Chapter 15: The Tragic Dead (2/2)

“Finally!”

When Eleena’s party were trying their best to evangelize about the God of Games as if they were promoting Amway, Angora had also reached his fief—the unnamed town outside the Valley of the Tragic Dead.

The place appeared sinister and run down. If Angora had never obtained the System, he would have been so scared by its mere sight that he would abandon it at once and flee home even if he had the old driver with him.

But he was now completely different. He was even finding an unimaginable affection and sense of belonging to the broken town.

“So, this is my fief…”

“Foreigner, what is your business here?”

Angora turned towards the voice to find a withered old man standing with a crutch several feet away from him.

His face was so misshapenly skinny that he appeared no different from a skeleton. However, his eyes were so sharp that Angora felt a pain as if he was being pierced by blades under his stare.

“My name is Angora Faust. I’m the new lord here!” Angora declared, drawing out the decree from his bag. “From this day forth, this town and the surrounding lands are my domain!”

The old man gave Angora a long, hard look, and it was until Angora felt a tingle in his scalp that he shook his head. “As you could see for yourself, these lands are incomparably barren. Everyone living here are so poor that they could not afford to eat. In fact, they are biting off tree barks to satiate their hunger—you are not going to earn even a copper here.”

Angora knew that the old man was trying to warn him, just as he knew that coming alone to take control over the fief was considerably dangerous. His subjects could make him appear as if he had an accident on the way there, which was why most lords would tend to bring along escorts when they did the same.

“I would not oppress my subjects,” he said, persuasively calming the other.

“You’ve misunderstood me, kid,” the old man replied, shaking his head again. “The Royal Army had ignited the forests just outside the Valley of the Tragic Dead to stop the revenants from advancing. That fire spread and reached these parts, torching half-a-years’ worth of harvest into ash. If the famine problem could not be solved, you, a lord acknowledged by His Grace would be a target whom everyone here would vent their wrath upon.”

“Did the Royal Army not reimburse the damages?” Angora asked in surprise.

“Certainly not, kid.” The old man said slowly. “Who did you think the ‘Tragic Dead’ in the name ‘Valley of the Tragic Dead’ refers to? The corpses of those creatures that had long since arisen as revenants? Certainly not.”

The old man then pointed at his own chest and said bitterly, “It is us. The common folk who die because of the battle between the military and the revenants are the real ‘Tragic Dead’!”

Angora was left gaping by the old man’s words.

Although he was prepared for difficult days ahead as he took the reins over his new domain, he did not imagine that the reality was much more brutal than what he could expect.

Being a normal human who was not learned in magic, combat, or divine spells, how would he survive in this stricken place?

That was when he remembered that wondrous existence which had saved his life.

The Overlord System!