Chapter 123. Wasteland and Mountain (2)

"Hahaha! So, you grilled meat there? Miss Siollus, yourself?"

Viscount Pewin burst out laughing.

The witch of mad fire, Ella Siollus, had her head bowed low, which was unlike her.

In the old lord's castle of Kalisto.

In a room with an interior that was worn in places but still antique, four people were present.

Viscount Pewin, Ella Siollus, Karok, and myself.

"I'm curious. Just how delicious did it smell for Miss Siollus to take the stage herself?"

"......"

"By the way, I never knew Miss Siollus had a deep knowledge of cooking."

Unexpectedly, the witch of mad fire, Siollus, couldn't give much of a reply to Viscount Pewin's joke.

It wasn't that her fiery temper had died down, but it turned out she had a special relationship with Viscount Pewin.

Viscount Pewin had acted as her sponsor when she was young.

It was also because the Viscount had recommended her talents to Archduke Gabir that she joined the Imperial Secret Knight Order.

"Thinking back, she did have delicate hands since she was a child. Was it a letter to her sponsor? When she sent a scarf she had knitted herself with yarn along with it..."

"Viscount! Please, not that!"

"Haha! Alright, I'll stop teasing."

I knew that the witch of mad fire was an orphan who grew up in a convent.

But I learned about her relationship with Viscount Pewin for the first time.

In fact, I didn't know much about Viscount Pewin.

Originally, he was a character who should have been killed by the anti-imperial faction several years ago.

Anyway, I roughly explained my meeting with Siollus as 'I found out while looking into suspicious participants after the cooking competition ended.'

This hastily fabricated story worked because, although the Imperial Secret Knight Order was shrouded in mystery, its existence itself was not a secret.

It was to the extent that even Olif, a knight of a frontier fortress, knew of its existence.

Some of the members were known among the high nobility who were relatively close to the imperial family.

Especially in Ella Siollu case, she stood out due to her red hair and being a fire mage.

Therefore, her face was much more well-known than members like Barum of the Black, whose identity was completely veiled.

"Um, don't get me wrong. I was just visiting for sightseeing back then! I definitely didn't have any other intentions..."

"I understand."

It seemed she had also decided to make a rough excuse.

My hunch was that she had infiltrated under the Emperor's orders and then, upon seeing the Princess of Blood, lost her mind and charged in.

She and the other initial members of the Secret Knight Order held a grudge against the Princess of Blood.

In a mission to assassinate the Vampire Duke, in which half of the initial members participated, the Princess of Blood had supposedly subdued all of them.

Anyway, while she and I were spinning elaborate excuses, the culprit of this whole situation, Karok, was just rolling his eyes and nibbling on the snacks I gave him.

"Oom. This is tasty. Viscount, got any more?"

"...Here you go."

Well, it was a relief he didn't interrupt in the middle of it all.

'Aaaargh! Master, how could you give that precious thing to a meathead with only muscles in his skull...!!'

I moderately ignored the screams from the subspace and heard from Viscount Pewin about the progress of the orc subjugation.

"There were five battles in total. Only one was a proper one. We won them all, but..."

"Something is bothering you."

"Well, we won too easily. They weren't proper orcs."

Viscount Pewin certainly had a good sense as a strategist.

The orcs he faced were likely from weak orc tribes.

By now, most of the strong orcs would have left for the Everlasting Mountains Hold.

An awakened Orc Great Chieftain had a tendency to gather strong warriors from all over the wasteland.

"In that case, the real fight will be near the Everlasting Mountains Hold."

"According to the historical records I have studied, yes."

"Good. We'll depart as soon as we're resupplied."

Viscount Pewin rapped the desk.

"I will support your expedition. Just give the order."

The orc subjugation force joined the expedition.

* * *

The subjugation force led by Viscount Pewin was six thousand strong.

Three thousand Imperial soldiers, fifteen hundred mercenaries, and fifteen hundred personal soldiers.

Combined with our forces, the total scale was sixteen thousand men.

Viscount Pewin said he would hand over the command authority to me, but naturally, it was impossible for me to command them directly due to the different command structures.

"It's not impossible to command them if I had to. If we trained together for a sufficient amount of time."

That sufficient amount of time was the problem.

We would probably have to train for about a month.

Time was not on our side.

Because an army, when far from its territory, was like a glutton that consumed several times its usual cost.

"If you add the daily wages for the mercenaries, the special allowance for the Imperial soldiers, the consumed supplies, and the cost of building the supply line itself..."

"Is it about a few dozen gold coins?"

"It's about one hundred to one hundred and twenty florins, Viscount."

Bart corrected after quickly finishing his calculations on paper.

A daily expenditure of a hundred florins was not an easy number even for Wolfskrig's budget.

Although we had been raking in money by practically monopolizing the southern steel industry for the past two years, extending the expedition period by another month would hinder the territory's development in the short term.

Of course, since we more than doubled the territory with this expedition, it would be a gain in the end, but that was a harvest to be reaped gradually after the war ended.

"Tell the commanders. We will depart in two days. Until then, the soldiers will rest, and the rear guard will complete the supply line."

"Yes, Viscount."

Bart left.

In the room submerged in silence.

I leaned back in my chair and racked my brain.

About the enemy we would face from now on.

'Orc Great Chieftain Ulruk.'

The Orc of the Blue Tattoo.

The Butcher of the Wasteland.

In the orcish moniker, 'Big Boss'.

When playing as the wasteland orc race, he was in the position of a legendary hero representing the faction, similar to the Emperor of the Empire.

Conversely, when playing as the Empire or the dwarves, he was also the mid-game crisis one would inevitably face.

The way to defeat him was simple.

Overwhelming firepower.

Tough infantry.

A powerful knight order.

Anything strong would do.

A simple but not easy condition.

Because orcs were, on average, as strong as a Horned One beastman under a full moon.

These dark-skinned hulks, a little over two meters tall with bulging muscles, could easily handle three or four fully armed adult men.

Usually, if a frontal confrontation was difficult like this, one would opt for an indirect approach.

Like breaking their morale with artillery or fire attacks.

Or cutting off their supplies and dragging out a stalemate to wear down the enemy's combat power.

However, orcs were a race against which even that didn't work.

I wasn't sure how their bodies were structured, but although they got hungry easily and would eat anything, food wasn't exactly essential for their survival.

On top of that, the orc race itself did not fear death.

It meant that their morale was unaffected whether their commander died or their comrades next to them were turned to pulp by artillery fire.

'You said there were forty thousand orcs occupying the surface of the Hold.'

'They've probably gathered more by now, master.'

'How many do you estimate?'

'Well. There are too many variables for that. But wouldn't it be around fifty or sixty thousand?'

There was one advantage, though.

At this point, the orcs had no long-range firepower whatsoever.

Because for the orcs to develop a long-range firepower tech tree, the condition was to completely occupy at least one dwarf hold.

This meant that we could sufficiently handle them if we actively utilized our artillery corps and mages.

Especially since the Viscount's army consisted of veterans with harsh training and abundant real-world experience, they would be a flawless anvil to hold against the orcs.

Perhaps twice the number.

So, I thought we could somehow handle about thirty thousand.

If we considered the strength of the dwarves said to be in the hold's underground, it might be worth attempting up to three times that number.

'A frontal confrontation is the first plan...'

There was a second plan as well.

If the number of enemies exceeded my anticipated range.

That is, when the Great Chieftain had gathered a horde of nearly a hundred thousand.

The probability itself was slim.

However, in the world of the battlefield, no one could know what would happen.

It would be right to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

In this case, it was impossible to face them with our forces alone, and we had to seek other means.

'Two things are needed. A force that can be operated separately. And information about the inside of the Hold.'

We had the force.

The number of undead troops gained through [Warrior's Binding] in this expedition was over fifteen hundred.

Adding the four thousand Lumer Legionnaires and other miscellaneous troops, the headcount now easily exceeded six thousand.

It would be more than enough to enter the Hold and carry out the planned operation.

What was lacking was information.

Information about the inside of the Hold.

I knew the general topography, but it wasn't perfect enough to move alone.

Furthermore, I knew nothing about the internal situation of the Hold.

'You said the surface was occupied by about forty thousand orcs. There must have been a problem.'

I got a rough idea while talking with Kkumteuli before.

I needed confirmation.

I called Balkan to my office.

The dwarf royal, who had taken off his exoskeleton and become short again, came in and sat on a chair.

"I heard you had something to discuss. What is it, Viscount?"

He asked.

"You must answer the questions I'm about to ask honestly and accurately."

"What's this all of a sudden? Out of the blue..."

"Whether we can save your homeland, or whether you, me, and everyone including the dwarves of your homeland die together, depends on the information you give."

The dwarf fell silent.

I spoke while looking at his moving beard, which was grown long and braided into a single strand.

"The Everlasting Mountains Hold. What happened there?"

* * *

The midday sun beat down on the ground.

A heat haze shimmered and rose from the surface.

In the scorching heat and dryness, the expeditionary force was walking on the red earth.

That's right.

The red earth.

The soil here was peculiar; it had an ocher color like a normal wasteland the further west you went, and became redder the further east you went, eventually turning into a reddish, darkish land.

Beyond the jet-black land that seemed to be covered in volcanic ash, there was a high mountain range called the 'Wall of the World', which served as a barrier separating the east and west of the continent.

If one were to venture beyond the mountain range, one would find an Eastern Empire larger than our Empire, as if modeled after China on Earth.

However, it was uncertain whether the Eastern Empire was functioning properly at this point in time.

That side was very much an all-or-nothing kind of playthrough.

Anyway, the wasteland east of the Empire, especially the deep parts one had to enter, was known by the nickname 'Red Wilderness'.

Another nickname was 'Orc Colony', because the area where the red land spread was the main habitat of the orcs.

A unique point was that the orcs here often had red tattoos on their bodies, perhaps due to the color of the land they were born and raised on.

According to their folk beliefs, the red tattoo drove out weakness and brought in the spirit of a strong warrior.

Considering that the orcs born with red tattoos on parts of their bodies were all excellent warriors, it might not be a completely absurd story.

The orcs born with red tattoos all over their bodies, who appeared once every few decades, often became the chieftains of large tribes commanding thousands of orcs.

And about twenty years ago.

It was said that an orc with blue tattoos all over his body was born in the wasteland.

It was because of that orc that the army, which had been marching for three weeks, halted and formed a battle formation.

Right now, before our eyes, there were the Everlasting Mountains and the Hold that had taken root in the mountains, the orc tents that had occupied the surface of the Hold and were swarming even outside it, and in front of those tents, an orc who had raised a large iron club towards us.

The orc shouted.

"A fight! Everyone! Gather 'round!"

The Orc of the Blue Tattoo.

It was the Great Chieftain Ulruk.