didn’t stop squeezing the zombie wyvern.

Even with my city under my feet, I didn’t stop. It was no different, because the destination this time was not my city, but Viscount Tarr’s territory.

Although I had never visited it in person, it was not difficult to find Viscount Tarr’s territory. It was partly because it was shaped like it was surrounding my territory, and partly because the official nearby gave me directions with a map.

“Over there, over there. That place is Siger, the central city of the Viscounty of Tar.”

“Oh, it’s not that far.”

As we flew through my city for another day or so, the official pointed to a place as if we were almost there. There was a city there that was a little smaller than my city, but had its own scale.

Upon arriving at Viscount Tar’s city, the zombie wyvern slowed down and also lowered its altitude.

And, the other two zombie wyverns that were following behind me also slowly descended toward the ground.

Since the official did not move alone in the first place, all three zombie wyverns had to be used to bring his group. If it were just a group of people, two horses would have been enough, but since they had prepared a carriage and horses for the move, not even one of the three horses could be left out.

It was fortunate that all three zombie wyverns were mobilized to take the princess and the alchemists to the capital.

Anyway, after the official and his party, as well as the carriage and horses, were lowered to the ground, the official’s party quickly began to prepare. It started with connecting the horses to the carriage and preparing them for immediate movement.

As I waited and looked at it for a while, the official approached me as if preparations had been completed.

“I will come back after talking to Viscount Tar about the territory war.”

“It would be difficult to go together, right?”

“It’s not that it can’t be done, but… … . There is a possibility of attacking the Viscount at the same time as declaring territory war, so I think it would be a good idea to refrain.”

I nodded slowly at the official’s words. If I were to officially declare a territorial war, there was a possibility that I would be attacked on the spot. Battles between troops can determine victory or defeat, but capturing or killing a lord also determines victory or defeat in a territory war.

As a means of protecting myself, I made dozens of small skeletons and carried them with me at all times, but there was no need to take on potentially dangerous adventures. When a warlock was most powerful, it was inside the dungeon, not outside.

Of course, I had no intention of giving up this opportunity to obtain important information. Amy said she would obtain information about Viscount Tarr through the mercenaries, but this opportunity should not be missed.

After watching the official slowly depart for a moment, he took out a skeleton he was carrying. It was the weakest entity as it was made based on a goblin, and the soul was extracted from the skeleton.

The condition of the soul was not very good, as if it had suffered a severe blow due to the hasty construction. But that was enough. This is because I was planning to attach the soul of the undead to the official, something like a lace that I had failed to make.

All I had to do was simply remember what I saw and heard and come back, so there was no problem with my broken soul. Rather, it could be said to be more suitable in this situation because it does not possess dark magic properly, making it impossible for even priests to detect it.

Anyway, I sacrificed a skeleton, extracted its soul, and threw it towards the official. The soul, which was invisible to the eye, flew away and clung to the official’s shoulder.

However, the official, who had no idea about such facts, moved towards Viscount Tarr’s city.

And, after looking at that for a while, I waited for the manager to return and went to work strengthening the skeletons I had right now.

This was because the soul attached to the official was a failure, making it impossible to understand the surrounding situation in real time through connection. However, I couldn’t just rest during that time, so I did what I could right away.

Since there were no special tools, the only way to strengthen it was to simply inject more dark magic, but even that could be useful in territory warfare.

As I was working on pouring dark magic into the skeletons, after a few hours had passed, I felt the official who had left for Viscount Tar return.

“Viscount Steele!”

The official who came back in the carriage looked quite tired, but maybe it was because his work was over, but he seemed very relaxed.

“What happened?”

“Yeongjijeon was officially declared. However, since this territory war was formally conducted through Viscount Steele’s declaration of war, the form of the territory war and the location of the battlefield were decided by Viscount Tar.”

He shrugged his shoulders at the official’s words, showing that he didn’t really care.

In fact, in terms of provocation, it is true that Viscount Tarr provided the cause, but in terms of administrative procedures, it was true that I had declared war, so there was nothing I could do.

Even if that wasn’t the case, the most important thing was to start the Territory War as soon as possible, so the form or location wasn’t that important from the beginning.

Since I was a warlock, the location of the battlefield was a bit important, but I was only able to use more than 100% of my strength in my territory, but I wasn’t weakened to the point where I could barely stand outside.

“First of all, the territory war was decided to be an all-out war.”

“All-out war? That’s surprising. I thought I would choose the knight fight.”

I felt puzzled when I heard that an all-out war with all available power was decided in the form of a territory war.

If it was a knightly battle where victory or defeat was determined simply by a tournament between knights, victory could be predicted even against a warlock, but I couldn’t understand why they chose an all-out war where they had to give their all against the warlock.

“For reference, it was also said that the location would be in Viscount Steele’s city.”

I was even more surprised to hear that my city had been chosen as the battlefield for the Territory Battle. This is because it was common knowledge that warlocks became the most powerful in their dungeons. My city is already considered my dungeon, but I never expected that I would choose it as a battlefield.

However, for further details, all I had to do was retrieve the soul that I had attached to the official and confirm it, so I did not raise any further questions.

Since I didn’t raise any more questions, the official continued the story. To be precise, it was to inform you of things to be careful about when fighting a territory war.

It was said that one should not cause indiscriminate damage to civilians, or that one should not attack nobles who were called spectators who notarize the royal war.

Of course it was understandable, so I nodded and started getting ready to leave. The carriage and horse that the official was riding in were separated and tied to the wyvern again, and the official’s companions were divided into zombie wyverns.

Since my city was the battlefield for the Territory War, it was possible to shorten the time by moving with them.

Anyway, as I returned to my territory with the official, while I was moving, I collected the soul I had attached to the official and began to look back on those memories.

And, thanks to this, I was able to obtain very important information.

Even though the temple was suddenly withdrawn due to Viscount Tar deceiving the temple, the temple has been re-established, and more than a hundred knights are crowded together, probably due to support from nobles including the Marquis of Kurid. It was information like this.

Moreover, it was clearly confirmed that the Marquis of Kurid was involved in the process. This is because one of the nobles who followed Marquis Kurid in the council was with Viscount Tar.

In particular, they were having a conversation about what to do with their botched plan, as if they had already met with the envoy who had branded me with the declaration of war. Thanks to this, he seemed shocked that the Territory War had already been declared.

It seemed like their real goal was to somehow drag out the Territory War, and they seemed to be trying to delay the start of the Territory War by making all kinds of excuses.

Of course, just as the officials announced the start of the Territory War, the Territory War was not postponed as they wanted. Potential problems, such as the princess’s residence, were resolved in advance.

Anyway, I was satisfied that I was able to obtain a lot of important information through the soul I had attached to the official, so I moved the zombie wyvern as quickly as possible and returned to the city.

And, when we arrived in the city, we immediately parted ways. The official left, saying there was something he had to take care of regarding the territory war, and I also had a lot of things to do regarding the territory war, so I had no time to spend with the official.

“You will each have a skeleton mage on board and patrol the outskirts of the city. When a Skeleton Mage discovers an army, he/she reports it immediately.”

The beginning was to use zombie wyverns for reconnaissance and warning. Since it is easier to secure visibility when you are high in the sky, it was possible to gain time to react before the skeletons placed for surveillance were even detected.

Although the zombie wyverns worked hard to travel to the capital and the Viscounty of Tar, they had no time to rest, but since the zombie wyverns were undead, they did not show a single complaint and flew up again with a skeleton mage on their backs.

After confirming that three wyverns were flying around the outskirts of the city at regular intervals as if patrolling, I returned to the mansion.

But there was no one in the mansion. Jienna seemed to be dealing with the upper class at the store and was talking to a number of people in the store’s reception room, and Amy was giving various instructions to the mercenaries at the mercenary guild.

Also, the village chief was also working quite hard. Perhaps out of concern that Viscount Tar might send a separate spy, access to major facilities was strictly prohibited and the level of screening for those entering the city was raised.

Even though I didn’t pay much attention to it, I was very satisfied because they were paying attention to ensure that the Territory Battle could proceed smoothly.

Thanks to this, I was able to start preparing to win the battle for territory without any pressure.

He greatly increased his black magic using the accumulated blood essence, and began work on creating a large number of undead based on the enormously increased black magic.

And, this process continued until several days passed when the mercenaries heard that Viscount Tarr’s army was on the march.