Chapter.9 Starfall (21)
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Rattling, rattling.
“What is this… I don’t think there’s anything left?”
“It’s serious. I thought I would have to prepare for a barrage of crossbows from the entrance to the village…”
This was not just empty words, but it was quite surprising to me as I was remembering the details of our group’s identity, goals, destination, and detailed explanations about the loud noises that had just been heard near the village.
Estanik, the entrance town of the ley line, was empty.
“well. Is this really that surprising? Rodrik is on the verge of destruction. “Given the nature of this village, which is so close to the Western Front, it seems natural to steal not only valuable items but also people who could become Mute’s resources if left alone.”
“It’s a problem because it’s a town where things that are taken for granted are not taken for granted, Otman.”
The only passage to the Blue Line Mountain Range, the Demon Cave, which is a 90Lv+ level ultra-high level dungeon in RPG games, is the ley line. If you divide the activity area of 3 World into north, south, east, west, and west, a blue line runs vertically through the center of the map. To the east of it, you will find the Free Trade Cities Alliance, the three countries of Teldrat, and other small countries centered around Roderick. If you go further east from there, you will reach the desert. Conversely, if you go west of the Blue Line Mountains, you will find the Baltin Empire and numerous vassal states, and if you go further west, you will find the Elven Forest.
The only road connecting the countries divided by the mountain range is the ley line, and the nobles who are crazy about rare and precious things set ridiculous prices on trade goods that came across the mountain range, and thanks to this, all merchants who want to make a name for themselves in the 3 world use the ley line. Use it.
In that situation, even if it was stabilized, since the road crosses the Blue Line Mountains, which are teeming with high-ranking undead and spirit beasts, the five major churches that manage the road have limited the number of people who can pass through at once without provoking monsters. .
Once you go there, even the workers carrying the luggage will have three generations of people eating and playing on the ley line.
The road was already so well-built that it was difficult to travel up and down the road, but now that there is a limit on the number of people, competition has exploded.
Since ancient times, people gather where there is money. In order to obtain waiting tickets for the Ley Line and to quickly and easily bribe the members of the religious order who managed the road at the entrance of the Ley Line, caravans from each country built a branch and stationed staff in Estanik, the village closest to the Ley Line at the time. . People who saw this flocked to Estani, dreaming of being able to participate in the commercial journey as porters or mercenaries. The number of inns and stores to deal with them is mushrooming. As the village grew, more retailers began to settle in the village to buy goods from across the mountain range brought in by merchants at a lower price…. As a result, the village a little further away from the ley line entrance grew to the point where it had an entrance.
Who protects this big town?
Knights from each country are dispatched to guard the upper deck, which is loaded with gold nuggets, jewels, and special products from the eastern desert countries. Knights from the three eastern countries, as well as knights from the empire beyond the mountains, guard this village.
widely!
“Do you know why you were embarrassed when you saw the now empty village?”
As I sat down by the fountain in an empty village and wrote a rough summary on the water, the group, except Borka, nodded as if they understood.
“indeed. I also heard many rumors about this place. “It was the type of rumor that said that when a merchant run by the royal family gained access to the ley line, rival royal families ran amok, accusing the religious order of interfering with the competition for the throne.”
“With that much interest, the money tied up here wouldn’t be a penny or two….”
“Stop talking. “There is a rumor that the king of Teldrat’s vassal Idriksil sold the crown and scepter that had been passed down to the royal family to buy a place in the corner of the Estanik Trading Post, but the price was not enough and he returned empty-handed.”
This is why I was embarrassed.
The village of Estanik had too many intertwined interests to just leave it alone.
Roderick? This can be happen. The country looks like it’s ruined. What does money matter when it turns nobles into homeless people? They could use some troops.
But what about a country like Teldrat, where money fights are so fierce that without a free trade union or individual merchants, where commerce is the foundation of the country, you can’t even join the nobility axis? As it is a rare opportunity, the object that controls the country prepares by taking out a full loan when going, but if the commercial trip fails, the merchants, as well as the merchants who prepared by borrowing together with the merchants who signed a contract to share the interest, and the minor merchants involved in the merchant merchants. Even the nobles who invested at the top went bankrupt. It is a crisis for the country, and if the upper echelons of Estanik are delayed even for a day, there will be a truckload of nobles who will gather all their private soldiers and fight for territory.
And yet – the fact that Estanik was emptied so cleanly. The entire country was in such a state of ruin that the earl and marquise-level nobles had to prepare to live on rough black bread and half-stale milk from now on and withdraw their troops from here and send them elsewhere.
“Either the nobles are out of their minds. “I’m saying it’s one of two things.”
The former is an impossible situation no matter how much Mute gains the power of the evil god and extracts a large amount of water. In any case, Roderick, which is on the cheek with the North, has not yet fallen, and although it suffered a crushing defeat on the Western Front, it was prevented, so the sword was not thrust in the face of other countries down there. There are no nobles who would go crazy and condition the bankruptcy of their family on the ‘reserve troops’ section, so the speculation is that they were enlisted due to a sense of crisis.
On the other hand, there was a good chance that he was not sane.
“Hmm…. You’re talking about that mute that looks like an Insomnia crab…”
I nodded at Ottoman’s voice.
“I’m sure every country is feeling a sense of crisis. So, before Roderick fell and the battlefield expanded to their country, we sent our precious warriors away. However, even though Rodrik is a meat shield, he cannot completely stop Mute’s guerilla warfare from digging underground. “An Insomnia crab before it burrows into your head is the size of two fingers, so it won’t be easy to stop it.”
“But… aren’t we sufficiently prepared? At the Roderick noble meeting a few days ago, it was said that two or more nobles who were being manipulated were hunted down and executed…”
“If we found two people, there are probably more people we couldn’t find. Like the 6th rank wizard Isaac of Tobrunn, they are not simply manipulated, but they cleverly twist their memories and plant hints so that they follow Mute’s will as if they had thought it up on their own, right? It won’t be easy to find. The nobleman who gave the order to withdraw troops from this place probably thought to himself, ‘The crisis of the nation! Even if I go bankrupt, I can’t leave my troops idle in a foreign country! I will sacrifice my body to protect my country!’ “They must have been caught by the same positive hints and ordered a withdrawal.”
Thrive. The more I think about it, the more I get goosebumps. Looking at everything done so neatly, it means that they found out which nobles in each country had the most influence on Estanikh, found out where those nobles lived, and then released tunnel worms and Insomnia crabs to infect the target, right? This is a weak country with a lack of wizards. It could be that both the king and Nabal were overthrown, right?
If the operation had been carried out targeting this place where the most money is collected in the country, it would have been natural to have economic terrorism in mind. All the luxury goods that were prepared to be transported across the line have become worthless as the war breaks out, and the ley line that will handle this is beyond the Western Front, which was a fierce battlefield, but vengeful spirits are flocking around like clouds along that road, and there are no troops to protect the village. It goes through the process of going bankrupt, and the ripple effect is…
“Supply will be very limited. Even if the government steps in to resolve the situation, the bloody know-how of a war merchant is not something that can be acquired in a day or two.”
Economic terrorism, economic terrorism… Maybe they can not only block transportation by destroying the top, but also target the place of origin. The high-quality iron mines of the Free Trade Association, the vast granary of Teldrat…
“Oh! Head hurts!”
Kwasik!
“Well, something! “Why is the fountain suddenly so strange…?”
“I’m so angry! I was wondering if I could happily escape from the headache of distributing troops, and happily rob the church warehouse, so I could live with my head a little freed! You’re just showing signs of what you’re going to do, as if you’re being rude! I don’t want to fight with you! “I just want to move to piece A on the board!!!”
– Jokass: No. I think they could have just wiped it out with a mute, but they used all kinds of tricks to avoid being caught and made it look like a political operation without even killing anyone.
– Soy Sauce Gay Bar: That kind of thing is only visible to people like you…
– professor: Everyone shut up! It’s annoying so I’m just empathizing!
– Soy Sauce Gay Bar: Yes, that could be true.
– Speed Wagon: That may be the case.
– Heungan Mandu: That’s right, that’s right. Everything you said is correct. Our Professor Park has gone through a lot of hardships.
– Noru Drug: Think of it as your destiny to be born with such a head. People like me say, ‘Is the village empty? There’s nothing to farm? It’s a f*cking piece of shit.’ It’s a situation that will end like that.
No, even if I try not to pay attention, Roderick is leaving for about a month now, and I can see traces of those bastards’ tricks right in front of my eyes. Do you think I shouldn’t be worried?
Where on earth did this guy learn all this? It’s him, right? My clone named Falcatus?
I thought as I crossed the empty village, but I couldn’t go on like this. Even if you contact the church, all they’ll say is, ‘Please inspect the children’s heads more thoroughly, especially those involved in war supplies,’ and they will already be doing the inspection to the fullest extent of the church and wizards. Another method is needed. There is another way…
I had suffered too much to trust Rodrik’s incompetent noble bastards. What do you do when there are so many great articles? The upper part of his head is all sick.
visor!
Cheaeng-!
It was then. As I was taking steady steps, I heard a metallic sound.
“Is this… a battle? Borca!”
“The western end of town! Hordes of undead and many humans! “There’s a battle going on!”
“How many people are there?”
“Even if we can’t do it, there will be 100 people! “There are too many to count!”
Before I could speak, Borka, who had returned to his wolf form, climbed onto the roof and relayed what was in sight.
“Undead! “I don’t know anything else, but I heard that the entrance to the leyline and the surrounding area are guarded by people from the five major religious denominations!”
“Since the village has lost all its people, the church must have also withdrawn its troops! “The church doesn’t have enough hands!”
Kwagwagagak!
In a hurry, I picked up Otman, who was holding a seal, and ran towards the west of the village with all my might. As the houses and alleys passed by in an instant, I was able to see a group of people standing in front of the entrance to the ley line with the emblems of the five major denominations engraved on it, using dozens of carriages and carts as barricades.
People who struggle to fight against the undead wielding halberds that are twice as large as a normal halberd, and people who support them by tearing up crossbows and scrolls with awkward movements from behind the barricade.
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‘It’s not a knight. However, the individual’s military power is quite good and the combat is systematic. The inconsistent weapons fit together like cogs. A mercenary, and a very high-level mercenary at that. Then, the people who hide behind and fight….’
At that moment, the half-torn flag hanging above the carriage caught my eye.
The symbol is a cross between a golden sickle and silver grains. The undisputed No. 1 top of the 3rd World, with a long history handed down from the 2nd World and fully supported by the Church of Bounty!
“Gold geyser (Golden Geyser)! oh my god! Oh my God!”
The professor, who landed in front of the mercenaries, immediately swung his right hand wearing a red gauntlet, feeling the problems that had been disturbing his head fly away with the fluttering flag at the top.
Quack!
Okay! Sigh!
The red gauntlets stuck to the side of the Death Knight who was rampaging at the front, and while the half-smashed undead stumbled around, pouring out black smoke,
“In the name of light!”
The white gauntlet with exposed fingers, along with the holy relic held in the fist like knuckles, moved according to the path of the light fist handed down by the archbishop and swung towards the empty abdomen of the undead!
“Bless yourselves!!!”
Huuuuung-!
Pugh!
The Death Knight, whose upper and lower body had been separated by two punches, was flying away with a striking sound that was hard to believe coming from a top-level undead knight with a physical resistance of over 80%.
dump.
The mercenary leader, who was mesmerized by the unrealistic situation unfolding before his eyes, suddenly came to his senses when he heard the sound of the lower body of the Death Knight falling to the ground. A powerful force that transcends humans. Divine light radiating from your fingertips. That magnificent figure! Above all, the word that the fanatics of light scream at their ears every time they enter battle!
“Are you from the Gwangmyeong Church?”
In response to the wounded mercenary leader’s cautious question, the professor, who caught a glimpse of the group running wild in the waves of Otman, carefully placed his hand on his chest with an expression of utmost reverence.
“Latura, Ro-haram. “It was not a very peaceful afternoon.”
Jump up!
At my affirmative greeting, a fat man who had been shooting a crossbow from a fancy carriage at the back hurriedly came down and stood in front of me.
“My name is Gerld Praus, the owner of the Gold Geyser! In the end, Gwangmyeong accepted our deal! “Even the abundance that we have been trading with for so long has abandoned our merchant!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha. Haram looks down on all people. “Gold Geyser, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, is also under the spotlight, so how can we just overlook it?”
“Oooooh! Thank you! Thank you so much! Once my trip is over, I will repay the Church of Gwangmyeong greatly! “I promise in the name of our Gold Geysers and in the name of the Frauser family!”
“is it so. That’s how it should be…”
The professor shook hands with the overjoyed merchant and smiled broadly at the mountain of luxury goods and trade goods piled up behind him. It was going to fail anyway, and the goods were stamped with the seals of various merchants, as if they had been scraped up not only from trade goods that had been prepared with the fortune of the merchant merchants, but also luxury goods from other merchant merchants that had become worthless due to the war.
“I hope that your upward journey will be successful.”
Ro Haram says, When you sit in a dark place, there will be light.
If you ruin the top, shouldn’t I just grow the top?
As soon as I saw the lined up carts and the mountain of trade goods, the solution to the problem I was thinking about just a moment ago came to mind.
No matter how hard the country tries its best, all it can do is gather goods from nearby areas. In the end, for continuous supply, it must make contracts with merchants and have them travel to various regions to collect goods.
Mute’s strategy of destroying the supply network by starving merchants was truly novel, fresh, and effective.
But!
‘All the other merchants are ruined? Rather good! By converting that mountain of luxury goods into food, metal, and arrows from empires and western countries that have yet to experience war, Gold Geyser can gain enough money to swallow up all the other tops! Rather, supply could be stabilized with a unified system and simplified transactions!’
If they succeed in ascending to the top, the situation will turn around. Gold Geyser’s top stock, which has scraped away bad stocks with a risk of 20000%. If this nobleman succeeds, the supply route will become as strong as a thick rope coated with gold.
****
fantasy,
