Near the Fortress of the Foggy Plains, Melgion, was a small river that strangely branched off into three streams. Such rivers were rarely seen in the plains. There were also dots of small woods nearby. To the south was the borderlands, and to the north was the western plains.
In the morning, fog would cover the bank of the river and in the evening a cold atmosphere would cover the land while the twin red sister stars dazzled in the night sky. Wood could be procured from the nearby woods. After Pale left for the front lines, Zaurosh took command and continued construction.
Further down south was the borderlands’ Shirak. Pale picked out her base and started working to drag the Red King into battle. Razuel came to view as well. The mixed army could be seen stationed in the borderland regions of Shirak and Razuel. The mixed army was made up mostly of adventurers and were there both as scouts and to deal with the monsters.
Send out a small group of scouts, and if there’s an opening, kill the enemy.
The strategy of both sides were quite simple, but in the ever changing battlefield and despite the chance meetings that might occur regardless of the time of day, somehow, a big battle just never started. The mixed army in particular were quite hesitant to start a battle, as the pillar of the Blue Knights, Allen, was absent, so they couldn’t proactively fight.
Moreover, with the representative of Pena and the person responsible for keeping the clans together absent, friction even started to occur between the clans. Naturally, such a situation left them with little opportunity to attack the goblins.
The mixed army somehow managed to keep themselves from killing each other by diligently focusing on scouting, but they were already at their limits.
Pale also didn’t want to exhaust her forces, so even after securing victories with the scout platoons, she would pull her forces out, without finishing off the enemy, and then repeat the same thing again. Pale’s scouts centered around the centaurs, who wielded spears and bows to hunt humans and monsters alike from afar.
Tianos, who led the centaurs, had a serious disposition and prioritized safety above all else. As such, they never approached the humans too deeply. And even when they pursued their enemies, they made sure to wrap things up quickly. This was all within Pale’s expectations.
In the end, the only thing the mixed army could do was to inform the Red King of the monsters’ attack and request for reinforcements.
But the Red King was also in the middle of dealing with the elders. He didn’t have much to spare. Moreover, he had left the matter of the elders to the top leaders of the Red King, so he didn’t know which side would finish first.
Brandika didn’t think much of Pena’s civil war. To him it was as good as won. Because of that he just left the matter to his subordinates.
The commander of the vanguards, Saldin; soldier and diplomat, Grave; Wyatt the General, Kanash from Elrain Kingdom, Cell an information specialist like Grave and a soldier.
Brandika had sent these people to deal with the civil war not just to deal with the problem but also as a test to see how good they really are. After all, a suitable test required an appropriate problem.
The Red King has gotten big.
But as far as Brandika was concerned, the number of people he could genuinely trust and the people with actual abilities were few. One such person, Carlion, whom he trusted the most, no longer had much left to live. Brandika would have to pick a person out of those mentioned earlier to take on his role.
Brandika remained in Pena, an unmoving mountain, while his commanders wreaked havoc in the surrounding lands.
The young and lively Saldin fought fiercely and claimed the head of an elder, while Grave used his connections as a diplomat with Pena to succeed with a scheme.
Wyatt chose to attack steadily and safely, while Kanash, who was renowned in Elrain Kingdom for his tactics, fought with a good balance of defense and offence. As for Cell, she attacked the enemy with a small platoon and killed an elder in one fell swoop.
While all the other commanders have already brought results and were returning, Allen the knight commander of the Blue Knights alone had yet to achieve anything. His subordinates called out to him, but he refused to hurry, and simply made camp in the territory of an elder without moving.
“Commander, we have to make a move quickly and get some results! This is surely the best plan if we are to ensure her majesty’s safety! It will also be our way of making up for the last battle!”
“Perhaps, but I don’t believe the queen would be happy to see countrymen killing each other…”
While Allen was at a loss on how to proceed, a messenger from Brandika came, urging him to hurry. But even then Allen hesitated to point his sword at the elders.
Seeing Allen like that greatly worried his subordinates. In the end, they came up with a plan and sent a messenger, saying that they wouldn’t execute anyone else as long as they gave them the head of the elder. The knight order has gathered the most skilled of the young martial artists of the country. Naturally, those members of the knight order could also be found within the regions of the elders, so getting a message through was trivial.
Three days later, the head of their political opponent was brought before Allen.
When Allen saw that, he prostrated himself on the ground.
“Forgive me… I…”
Couldn’t protect our country. Allen wept.
He couldn’t protect his own country, he couldn’t bring his subordinates to fight a magnificent battle as members of a knightly order, he couldn’t shed the blood of the political opponent because he was a fellow countryman… Allen engraved all these things to his heart.
◆◇◆
After winning many small victories, on the sixth day of attacking the enemy without regard for the time of day, a report reached Pale.
The elders of Pena have all been defeated.
Pale knew that it was only a question of time before they would be defeated, but this was still much quicker than she’d expected.
The longer they took, the more time the Goblin King would have to learn horseback riding, but it seems their enemy wasn’t planning on making their lives easy.
The reason she has been piling up these small victories was because she wanted to let the Red King know of their existence.
The existence of an enemy that wasn’t so easy to deal with. If word of that were to reach the Red King, then he would naturally turn his attention to them.
If Pale had simply let the Red King be, then they would surely start amassing wealth. Even if the Red King were to be given just one year to strengthen their foundations, the amount of wealth they would be able to gather would be staggering.
The wealth of the Red King after acquiring Elrain, Pena, Tortoki, Fatina was already far and above that of the borderlands and the western region. Pale couldn’t wait anymore. She had to gamble on a battle now.
She didn’t think that the Red King would hide within its shell when there’s a problem left to deal with. After all, they were only able to get to where they are today by attacking.
The fact they were able to get this far without any great mistakes almost makes one wonder if they were actually under the protection of the Goddess of Destiny, Liuryuna. But it was also because they have never experienced any setbacks that they will find it difficult to change their approach so suddenly.
Hence, it didn’t take much to predict how they would approach this problem presented before them.
“Now, come.”
The seed planted, Pale called out from the borderlands to her hateful enemy.
