Chapter 156: Fortification
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
TThere was an ongoing debate about truth and culture in my office. I, on the other hand, was receiving a challenge from a junior.
“As a race that openly looked down on the other races has no future, those foolish long ear-ers are the most obvious examples! If you look upon the younger and different races as savages, you have as well closed the gate of advancement.”
“Yes, well said! Keeping the old ways of thinking and closing up one’s mind will only lead to mental rigidity, and one will, at last, be left behind times.”
“That is why, we should be adept at learning the cultures of other races, perhaps today, they will be looked upon as wannabes, uneducated, uncultured, wild and unruly, but who knows, they will be looked upon by future generations as pioneers! Any artist who is more advanced than his era, has always, in the beginning, not been accepted in his own era.”
“Yes indeed, there are a lot of such examples, many of the classics today are unconventional revolutionaries of the past. The non-mainstream bands of the past have, to everyone’s surprise, become superstars, and those strange convoluted looking puzzles actually became some sort of impressionist’s holy work. For an old-timer such as me, it is really confusing. Perhaps I will never ever begin to understand, but I will not hinder the development of new conceptions, on the contrary, I will even try to support them.”
“Glad that you understand. Your majesty, we are progressing into a new era, to build a thriving new era, we must accept the cultures of other races and personal preferences. To respect and attempt to understand is the beginning of all communication, and this world is in such chaos because it is lacking sensible and wise people like you.”
“Hehe, Little Timmy, you and your silver tongue, you flatter this old man’s heart with your words.”
“Well the, what about my designed plan?”
“Hehe, it still won’t do.”
Seeing Timmy Lade sputter and frustrated, I grinned cruelly, you scum humiliated me and told the world I was vengeful and petty, then I shall show you how vengeful I could be.
“You say all these just so that your cat-eared communication devices, animal-tailed battery, armoured swimsuit series can be approved? Are you serious? Or do you think I am so easily tricked by sweet words? True, I have always respected the culture of other races, but are you certain that these perverted inventions are according to normal aesthetic standards, and not just to satisfy your selfish desires? You dare to swear it on your conscience? Do you dare swear it on your sister’s reputation?
Good, Timmy Lade was at a lost for words now, but I continued.
“What’s more, even if it is for your selfish desires, your considerations are way too simple. Everyone says that the maid look is good, and you know that I do indeed like the maid outfit, but how would look if a 6 feet tall strong man with a three feet waistline wore this maid costume? It burned my eyes, and I had completely lost all my senses! I had to stare at Elisa the whole night to recover from that!”
“…you are way too naive, all you thought about was the youth and cuteness of young ladies in bikinis, but you had never thought about the horror of old ladies in these swimsuits. You only thought about sailor girls and young girls, but never about the old women who think they are sexy sailor girls or hot witches. And don’t even get me started with those old men and their hairy legs and chest. They burned my eyes, I had nightmares that entire night!”
I was not exaggerating this time, I could vividly describe the scenes in the dream right now.
“In that nightmare, a bunch of buff strong men wearing the maid costume were marching in an orderly manner, and giving me the army’s salute. They perked up their butts as they swayed as if on the catwalk, and purposely raised the little witch’s wand as they shouted the war cries, some nonsense like “representing the moon to punish you”, “love and bravery”, and that’s not all, there are other mentally polluting ones like “Niko Niko Niko”, “I didn’t take my medicine today, and I feel that I am so cute”, what is going on!”
“There’s more, I am not saying that I am that educated, but what do they think they’re doing, raising one arm and shouting “Hail, the King of Gents!”. Isn’t that sort of plagiarism a little too obvious? I’m not some King of Gents!”
My roar could be heard from outside the walls, but that was only the beginning of my venting. Due to that strange parade, I was so shaken that I couldn’t sleep after that, and was staring at Elisa with my blood-rimmed eyes for half the night, she must have thought that I had gone completely insane.
“Scoundrels are not scary, what’s scary are cultured scoundrels. Perverts are not scary, what’s scary are perverts with knowledge. Naughty children creating mischief are not scary, what’s scary is when their mischief goes unpunished!
It has been years ever since I had it so bad. Even my reputation got dragged into this and developed towards this strangeness. How could it be possible if I didn’t take my revenge.
Naughty children must be disciplined, the more twisted they were the earlier they should be corrected and reprimanded. Otherwise, it was only a matter of time before they evolved into mega naughty children.
“Bam!” At the snap of my fingers, the main door was thrown wide open, a group of burly looking men glided in, they were all strongly-built, but wearing the costumes designed by Timmy Lade… Well, I won’t describe them in detail as I still wanted to have lunch later, anyway, even if I managed to shut my eyes before I saw them, the sound of the flesh bumping against each other made me nauseated.
“…I think I can guess your preference since this is your own design, then you should enjoy this properly!”
“Wait a moment, your majesty, I know what I did was wrong! Argh! Get your chest off me, that is so disgusting, don’t rub your oily face against mine, my Lord, help, I see that I am wrong now!”
Even though I closed my eyes before seeing the scene, the tortured screams of a naughty child still made my heart glad.
“Wrong? Play with your new friends for a few hours and think about it. Take him away.”
“Little Timmy, my apologies, these are the orders of his majesty. But relax, the leader has already approved your application to join the Gentlemen Alliance, from now on we are all brothers. After he allows the remaining few of his core members down the flagpole, we can hold an initiation ceremony for you. Everyone likes your design very much, so your designs can be directly passed through internally in our team, so you need not worry about the lack of research funding.”
“…wait wait, when did I ever applied to join some alliance for perverts… don’t touch me, I brought honor to Mist Kingdom! I bled for his majesty! You can’t do this! You can’t! Your majesty, I beg of you, hang me on the flagpole too.”
As I heard that he volunteered to be hanged on the flagpole, I started to discern his repentance. Timmy Lade had probably learned his lesson this time, and would think over carefully before doing anything in the future, thereby, I made a decision.
“Hehe, no way!”
A naughty child’s promise? Even if he was sincere when he made the promises, but judging by the forgetfulness of naughty children, they can completely forget about their toys after two days, and if he wasn’t severely punished this time, then the next time he’ll most probably make the same mistake. I shall let you remember this for the rest of your life.
“Aaaaargh! Sister, princess, your majesty, save me! Idiot! Don’t touch my ass! Aaargh, my first kiss. I was saving it for sister!”
Good, that tortured scream was delightful, and hearing this naughty child’s scream, my mood seemed to be better.
“Oh by the way, add some spice for the guys hanging on the flagpole, let the demonic marksman use them as targets, don’t let them be idle. Don’t worry, target practising has never killed anyone. Don’t think I do not know, these guys are experienced now that they have been hanging for so long, “What is the most energy saving pose to sleep when you are hanged upside down?”. Ha! I’d like to see how you sleep while you are being shot at.”
After settling all these nuisances, it was now time to put my attention on serious matters.
My Undead patrols and Aurora Air Cavalry were reputed as the highest-rank spies amongst the battlefield. With their efforts, I had a certain amount of confidence about the battlefield.
I had no idea what the allied armies were doing on their side, but there had been several military meetings where I was not even invited, most likely they were up to some schemes. Of course, I had made my own calculations on this, the information that I shared was chosen very carefully.
Putting aside their years of prejudice, Beastmen and Elves were working together closely, whereas humans were playing political games among themselves, no matter how I looked at it, the situation on our side was unfavourable.
However, since the Elves made their entry, I was no longer worried about the problem in Antoin. This was not a military problem, but a political one.
If my predictions were not wrong, the elves were raising the flag of vengeance, the war was on the horizon, and will eventually involve the mega powerful countries of Humans as well as the cathedrals. And then, since they had declared war against Sleuweir, if Antoin falls, and Sleuweir razed to the ground, should they not consider returning back home?
I was afraid this was the reason of Beastmen being inconsistent with their invasion of the city. The Antoin of Sleuweir was but a large bait in the plan. If the bait was dead before the plan could be executed, then how the plan plays out had to be reconsidered.
Considering the current situation, if the final battle was lost, killing half of the seven kingdoms in the Northlands should be enough. However, if any of the mega kingdoms interfere, for example, San Antonio with personal connections, those little elven kingdoms in the Northland would not stand a chance.
“Elisa, do you know the inside story? Have you any news?”
“None, this is not part of our responsibility, but I can smell the stench of devils in this. Their hands had played a part in this chaos, it is their favourite game to come up with all these pointless evil schemes. If the demons were leading, they would have definitely begun with the blood sacrifice to summon the demon generals. When the army arrives, they will steamroll through the whole way, these useless little tactics are so laughable.”
Indeed, this also matched my understanding of the two races of Chaos faction. Demons had been known to be lurking among other races, to create disputes or to hatch evil plans, with many devilish strategies.
“No, I must go and have a look.”
Sitting at home, blindly giving instructions is not my style when the situation is unclear to me, hence, I did not hesitate when I jumped onto my steed, the Frigid Nightmare, and rode to the front lines to investigate.
——————————
The flying Frigid Nightmare suddenly transformed into its ethereal form, dodging the lightning casted by the Lightning Eagles. I transformed into War Angel forms while I was in the mist, and silently flew away from the clouds.
“Dismissed!”
At the next moment, just as the Lightning Eagle Knights had their attention shifted towards Irene, whose body just recondensed again, in that split second, the giant sword coming from up above struck them down straight away.
With the strength of Irene’s legs, Antoin shouldn’t be far, but these air cavalries, who kept intercepting along the way were indeed troublesome. I had already met four of these little groups on my way. Although Lightning Eagles who had Hammerburst as their only superpower, were not difficult to be dealt with, their extreme speed and outstanding eyesight certainly made them worthy opponents, one might run but might not escape, and would be at last forced to swallow all their attacks.
At this stage, even my transfiguration and Irene’s invisibility which could be performed only thrice per day, had all been forcefully spent, it seemed that we had reached our limit.
Not far from here, Antoin was surrounded, but I would not take a step further as the alarm in the Beastmen’s camp had rang out abruptly. Uncountable air cavalries started flying up into the air, two-legged flying dragons, Lightning Eagles, bird-bodied witches, and as if all these traditional soldiers were not enough, I even saw a young green dragon knight.
“This has completely sealed off the air route towards Antoin. Let’s go home, Irene.”
Just as I sent orders to back home, the black cat which was hiding from the wind in the snuck out by itself.
“Don’t be hasty, circle around more, do you see what is below those stone pillars? Look closer, God forbid there will be new problems.”
Very well, a word from the expert, and the officer broke his leg running. After I flew around the stone pillar twice and began playing hide-and-seek with the little green dragon for a full ten minutes, Harloys finally nodded and began speaking.
“It has been confirmed. Go back, since they have decided to act this way, I’m afraid that the final battle is before us.”
“Why is that?”
I skillfully dodged the dragon’s breath attack from behind, while I leisurely flicked my middle finger towards the dragon rider. This dragon did not even have a fully formed beard, I reckoned he was not yet a hundred, he might even be a livestock from a Beastman’s farm. Perhaps his abilities were quite strong, but totally inferior in terms of experience on the battlefield.
After Irene transformed into a bird form and flew at full throttle, the green dragon was nowhere to be seen after mere minutes. After we managed to shake off the Beastmen air cavalries, I could finally ask Harloys on her discovery.
“All of you meat on a stick, how could you possibly understand the secrets of sorcerers… don’t shake, don’t shake, I’ll fall! Fine, I’ll tell you, the Earth elemental beings are building a city. You must have heard of the Fort of Elements, perhaps in a few days there will be another gigantic city around here. At that time, you will be invading a big city whereas they will be attacking a small city. Oh, that would be amusing.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“Don’t play with me, Fort of Elements can only be summoned on the elemental plane. This is but the main plane.
“Yes, this is then the second problem, the main gate to the Earth elemental plane is opening as we speak, very soon you will be swarmed with uncountable stone men.”