21st Century Archmage

“Are the preparations going well?”

“As soon as the harvest ends, the lords and knights will come together. There is no need to worry.”

“I am deeply comforted by your confidence, Duke Hanskane.”

“This is all thanks to His Excellency Duke Yanovis’ great, great grace.”

“I shall relay your loyal feelings to him.”

In the castle of Duke Hanskane, which was not far from the capital of the Havis Kingdom, two people were having a secret conversation in the lord’s office, which glittered with luxurious furniture and paintings. The man who spoke without honorifics to Duke Hanskane, the highest ranking noble in the kingdom, was most certainly a subordinate of Laviter Empire’s Duke Yanovis.

“But may I ask when the empire will annex the kingdom…? Our preparations are all complete. As soon as the empire gives the command, the Havis Kingdom will immediately become the land of His Imperial Majesty, in all his wisdom.” Hanskane spoke of treason without a hitch, his eyes sparkling.

“Just wait a little longer. His Majesty the Emperor will soon give the order.”

“I understand. Please give us the command at any time.”

“That aside, you said Princess Rosiathe is repeatedly interfering these days?”

“That has been a slight annoyance as of late. She may be a figurehead princess, but she is first in line to the throne, so the people and a few nobles are supporting her. She is so bothersome that I would like to erase her, if possible.”

“Just wait a little longer for that, as well. There are many ways to use Princess Rosiathe, said to be the greatest beauty of the northern continent.”

“Huhu, that is why I have been enduring. She may have become obstinate, but all the military power and royal authority has long since been in my hands.”

“Work hard for just another few years. A reward reciprocating all your hard work will soon return to you.”

“I shall repay it with my loyalty.”

He was a duke of the Havis Kingdom in name, but in the marrow of his bones, Hanskane had become a servant of the Laviter Empire.

Clink!

The two people clinked glasses of red wine, smiles full of intrigue spreading across their faces. From their bodies radiated the stench of desire, ambition that would stop at nothing to secure benefits for themselves.

* * *

Ruuuuuuuumble.

‘Spirits are seriously useful.’

On a flatland next to a stretch of shore not far from Denfors and the harbor, the Terrans that were doing tons of bulldozing work these days were turning the earth and stamping it flat. An area full of lush grasses was miraculously transformed into an empty plot. After a moment, the flat plot hardened like stone.

“Is this sufficient?”

“Yes, it’s exactly how I wanted it.”

The enormous, rectangular plot was the size of ten soccer fields.

“Derval, take care of it according to the blueprint.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Like-minded friends of his had joined the fray, so Derval was full of vigor lately. He was standing confidently with the salt farm blueprint in his hand.

“Then we will go back with this for today.”

“Thank you, Narmias-nim. And thank you to everyone from the clan.”

Unlike Narmias, who talked to me with ease, the other elves were still taciturn. They merely nodded.

“Then…”

The groundwork for the salt field was done, thanks to Narmias and five earth summoner elves. “I will come visit you tonight,” I whispered quietly into Narmias’ ear as she turned.

“Yes…”

Narmias’ puffed a faint response, the nape of her neck reddening.

‘I need the help of the elders now, too.’

The work was progressing faster than I expected. The smart elves figured out the peculiarities of the road construction and put their heads together to increase the work efficiency. At the same time, the poured cement hardened, allowing us to move the carriages faster along the new road.

‘We have to thoroughly hide it. The news of the elves’ existence can’t be leaked to the world yet.’

I had reinforced patrols around the territory, and restricted travelers to the trade passage. Besides mercenaries and people who wanted to become soldiers, everyone else was being escorted out of the territory. We had to keep the things happening in Nerman top secret.

Flap flap flap flap flap.

Because they were lighter than wyverns, the speed at which the harpies beat their wings was faster too. The elves alighted with the sunset at their backs and flew off into the sky.

“My liege, it is truly remarkable. How can you come up with such things…”

Derval was at the center of everything happening recently, taking care of them one by one. After pulling his gaze away from the elves, he sent a look of respect my way.

‘This much is nothing.’

These achievements were nothing on 21st century Earth. Derval just didn’t know about the guns, artillery, planes, and submarines that could instantly hunt down something like a wyvern.

Guo! Guo! Guo!

Bebeto suddenly cried out as if getting my attention.

‘Did he eat rat poison or something?’

Heavyweight wyvern Bebeto usually took every opportunity to sleep, but he was hopping around like he saw a female wyvern with a big booty in his sleep.

“What are you on about?”

“My lord! My lord!”

‘This sound is—!’

I heard someone calling me urgently from the helmet attached to Bebeto’s saddle.

“What happened?” I responded hurriedly, jumping into the saddle.

“My lord! It’s terrible!” came the voice from the magic communicator in the helmet. “I have a report that monsters are attacking on a large scale. Tens of thousands of monsters have surrounded the area around Fort Ciaris!”

“T-Tens of thousands?”

I knew the recent movements of the monsters were strange, but I never expected that they would really dare to attack.

‘We should be able to defend that much, though.’

* * *

I wondered why the knight in charge of the communication channel was so alarmed. We had mostly completed the restoration of Fort Ciaras with cement, and thousands of elite soldiers were defending it.

“D-Demon beasts have appeared alongside them! And not just one or two, they number in the hundreds!”

“W-WHAT?!!”

I was shocked by the mention of demon beasts. Each one of them was stronger than a knight capable of using Aura Blade. It was indeed a crisis if there were hundreds of them.

“I’m coming right now! Prepare every Skyknight capable of sortieing!” 

“Understood, my lord. But there are only 10 Skyknights who can sortie right now. Everyone else went on patrols.”

The lingering in the horizon had come in spectacular fashion. We had far too few Skyknights and wyverns to cover the territory’s breadth. We had trained knights with potential into Skyknights for the past month and put them on wyverns, but they were still too green to be counted as part of the force. Moreover, because of the monster aggravation here and there in the territory, my Skyknights were so busy that it was hard to even see them.

‘Dammit!’

I cursed inwardly as I clasped the safety ring.

If battle broke out in two different places, I wouldn’t be able to deal with it. Because unlike me, the other Skyknights had limited strength.

* * *

Kwaaaaaaaaaa!

Thud thud thud!

Bam! Bam! Bam!

“Focus your fire on the trolls!”

Fwip fwip fwip fwip fwip fwip.

A group of trolls were smashing the castle walls with huge iron lumps and maces that had definitely come from humans. They ignored the trifling arrows grazing their hides and battered away at a weak part of the castle wall.

“Keep your heads up! Pour the boiling oil!!!”

Fwip fwip fwip fwip fwip.  

Bam! Baaam!

“Keaaaaghhh!”

“AHH! M-MY EYE! MY EYE!!!!!”

Near the Rual Mountains, the sunset lit Nerman’s Fort Ciaris with a dying glow. The fort had been constructed during the previous occupation of the Bajran Empire, then briefly overtaken by monsters before being recaptured and restored along with the recent extensive subjugation effort. However, because time was limited, it was not fully repaired—only the exterior had been reconstructed with the cement material the lord had created.

Atop the fort walls were around 2,000 elite soldiers. Because of the harvest, 1,000 soldiers had been given temporary leave, and because the monsters had attacked so suddenly, there was no time to call them all back.

And so, the battle broke out in full force.

There were weak points scattered around the huge Fort Ciaris, which could house ten thousand. The side the soldiers were clustered around was completely besieged in mere moments by monsters crawling out from the mountains. As if seeking bloody retribution for the massacres they had recently suffered, they rampaged everywhere.

Large monsters like trolls, beowulfs, and ogres were destroying a weak part of the castle wall with massive weapons, and monsters like orcs and lizardmen were firing arrows and spears towards the soldiers atop the walls.

The last glimmer of light disappeared, and only the wood fires atop the walls and the moon remained to light the fight below. The constantly increasing monster horde soon exceeded 100,000.

KUKAAAAAAAA!

Moreover, the roars of demon beasts that hadn’t yet made their entrance could be heard from the walls. Before the darkness settled in, around a hundred demon beasts of various kinds appeared in the midst of the monster horde, glaring. Known to have intelligence bordering human level, the demon beasts were commanding the monsters like foot soldiers. And before long, a few monsters started climbing up the high castle walls on ladders.

“Is there still no response from the Lord?!”

“The Lord departed not long ago!”

“Ah! At this rate, we won’t even last one hour. What are we supposed to do?!”

The territory they had to defend was ever so large, but the number of soldiers was all too insufficient. The commanding officer in charge of Fort Ciaris, Chief Knight Halmyne, moaned as cold sweat beaded down his back. The movements of the monsters had been suspicious, but they couldn’t send a subjugation party all the way into the thickly wooded forest of the Rual Mountains. They had merely sent Skyknights every day to patrol and listened to the reports.

‘The demon beasts planned this systematically. It was like this in the past, too. The real reason why the imperial army was defeated was because of their damned scheming.’

Halmyne, a native of the Nerman Plains, knew very clearly how the Bajran Empire had been defeated. The monsters had attacked out of nowhere, aiming precisely for the transits of provisions for the soldiers and their blind spots. Not just once or twice, but dozens, hundreds of attacks had forced even the Bajran Empire known for their bravery to scream for mercy.

‘Clever bastards! They know that if this place falls, it’s not just the trade passage that will be destroyed, but also Nerman’s steadily growing peace!’

Grinding his teeth, Halmyne glared at the horde outside the fort from the commanding watchtower. He only saw the eyes of the monsters gleaming with bloodthirst. Even if the Skyknights were deployed, they wouldn’t be of much help in the dark. If the castle wall fell, that would spell their demise.

“What are you lot doing! The left wall is dangerous, is it not! Put more men there, at once!”

Despite his frustration, Halmyne did his best to command the troops. He had no desire to die trembling in fear like an idiot. The entirety of Nerman would be endangered if they could not fend off the horde here, so he clenched his teeth.

‘My lord!!!’

In his heart, he desperately called for the lord.

The Lord of Nerman, Kyre. He was young, but he was a hero like one of the stars in the sky above, the hope of thousands of Nerman’s people. Halmyne, no, all the soldiers defending the fort, knew that only he could conquer this crisis.

“Stay strong! Lord Kyre will soon arrive!” shouted Halmyne with a great deal of mana.

“WAAAAAAAA!”

“Repel the monsters! We’ll protect Nerman with our hands!!!!!!”

After Halmyne’s roaring cry died out, the soldiers bellowed a chorus that drowned out the howls of the monsters.

To the soldiers, the person called Kyre was like a god.

* * *

Swooooooooooosh!

It was unfortunate that Fort Ciaris was the one attacked—if it were Orakk Castle, we could have reached it in an hour, but Fort Ciaris was at the westernmost part of the territory, and bordering the Rual Mountains, at that. Because a portion of soldiers had been given leave for the harvest, the fort must be fighting with outrageously inadequate numbers.

‘Hold on a little longer! My soldiers!!’

Behind me were just five beastmen and five newly-appointed Skyknights. However, besides the Gold Wyverns whose flying speed rivaled Bebeto’s, the Greys were flagging far behind.

“Agh…”

I could only let out a long sigh to expel a bit of my frustration. The hot blood my soldiers must be spilling right this instant made my heart freeze.

If became an 8th Circle mage, something like monster provocation would never happen. I thought I was strong, but my skills could not protect Nerman. I called the elves frogs in a well, but my skills were no different—limited to a small scope.

My cloak fluttered behind me in the whistling wind.

My sigh of regret flew away in the wind, and I took a deep breath of grief, the sorrow of one whose strength was lacking.

* * *

“Allowing a sinner like him to continue to live is nothing but a disgrace to us, who live carrying the intent of the gods. Cardinal-nim, we must wage a holy war. If we back down like this, the other temples will mock us!”

“I fully agree. As if daring to kidnap a servant of Neran-nim was not enough, he even murdered paladins—if he is not guided to the path of repentance, we will be subject to the anger of our god!”

“Hear, hear. We must wage a holy war and vent Neran-nim’s rage!”

A heated discussion was underway in the main temple of the Goddess of Mercy, Neran, which was located in the Opern Empire. Dozens of priests who had gathered from all over the empire argued angrily for a holy war. 

Neran’s grace had been slowly receding as of late, giving them trouble producing the most important source of income for the temple, holy water, so the priests got worked up after finding out that the priestess with the greatest holy power was kidnapped. 

Only now did they find out that a mere apprentice priestess in a viscounty of the Dapis Kingdom was the one receiving the greatest grace from Neran-nim.

“Pontiff Hedor, why did you conceal such an important fact? Shouldn’t you have told me of the existence of a priestess who could become a saintess?” asked Cardinal Torphon of Neran. Wearing a white robe embroidered with a golden cross ensconced in a circle, he fixed Pontiff Hedor with a scathing look, demanding that he explain himself.

“Oh agents of God enshrouded by Neran’s love, everything is due to my carelessness. As an apprentice priestess, I feared she would be unable to bear the grace of God permitted her and would abuse the power or become conceited, so I was unable to tell the truth. The Holy Spirit was abundant in her, so I wanted to do everything in my power to educate her until she could learn the dogma and mercy befitting such grace, but things became like this.”

Lofty words spilled fluidly out of Pontiff Hedor without a hitch. The moment he heard the news that the paladins had died horrible deaths in the castle of the Havis Kingdom’s Calvaron County, he reported everything he had been hiding to his higher-ups. It was out of his hands now, so he was left with no choice but to confess.

“How regretful. If I had known a little sooner, Neran-nim’s holy repute could have spread even further…”

Cardinal Torphon sighed. He was nearly 70 years old, but thanks to taking a dose of top-grade potion every day, the skin on his face was as elastic as a young man’s.

“Oh reverent Cardinal, may you permit a holy war. I hear that the Havis Kingdom will soon take decisive action to subjugate the wicked devil of Nerman. If we send paladins to the subjugation force, we will be able to bring Apprentice Priestess Aramis back into God’s embrace.”

“May you give your permission. To those who treat the mercy of God lightly, giving a stern warning is the only way to not sully the name of Neran.”

“May you permit a holy war!”

Dozens of priests gathered from various countries lowered their heads as they insisted on a holy war.

“… I shall permit the holy war. By my god-given name of Cardinal, I hereby command all the paladins to be convened and the sacred Holy War Banner to be put up! I command that the Lord of Nerman who sullied the name of Neran-nim be purged, in the name of God!”

“In the name of God!!!” shouted the priests as they drew crosses.

Ever since a black mage appeared many years ago and destroyed the temple, there hadn’t been another holy war.

Thousands of paladins serving Neran-nim would rally together in the name of God, seeking to purge the sinner who had sullied Neran’s name.