13 (75)

Louis crossed the square and entered Duke Christopher’s castle. Remnant forces remained. They were made up of ordinary people who had begun worshiping black magic and a small number of trained soldiers. Their outfits were terrible. Their clothes were rags, and their weapons were crude. The cavalry momentarily grew tense, thinking they were enemies, but hesitated when they realized these were citizens who had not even received a full week of regular training.

That was right. They were meat shields. The important figures were fleeing after Nestor’s death. The citizens, whose minds had been eaten away by the pleasure granted by the Demon God, continued to follow him even though Nestor was dead. There was only one clash, but that alone created a sea of blood. The chiliarch asked Louis.

“Your Highness. What should we do?”

“They are so stupid they do not even know the situation has changed. Clean them all out.”

The cavalry charged at them. The fight was one-sided, and screams burst out from every direction. Louis rode his horse inward. Arrows flew, but none struck Louis, and even if there were any, he lightly turned his head to avoid them or the cavalryman beside him blocked them with his body. Statues were erected here and there. As numerous as they were, they were also diverse. Louis vaguely guessed that their leader was the Demon God seated on the throne he had seen.

‘Still, that fellow Ian must truly have been strong.’

The man named Ian came to Louis’s mind before Nestor. His ability window was showing a growth curve. His mana had stopped at 336. Once it exceeded around 300, one was called a Sword Master, and 336 was beyond even that. Currently, it was 338. Simply crossing swords with him in a life-or-death fight had granted Louis a value of 2 from the System. Numerically, it was a small value, but Louis could feel that he had become stronger.

The inside was bleak. Whatever had happened, corpses were strewn all over. Perhaps everything worth money had been taken, because it was difficult to find even a common painting. Louis kept walking. The inside was deathly quiet. A cavalryman rammed into the door and smashed it, and Louis entered. Duke Christopher was dead. A dagger was lodged in his chest. He had bled so much that the chestnut-colored carpet looked red. Louis turned his head. Perhaps the incense had burned out halfway, because only a little of the base remained.

‘Finally.’

The information Louis had been waiting and hoping for began to appear. The Duchy of Eron had incorporated Duke Christopher’s territory, and now it could no longer be seen as a small country. The full map revealed itself for the first time. It was an immense map. The farthest north was covered in white snow. The north was split between two countries. To the right was Tu Ania. To the left was Levan. Assuming the territories of these two countries were combined, the land was terrifyingly vast. However, it was not an attractive land.

Most of those countries were frozen tundra, and in every region with usable land, warlord rebellions had broken out. Their civil wars were even worse than the Duchy of Eron’s, to the point that they might self-destruct even if left alone. Tu Ark and Levan had such severe regional animosity that they were desperate to kill each other. The people there were rough, and their bodies were large, with a masculine culture developed among them.

Their unit formations were mostly centered on close combat and melee combat. Below them was Blade Lake, the largest lake in the world. Since the area near the lake also included rugged mountain ranges, it was a land full of monsters. The reason Tu Ark and Levan were relatively safe from foreign invasions despite experiencing the world’s worst civil wars was because Blade Lake existed.

Below the lake, the climate abruptly changed to a relatively moderate one. The dry climate continued for quite a long and harsh stretch. The grass that grew there had a unique characteristic: gigantism. Some varieties were as large as people, so some who saw that place called it a sea. Below the long, belt-like region, there were a few more countries, but they did not draw Louis’s attention. The place where Louis stopped was the Empire of Loernia, the center of the world. Loernia was vast. It had almost no useless land.

There was no frozen land, and even the climate was suitable. Several rivers flowed through it, and there were as many as eight fertile granary regions. In particular, Loernia’s capital served as the center of all civilization and boasted peerless defenses that had never once been breached. A thousand years ago, Loernia had ruled half the world. What remained now, after shrinking and shrinking, was still that large, and it remained the greatest mountain Louis had to overcome.

‘So this is the additional information.’

Louis checked the national strength. The score was divided into three categories. Scientific power, cultural power, and military power.

‘Six hundred fifty thousand….’

When the score reached the limit, one tier rose, and the Empire was Tier 4. The gap was proven by that alone. Louis was currently Tier 2. The Duchy of Eron’s scientific power was 260,000. This too had increased by a full 100,000 compared to the past. His rule had been short, but the projects Louis had carried out, the aqueduct, and Euclid’s recruitment had brought greater effects than expected. Euclid was now on Louis’s side. Since he was impatient to apply his knowledge to Louis’s territory, he alone had raised scientific power by 20%.

‘Seeing it in numbers shows how important that decision was.’

The recently obtained Magimetal Casting was also remarkable. It had raised the value by 80,000 on its own. Louis had not known that the technology called Magimetal Casting was this valuable. A single technology being worth 80,000 was in line with the fact that Magimetal Casting could play a decisive role in the era.

‘I need to call Euclid.’

Cultural power had various factors mixed into it. A high value meant that the country was healthy. In that sense, the Empire ran to both extremes. Art had bloomed, but its corruption index was the highest among all countries. Because of that, the total was an ambiguous 220,000. 220,000 was higher than Louis’s country, but considering the size of its territory, it was an absurdly small number. Considering that the Empire was especially among the highest ranks in art, one could tell how severe its corruption was. Louis already knew that much without needing to see the numbers. The pleasure-seeking and extravagance of imperial nobles were so infamous that no one was unaware of such details.

‘To summarize, there are about seven mountains I must cross from now on.’

Louis looked carefully over the rough map and fell into thought. The Duchy of Eron had 260,000 scientific power, 170,000 cultural power, and 180,000 military power. Compared to the Empire’s military power of over one million, it was quite low. If one examined it one by one, the gap would be even larger, down to differences in armaments. Military power was estimated only based on ordinary troop types, and the reason there was such a difference was because of population.

Population created an absolute difference. The reason the Empire had once flourished and maintained the position of absolute ruler for over a thousand years was precisely this power.

‘That means I will have no choice but to face many with a small number of soldiers.’

It was inevitable that this would become Louis’s major task going forward. More than that, Louis’s eyes stopped once again at one place. It was Ruderwin. Its military power was 60,000, and its scientific power did not even exceed 100,000.

‘Nestor weakened Ruderwin as well. I need to pacify the cities I received through the quest and clean up this place too.’

The crisis Nestor had created was consecutively opening the path of territorial expansion for Louis.

The first thing Louis had to deal with was resolving the city’s starvation. Louis summoned Christina here and ordered her to bring the food from the capital. The capital would suffer a temporary food shortage, but resolving the quest came first for Louis. The capital only needed to suffer hunger briefly. A massive amount of food would soon pour in from the Pantalist food zone Louis possessed.

Starvation caused urban unhappiness, which could bring about various declines in industry. If the capital became unhappy, money would naturally stop circulating. Louis had learned in the past that the way to prevent that was to provide the citizens with a circus. The Great Colosseum was not yet complete, but he had captured many slaves to use. Strictly speaking, these people should be sent to the Papal Court as heretics, but Louis intended to use them in his own way rather than send them to the Court. That was the provision of a circus.

Using skilled combat slaves as the core, he would execute the slaves in the form of duels. The city would starve, but paradoxically, its happiness level would be maintained. Once a short period passed, he could immediately feed the capital with food from Pantalist, so Louis had nothing to lose. According to the original plan, the food from Pantalist was meant to be distributed mainly to Louis’s territory and northern cities so they could eat their fill, but thanks to the variable called Nestor, that matter was postponed. Since resources were limited, he had no choice but to use them efficiently.

A transport procession carrying food stretched endlessly above the broken and shattered barrier road. Wagons creaked as they continued in line. Tents covered them from above, and soldiers thoroughly guarded the surroundings. Naturally, the inside was piled high with food. It was enough to resolve the starvation for the time being all at once. The soldiers were dissatisfied about why the food from the capital was being moved this way, but even more than that, the rumors about Louis were filling in that dissatisfaction.

“I heard Lord Louis caught a demon.”

“I should have joined the battlefield too.”

“I should have gotten into the cavalry somehow…. To think I missed such glory.”

“They say the Holy Knight Order was devastated. Meanwhile, Lord Louis broke straight through the heretics head-on. That means the difference in skill was that great. Ahem.”

Since Louis’s achievements were clear, everyone guessed that there must be some reason for moving the food. Around the middle of the wagons, Rose Christina was riding in a luxurious carriage. She was sobbing inside. Her clothes were modest, and her blond hair had been roughly rolled up, but it did not hide her beauty. The aide glancing sideways at her crying figure, and the soldier riding a horse beside the carriage to escort her, kept sneaking glances at her through the window.

She was not sad because her father had died. Rather, that had been her request. When Louis called her there with food from the capital, saying he would feed the starving citizens, she resolved to serve Louis for the rest of her life. She remembered Louis’s cold face. With such a face, Christina had never dreamed that he would give such deeply considerate orders. The truth was not for such benevolent reasons, but Christina, who did not know the element called the System, fell for Louis like this. Even as she cried, she remembered Louis, her face turned red, and she repeated that process.