Chapter 183: Undercover (1)
Me and my friends were about 10 kilometers north of Tiamo.
“You have already made so many of them. Do we really need more? “
“I think so. We are going to attack the fortress and all that so I’m sure we will need more.”
I was sitting with Cecile again, and between us was a wide, short flowerpot, like a matchmaker’s table. Cecile was putting the [Blessing of Heaven]s that I was to producing into <Inventory> so that it didn’t spill out of the flowerpot.
In last battle, Rosenhiem earned 200,000 magic stones. Of those, the Queen gave me 100,000 magic stones to convert them into 20,000 [Blessing of Heaven]s.
Up until now, the elven soldiers had mainly fought defensive battles, fortified with outer walls and shelters. But from then on, they were going to march north to reclaim their own country.
The number of injured soldiers would be greater than ever before. In order to reduce the risk of death, it was essential to consume mana, increase the speed of defeating magical beasts, and have the [Blessing of Heaven]s to heal the mortally injured.
“Somehow, I don’t think anything has changed.”
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t ask for anything in return when you gave up the Mithril mining rights, did you?”
Cecile had a feeling of déjà vu about this situation. She was thinking that I was asking for very little things in reward for risking my life and fighting. And she brought up the incident when the poor Granvelle Family was being troubled by the Carnell Family, I gave up the mining rights of the Mithril mine I had found.
What I got in exchange was a position of ‘guest of the Granvelle Family’. Cecile knew it was the best the Granvelle Family could do for me, who had no money.
“Well, I don’t know. There is a saying ‘don’t count your chicken before they hatch’. There’s no point in forcing it.”
“What’s that?”
Cecile didn’t seem to understand the saying, ‘don’t count your chicken before they hatch’. I explained to Cecile about the proverb from my previous life. Cecile listened to my, huffing and puffing.
Rosenheim had become a country of extreme poverty. Currently, more than 2-3rd of its territory had been invaded by the Demon King’s army, and many of its cities had been set on fire. It would take at least take 10 years to completely restore the current situation.
It would take 2 to 3 years just to recover the yield from the trampled fields.
The Giamut Empire saw the situation in that area and began to provide food and other support. It was expected to reduce the cost of the expedition for the elven recovery team, which had been relatively expensive, and to use it as a bargaining chip to purchase Elven Elixirs. Such discussions had been on the agenda for the past few days.
I understood the situation, so I was making [Blessing of Heaven]s for free. To me, making [Blessing of Heaven]s for free was within the scope of my promise to the Spirit King to ‘save Rosenheim’.
“Well, here they are. There are about 30 thousand of them.”
(Hmm, she has been flying since yesterday, so it looks like Ellie is about to arrive. Now I need to level up too.)
I didn’t know how much I need to raise my Level to unlock <Command>, but there was nothing wrong with raising my Level, so I was just going to keep raising it.
(Hmmm, the top of the fortress’ outer wall is also full of magical beasts.)
The Ellie phased through the fortress wall and entered the fortress. The FED-rank birds stopped in a nearby tree and waited.
What the Ellie saw as they entered the fortress were magical beasts strutting about the fortress with a selfish look on their faces. Of course, there were no elves.
Allen had heard that when the Capital city of Fortenia fell, the elves once retreated to Fortress LaPolca, including the Queen, but instead of staying there, they fled south to Tiamo.
Many soldiers died during the fall of the north Rosenhiem and the Capital. They were not able to gather enough troops to defend Fortress LaPolca, which was not that far from the Capital.
It was said that they vacated this fortress without persisting for days, believing that LaPolca Fortress could not protect the Queen due to the lack of soldiers. Then, the soldiers who had been waiting in the southern part of the city below Tiamo gathered in Tiamo and carried out the defense siege.
(Thanks to that, the fortress is still functional.)
The fortress still looked solid, although there were several traces of warfare within it.
It was not that big of a city, but it was big enough to hold 300,000 elven soldiers.
Then, a skeleton holding a sword looked Ellie. It smiled lightly and walked past Ellie, but did not attack.
(It didn’t attack Ellie as expected. I can’t differentiate if someone is my ally or enemy with just one look. My enemy’s don’t have red-colored names above their heads and my allies don’t have blue-colored. I figured it was the same for everyone. Glad that I was right.)
Allen had stepped into this war to recapture some cities and fortresses that had been taken by the enemy.
For this reason, I had not allowed B-rank Spirits to participate directly in the battle so far, but rather have them serve as mode of communication in the cities. This was to allow them to conduct infiltration activities.
He had preserved the idea that if they made a big splash in the war, they would be exposed as his summon and would not be able to go undercover.
B-rank Spirit infiltrates and gathers information, while Allen and the others prepare the groundwork for the elves to attack Fortress LaPolca.
(Okay, let’s go for the biggest building. There might be some kind of boss.)
“Yes.”
With that, Ellie headed for a solid building built in the center of the fortress.
(There aren’t many large magical beasts here. Well, it’s a human-sized city. There are a lot of skeleton-like magical beasts. It’s good for Ellie to blend in.)
As they proceeded, there were magical beasts up to twice the size of a human, but there didn’t seem to be any large ones such like Dragons. There were skeletons with swords and magical beasts with nothing in their robes moving around aimlessly. Ellie were blending in perfectly.
While checking the cityscape inside the fortress, Ellie walked into the building where the leader might be to see if they could find any information.
The magical beasts guarding the building glanced at Ellie who selfishly entered the large building, but quickly returned their gaze. They didn’t seem to tell her not to enter or anything.
They would be wary if more than one entered, so for now only one Ellie went through the door.
There were also magical beasts inside, but Ellie went in deeper and deeper for undercover activities.