The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 245
I was frozen like an antelope surrounded by lions.
Yumir, Eo, Erina, and Estelle were all showing their anger, but each in their own way.
While Yumir seemed like she was scolding me, Eo appeared to be simply sulking.
Erina was quietly burning with anger while emanating her duchess’s aura for the first time in a while, and Estelle was terrifying enough that her dark mage’s black magic was visible.
“Um… Why is everyone gathered here? Your expressions are kind of scary.”
I tried to play innocent, but it only added fuel to the fire.
Eo speaks directly with a tearful expression.
“Master Elena told us. That you’re going to take an enormous number of wives! And that the elves you brought this time are among them!”
Yumir, who saw Eo speaking informally for the first time, opened her eyes wide in surprise.
I felt touched too, but now wasn’t the time for that.
“Oh, it’s a misunderstanding. I just asked hypothetically, like ‘what if something like that happened?’“
“Then you weren’t serious? It was just a joke after all?”
While I wanted to avoid the issue, I didn’t want to lie, so I decided to leave some room for ambiguity.
“…Maybe half serious?”
“What!? Then half of it was serious!”
The fire blazes higher. That’s when Ash burst into the room.
“Hey, Ars! Heard you’re back! How was the Elf Island? Let me hear about…”
Sharp gazes pierced Ash. Reading the atmosphere, Ash awkwardly trails off.
I hurriedly called out to Ash.
“Updates? Of course I should tell you! Yeah, should we have a drink after a long time?”
“Ah, no. I actually had an appointment. Then I’ll…”
“Hey! Wait!”
Ash quietly closes the door and leaves like a mouse. As if driving in a wedge, Eonia locks the door from the inside.
Yumir pressures me as if representing the others.
“Then Young Master, would you explain in detail?”
“Yes…”
I spilled everything about meeting the dragon and what I heard about the revelation.
“That’s how it happened. They said a great person who will save the world will come from among my children.”
“So that’s why you were planning to have 83 children?”
“I thought there was no particular reason not to. Since it’s something I can do, if it could save the world, why not?”
The four hesitate at the mention of saving the world.
Then Estelle shakes her head and speaks.
“But you said the revelation has already gone astray. Then the part about children must have changed too.”
“I think so too… But the dragon said since it’s something that would appear in the revelation, it won’t be a trivial matter. So they said it would be good to have many children if possible. Then naturally, I’d need many wives too, right?”
“Ugh…”
The four lose their words. While emotionally hard to accept, they realize I have justification on my side.
However, that’s when Erina’s eyes widened as if realizing something.
“Wait, didn’t you say the Ars from the revelation was too old to accomplish the remaining great work? That’s why the children would finish the remaining task.”
“Yes, and?”
“But the revelation went astray, and the current Ars is very young! Then there’s no need to pass it on to children – we can accomplish it ourselves!”
The other three strongly agreed with Erina’s argument.
Eonia was burning with determination to take care of any Mother Goddess or whatever with her spear, while Estelle was ready to research myths to find ways to eliminate the mother goddess right away.
That argument wasn’t wrong.
“…Right, there’s no reason to be controlled by something like a revelation. I must have been enchanted by something.”
I didn’t particularly want to entrust dangerous tasks to my children either.
‘I would have discovered the truth of the world early too. I’ll finish everything myself.’
Making that conclusion made me feel much better.
“Thank you everyone, thanks to you my thoughts are clear now. Then since I need to get back to work, could you leave?”
However, the four didn’t move an inch.
“Why, why are you like this? Is there still something to say?”
“…”
“Ahaha…”
That’s when Yumir and Eonia picked up my work from the desk and said.
“Young Master, we’ll have Ash handle this. He seems to be free anyway.”
For some reason, Erina and Estelle thank them for this.
“Thank you, Yumir!”
“We’ll be looking after the children. After you’re done with your business, could you look after the children for us for a while?”
“Of course.”
“Yes, then.”
Yumir and Eo leave with the documents after promising to take turns.
Once they leave, Erina draws close as if she’d been waiting and whispers.
“While 83 might be excessive, we also want to have many children! …We won’t let you sleep tonight, hehe.”
“Gasp.”
Since I brought this upon myself, it seems I’ll need to prepare myself for tonight.
* * *
The short daily life passes by.
Now there’s only a week left until the turbulence.
Of course, this was the minimum period. Since the cycle of turbulence was 6 months to 1 year, there could be 6 more months left.
However, such a fortunate thing didn’t seem likely to happen.
Soon, natural disasters, the typical precursor to turbulence, began occurring here and there.
“Your Majesty! The rivers in the south have overflowed and the area is flooded!”
“Queen, Your Majesty! An unidentified plague has broken out in the Beludi region, and citizens are suffering!”
Besides that, it became increasingly chaotic with typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other disasters occurring.
These precursor phenomena were more serious than not only last time but unprecedented in the kingdom’s history, so Rosa urgently convened a national assembly and declared, “This turbulence will be fiercer than ever before! If we cannot overcome this turbulence, our kingdom may collapse from its foundation.”
Ministers who didn’t know about the turbulence laughed it off, thinking the first-year monarch was making unnecessary fuss to establish authority, but those who knew the truth had faces frozen like stone.
“Everyone, please prepare yourselves mentally and head to your positions to perform your roles! I wish luck to everyone.”
Their roles meant evacuation operations prepared for this time.
Thus, from three days before the turbulence, large-scale evacuation operations began.
Citizens began preparing by entering shelters built in various places, and those who couldn’t be accommodated in shelters were sent to hideouts made in the lost lands, or instructed to hide securely in their homes.
However, this alone couldn’t be considered a perfect response.
That’s because dungeons could appear at those shelter locations.
Although dungeon maps were made, these maps only recorded notorious dungeons worthy of historical note. Since they couldn’t know the locations of all minor dungeons, they had to respond according to the situation.
And so, on the day of the turbulence.
I was looking out the window from my room.
‘It’s starting soon.’
The sky was turbulent. Although it was around 10 AM, the sun was hidden by something.
“Papa!”
While I was blankly staring at the sky, Ryuna came wobbling and grabbed my pants leg, asking to be held.
Worried that an accident might happen, I closed the window and picked up Ryuna.
Ryuna, held in my arms, blankly stared at the sky with me.
It was at that moment that the sky began to change in earnest.
The magic flowing in the atmosphere began swirling madly.
“This is impossible…”
Usually, magic is invisible, but if its energy is condensed again and again, it takes on a faint color.
You can see this clearly in magic stones. Magic stones change color according to the energy of the magic they contain.
The sky was like that now. Like an aurora occurring, the sky began to shine in various colors.
‘Even so, such deep colors. Just how massive an amount of magic is gathered there?’
This was because unsealed magic stones had evaporated, releasing their magic into the atmosphere.
“Ow!”
Ryuna struggled as if trying to grab that mysterious sight.
A magnificent sight that at first glance looked like nature’s mystery.
However, when it comes down to earth, it becomes a disaster.
The multicolored magic began falling to the ground in meteor-like forms. Due to the aftermath of that magic storm, the outside became invisible as if fog had suddenly set in.
“This is no joke…”
Only then could I feel the blatant malice contained in that magic.
The guiding dragon Altron said.
That dungeons were the materialization of resistance that other races had carried out to respond to human invasion. That it was history itself.
Perhaps that’s why, pure hostility toward humans could be felt from this magic.
“Waaah!”
Ryuna must have sensed that ominous energy too, as she began crying.
While comforting Ryuna, I went down to the lounge where the vassals were gathered.
* * *
In the lounge, along with the vassals, Beato, the Queen Mother of the elves, was also present.
Everyone was waiting for my words with serious expressions.
After composing my breath, I spoke.
“It has finally happened. To be honest, I didn’t think it would be this dangerous… But it seems I was mistaken.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. They too had felt it. That the magic from earlier was filled with malice intending to exterminate humanity.
“We will proceed as planned to target the dungeons Cradle of the Swamp and Life and Death Match. Since they were dungeons subjugated so long ago, we don’t have specific information. However, we do have approximate information.”
It was about the number of people needed for dungeon subjugation.
“One of them, the Life and Death Match, has a minimum subjugation requirement of seven people, but for some reason the maximum is set at 30,000 people. Though I don’t know the exact reason for this, historically seven heroes succeeded in subjugating it, so we should be able to proceed with seven people too. On the other hand, the Cradle of the Swamp has an unknown number recorded for subjugation. This means the number of people needed is variable. Therefore, I plan to gather information directly for two to three days. I’ll leave this part to you, Gaspar. Please go to the region where the Cradle of the Swamp is located and collect information right away.”
“Alright, I’ll go now.”
Then Ash anxiously tries to stop me.
“You’re sending Gaspar alone? That’s too reckless! Who knows what dangers there might be? If he’s going, I’ll go too!”
“No, if you go together it will actually be more dangerous.”
“What do you mean by that?”
In the early days, Gaspar once searched the lost lands of the northern continent alone to search for missing persons
At the time, I thought it was possible because of Gaspar’s excellent intelligence abilities, but my thoughts changed after seeing the recent expedition team pioneering the lost lands of the Southern Continent.
The lost lands were not areas that could be explored so easily. Even for someone as skilled as Gaspar.
In fact, the Forest of Lament, the first lost land I entered, had a dragon’s barrier that made it nearly impossible to leave once you entered.
There were many such absurd places in the lost lands.
The reason why Gaspar could freely search the lost lands is simple.
“Ash, unlike Gaspar, you’re human.”
The dungeon’s purpose is to destroy humans. Therefore, Gaspar, being a pure-blooded beastman, is not a target of hostility.
Unless Gaspar shows hostility first, they won’t attack him first.
Mindless monsters would attack regardless, but Gaspar could easily avoid such mindless creatures.
And I thought this might be the same for pure-blooded elves as well.
“Gaspar, don’t overdo it though. If you think it’s dangerous, withdraw immediately.”
“Leave it to me, who do you think I am?”
Gaspar immediately began preparing. Yumir is helping with those preparations.
“Next, we need to select seven people to subjugate the Life and Death Match. According to the records, the kingdom sent their seven finest warriors for the subjugation. And only four returned alive.”
A heavy silence falls.
“Of course, back then they didn’t have the teleportation scroll magic, so we don’t need to worry too much about deaths.”
Seven elite warriors with exceptional martial arts skills.
Master Ilya stepped forward first.
“I should naturally participate.”
Elena joined, showing her competitive spirit.
Along with them, Eonia, Ash, me, Gunther, and Lucretia volunteered, completing the seven.
“Selected members, please finish preparations by tomorrow morning. We’ll depart right away tomorrow morning.”
This completed the basic formation. The remaining people would guard the mansion.
Since the turbulence had occurred, even Baien couldn’t be considered safe anymore.
The vassals dispersed.
Mother went with Meissen to check the mansion’s food storage, and Sophia prepared to go to the palace with Leitin to assess the situation.
Among them, I caught Leitin.
“Leitin, can we talk for a moment?”
“Yes! Of course!”
Leitin seemed to fully recognize me as her superior, standing at attention.
“What would you like to know?”
“About the teleportation magic circle to the Magic Continent. I’m curious about how much progress has been made in the research.”
“Well…”
Leitin trails off ambiguously.
“The teleportation magic circle itself that can take us to the Magic Continent is already complete. However, we needed to find suitable land to install the magic circle.”
“Suitable land?”
“When coming here from the Magic Continent, random teleportation was fine, but when going from here to the Magic Continent, we need to arrive at the exact intended location, right?”
That was true. From the perspective of two-way travel, random location teleportation wasn’t acceptable.
“So we were looking for land with coordinates suitable for teleporting to the transfer magic circle in the Crossing Republic that Lord Juras used…”
“And?”
“Lord Juras said there was no need to waste time and just teleported several of our court mages to the Magic Continent.”
“What?!”
“He said it was the sure way. The teleported court mages would find the Crossing Republic and modify their transfer magic circle. They’d install the magic stones they took and adjust the coordinates to our side.”
Hearing it explained, it made sense.
But this was a risky endeavor.
It was questionable whether those court mages teleported to random locations in the Magic Continent could find their way to Crossing, and if they were captured by other kingdoms, unexpected variables could arise.
‘That Juras…! Acting on his own!’
He clearly did this because he was confident he could handle any variables that might occur.
Whatever the case, what’s done was done.
“Once the court mages reach Crossing, two-way travel becoming possible, is just a matter of time.”
“There are other adjustments needed so it won’t be immediate, but I think it should be possible within a few months.”
This was eye-opening good news.
After all, once travel with the Magic Continent becomes possible, it would be easier to find the missing people.
We could go to the Magic Continent, bring items closely related to the missing people, and cast tracking magic.
“Leitin, could I see that teleportation magic circle for a moment?”
“Yes, let’s go to the palace together.”
Just as I was about to follow Leitin to the palace.
With a blood-curdling cry of ‘Kraaaaaak!’, a flock of enormous birds began approaching from the distant sky.
At first I thought they were crows, but it was quickly apparent they weren’t. Their size was dozens of times larger than crows.
“Ev-everyone take cover!”
“What on earth is that!”
The citizens of Baien scattered in panic.
Leitin next to me mutters in dismay.
“Griffons… Ancient monster birds…!”
Those monsters began diving and attacking citizens, and Baien immediately declared a state of emergency.
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