Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Faced with the increasingly lawless harassment of the Black Armor Guards, coupled with Yang Ling’s promise, the townspeople brought their daughters into Wissen Castle for the time being, to protect them from getting violated by the Black Armor Guards. Within a short span of time, there were slender and supple young ladies all around Wissen Castle. Luckily, there were many villas within the castle; otherwise, the young ladies would’ve been forced to sleep on the floor.
As a precaution, Yang Ling took Goode’s suggestion and placed a large notice outside Shangri-La and the castle. The notice explained that winter had arrived and the castle needed large-scale cleaning and restoration work, so a large number of female workers were being hired. That was used to address any doubts that Steve and the Black Armor Guards under him might have.
With the influx of people over such a short span of time, coupled with the fact that Yang Ling had to frequently help the townspeople who were experiencing hardship, the abode began to exhaust a large amount of rations every day. Luckily, Yang Ling had stockpiled a large amount of dry rations before winter, not to mention the heaps of food in the Anca family grain storage. There were still no worries that rations would run out.
With this much manpower, Yang Ling decided to construct a wine refinery within the castle. Even though the Evening Primrose Bar and the wine refinery had been trashed by the troublemaking Black Armor Guards, the winemakers and builders were all unharmed. Under the old butler Murbaqi’s command, wafts of fragrant wine scents soon filled the air within the castle. The dwarf Rumi could finally drink his fill again.
The situation within Wissen Town was chaotic. Yang Ling had thought that he might be able to recoup the cost of supporting so many people by using the free labor to set up a small bar within Shangri-La. But he did not expect business to be this unusually booming. Since the lawless Black Armor Guards had dramatically cut down the job opportunities available to the people, many troops and adventurers had nothing to do and opted to drown their sorrows in alcohol. They would drink until they were drunk every day, giving Yang Ling a profit of many crystal coins.
Under the influence of the alcohol, the intense hatred of the furious townspeople rose. Many of them stalked the Black Armor Guards and stabbed any of them that fell behind in the group. The corpses of Black Armor Guards were frequently discovered at crossroads, in dark corners, or under the trees by the roadside.
In the beginning, Steve made a big deal about this and ordered his army to search every house for the murderers. But when the soldiers were unable to arrest the murderers each time, the lower ranked officials could only push the blame onto the untraceable Rossi forces in order to soothe Steve’s fury. This way, Steve could not control the situation despite all the effort he put into it. The situation became more and more chaotic.
At the same time, attracted by the mesmerizing alcohol, many Black Armor Guards also visited Shangri-La for a few drinks. But faced with the heavily armored barbarian guards wielding tire-sized axes, coupled with the animosity of the troops and adventurers, none of them dared to cause any trouble.
In the previous fight at the Evening Primrose Bar, the Black Armor Guards had managed to injure two of the barbarians severely, but they lost more than twenty of their own in the process. An additional five of the Black Armor Guards had succumbed to their injuries five days later. The Black Armor Guards were lawless, but they weren’t suicidal. They now knew how powerful the barbarians were, and they would not dare cause any trouble in front of the barbarians unless they assembled the entirety of their army.
There was an incident where a drunken Black Armor Guard succumbed to his bestial desires and tried to molest an elf lady in public. The results were predictable; the soldier was beaten to a pulp by the violent barbarians, his teeth falling everywhere. After a few hundred Black Armor Guards heard the news and rushed over, they didn’t dare to attack when they saw the bloodthirsty barbarians.
When he was dragged back to the camp, the severely beaten lad did not know his place and complained to Steve. The soldier claimed that Yang Ling was harboring Rossi soldiers within Shangri-La, and he suggested that they should mobilize the entire army to investigate Shangri-La. In the end, he got kicked into the air by the angered Steve.
Steve had been filled with confidence when he took the helm in Wissen Town. He thought that with his own abilities and his three thousand Black Armor Guards, he would be able to consolidate his rule rapidly, and perhaps even send the first shipment of resources to the king as early as the following spring.
It was only after he arrived in Wissen Town that he discovered how dire the situation truly was. Not only did the Rossi forces rush in to sabotage his plans, a large portion of Wissen Town’s people and troops were unwilling to accept him as their leader.
After he realized that he could not settle this as fast as he wished to, he had to increase the intensity of the taxes he collected because of his lack of supplies. The situation was becoming increasingly grim. Eventually, everyone from the neutral troops from the Livenza Alliance to the ordinary townspeople started viewing him as an enemy.
Given how many of his men were dying, Steve knew that the assassinations and ambushes had nothing to do with the Rossi soldiers. Someone else was manipulating these events from the shadows. But in such a tight spot, he was lucky just to extort some money from Yang Ling. If he had a real falling out with Yang Ling, he would be basically digging his own grave. He would not be so foolish even without the reminders of his tacticians.
Whenever he had nothing to do, Yang Ling would also make his rounds around Shangri-La. Casey would arrange for a group of warriors to accompany him every time he left the castle. Yang Ling had spoken of this many times, but both Goode and the old butler Murbaqi were adamant that he should not leave alone. Because of this, large groups of guards frequently appeared within Shangri-La. The Black Armor Guards, even more so, did not dare cause trouble within.
This day, after training for an entire night, Yang Ling felt his Wizard Powers approaching a bottleneck. He could probably become a high level Spirit Wizard if he were to charge past this hurdle. When that happened, the speed and radius that he could tame Magical Beasts would increase. He estimated that he would be able to tame a few intermediate to high level Magical Beasts without even using Magical Beast Blood Orbs.
In this dog-eat-dog world, increasing one’s abilities was the most important thing to do!
After giving Goode a few instructions, Yang Ling returned to Terras Forest. He wanted to recall the spider army into the Wizard’s Pagoda to await orders, and then he could silently train within the forest for a few days. Achieving a breakthrough in his Wizard Powers would be difficult for the time being, but absorbing a large amount of green life force would be beneficial to him.
Riding the speedy Unicorn and using the Horned Bee Beasts as scouts, he managed to silently evade the scouts of the Black Armor Guards along the way, arriving at Spider Valley a few hours later.
Unlike the last time he was there, the entrance of Spider Valley was covered in traps, with poisonous spider webs covering the area and scouts hiding under the ground. In the valley, countless spiders were skittering around.
Some of the spiders were the size of basins, their bodies covered with long black hair. Some were very speedy, their bodies white. Other spiders used their tough spider webs to glide from one tree to the next. It looked like the Tarantula King had led its army to conquer several other spider tribes in this span of time, greatly improving their abilities.
The transformation in Spider Valley was drastic, but Yang Ling was even more shocked when he saw the giant Tarantula King.
The Tarantula King’s nine eyes had changed from sky blue to a blood red. The red hair on its body stood straight like arrows, a ferocious sight. Furthermore, the spider guards behind it had all grown to the size of basins and were in a sharp triangular formation. Looking at the cluster, it looked as though they were a sharp, blood red arrowhead.
Fatal poison, sharp poisonous fangs, and ambushes that were hard to guard against. Coupled with their clear organization and complete lack of fear, the spiders were more of a butcher’s knife, a sharp butcher’s knife, than a Magical Beast army.
Looking at the bloodthirsty spider army, Yang Ling was incredibly shocked. He realized that he finally had a true Magical Beast army. Even though a lone spider was not exceptional, these tens of thousands of spiders attacking in formation would be a nightmare for his enemies. Yang Ling hadn’t expected the spider army to undergo such a drastic transformation in such a short amount of time under the leadership of the Tarantula King. He also couldn’t imagine what kind of drastic change the Horned Bee Beasts, Evil Eyes, and Withered Tree Warriors would have if they had such a champion leading them.
