Chapter 345: 181. Spies -1 (Part One)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

I was staring at the sky above as white breath leaked out of my mouth.

Large snowflakes were drifting down from the heavens. Even though winter was still some months away, the overall temperature was rather cold. ‘Probably because of the Frost Giant’, I surmised.

I shifted my gaze and stared at the figure of said giant, Hrímr. The huge creature, its head severed, was laying lifelessly on the devastated city centre, streaks of frozen tears still staining its face.

A bone-chilling cold was wafting out of its corpse even now.

“Your Majesty. The weather is still frosty. Please head back inside,” Charlotte spoke up from behind me while placing a warm fur coat over my shoulders.

I looked back at her and smiled wryly, before shifting my attention back to the city still encased in ice. “I’d like to do that myself, but I still have to finish the work first.”

Hundreds of holy undead had been summoned to help out the refugees. The number of people who had managed to flee in time was past several thousands and well into the tens of thousands. All these people had lost their homes and had nowhere left to go.

They weren’t the only ones, though, as more and more people from other areas began showing up here to ask for our help after they heard the news of us being here.

The Kingdom of Frants was no longer safe. Although the Frost Giant Hrímr was dead, the invasion of the giants was far from over.

Charlotte hesitated slightly at my reply, then cautiously informed me, “The Kingdoms of Aihrance and Lome south of here have been invaded, Your Majesty.”

I nodded in acknowledgement.

While we were engaged in the life-or-death struggle against the Frost Giant and its gang, those two nations had to bear the brunt of the giants’ invasion. The attack they had to deal with was on another scale altogether compared to what the Frost Giant Hrímr had done.

Those damn giants and their tireless marching had left those two kingdoms utterly devastated in less than three weeks.

White was still engaged in a bitter defensive battle in Aihrance, but Lome wasn’t so fortunate, as it was still suffering from the after-effects of the civil war. As a result, its capital was easily overrun, and the whole kingdom was now on the brink of complete annihilation.

According to the reports, the king of Lome, Barus Victoria, had fought valiantly against the giants, but was still devoured in the end.

“There was no order to the invasion,” I muttered while massaging my temples, the scenes of [Foresight] Seran had shown me all those years ago floating back up in my mind.

Frants, Lome, and Aihrance…

There was no such thing as an order of invasion. Other than some negligible time differences, the giants invaded those countries almost simultaneously, and began pillaging and destroying everything.

“And not to forget, we are not in a good space, either.”

There were two ways to return to the Theocratic Empire from here. One was to take the normal route of going through Aihrance and Lome. The alternative was to cross a mountainous region, which cut through the Kingdom of Lome. But that route required us to go on a rather reckless, arduous march in order to reach the border of the Empire.

Either would’ve been doable for the army, but we had a serious problem on our hands: what to do with the tens of thousands of refugees under our care. Thanks to this issue, we in the Frants kingdom were basically isolated from the rest of the Empire for the time being.

“Your Majesty, it’s impossible to protect everyone. A portion has to be abandoned, sire,” Charlotte said softly.

“Yeah, I get that.”

Those giants should mostly focus on wrecking the big cities. Like, the capitals of Frants, Lome, Aihrance, and so on. The proof of that was that they had been targeting only the major cities so far.

Since their most beloved form of entertainment was destroying stuff, they should derive a bigger pleasure by wrecking big cities instead of smaller villages. We should exploit that fact.

It was unfortunate that not everyone could be saved, but…

“…We’ll try to save those that can be saved.” I should at least try to save the ones my eyes could see. “And for that purpose, I might as well use that thing.”

I shifted my gaze over to Hrímr’s severed head.

The head of a giant, eh? I figured such a thing could work fairly well as a warning to other Jötnar. At least, it should work as a nice little bait to aggro those giants who boasted excessive levels of pride.

“My lady. Marquis Charlotte?” A Paladin clad in the Rune Armour walked up to Charlotte. He presented a rolled-up parchment and quietly whispered a report in her ear.

A troubled expression floated up on her face as she listened, then she stared at me.

I asked her, “What’s going on?”

“Your Majesty. We have completed our preparations to evacuate from this area. We can leave at any time you give us your command. And also…” Charlotte handed the parchment from the Paladin over to me. “…We found the whereabouts of Lord Marcus, as well.”

“…”

The Sixth Imperial Prince, Marcus Ariana. A guy who could be seen as my older brother…

I heard the news that he was captured by some vampires while trying to flee from the Duchy. The Paladins had tried to give chase, but they couldn’t catch up to the vampires, who boasted superior mobility.

Still, it seemed that the Paladins had managed to pursue them right till the end and found out some information.

I unfurled the parchment, read its contents, then clamped my mouth shut. What it said wasn’t some information that the Paladins had unearthed, but an offer made by the vampires.

“…An exchange, is it?”

The vampires were requesting a trade. Since it was not a negotiation, I figured that the leader of that vampire group came to a decision on its own and sent this communique to us.

So, the ringleader of this whole thing was a Duke-class vampire named Agares?

“Yes, Your Majesty. They demand that we release Duke Kirum and the Second Imperial Prince, Ruppel, from our custody. Only then will they release Lord Marcus.”

Kirum? But that bastard had been dead for a while now…

Not only that, Second Imperial Prince Ruppel, too? Too bad, that dude was no longer the same being the vampires previously knew of.

Since the information pertaining to the Imperial Palace would never be revealed to the vampires, it made sense that they had no clue on what had happened to those two.

I slowly rubbed my chin in silent contemplation.

So weird…

Why were all these vampires so… obsessed with securing Second Imperial Prince Ruppel?

He was also involved in the vision of [Foresight] meant to help us with stopping the apocalypse. You know, the one Seran saw as the part of the Farmer incident back then.

Judging from those two factors, there really must be something about him that would stop these marauding giants dead in their tracks.

I asked, “Where is Ruppel right now?”

“He’s currently staying in a small village nearby, Your Majesty. His Majesty the King of Frants, Duchess Runan, Lady Seran and finally, Lords Marvel and Marcel are also staying there,” Charlotte replied.

“And their security detail?”

“Sir Harman and a company of the Heavenly Army are in charge of securing the area. You can rest assured, sire.”

Which meant that there was no problem in that regard. I asked another question, “Is there no other way to reach the Theocratic Empire from here?”

“There is another one, but we must cross the mountain range first, sire. This route will take us to a territory located on the border of the Kingdom of Lome. However, this route will be an arduous trek…”

Charlotte sounded cautious about that. If we weren’t careful, we might get many stragglers and dropouts from our group during the journey. Still, feeding the exhausted people with my holy water should ensure that they could endure the journey a bit better.

“What territory is it?”

“It’s the fiefdom of Chaves, sire. Its current situation post giants’ invasion is that the vampires have already taken over this border region for fear of a retaliatory invasion by the Theocratic Empire.” [1]

“Taken over? Does that mean…?”

“Citizens of Lome kingdom are trapped in there, Your Majesty. Our estimate puts the number of survivors at around three thousand. We also estimate that around twenty thousand undead are currently in the fiefdom’s territory as well.”

Were the vampires thinking of using all those people as their shields if and when the Theocratic Empire invaded them?

How foolish those vampires were. Thinking of using hostages against the Imperial Family, was it?

“What about the Jötnar?”

“At the moment, we haven’t spotted them in the lands of Chaves, sire.”

Now that was a good sign, only vampires being present there and no giants around. I didn’t foresee anything that might present an issue. “Is it possible to contact the Empire?”

“Although it’s heavily dependent on the prevailing weather conditions, it should be doable by relying on communication crystals and message pigeons.”

“In that case, get in touch with our home base as quickly as possible.” I ordered, since there was something I wanted to discuss with Hans. “Oh, and tell the vampires that I’m willing to trade.”

“What are your plans, sire?”

I stared at Charlotte and tilted my head. “That’s obvious, innit? Imma kill them all.”

“…”

“Tell the suckers to come to Chaves. And also don’t forget to tell them that if they dare to even leave a single scratch on my older brother Marcus, I’m going to rip their heads off right there and then.”

Charlotte silently nodded her agreement.

There would be no negotiation with the vampires whatsoever. We didn’t even have what they wanted in the first place, anyway.

We simply had to eliminate the fools, recover Marcus, and find our way back home, that’s all.

“Still, the vampires have taken over that place, so we might need some info on the survivors there. Pick someone trustworthy and have them infiltrate this Chaves fiefdom.”

Charlotte nodded smartly. “I shall get right to it, Your Majesty.”

She silently stepped away, leaving me alone.

I began absentmindedly fixing the fur coat slung around my shoulders, then shifted my gaze back to the refugees, only to notice a familiar face.

A group of dwarves was hurriedly making their way out from the refugees over there, their destination clearly me. One of them happened to be the familiar face I was talking about.

“Belrog?”

(TL: Chaves in [1] is pronounced “Sha-veh-z.” It’s a real town in Portugal, by the way.)