Vol 1 Chapter 45 (1/2)
Chapter 45
New Movements (Part 1)
(AN: I couldn’t think of a good t.i.tle. (lol) <tn: the=”” t.i.tle=”” was=”” marked=”” with=”” a=”” “temporary”=”” tag,=”” since=”” it’s=”” supposed=”” to=”” be=”” a=”” placeholder,=”” but=”” i=”” don’t=”” know=”” if=”” it’s=”” been=”” changed=””>)
“I am very sorry, Sir.”
In a tent at the corner of the Imperial Knight Order main campground, Jade van Cliffdorf sifted through paperwork. Upon hearing a familiar voice behind him, he looked up.
The owner of the voice was the middle-aged knight who had been a close confidant of the Cliffdorf Marquisate. He should have been carrying out a top-secret mission.
“Claus. Did something happen?”
The sky was growing dark.
The knights and soldiers were busy with preparations for the next day’s expedition and the night watch.
The aged knight — Claus was given a separate mission because it would have been risky if anybody had questioned him. However, if he had returned to the camp, a problem must have come up.
“I am very sorry. I have lost all of the knights Your Lords.h.i.+p had entrusted to me with.”
Upon hearing Claus’s apology, Jade’s face hardened for a moment.
“What happened?”
“Mavis the Brave Count Elstead’s militia got in the way. The prisoners have also been freed.”
“What a failure.”
“I can only apologize. I deserve to be punished.”
“We will get back at them next time. Did you make sure it was actually the Brave?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is fine. Did they discover the origin of the dead knights?”
“Their ident.i.ties are impossible to establish.”
“Erase all those who have been captured. Seal the lips of anybody who could shed information on the knights’ origins. Use any means necessary.”
Claus’s presence melted away.
Jade tossed the doc.u.ments he had been reading onto his desk.
‘I had heard that Mavis the Brave and Prince Alfred had a marriage interview at the royal villa, but this must mean that there is a connection between Count Elstead and Prince Alfred.’
General Feyl and the other top officers leading the advance party were expendables to the Cliffdorf Faction.
Most of the knights weren’t even in the employ of the Cliffdorfs.
A small player in the Cliffdorf Faction, General Feyl happily moved according to Jade’s wishes.
He did not even suspect that he was being fed false information, and attacked an army of three thousand Petersian soldiers.
He was outnumbered six to one.
The advance party would fight in vain, then be annihilated before the main army arrived.
Feyl retreated, and had barely set foot into the main army’s camp before being apprehended.
Feyl was to take responsibility for the crus.h.i.+ng defeat the army suffered.
`Royce van Elstead, and Kelvin Warner…`
They had both been Commander Zaunas’s aides.
Jade’s father, Welt van Cliffdorf, was on the verge of consolidating his power over the army when Zaunas disturbed his plan.
Through their significant achievements during the war against the Demon Lord, they had been promoted to the rank of General. However, it was only nominal, and they were left to stagnate in managerial positions. Then, when the coup occurred, they were both demoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
Furthermore, he had actually placed them in the advance party to eliminate them.
‘No way, could they have made use of his demotion?’
They must have been acting as the proxies of Prince Alfred, who was skilled in bureaucratic politics.
It was unlikely that W
ynn Byrd became Royce’s subordinate by chance.
Escorting the civilians in the rear of the army was the perfect justification to avoid fighting the enemy.
Royce had summoned his territory’s knights without permission, but he could just insist that he was protecting his territory to avoid any repercussions. Due to Elstead’s army acting as a diversion, the Petersian army would be unable to destroy the advance party.
‘I must rely on Father to act.’
He had tried to prevent Royce from acting in his territory by occupying him with a meaningless bureaucratic job, but Royce immediately became a threat once he left the Capital.
Jade took a pen and began writing a letter to his father at the Imperial Knight Order Headquarters.
An incident arose from that single adventurer’s report.
The Kingdom of Petersia denied the Remuls.h.i.+l Empire’s claims that Petersian soldiers were invading the empire while disguised as bandits, and instead claimed that Imperial Soldiers had ambushed their army while their army was carrying out military exercises.
Those who knew the truth kept their mouths shut, and the tensions between the Remuls.h.i.+l Empire and Petersia Kingdom increased.
A few days had pa.s.sed since the battle at Doria Village.
Wynn and the others escorted the girl, who had ended up as the only surviving villager, to Torc village.
Torc Village was in ruins.
Many buildings had been burnt down.
Not a single building remained intact.
Remains could be seen all over the village.
A rotten stench filled the air.
The bodies bore no marks of being disturbed by stray dogs, rats, or monsters but they did suffer from insects and some of the bones were exposed.
Sherry gaped at the sight of the ruined village, which had become unrecognizable. She took one step into the village, then fell to the floor, vomiting.
Reeno supported Sherry, and brought her to a nearby tree with fresher air.
Wynn, Locke, and Wedge, had led the soldiers from Nest Town here. The soldiers began gathering the bodies in one place.
Acting on Sherry’s testimony, the soldiers had searched the highway between Nest Town and Torc village.
If the bodies were just left there, it could cause a plague to spread.
“Riggs…”
Wynn spotted somebody he knew from the remains.
When Wynn became an adventurer, Riggs had helped him out in many ways.
Wynn lifted up Riggs’s cold, lifeless body.
Tears started dripping down his cheeks.
Suddenly coming back to her senses, Sherry went to help the soldiers gather the corpses. She had to be feeling much more grief that he was, but she remained stoic.
Reeno accompanied Sherry as she worked.
The soldiers piled up the remains along with any usable wood from the ruins of the buildings, and set it all on fire.
If it were possible, they would have buried each body one at a time and mourned each one individually.
However, since there would be n.o.body to maintain a graveyard there, their remains could end up being unearthed by wild dogs, or end up turning into undead from all the negative energy and miasma.
The scarlet flames illuminated Sherry’s face as she prayed for the villager’s peaceful rest.
As Wynn watched the sparks float up into the night sky, he thought that they looked like souls ascending into the heavens.
“Now what do we do, I wonder?”
After cremating the villagers, Wynn and the others returned to Simurgh.
“Do you have anybody you could live with?”