Scratches on the pillars are from the previous year
Diletta’s army had not yet arrived, but the inside of the castle was already in a state of warlike turmoil.
Like a conveyor belt in a logistics warehouse with strictly controlled lines, the undead were coming and going in the corridors, carrying something or putting something away.
They were not preparing for battle. They were preparing to flee.
“… Actually, there’s not much downside to running away for the Princess right now, is there?”
“Yes,… though it would not be so easy to move if you had a living, breathing population to contend with.”
With boxes stacked taller than he was, Tracy walked down the corridor, swishily dodging the human-undead waves.
René was walking straight because all the undead passing by were avoiding her.
If she were to abandon Terra Ruale and flee, she would not be able to take her possessions and all the soldiers she had collected with her.
But on the contrary, that was it. She had little to lose.
René was light. It was a wonder to herself that she was able to defeat Noacurio, one of the five Great Powers, with this kind of preparation.
From the beginning, René was of the opinion that she would do as much as she could with the current situation.
It was not realistic to stay in the situation any longer. If this was to be the case, she would have to go into hiding and accumulate strength in a place where the clutches of the Great Powers could not reach her.
“I thought that since she was the Princess, she would never leave this place until she had killed all the Hilbertite lords.”
“No problem. They are not the only ones we have to kill, and I won’t ruin it by being obsessed with an immediate goal. Besides, I’ll be back before they die of disease or old age.”
“…I see.”
Tracy’s inner feelings, which could be read by the power of “Emotional Detection”, were complicated.
He probably really hoped that René would not be able to come back from this. Even if the nobles who gave their support to Hilbert were to be put aside, it was certain that the more René went on a rampage, the more corpses would pile up.
But what if, just because René was gone, the Great Powers would prey on them instead?
In short, Tracy had mixed feelings.
“Well, the biggest loss in escaping would be … the magic pooling hotspot here.”
“That’s it.”
A skeleton waiting in the corner opened the door to the Operations Conference Room and let René through, Everis, who was staring at the blackboard in the room, answered René’s words.
“Even small and medium-sized nations can use a good amount of magical power when it comes to the magic pooling hotspot in capitals. In addition, there are almost no residents now, so there is no need to supply magic power for infrastructure projects… It really was a paradise where we could experiment as much as we wanted every day.”
The flow of magical power in the natural world took many forms, the most abundant of which was the “earth veins”, which flowed through the earth like blood vessels. By drawing and using this magical power, it was possible to exercise a tremendous amount of power that could not be provided by an individual’s own magic power.
Most cities were built on “magic pool hotspots” where the magic of the earth’s veins accumulated.
For a city, a hotspot of magical power pool was an important resource that should be secured even if its location was a little problematic. They served as a source of energy for defensive weapons to protect against external enemies, both human and demonic, and as fuel to drive the city’s infrastructure and ritual magic.
The same was true for Terra Ruale. Terra Ruale, the royal capital, was built on an excellent hotspot of magical power. If they fled from here, of course, they would not be able to use it.
“The city walls and dungeon are a shame, but we’ll just have to build them again.”
“So, the dungeonization project in the capital is dead. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s all right, the know-how will remain.”
Tracy lowered the stack of boxes into the corner of the room, and the skeletons that had followed them entered the room in droves and piled up boxes in the same manner.
The contents were all documents.
On a large desk in the operations room, Alastair and Mialanze were sorting through the documents that looked useful. The rest would be burned and discarded.
“Have you decided what to pack for the move?”
“As you can see, I’m in the middle of moving in seven different ways.”
Everis tapped the blackboard steadily with the white chalk in her jointed hand.
There, all of the supplies and assets that René currently possessed and their roughly estimated volume were written out in rows.
Also written on the board were the means of transport currently on hand, including storage magic and magic items, as well as their capacities.
Everith was in the process of selecting what to take with them.
“Gold coins and jewelry, of course, but also looted magic items. You can also take any furnishings that you think can be easily converted into gold.”
“Don’t forget Lawrence’s ashes that we recovered in Terra Kaine. We’re going to use them as fertilizer for the poison grass fields.”
“Understood. Also, the pre-export Glacelum ingots that were looted from the castle! It’s more expensive than jewelry, and we can’t pass it up. I also want to take some books from the library…”
“How about the food we bought to stop Noacurio’s army?”
“I don’t know, it’s too bulky. Microorganisms can sneak into subspace storage, so they will not stop spoiling. Oh, but yes. I had a theory 30 years ago called “freeze-drying” that I’ve never tried to replicate. If I can reduce the bulk, we might be able to take it with us. If we don’t take it with us anyway, we’ll just throw it away, so let’s just shove it all into the experiment.”
Everis groaned as she made her calculations.
“Hey Princess. I knew I should have used more undead for transport… Sorry, no! It’s useless if we can’t move nimbly. Mmmmmm.”
She thought about having the undead carry the luggage, but Everis quickly withdrew that opinion.
If she took the undead with hordes of them, they would slow their escape and make it easier for them to be tracked down. Only a very few of the most elite would be kept as undead, and the majority would be discarded. Since the corpses of the knights would make a reasonably useful undead, the extent to which they would be taken with them, and whether they would be baggage or undead if they were taken, was currently under consideration.
“I doubt I could manage to take 100 or so of them with us.”
“I don’t want to leave a footprint, even if it’s just at the beginning. Let’s see if we can fool them.”
“… Speaking of which, have you decided where to move?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to three places. We will make a final decision when we see tomorrow’s ‘News Dispatch’.”
Everis held up three fingers and waved them in the air.
“The point is, we have to build up our strength in a safe place. But it’s like there’s virtually no safe place, so I’m going to … choose a place where we can force ourselves to be safe, even if only temporarily. I guess we’ll talk about that tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Everis was not only arranging the move, but also selecting a place to move to at the same time.
It would be easy to just run away and hide out, but that, however, would not be a logical solution.
If they did not somehow prepare themselves to be able to compete with the armies of the Great Powers, the same thing would eventually happen all over again. René had to strengthen herself, of course, but she also had to grow the forces that would follow her.
An environment in which only a safe … threat existed that could be safely dismissed was necessary.
Therefore, they were considering the movements concerning groups and countries that have motives to target the Dead Land of Ciel-Terra, and planning where to flee and what to do in order to create a situation where they ‘cannot interfere’ or ‘do not want to interfere’.
However, in order to do so, they needed to get a grasp of the situation in each country.
When she was in the Demon King’s Army, Everis was able to get information on human nations from spies that the Demon King’s Army had hidden all over the world, but now René had no such intelligence network.
In this situation, Everis used newspapers of various countries in order to know the world situation.
She had arranged to buy major newspapers from the five Great Powers and other influential countries, which arrived in a nearby city once every few days. After that, she would somehow retrieve them and read them.
Of course, there was little to be gained by simply reading the newspapers honestly. There were reports that were in favor of the powers that be, and there were reporters who were blackmailed or dazzled by dirty money and stopped writing.
But even so, there were “signs” that could be read. By reading and comparing multiple newspapers, it was possible to see the reality of the situation, like triangulation.
–It’s all gibberish at the moment, but I should be able to understand it too, not just leave it to Everis…
Seeing Everis, who was active in all aspects of his work, René vowed to improve herself.
René could not be ignorant and incompetent just because she had excellent subordinates.
In order to lead a certain force and compete with other countries, René needed to learn how to be a “leader”.
Well, the basics would be acquired through practice…
Be that as it may.
“…And what are you doing? Mialanze.”
René asked what had been bothering her since earlier.
The cat-vampire in a maid’s outfit paused her paperwork and her ears perked up.
“I’m here to help organize the documents…”
“Not that!”
René pointed not at Mialanze … who was sitting by the wall, but behind her.
Mialanze reached one hand over her back to a wall post and scratched at it, working away at it.
The claws of the Cat-Beast Ketsee were strong enough to be used as a fighting weapon. The vampirization had raised the level of her physical capabilities, and the white stone pillars had the marks of Mialanze’s claws firmly etched into them.
“I’ve been seeing claw marks all over the castle since we decided to abandon Terra Ruale…”
“It would be frustrating to just give the castle to Diletta, so I thought I’d at least mark it.”
Mialanze’s apple-red eyes sparkled, and she said in a very serious tone.
A moment of silence fell.
It would have been so nice if a crow or an albatross had cawed through the window.
“Ah! P-Perhaps you didn’t want to damage the castle!? I’m sorry!!”
How she received René’s silence, Mialanze huffed, kicked her chair, stood up, and bowed down.
Looking at the round head with pointy ears, René slowly looked at Everis and whispered.
“Everis, this is…”
“It’s the culture of Ketsee, the Cat-Beasts, no offense intended, I suppose.”
A follow-up comment was returned, which seemed doubtful whether it was a response or not.
The words “security deposit” and “assessed value” popped into René’s head for no reason.
“Well… that’s fine. Just do it.”
“I got it!”
Mialanze began sharpening her claws again on the stone pillar, and a number of dejected glances were directed at her.
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