Partially restored city of Olta, 1000 citizens and 100000 skeletons.
Danh's POV.
A while after the toilet issue, Lucy came back to pull me out of bed and tell me that I don't need to sleep anymore. I thanked her and then went to sleep anyway when she told me that I still can if I want to. She stayed for a while after that, instructing me on how to give orders and some basic habits of holding courts. Afterwards, she passed me some books that she said to be used for educating magic. Then she had to leave for an undetermined amount of time due to reasons that she didn't say before leaving.
Anyway, with her probably not being here any time soon, I made a new position, Prime Minister, and assigned High Priestess Marie as the new Prime Minister. Technically speaking, Lucy is still the Chancellor and is still above the Prime Minister, but with her gone, Marie is running the operation. Hmm, maybe I should request her to be an advisor instead. She does seem to have authority in Punishia, this world's hell, and her own work or even faction there.
…
Damn it, all of my information comes from only a few sources and is obviously controlled. How do I break this blockade?
That can be dealt with later, for now, the reconstruction is going nicely. The gates are fixed and oiled. Several buildings are converted to skeletons storage space while they wait for new orders. Now, to further increase the population size, I'm sending off the first expedition to recolonize the ruins of a town west of here.
The captain of the expedition, priest Worian, comes to my office in person. I'm pretty sure I have prepared everything already, but I did delegate most of the details to my ministers, so I should hear him out. That and it helps with morale as well.
I tell the guards to let him in. Apparently, most of the fighting forces here consist of skeletons commanded by humans with weak to none magical potential. The exceptions are the guards, or anyone who interacts, or even be in close proximity, with me. They must be humans as the cultists don't want to displease me with filthy undead. I don't mind and I honestly prefer humans' company.
Anyway, back to him, he is one of the new border cases. Stepping into my office is a man whose body looks frail and crumbling, akin to a dried corpse, mainly because it is. With the help of the throne, I can now turn humans into liches. Liches can stay alive for as long as they have enough magic to sustain themselves. That also means that only sufficiently magically gifted humans can turn into liches. Even then, the success rate is low due to all the complexity of trying to replace biological functions with the flow of mana.
That's where the throne comes in. With literal mapping of the flow of mana in humans', and maybe other creatures, haven't tested that yet, bodies, the conversion process achieves almost a certainty success rate. Hence, that why this man is the border case of the previous custom, he is an old man turned into a lich. His frail body became marginally less frail while his face dried out and his hair fell off. Despite all of these changes, his eyes are alive that ever before with the promise of eternal life within his reach.
He bows before me and speaks: "Oh great one, this one comes to request clarification of several details that this fool can't understand."
I nod, signaling for him to continue. He explains: "The documents state that, every two thousand feet, I am to leave a detachment of skeletal troops commanded by one of the new skeletal officers. May I know the reason for this?"
"It is to secure the route between the city and the town. Based on the marching speed, any issue can be reached within 20 minutes at worst. This protects transportation between the town and the city. In particular, those pesky barbarian raiders that have harassed your hunting parties for the last few centuries."
He nods, but replies: "I understand that, I simply cannot see the reason why protection against the barbarians needs to be that much. The barbarians' raids have reduced significantly, to none even in the past few months."
Why on Earth, wait, no, Wanarion am I only hearing about this now?
"The expedition is temporarily delayed until I solve this issue."
He responds: "Yes, your greatness." And follows behind me as I walk out the room. When I step out of the room, the two guards quickly fall into steps behind me. The offices have been reorganized and reassigned to reduce walking time. Thanks to that, I can now vaguely recall where Marie's office is.
Vaguely because I still need my bodyguard to remind me whether I am at the right floor or not.
When I approach the room, one of her guards peeks their head in and says something. Then someone, an aide of one of my ministers most probably, walks out and waits on the bench. I step into the room and quickly get to the point, skipping the pleasantries.
"I have just heard that the barbarian raids are disappearing. What are the details?"
Marie, who has just abruptly stood up to welcome me, bows deeply and responds: "Yes, your greatness. About 3 months ago, the barbarian raids stopped for some reason. When you descended from his Grace's realm a month ago, we still mentioned it in case they return. They have not."
…
"That's it?"
She nods, "Yes, that's entirely it. As far as I am aware, the barbarians only observe our hunting parties from a distance, never engaging."
Oh no, that can't be good. "How many hunting parties have reported seeing the barbarians and how many have seen them more than once?"
She pauses for a second and answers: "All of them, as far as I am aware of. I haven't heard from any group that doesn't mention barbarians. Is that a problem, your greatness?"
I sit down opposite from her and gesture for her to sit down. "Think for a second, why did they attack our hunting parties?"
She sits down and replies: "Because they are contesting the hunting ground?"
"And why would they stop to observe us instead of attacking or hunting?"
She looks away and frowns slightly before quickly relaxing when she looks back to me, "To figure out our numbers from how much food we are hunting."
She stops there for a moment, her eyes widened, and then continues, "They must have been intimidated by our numbers, right?"
I shake my head, "Unfortunately, most likely not, if they did, they would have stopped already and not risk inviting our wrath."
Marie seems thoughtful for a few seconds while muttering to herself: "To ignore his Grace's might and authority with such fanaticism."
Then she turns to me, eyes so resolute that even I can understand, "Give me the order, I will hunt them all down."
I almost blurt out 'Calm down.' before I catch and remind myself that's the worst thing to say in this situation. I try to appeal to her rational side first: "It would be unwise to attack now. They are obviously prepared for us and will devastate our forces if we are not careful."
That calms her down enough for me to continue, "We will first discuss this with the minister of war. Then we will gather with the other ministers for a proper war plan."
She suddenly looks to the side while nodding.
"Is there an issue?"
She stammers: "No, your greatness. I will set it up right away."
She tries to look normal while setting up the paperwork. I glance at Woria who is trying to sneak away and just get caught by me at the doorway. I look back at her and use the only trick I can think of.
"High Priest Marie of the Olta branch of Dakorism, please, tell me what's the issue."
Marie stops and turns to look me in the eyes and says: "There is no Minister of War."
"What has happened to the guy that Lucy, his Grace's ambassador, assigned?"
She then points to Woria, who's currently standing next to the door, "We previously planned to replace him once he has died, seeing that he's very old and infirm already. You didn't seem to be planning any war in the near future, so we believe that he will work just fine while his replacement is being trained."
She pauses here, "Uhh, well, at least that was the plan before he was turned into a lich. We followed the precedent of a corpse of a fellow believer that we turned into one of the skeletons. Woria was dismissed from his position. Unfortunately, his replacement is still being trained, so we currently don't have any Minister of War."
…
"So where on Wanarion have all of the documents that I have sent to that office gone?"
She pulls out a stack of papers with a slight smile, "All here your greatness."
"And what's the latest date that I requested my orders to begin being fulfilled?"
Her smile quickly faded, "A week ago."
She begins: "Wait, but some of your orders on stockpiling resources have been com…"
Putting her voice out of my mind, I begin formulating a rough idea of what I need to do. First, I need to roll out all of my reforms that should have begun rolling out several weeks ago. Then, I need to put this guy back as the minister of war. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Okay, um, reassignment first, then reforms. While that is going on, I will begin scouting the barbarian's camps.
I return back to reality and see that she has finished talking. "Alright, how long will it take for the minister-in-training to finish his education?"
She scrambles for a piece of paper, "Roughly 2 months, your greatness."
"Send a message to everyone that all undead with equal or greater intellect than the liches to be considered as equal and retain their position after turning. Afterwards, get the scribes to write proper documents for that. Now, we will reinstall Woria back to his position."
I quickly grab all of the documents that should have been sent to the Minister of War. I stand up and walk towards the door, Woria following behind me. While walking to his office, I hand him the stack of papers.
"Try to finish as much of this as fast as possible. Focus more on the logistical reforms. Also, I still need a new mayor after this, so this position will belong to your replacement after this mess. By the way, how did I manage to notice you? I don't remember ever hearing about your dismissal."
He nods, "You noticed me as the first human that was turned into a lich, your greatness."
Ah right, that explains why he was better dressed than others back then.
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It takes a few hours for Woria to read through all the documents and for Marie to gather the ministers. During which, I use the information from Woria's office to call up a force of 4 human mages, 895 skeleton riders and 900 skeleton horses. The logistics are very simple as only those 4 humans need food, which can be carried by the skeleton horses. This should be enough to fend off any probing attacks and still fast enough to run from anything that isn't a probing attack.
Anyway, focusing on the present, the ministers have been gathered in the throne room. They have finished the usual opening ceremony while I wait on the throne the whole time. Pulling up the map from the throne's system, I take a moment to appreciate that others can also see this screen, so that I don't have to stay here permanently just to not let this be useless. The holographic map shows the usual blue dots and the brand new gray ones that appear and disappear constantly near the further blue dots in the West.
As much as I had hoped the map could also identify threats for me, the simple fact that I can change the colors of those dots indicates that I need to figure them out myself. Fortunately, it can identify individuals for me. That one barbarian scout team that I assigned to be yellow is still marked as yellow as they appear again to scout, while the others are still gray.
Anyway, back to the meeting, "As everyone can see here. The barbarians to the West are scouting our forces and they are not stopping even though they can probably estimate our numbers already. This indicates that they are confident that they can take on us and we should be prepared for any conflict with them."
The ministers nod, their faces. Well, I actually can't read their faces, so I am gonna pretend that their faces are grim. That and also I want to ignore the fact that Woria is worryingly suppressing a grin.
Let's continue, "I have sent the military reforms to Woria. Please aid him to the best of your abilities in order to finish as many of the reforms as quickly as possible."
They nod, seemingly understanding the orders.
"After this meeting, I will go West to scout out the barbarians. The warriors have already been readied for me."
They nod, though seemingly more confused this time. As I have learned from trying to get them to understand my orders, I need to specifically request them to question me in order to deal with anything they don't understand.
"If you have any concerns, please speak your mind freely."
The first one is from Woria himself, "Your greatness, won't it be better if someone else goes out to scout the barbarians instead of you? You can stay back here and manage the reforms."
"For a normal leader here, that would be the correct choice. However, I was brought here from another world. I don't know what to expect from these barbarians, so it is better if I go out to see them myself instead of reading reports." There is also the fact that none of your reports mention anything about their numbers and equipment, so I need to go check it out myself. Naturally, I didn't say that last sentence out loud. It would sound like scolding and be rather damaging to morale at this stage. However, I do need to fix this issue. An instruction given to Marie should suffice.
As Woria thanks me for answering his question, the others seem to be sufficiently satisfied to not ask anything. Deciding that my appearance here is too problematic for them to speak freely with each other, I decide to leave. Though I still instruct each of them to record the meeting for me. Separately and privately, of course, to reduce bias as much as possible.
Coming outside, I see that the scout regiment has been assembled right before the entrance. The commander, a middle-aged man with a simple red headband to mark himself as the commander, greets me: "Your greatness, everything has been prepared as per your instructions. We can set off immediately."
"Good work."
The skeletons have already mounted, wearing their makeshift gambesons. Luckily, the skeletons don't, or rather can't, have any complaints about making their own armor as fast as possible. Of course, it's fragile enough to be torn with bare hands, but it protects against arrows and weakens blows.
Thanks to a skeleton falling out of a window 3 weeks ago, I learned that the 'body' of the skeletons is their bones. Specifically, the mana that flows and sustains them is contained within their bones. So when that skeleton had a cracked rib, the mana bled out, making its movements sluggish and weak. The only reason it could still work is that it is also absorbing mana from its surroundings, which counterbalances the losses. After another skeleton fell out of another window on top of it, that rib broke entirely, causing the loss to be too high. Without enough mana to sustain it, the skeleton collapsed a few days later. A mage later noticed, picked up the remains and fixed it with her magic.
Also the skeletons have a tendency to fall out of windows or keep walking into a wall because they don't have much, if any, intelligence at all. The people here have already gotten used to it and made simpler orders. I haven't and am the main cause for so many skeletons falling out of the windows.
Mounting the skeleton horse that has been prepared for me, I look over the battalion of skeleton cavalry. It is slightly creepy seeing so many unmoving skeletons like this. Normally, they are more spread out so it isn't as creepy as now. In fact, even the skeleton horse that I have just mounted on is creepy. I have never ridden a horse before, but I am pretty certain that a normal horse can't apply the perfect force to remain perfectly still as I climb on it.
The commander hands me a white cloak, before wearing one himself. The usual clothing of the fanatics here, the black cloak, is obviously too exposed in the white snow. Therefore, whoever ventures outside the protection of the walls wears white cloak to make themselves harder to see.
Giving a slight nod to answer the bow of the other mages, I start riding. Following behind the commander, I am quickly reminded that I, in fact, don't know how to ride a horse. Even when the horse is lightly galloping, I can barely balance myself on top of it. Luckily, the horse can counterbalance my weight without much issue.
Until the first turn when I nearly fell off the horse, gripping the reins for dear life and dragging it to the side. After almost causing a chain reaction of skeleton horses falling over, my horse is now tied to that of two mages while I feel the balance. While this is not optimal and probably annoying to the fellow riders, my need to know what I am gonna have to deal with is worth me having to learn how to ride a horse on the way.
The journey towards the West is rather smooth sailing. Figuratively of course, both because we are traveling on land and also that the galloping horse makes my backside hurt a lot. Without the need to rest, the skeleton horses can gallop constantly, greatly reducing travel time. Unfortunately, the living need rest and food, so we have to slow down to take breaks and camp for the night. Even then, we still make great progress due to the 895 skeletons doing all the hard work building and dismantling a fortified camp for…5 people.
As we go, we cross paths with many hunting groups, who bow to me as I pass by. Each of them has only 3 humans at most, leading dozens of skeletons and skeleton horses. Though they don't carry much meat back. Guess that many skeletons are needed to cover that much ground to hunt.
More importantly, we pass by many abandoned villages, towns and cities. All of which have surprisingly undamaged buildings. To make matters even weirder, there are farmlands. How did anything even survive here? To thrive even? For that matter, where's the barbarians coming from? What's even the point of invading this frozen land?
All those questions are hopefully going to be answered in, well, now. After almost a week of riding, we have seen our first barbarian scouts. There are about half a dozen of them, wearing white cloaks similar to us. However, they, and their mounts, are clearly living creatures as their entire group react to our presence and calm their agitated horses. They watch us from a distance, atop a small hill.
I wave to call the commander, then whisper to him: "Act like this is a normal hunt."
He nods and whispers to the other mages, who split off in groups of 2, each leading 300 skeletons. The commander then loudly orders the 300 skeletons left to disperse and find game to hunt. I ride to a decently high hill and observe them, glancing at the scouts once in a while. They patiently continue to watch us from afar.
It takes until nightfall for them to leave. Their discipline is quite impressive, I must say. As they leave, my group gathers back to build a fortified camp for the night. While everyone sleeps, I wait until midnight. Then, taking note that the moon is dim tonight, I leave the camp.
This new body has no such need for sleep or rest or light to even see, allowing me to sneak off to scout. Unfortunately, I forgot a critical problem. I have no idea how to navigate in a forest. I was kinda hoping that the campfire of the barbarians would mark my way, but they are smart enough to put the fire out before they sleep. After managing to walk back to my own camp several times despite going in a straight line, I decide that I need a new plan and return to camp.
The next morning, the commander watches over everyone working. The barbarians still watch like yesterday. Me? I'm hiding in the snow. After the last time, I remember two cards that I have. One, I don't feel cold. Two, I don't tire. So my new plan is to hide in the snow and run after the barbarians when they leave.
While hiding in the snow, feeling the pleasant cold despite the temperature being far below zero, I now realize that I will have no idea how to get back unless I follow another barbarian group. That isn't exactly in my control, but I'll take it. For now, I will just try to count their numbers. If it is low enough, I will just push past them to their main camp with the scouts. If not, then I'll be back with more.
After a while, I realize another issue. Hiding in the snow for hours is fucking boring. If I move too much, I will alert them of myself, that'll ruin this whole plan and probably any new plan as they realize that I can hide in the snow like this. Hoping that they can't see slight movements, I play around with some snowballs and make a small pile of it next to me. When that pile is no longer able to maintain its individual ball-shape, I build another one.
As I am making the fourth pile, which is at the direction of the barbarians, I notice some movement. Crawling closer, I see the barbarians are going back and forth on horseback. Crawling even closer, I realize that the hill that the barbarians are standing on doesn't have a gentle slope in all directions, just the one facing us. The opposite side of that hill is a low steep cliff with a step stool for them to climb on quickly and cycling out the barbarians on watch. In the distance, the barbarians climbing up and jumping down are blocked by their horses and their actions are sudden despite the illusion of a gentle slope, confusing my mind.
Crawling even closer, I start to smell the stench of piss and realize where I am about to crawl into, so I move back a bit and stay there. Doing my best to focus on the conversation, it takes me a few minutes before I realize they are not even talking. They are reading each other's lips. Not only can't I read lips, I can only see one of theirs. Although based on the finger pointings, I can guess the subject of their discussion: the mound of snow balls that I made…And that's why spies need training.
Their conversation finished soon after and they now begin to pack things up. After the resting team mounts their horses, they call the team standing watch and the entire group moves out. I stay hidden for about a minute, before slowly standing up, brushing off the snow. Identifying the trail of horse hooves, I begin to run. With a speed that I never thought that I could achieve with just running, I promptly crash into a tree because I have never expected to go that fast.
Flying in the air, I look down to see the trail cut off at a bush. In an entirely different direction, the barbarians are calming their horses down. I almost open my wings until I notice the barbarians looking up. Not wanting to be spotted, I keep it closed and memorize the way to follow them after landing back down.
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In the middle of Nybera.
Ryggnason's POV.
As his band rides as fast as they can, one of his men asks: "Do we have to flee that fast?"
He turns around: "Obviously, we have no idea what kind of ritual those cultists are performing and we don't have enough men to fight them off, so we must retreat."
The cultists have never hunted this far before, there is little to nothing here to hunt. It'll be a waste of time to hunt in this place and then bring it all the way back, thousands of kilometers, to wherever their base is. The cause is quite obvious, the King's own military had hunted and chased away all of the animals in the area. With this, a buffer zone is formed, disencouraging the cultists from hunting further west.
Of course, the brash warbands of the chieftains did fight the cultists' hunting parties once in a while, but they should have learnt that the cultists carry nothing of value already. After the King sent the Trygg Clan to this place, the skirmishes ceased entirely as the well-trained clansmen maintained their discipline and followed strict orders only to scout. Now, the cultists suddenly sent a hunting party twice the usual size and so far west to a land with barely anything to hunt.
Not to mention, that person. The person watching over the group on the first day. Ryggnason has been a soldier since, well, his initiation to a proper adult. His family is, has been and probably will always be farmers. They just run out of land this generation due to having too many children, resulting in him having to choose another profession instead. Anyway, he has developed what can be considered an intuition to those who see it and basic logical reasoning to those that think about it for more than a second.
Not only is that man watching over everyone, he can barely sit on top of an immobile skeleton horse. While it can normally be attributed to an untrained nepo baby, the fact that such a person is brought here indicates that he is trained in something else more important than horse-riding. Furthermore, that man disappears on the second day. It is only thanks to one of my men's keen eyes that we notice the mound of snowballs. I have no idea what it is, but based on how many of the shamans I have seen used a magic circle, I decide retreating to be the best course of action.
It is probably the right choice as a tree near our previous hiding spot shatters. Even a big piece, as large as a man, flies high and far away. That may be my fate if I had chosen to stay.
With the trees passing by, we ride as fast as possible, leaves of the branches tied to the horse covering up our tracks. I carefully check for rocks, in particular, the pointy ones. Sharpened by the previous warbands, they serve as valuable markers to find a way in this forest without roads or signs. Though he has heard of magic that can map out entire areas, a small scouting band like his won't be given such luxury.
Soon, a column of smoke appears, then two, then three and then, dozens of smoke columns appear as the base camp comes into view. Surrounded by a palisade, a moat and many towers, this place is the safest location around here for maybe tens of kilometers. I need to report the oddity to the sub-chief first, then I can go rest with my band until tomorrow at least.
As we ride past the colored flags that the archers use to estimate distance, I notice a scout stumbling out of the forest. Oddly enough, he is not riding a horse and even seems a bit out of shape. Most probably one of the new ones that got dragged out here, sneaking off to play around and then finding out there's nothing fun in this place. Oh well, at least he will learn from his mistake. Though his skin is somewhat yellowed, maybe a disease of some kind?
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As for the newbie.
Danh's POV
So this is where the barbarian's camp is. It only takes half a day and several destroyed trees to get here. At least I have markers to get back now.