Ch.192Ryur (4)

As his voice, filled with that arrogant insolence, echoed throughout the domain, the people who heard someone claiming to be Baron Luhr… were furious. Enraged. In vulgar terms, they were absolutely livid.

At this point, less than 50 years since Baron Luhr’s reign had ended, parents and grandparents who had experienced his rule still existed in many households, and their children had heard enough stories to understand the situation.

And now, this Baron Luhr suddenly appears leading an undead army and declares they should submit to him—who could possibly maintain their composure in such a situation?

Of course, it’s human nature that there would typically be some “insolent” types who would preemptively suggest surrender or negotiation out of fear, but the problem is that the vast majority of Luhr’s people hate them more than they fear death itself.

As mentioned earlier, the time since the previous Baron Luhr’s death is less than 50 years at most.

This means memories from that time are still vivid, and almost everyone has lost at least one family member or friend because of Baron Luhr.

To put it bluntly, these people were recalling past memories, giving in to their anger, and transforming into something akin to a mob.

Normally, young people would act rashly with youthful vigor while the elderly would try to restrain them, but now it was exactly the opposite.

Most of the older people were going berserk, while the younger generation—their children—tried to calm them down.

Of course, despite their children’s attempts to dissuade them, most had experienced losing family or acquaintances to Baron Luhr’s tyranny, so inevitably, many young people ended up empathizing with their parents’ emotions and joining the frenzy.

In the current city of “Yester,” the name of the former Baron Luhr was enough to trigger such a butterfly effect.

Anyway, the public sentiment that began to spiral out of control directly led to a movement to join the war.

“Kill them! Kill the undead!”

“Don’t let that heretic live!”

“Kill! Die! Die! Kill!!”

“Everyone! Let’s join the volunteer corps!”

The hatred toward the undead—something most people naturally harbor—combined with the justification of attacking an enemy. The lord’s side also subtly encouraged this sentiment, further inciting public opinion.

It was essentially like pouring oil on fire; public sentiment blazed fiercely, and the entire domain was quickly swept up in aggressive rhetoric.

And the ultimate direction this aggressive public sentiment reached was the “volunteer corps” established by the anonymous knight, Mr. K.

Those with no combat experience but abundant enthusiasm were assigned roles that could be performed without knowing how to fight—such as siege support or reserve forces—but whose presence or absence would make a clear difference in efficiency.

Thanks to this, while some were initially dissatisfied about not being able to fight, such opinions disappeared after they came to understand the reality…

One thing was certain: the city of Yester was now boiling with anger and vengeance.

※ ※ ※

While all of Yester burned with incredibly aggressive war sentiment.

Having used my status to take nominal command authority and delegated practical matters to the lord’s proxy, I began organizing the army urgently in preparation for the silence that would occur in 24 hours.

With 2,200 controllable troops currently available, fighting with the castle’s support would provide sufficient force for a defensive battle, and with the addition of adventurers specialized in monster combat and priests who excel against undead, defending should proceed quite smoothly.

The narrow battlefield of castle walls is good for leveraging our advantage of having many intermediate-level fighters. The other side surely has their own plans, but enchanted castle walls definitely provide a significant tactical advantage.

Therefore, my immediate priority is to somehow unify the chaotic command structure.

Since it’s obviously impossible to gather people and form them into a single group within the 24-hour grace period, I’m naturally trying to respect their independent authority while ensuring they can at least follow orders from above.

In practice, this approach has worked quite effectively, so it’s fair to say that at least in the current situation, I can somehow manage to command.

However, if there’s one regrettable thing… it’s that calling for reinforcements immediately is practically impossible.

The regular army of 1,000 from Baron Luhr’s domain has long since entered the city from their garrison near Yester, and the local defense forces of towns and villages cannot move freely in case the enemy splits their forces for raids.

Even knowing those idiots barely need supplies, they might still raid just to indulge their cruelty, so we can’t let our guard down.

Ah, of course, with communication magic tools available, I could normally contact my father to call for reinforcements, and I actually did so as that would be the correct response, but…

As luck would have it, my father is also inevitably busy because of winter, and since armies can’t just move recklessly, he informed me that proper reinforcements would take at least a week to arrive.

Well, even so, with the domain’s forces improved through this reorganization process, we should at least be able to mount a defensive battle, but…

‘…How will that vile bastard make his move?’

The problem was that I couldn’t understand how he had become undead and managed to lead such a large army.

It’s strange enough that he raised an army of 5,000 from nothing, but originally, the former Baron Luhr’s corpse was supposedly shattered and “erased” by magic.

In short, it’s undoubtedly true that he possesses some special power, but not knowing its nature makes me hesitate to make bold choices.

While I was deeply contemplating this subject, a bishop (intermediate priest) of Debona who happened to visit me shared his conjecture.

“‘Event Reenactment’… you say?”

“…Yes. I’ve read about it in ancient texts kept by the church. It’s an old dark art that undead can use.”

The essence of an undead entity is, frankly speaking, a reenactment of the past, and this dark art ‘Event Reenactment’ uses this essence to recreate the undead’s actions from when they were alive.

“Ah, come to think of it…”

According to information, the former Baron Luhr led exactly 3,000 troops—domain soldiers plus mercenaries—in his final domain battle, plus approximately 2,000 conscripts thrown onto the battlefield as meat shields.

This is too precise to be dismissed as mere coincidence; the current situation matches almost perfectly.

Moreover, beyond these characteristics, there are many credible reasons why the undead’s appearance could be an ‘Event Reenactment.’

First, the fact that these 5,000 undead appeared out of nowhere is a key factor amplifying the possibility that this outbreak is an ‘Event Reenactment.’

Undead occur from human corpses or are naturally generated in specific environments. Frankly speaking, to get 5,000 undead, one would need 5,000 corpses, or even considering natural occurrence, at least 2,000-3,000 humans would need to be killed.

But if 2,000 to 3,000 humans had disappeared, even in a world where information travels slowly, it would be stranger for such significant information not to be known.

In a world where a domain (manor) with a population of 500 is considered large enough, if over 2,000 to 3,000 people suddenly disappeared, rumors would spread far and wide.

Moreover, the appearance of undead—specifically, an army numbering in the thousands—would be enough to generate rumors due to its scale, but frankly speaking, this army didn’t even have its existence revealed until a few days ago.

Considering this is physically impossible, it’s clearly the result of some mystical phenomenon, and the method by which the former Baron Luhr, a warrior, could cause such a mystical phenomenon would be something like ‘Event Reenactment.’

And ‘Event Reenactment’ has a fatal flaw above all else.

Recreating past records means inheriting the same history and weaknesses. In other words, they can be defeated in the same way as they were in the past.

“If I kill that damned former Baron Luhr… will they disappear too?”

“Yes. They are recreations of an army vanquished by the knight ‘Alzar.’ If you eliminate their leader, they will vanish without a trace.”

Their weakness is particularly that very history and narrative itself. Being an army formed from the narrative of being defeated and killed by ‘Alzar,’ they could, paradoxically, be defeated pathetically if that weakness is exploited.

Therefore, seeing no reason not to exploit this obvious weakness, I asked the bishop of the Debona Temple to bless my weapon with consecrated power.

And when 24 hours had passed—

The undead army, numbering 5,000, finally began advancing toward this city (Yester).