The Death Mage That Doesnt Want A Fourth Time 90 (1/2)

It wasn’t snowing yet, but cold enough for the breath of the ht Karcan to turn white as they took the side road south

There were about fifty of thehts’ Order, only threethe vice-captain, had forhts

The unit was made up of those with the social position of Equestrians, future knight candidates and the apprentices of knights They were less skilled than knights, but equal to or slightly above the average soldier

They earing old leather armor with numerous patches and stitches rather than suits of ar the crest of the Hartner Duchy At one glance, they appeared to be an orderly mercenary band

“This is certainly not a pleasant mission, but this is for the sake of Lord Lucas, for the sake of the Hartner Duchy’s future and for the sake of our people Don’t make those faces; you look like the remnants of a defeated army,” said Karcan

“But is this really necessary? Isn’t Lord Lucas’s succession to the family already al his opinion

He was Froto, the spy as participating in this mission as a staff officer, the man whom Vandalieu believed to be a virtuous priest of Alda

Lord Lucas was the eldest son but his ht it would be difficult for him to succeed the family But as Froto said, Lord Lucas’s succession to the family was now more or less decided

The great scandal caused by Kinarp, the fores’ Guild, and his subordinates, who revealed that numerous noblemen had connections with Vampires orshi+pped an evil God Lord Belton, the second son born to the duke’s legal wife, had been alht up in the big waves caused by this scandal

He had ed to protect hi with the Vampires had been revealed, so he had withdrawn fro a duke in the Orbauhts to be a candidate to beco himself had expressed their opinions one after another that they couldn’t entrust this position to someone whose followers had been traitors to humanity

Meanwhile, Lord Lucas had given a perforation to find out if any of his supporters had connections to Vampires and personally hunted and sentenced them

Lord Belton was trying to appeal his innocence by doing things such as hiring the Five-colored Blades, but people already doubted hi its own tail to survive

Now that he had lost the people’s confidence and his pro the Church of Alda, had distanced themselves from him and nobody sy

Of course, the worst-case scenario was that he would be taken somewhere to rest to recover froious life in a re wasn’t particularly unsatisfactory

Once Lord Lucas succeeded the duke, Lord Belton would live on as the head of the branch family

And it seemed that the current Duke Hartner wouldn’t last until the spring With the circumstances as they were now, Lord Lucas’s succession to the family was all but confirmed

Froto couldn’t be bla Lord Belton’s cultivation project now

But Karcan whispered in Froto’s ear “Younow, you will return to your previous less position”

Froto’s face stiffened He had been content with his es’ Guild, but the reason he had disguised hiathering infor one of the duke’s personal es

He had gone through a lot of trouble in order to becoo to waste at this rate

“Either you perform one more job and acquire the reward you wanted, or receive thanks for your cooperation up until now and a little inal position It is one or the other,” said Karcan

“… I understand,” said Froto Being pressed like this, he was unable to refuse

The truth was that the actions of Karcan and his unit would not be of any benefit to Lord Lucas In fact, it would cause slight harm

But Karcan’s seniors had been busy dealing with the recent series of events; they hadn’t given him any orders to cancel the plan to destroy the cultivation project

“Standby for now”

That was the order that Karcan had been given Lord Lucas hihts’ Order supporting him had made it clear that noas not the time to make careless moves

But Karcan had read toothat he had essentially been told, “We have no expectations of you lot anymore so don’t make abeen of any use in Lord Lucas’s victory in the dispute to succeed the duke

Now, he was trying to execute his originally-devised plan of having his unit pretend to go on an expedition, enter a side road far frouise thees

If one just thought calive up on such a plan, but as Karcan had been assigned to do all the dirty work, his sense of suspicion was greater than rown narrow

If he didn’t make a move, would the consequences he had threatened Froto with not also happen to hihts were

But Karcan showed not the slightest sign of having been driven into such a e of He had side the fake travelingBut the h

Things won’t go well at this rate, he thought

The cultivation villages had no significant ability to defend thee was the Seventh Cultivation Village with a population of two hundred and fifty; none of theees ere adventurers, but according to the information available, they were E-class adventurers whose D-class promotion had only just become a realistic dream for them In terms of ability, they were probably no different from the Equestrians of Karcan’s unit

With fifty arhter the entire village They would need to be careful of the adventurers, but there would be no problems if they did

The only concern was the Dhampir boy He had fled the city for some reason so his whereabouts were currently unknown, but even if by soht now, he was only about as strong as a D-class adventurer other than his healing hts with Froto’s enchantes, they would be able to dispose of the people in the villages one-sidedly

But the low ood If they were careless, unexpected failures could occur Villagerstheir faces, or even kill one of Karcan’s uard down

Karcan wanted to avoid that

Deciding that it couldn’t be helped, he spoke to his et them into the mood to work “Gentlemen, I know this mission is an unpleasant task,” he said “Even if we succeed, officially speaking, ill have done nothing more than conducted an expedition, so ill not be praised for our work However, due to the nature of the uise ourselves as bandits And what is it that bandits do when they attack helpless villages?”

At first, the Equestrians gave Karcan a puzzled look before suddenly being taken aback at what he meant

What bandits did in villages was pillaging, violence, rape and kidnapping

“Coht?!”

Equestrians lived their everyday lives under strict discipline As they were those ould soon succeed their True Knight parents, they had to motivate themselves to learn the art of coular basis; they had to become an example for the soldiers

In the future, they would command soldiers and defend their nation with their swords Because of the position they were in, they couldn’t openly enjoy gourht districts

Especially since the Sauron Duchy had fallen to the A atmosphere that they needed to be ready for combat at all times, so they couldn’t loosen their restraints by even the smallest amount

These were the Equestrians that Karcan was speaking to

“Of course,” he said “But ill not be kidnapping anyone Once you have enjoyed them like bandits, dispose of them like bandits Don’t loosen your restraints tooany children! Those who injure their backs and can’t ride their horses will be dragged back by force!”

The Equestrians were suddenly excited Some of them were more in anticipation of the extra iven the strange circu told that they could rape the women as much as they liked, most of them were unable to hide their excitement

Froto turned pale as he ies

His original role had been that of an inforined that he would have to directly witness the villagers suffering and being killed

He would suffer a greater i the villagers suffering as they died

But now that he had come this far, he couldn’t say that he would quit, nor could he escape

If you are going to resent anyone, resent the Amid E wrong; all I wanted was to gain a social position befitting of so the responsibility away from himself

Having gone around the villages and seen that their preparations for winter had gone well, Vandalieu perfors and secretly stationed Gole to the Seventh Cultivation Village

He caught Rank 2 Bloodsucking Rats on the way there He had the owner of the jack-of-all-trades store cook their meat, which was richer than it appeared, and shared it with everyone

And then he stayed the night in the same room as Kasim and his friends

Things are going well for now, he thought

Now that the slave-run er caes, but it see Once it beca s at the city, however While they were there, they planned to consult the Co es

Despite not being citizens of Talosheim, these people were people who adored Vandalieu Despite it having been for the sake of rescuing the titan slaves, he felt a little guilty that he had caused such an inconvenience to the village

If the Fangs of Dark Nights were still functioning, I would have been able to take ainst that, but… I wonder if these people would come to my nation?

If they did that, Vandalieu wouldn’t have to hold back when it caive them houses, furniture and food and offer them work, just like he had done with the people froe

He would be able to have them eat delicious dinosaur meat, fully seasoned with all kinds of flavors, instead of preserved Gobu-Gobu

There wouldn’t be any need to station dozens of Lemure lookouts, Stone Golee No matter what the Hartner family did, they would be able to live in safety inside Taloshei its sixth outer wall built

It did occur to Vandalieu that he should just tell the villagers everything

But that would be equivalent to pressing the people of the cultivation villages to separate themselves from human society

Vandalieu wasn’t confident that this would lead to their happiness

If the Hartner Duchy was a little overnment and Guilds didn’t have connections to the Pure-breed Vampires, then he would have had more options, however

In the end, the Pure-breed Vampires and Heinz’s party are in my way I have to erase them somehow… or at least reduce their numbers

If Vandalieu took direct measures, the Pure-breed Vampires would interfere If he took indirect measures, Heinz’s party would interfere

The Pure-breed Vampires and Heinz’s party were supposed to be ene Vandalieu as if they had joined forces

I could get rid of one o well froerous to presu well’ I don’t kno much they were cornered by the infor doesn’t match up… The spirits of Chipiras and the other Vaood information out of them With Isla’s information alone…

Heinz’s party had done things in a flashy way Thanks to that, the Leh to let Vandalieu know that battles had been occurring, and he had been able to find the spirits of the dead to co be done about heavy dae to spirits?

Vandalieu had turned the ‘Hound’ Isla, one of Ternecia’s ‘Five Dogs’ that were her trusted retainers, into an Undead straight away, so there was al’ Chipiras, who had been split in two by Heinz, was daed all over

The only other spirits Vandalieu could obtain were those of the ‘Mad Dog’ and the ‘Fighting Dog’ The fifth, the ‘Foolish Dog,’ was apparently notplace Vandalieu just hoped that he could get good infor

As these thoughts ran through his , which he could see clear as day thanks to his Dark Vision skill

He couldn’t fall asleep

For some reason, Pete and the other insects that Vandalieu had equipped inside his body with the Insect Binding Technique skill werehis quiet sleep with the sensation of the beneath his skin

It tickled, so he was inadvertently letting out stifled laughter

The Status Effect Resistance skill kept sleep deprivation at bay, so Vandalieu was coht, deciding to get up

Sunrise was close Vandalieu decided to pass the ti

He silently crawled out of the bunkbed, spread a handkerchief-sized piece of tanned leather on the floor so as to not wake Kasian to do push-ups with his tongue

It was harsh training that required not his arue) skill, to support his entire body weight The tongue was a

It would be quite the problem if he were to be seen by Kasim and his friends, but the three of them were humans and they couldn’t really see in the dark, so there wouldn’t be any probleht after they woke up

But Vandalieu did only a few of these push-ups before stopping The Lee had detected several shadows of what appeared to be bandits

… Who are these guys?

Through the Le leather ar this, Vandalieu would assume they were just bandits, but for so horses

One or two bandits ht have been normal, but there were around twenty mounted men They were all sturdy horses; the one at the front carrying aa kite shi+eld was particularly sturdy-looking, so e to touch it

Nores to carry the iteed, but they would not have a cavalry Horses cost iven, and they were normally cowardly creatures And the bandits theone broke, so they didn’t have the technique for fighting on horseback That hy having war horses would just be a waste of money to feed

Selling those horses would actually yield e

In fact, Vandalieu had never encountered a single roups he had attacked and robbed

Then one broke

There were people in Lambda ould nor when there was no work available

And because such people sold their strength on the battlefield to earn their er than normal bandits

At the very least, they were stronger than ordinary soldiers, possessed skills and used martial skills

Though it was late, Vandalieu now felt a reaction froer Sense: Death At this rate, it was possible that the village would be annihilated… no, its annihilation was certain

“This is bad…” he muttered to himself

As eneroup were to ai only for Vandalieu, he would be able to overwhel and the pack of one thousand Goblins

The difficult thing was to defeat theers as casualties If he held back as he had been doing up until now, he would definitely lack the manpower to accomplish this

… There was no helping it Vandalieu decided to get a little serious

He quickly cast Energy Absorption and Bloodshed Enhancement on the equipment of Kasim’s party that was in the room