Book 2: Chapter 73 (1/2)

“Leader! There’s some good news and some bad news,” a skeleton said as it ran towards the area where it felt Mr. Skelly’s aura and arrived at a clearing in the woods. It was empty. “Leader?”

“Down here,” a voice said. The skeleton lowered its gaze. A hole appeared in the ground as Mr. Skelly’s head broke through the earth. “Alice has been trying to kill me for the longest time now. Have you found any gryphon cubs yet?”

“Yes. That was part of the good news,” the skeleton said and nodded its head.

“And the bad news?” Mr. Skelly asked.

“The bad news is I lied,” the skeleton said. Mr. Skelly stared at the skeleton without a word. “The real good news is we’ve succeeded in kidnapping the emperor and empress and replaced them with our own. The fairies’ illusions are working really well.”

Mr. Skelly nodded. “Then the real bad news?”

“We failed to destroy the road. It was almost as if they were expecting us to attack,” the skeleton said and scratched its head. “There were hundreds of traps laid out, and a whole squad of dwarven riflemen were lying in wait. The twenty men we sent stood no chance. The dwarves’ projectiles could shatter bones and four of the fairies were injured pretty badly. But we managed to get away without any trouble. We might have given away the fact we weren’t human though, considering no one died or bled.”

“Mm. That’s troublesome,” Mr. Skelly said and rubbed his chin, his hand popping out of the earth. “But since we took control of the human leaders, things should get a lot easier now. I didn’t expect the dwarves to wise up so quickly though. Their king truly isn’t incompetent.”

Leader! a voice shouted in Mr. Skelly’s head. Dozens of roads are being built into the territory we just conquered!

Mr. Skelly frowned and pulled out a glowing blue crystal. He held it in front of his mouth and asked, “Who’s building them? You can’t capture them?”

The roads are building themselves! the voice said. The fairies say there are hundreds of people smaller than them working together, but none of us can see them. We tried blocking the paths of the roads, but earth flies into the air and builds over all the obstructions without stopping.

Mr. Skelly fell silent for a moment. He glanced at the skeleton standing over him before speaking into the crystal. “I’ll send reinforcements right away. Looks like there’s no choice but to involve the humans already. Even if you can’t stop the roads from being built, that doesn’t mean you can’t fortify the defenses against people coming along those roads.” He sighed, put away the crystal, and faced the skeleton above him. “Mobilize the human army. I wanted to take it slow and fully draw out all the benefits of the dwarves’ territory for ourselves, but that’s no longer possible. Bring the humans to the area we captured and fully integrate it: build roads connecting the two lands. It should hold out long enough for us to finish sweeping through the elves to attack the dwarves from the south. With Tafel’s and Alice’s firepower, it’ll be much easier to change the outcome of this war.”