Chapter 228: Training

The deal struck is pretty simple really.

The Necromancer has made a great majority of the March, the county that soley belongs to the Marquess, his own.

Although there are many parts of the thing missing, parts that should have been taken care of long, long ago. Parts like Demme, Carbina, Arak and Ioina I hear is stuck inbetween.

What matters is that they are less likely to provide the Necromancer with fodder for his army. This means we can count on them having at the least, four-hundred less men than usual and at the most a thousand less.

With this calculation in mind we know what to prepare.

"Are you sure he won't simple burn, kill and sacrifice every living person? If he does he will have a legion of undead at his command and then what do we do?"

The panicking voice of the Marquess is something I have gotten used to with great pleasure. It never fails to remind me of how I have succeeded in gripping the woman as well as her power in my claws.

I sit cross-legged in a chair that may as well be a throne and sip gently from a wine cup, "Relax, he would never do that."

"And how do you know? How are you so sure?"

Her panic is completely valid and understandable, after all, all that's left of her little Kingdom at the edge of the Nation is now just her own capital city and a mere village ruled by a man she once fooled around with in her youth.

Anyone with a brain would panic, especially when they realize the severe punishments waiting a Marquess, the guardian of the border, when they fail so woefully to guard the border as well as alert the rest of the Kingdom that they're under attack.

But of course we can't have the rest of the Kingdom knowing that an attack from a Necromancer has come this far on her watch. And so she is using me to play off her innocence as well as her still position.

Perhaps it's unwise to do this but that only refers to her. If all of this ends up blowing up in our faces and by some miracle, the Necromancer triumphs against our combined hired, forces then I only stand to gain.

If we fail, if a Marquess fails to stop a simple, mere street brigand then perhaps then Grandfather will realize that the Necromancer is no mere brigand, that I was not ousted of my own city by a hooligan.

Then I will regain my honour and worth, and perhaps even more as the first person to face off against the Necromancer. Yes, this is all in my favour regardless of how it ends.

"I am sure because I have fought the Necromancer, I have nearly even killed the man myself. But of course you and every single person doubted my word, you cast me out and told shame onto for I had lost my wealth and fief to a mere brigand."

Her face turns a bright red hue at this disparage, she mutters an apology and stutters, "Yes, I see the fault in my previous ways." I nod, satisfied but she continues, "If he is only as strong as you, or perhaps even weaker, then why do people follow him? Why is an army, why are my Mayors and subjects lining up behind him to serve?"

The question had come through my mind as well, why would anyone take up arms beside an insane, untrustworthy Necromancer?

"Especially when the enemy they will inevitably have to fight should we fail to stop them here and now will be the entirety of the Kingdom. I'm sure there must be at least a single person who realizes this madness."

The Marquess sighs, "Yet still they have control over four of fiefs, they can raise an army large enough to threaten me here." There's panic back in her voice, "The scouts I sent earlier, even though they were Mages one was still cut down, his death is what gave the rest a chance to come back home."

"Relax, they can't raise a true army, at most they raise a militia if not a disorganized mob of peasantry." 

Although I say this, I have fresh memories of those pesky Elven North elves, they were truly worth their salt I'd say, even for disgusting ramble they managed to cut down several of the guards I sent in to cull them that day of their senseless riot.

The Marquess shakes her head terribly, "Even so, they hold some potential to be troublesome, especially with a Necromancer at their head."

"Yes, which is why we have to hire these mercenaries now, although it'll take some time for those fools to organize so that means you have to do some resource pooling, five thousand trained and hardened mercenaries willing to die on your command don't come cheap after all."

"And if the Necromancer attacks before then?" she asks.

At this I don't hesitate in saying, "Then I hope I'm not here with you."

***

Asher's Pov

Kaylin reported back postively. Well, as positively as I can have it.

The two villages that were greeted with a force of a hundred and fifty men have in fact, elected to join me in my crusade for a new, safer, richer Kingdom.

Aren performed especially well on this assignment I hear, the man brought out only the best of his diplomatic skills in dealing with the Mayor of Dover, a medium sized village well on its way to becoming a city in its own right.

The sound of the place reminds me so much of Carbina and the first moments I stepped into it. Led by an inspiring female Mayor who sees the village as more than just a cushy place to sit and shit and as a place she could make prosper.

Like many of the other Mayors, the Mayor of Dover is rich. Positively swimming in her riches. Much of which comes from the naturally occurring crystals in the caves and small mountains that surround her territory.

As I've been told, these crystals are the main ingredient in anything enchanted, they are the make up of the ring I wear on my finger, of my large bank of mana I have kept back in Aste, the one I used for my most mana expensive ritual.

These crystals are the tools of enchanters. Fortunately or unfortunately for us, the Mayor of Dover has seen that her reserves are becoming depleted, of course they would after years of indiscriminate mining,

This means that while we will be getting something out of the village, it won't be much and it won't be of top tier quality. 

Fortunately for us, this very depletion is the reason the Mayor of Dover was convinced to join us in the first place.

With such a valuable mineral sitting in her lap, the Marquess, the Duke and even the King monitor the supply of these crystals. Being the bottom feeder, the last man in the barrel, she gets the least of the profit.

She found it ridiculous that she had such a mineral in her backyard and her denizens had yet to see the riches of it. Aren reported that she declaimed years of hard work to even begin to make the village look as beautiful as it does now.

All it took was promising to let her flourish they way she wishes to while sponsoring our war effort against the Kingdom to win her over.

She bargained a shocking Seventy-Thirty split of whatever else comes out of the mines. Seventy going my way and thirty hers.

Had Aren not been the one carrying out the deals and discussion I would have likely given away more. But apparently, thirty percent was far better than the scrummy five percent the Kingdom left her people with.

I agreed and gave Kaylin the thumbs up on the decision. And just like that, my little, growing Kingdom had a money mine.

The next thing we needed were buyers. 

Something Matthias had already been working on long before any of our expansion into the March began. 

According to him, our buyers would be none other than the Kingdom that we border. A principality of some sort that has tenuous relations with Ire.

Meaning their Nobles will not openly buy from us, a rebellious faction born from Ire's territory, but they will buy nonetheless. All it takes is a little sweet talking and a path all the way south of here.

Which means a clear path back down to the cave I woke up in.

I'd always intended to head back down the way I came, but I didn't think it would be for these reasons.

Ioina still has a pool of untapped resources and I never did check back in with them after killing Perlman. Did the Marquess assign them a new Mayor? I wonder.

But I also wonder, in a bit darker way...if the Cultists surrounded them.

While Arak village was cleared of its troubling Cultists there's still the hibernating Beta that sits atop the devastation that remains of Carbina. It's entirely possible that its done making Gamma warriors and has sent one out to eat up Ioina and its people.

What keeps me from panicking now is only Lotar's words. The Wolf Deity spoke of holding it back for me. Which means it can't keep it occupied forever, at some point the beast of Phien will be unleashed and I will have to deal with it alone.

Which is why I'm back here...in the deep, thick, dangerous Forests of Demme. It's time to Train.