Ch.120Chapter 120: Politics.

After that, Valt’s group retreated to their tent to rest, leaving behind Lindhi the mage and his barrage of questions.

Valt appeared fine on the outside, but inside was a different story.

‘Meteor Strike isn’t a spell I can use frequently. My entire body feels drained of strength.’

Since learning magic, he had never felt such extreme exhaustion.

Even when he caused the landslide, it wasn’t this bad.

That was merely breaking apart an existing mountain.

But the meteor magic was different.

From start to finish, he had constructed a massive rock formation using the spirit’s power combined with his own physical strength and magical energy.

It would normally be impossible for a 5th Circle mage, but the mana in every cell of Valt’s body had made it possible.

‘Well, if someone could spam a spell like this, it would truly be catastrophic.’

Valt was right.

If such magic could be used continuously, any notion of balance would be meaningless.

And even when Valt’s physical strength recovered, there was another problem.

Noise, the spirit, had exhausted all his power creating the enormous rock mass and was forcibly recalled to the spirit realm.

He left saying he would return after some time, but without Noise, Valt’s combat power was reduced by more than half.

For one thing, he couldn’t use his full-body stone armor.

While 5th Circle Valt could still cast spells to wrap his fists in stone, the strength was inferior to what Noise could provide, and above all, it lacked style.

Though Noise was a rough earth spirit, he had surprising artistic talent and could create armor exactly as Valt imagined.

Arias was the first to notice this issue.

“Huh? Valt? Where’s Noise? Undine keeps asking where he went.”

“He said he’s visiting the spirit realm for a while. Seems he used too much power.”

Spirits who contract with humans usually don’t return to the spirit realm, but there are many exceptions.

Especially higher-ranked spirits with greater intelligence often long for their homeland.

“Is, is that all? How long will he be gone?”

“Well, Noise said it would take about three or four days.”

Arias looked extremely shocked at Valt’s words.

“Three, four days? That long?”

It didn’t seem like a particularly long time to Valt, and he couldn’t understand why Arias was so surprised.

“Three or four days doesn’t seem that long to me.”

But Arias’s next words were enough to shock even Valt.

“No! Three or four days in the human realm equals more than a year in the spirit realm. The concept of time is different. Noise’s condition must be really bad.”

In truth, the meteor Valt created was beyond what Noise could normally produce.

It was forcibly constructed using Valt’s immense physical magic and the mana residing in his body, which had put tremendous strain on the spirit.

Valt realized he would need to think carefully before using this spell again.

“Hmm… I see. I should refrain from using the Meteor magic for a while. Three days is enough time for anything to happen.”

The current situation was urgent.

With both Valt and Liris not at full strength, their support capabilities were compromised.

They needed to help the other two locations, but that was now impossible.

But moving without the earth spirit?

With the possibility of encountering the Dark Ash at any moment, and potentially facing the Orc Lord head-on, that would be nothing short of suicidal.

Lisa, quickly noticing this, urged Valt:

“You need to stay put until you recover. Understand, Valt?”

“I’m not that reckless. With dangers everywhere, I can’t move carelessly.”

He wanted to say he hadn’t thought too deeply about coming here in the first place, but Lisa and his friends held their tongues.

Instead, they needed another plan.

Two locations had now been freed from the orcs’ clutches. This meant Valt no longer needed to move alone.

Amidst this, good news arrived.

“Magical communications have been restored!”

Following Valt’s group’s advice, they decided to form regular troops from the two liberated areas to support the remaining two locations.

Martina, after checking for orc movements elsewhere, reported no such activity.

So, except for minimal defensive forces, the combined defensive forces from the two regions were formed.

This was possible because both regions were within Oscar Kingdom’s territory.

Now the problem was that the reinforcements needed to move to other regions, which presented an issue.

The two places needing rescue weren’t part of Oscar Kingdom’s territory.

In the current situation, moving such large forces could be misinterpreted by other countries as Oscar trying to wage war during the chaos caused by the orcs.

And as mentioned before, the eastern region was known for territorial disputes and frequent wars between nations.

Wars naturally occur between adjacent countries.

Zebron and Tuen, countries close to Oscar Kingdom, had poor relations with Oscar for a very long time, making them sensitive to troop movements.

There was little Valt could do about these human political relationships.

This was a problem they had to solve among themselves.

Eventually, the leaders gathered to discuss how to resolve this issue.

***

“This is taking a long time. Is it really such a big deal?”

It was about providing help, after all. Valt didn’t like this aspect.

“Haha… well… these things happen. Using monster defense as an excuse to bring in troops for a surprise attack is actually quite common.”

Seeing this, Valt thought the Emperor’s dream of unity was impossible.

If even the humans of the central continent were at odds with each other, how could they hope to unite with other races?

While Groveent Academy seemed to show all races living harmoniously together, the reality wasn’t quite so simple.

Because certain races were generally avoided, they tended to stick together.

The various races gathered around Valt had become like a next-generation alliance.

Even though they were mostly in positions of little political power—youngest daughters and sons—such exchanges would inevitably make their positions more important.

It only appeared that all races were getting along well because the Imperial Princess and the disciples of the Seven Heroes were part of this alliance.

The nobles outside the Empire and royalty from other countries didn’t see it that way.

Anyway, the situation had become quite troublesome.

While Zebron and Tuen kingdoms were strong enough that they wouldn’t fall to 30,000 orcs, they would certainly suffer significant damage.

Moreover, if the orcs captured even one castle and disrupted supply lines, it would be disastrous.

Even now, numerous forces were gathering in the eastern plains of Grasein.

Orcs continued to increase their numbers and move toward the decisive battlefield of Grasein Plains, while the Eastern Alliance kingdoms kept sending reinforcements.

Residents of castles in the orcs’ path quickly evacuated, but strangely, the orcs didn’t plunder any castles along their route.

They seemed to desire only the final battle on the great plains.

Of course, skirmishes between reconnaissance units continued.

The orcs formed scout units like humans to assess human military strength, and humans did the same.

The scale of these reconnaissance units was in the thousands or tens of thousands, making “skirmish” an understatement.

But an even greater battle awaited.

An unimaginable large-scale battle between the Eastern Alliance’s 600,000 troops and the orcs’ 1 million.

At this rate, the battle with the orcs would take place within a week, and supplies needed to flow continuously.

In fact, supply units needed to be organized and dispatched within the next three days.

If it were up to Valt, he would have set out immediately to crush the orcs regardless of political concerns, but these people were different.

After somehow establishing contact, Zebron and Tuen kingdoms absolutely refused Oscar Kingdom’s intervention.

They claimed they could handle the orcs with their own forces.

However, they had only connected with the capitals of these kingdoms, not the actual territories that would face the orcs.

Despite this, the two kingdoms were incredibly stubborn. Even knowing they couldn’t contact their own territories, they firmly refused to allow Oscar Kingdom’s forces into their countries.

As a result, Grace’s subordinates had organized support troops but couldn’t deploy them.

Moreover, they added that as of now, they would also ban entry of disguised mercenary forces.

This meant even mercenaries like Ivan or Martina couldn’t go to help the two kingdoms.

Naturally, Valt’s group couldn’t either.

“What, what stupidity!!”

Lindhi shouted in anger.

As a representative of the neutral Magic Tower, Lindhi had been brought in to find a compromise between the three countries, but regardless of the Magic Tower’s status, Oscar Kingdom’s forces were flatly denied entry, which was infuriating.

“This is why! Politicians! Don’t they understand what’s important right now?!”

After his fiery outburst, Lindhi finally declared support impossible.

“I’m sorry, even my name wasn’t enough. Support is impossible. We can only hope they defend themselves well.”