Chapter 101

    Matt wasn''t doing what he expected when he took over the Kingdom''s military affairs.

    He had expected to lead troops into battle without any other real considerations. He was wrong.

    So, so wrong.

    He was trying to figure out the logistics of moving a million people spread throughout squads of ten thousand. Without the ability to spend Kingdom level points, he could not provide for so many people, and he just didn''t have the personal points to spend. To add insult to injury, he could watch the Kingdom level points accumulate, but couldn''t touch them. They could solve all of his needs in seconds.

    It should have been easy. Just hand them food and water and give them their orders. That was all his team needed for extended stays in the wilderness or rifts. They had done it, and when he suggested that to the others, they looked at him like he was an idiot.

    They were right.

    Throughout all his campaigns with the larger armies, Matt hadnt realized one simple fact.

    People always needed mana.

    Logically, he knew it was a concern for most people, but he hadn''t realized how much the Kingdom spent in resources to move any number of fighters.

    Every standard flying device cost a little more than 10 mana per hour to maintain the average flight speed for efficient Tier 6 devices. That number multiplied out of control if they flew at max speed for any length of time but he ignored that.

    For one or two people over an hour or two, that was nothing. But when you needed to move a million people in a group, the mana cost became enormous. For a ten-hour flight, which was conservative to get an army in position to engage with the enemy, Matt needed one hundred million mana. One hundred million mana just to engage.

    It was impossible.

    The cities were surrounded by nearly all of the available Queendom troops, and each siege had at least three million soldiers participating. As the soldiers completed their healing cooldowns, they moved to reinforce the armies.

    So, Matt needed more mana in order for their troops to perform hit and run tactics. Otherwise, they would be susceptible to counterattacks and end up getting decimated.

    One hundred million mana would take Matt a little over fourteen days to produce with just his Talent, but that didn''t account for the extra mana needed to mobilize afterwards. Even if he sat around only generating mana, they didn''t have the storage to hold that much mana.

    The thing that pissed him off the most was that even a Tier 6 melee fighter should be able to cover their mana costs with just their regeneration. But they flatly refused, on the grounds that they needed it to practice and train with. He was fairly sure if The Prince had given that order they would have complied but it was another way people resisted his orders.

    Then there was the food. Matt had learned that each side hadn''t bothered to procure rations the usual way, and were simply purchasing it in bulk from the army.

    That had baffled him. Even his backward shithole of a home world used rifts to farm. They had a team go in and clear a rift with sunlight and decent soil, and once it had no threats, they let loose farming robots to seed and water crops. Then after however long it took for the crop to grow, the robots harvested the crops and trundled out of the rift with a full load of produce.

    Other, higher Tier planets just used plant mages with the Tier 8 skill [Grow]. Or, better yet, the Tier 14 skill [Farm]. With a single Tier 8 mage, they could grow acres of crops, only having to worry about soil fertility and harvesting.

    With the Tier 14 spell, they didn''t even have to worry about that. The skill rapidly planted, grew, then harvested the selected crop in seconds. It even provided the needed nutrients for the soil, leaving no impact on the ground for a mana cost.

    The army had neither skill for purchase; he''d already checked. He had been willing to buy the skill, just to get the army moving, but he didnt even have the option.

    So, he was forced to find other workarounds for each of the problems.

    Matt had mostly solved the mana problem through the expedience of lying.

    He had simply told everyone to break out their savings and buy the mana stones themselves, and the Prince would pay them back double when he was able to spend the Kingdom level points.

    It was his fault that Matt had to deal with this shit, and he could pick up some of the cost himself when the time came.

    The food was still a question, but he thought he had an answer to that as well. They could steal it from the enemy. He wanted to hit a Queendom reinforcement caravan and steal their food.

    It was their fault as well that Matt had to deal with these problems, and stealing from the enemy was never a bad thing.

    He looked over his numbers for the third time, and had his AI run the numbers for the tenth time.

    Things didn''t look great.

    If they successfully took a resupply party, they would get mana stones and food, allowing their teams to run rampant and harass the besieging armies.

    But if he could think of that, so could the Queendom.

    That was why Matt was considering a riskier option.

    Of all the Kingdom military operations that had fallen to bits when the leadership was taken out, the scouts had remained fully operational. They were even willing to fall in line once Matt reaffirmed that he wanted to give up command as soon as the Prince was back.

    After that, he had a half-decent idea of how to get all of his needs met. It just remained to be seen if he could pull it off.

    ***

    Annie stalked around the Queendom headquarters, just as she had been doing for the past two days.

    She was going to kill Sara. It wasn''t a question of if. It was only a matter of when and how.

    The woman was hiding somewhere. A panic room of some sort, she assumed. If she was taken out, the Queendom would have the same problems that Matt was bitching about.

    She had made her way into the headquarters by carefully following behind people, giving her free rain of the building. It was identical to the one she knew.

    The problem was, she couldnt find Sara anywhere.

    Annie had followed her right-hand woman. She had followed food carts. Shed even managed to scale the building to find the room that should have been hers. The Princess just wasn''t in there.

    The room didn''t look inhabited at all.

    Annie was running out of ideas and time.

    She wanted to take Sara out before the first army moved out, but with each passing minute, it looked like she wouldnt be able to.

    That fact had started to eat at her, and a whisper in the back of her mind, she affirmed that she would be able to find Sara with her Concept. She just needed to finalize it, and embrace that she was a monster in human skin.

    It would be so easy to fall into that rabbit hole, but she denied herself that. Her image wasn''t perfect. She could make it work, but she wasn''t a mindless monster, and trying to create an image like that was incredibly hard.

    She couldn''t deny that it would make things easier. Sara needed to die, and Annie believed that conviction would allow her Concept to assist her in finding and ending the woman.

    Still, she resisted.

    Annie was currently hiding in a garden, where she watched a young man trim the various vegetation. She was pretty sure they were various herbs as she remembered the smell from Liz on a few occasions. When he finished making perfect spheres of the decorative hedges, he started checking something with the soil, and then watered a few of the plants.

    It was pretty soothing to watch the man work. He was completely engrossed in his task, and seemed happy.

    There was something about the way he guided the plants growth. The tending and pruning she found intriguing, but as she thought on it, she wasn''t able to put her finger on why she was drawn to it.

    The sight was a nice distraction, but she moved on.

    She had the urge to kill Talous and his team if she ran into them. With the beatdown Matt put on the man, there was no way he wasn''t on a full two-week cooldown.

    Talking shit about her friend''s dead parents wasn''t something she was willing to overlook. She continued skulking around the base, careful to conserve her intangibility by dodging obstacles and people. She didn''t want to waste mana either. Eventually, she found Talous team suite and waited.

    The army watchers approved a hit on the rest of the man''s team, so she inspected the lock to plan her best entry method. She wasn''t planning on killing them until after she killed Sara. No reason to give up her presence.

    She was listening to the muffled sounds inside the room when she heard footsteps.

    There was something about the pace that caught her intuition.

    It was the speed of the footfalls.

    The walker wasn''t walking briskly with an urgent task. No, that pattern of steps had speed, but surety.

    This walk was the near run of someone who wanted to move quickly, but quietly. It sounded like they were running crouched and on the balls of their feet.

    Annie trusted her intuition.

    Her still-unnamed trainer had hammered that into her.

    Anyone doing undercover work needed to trust their gut. When she asked when it was wrong, he just laughed. He told her that in those rare cases, success resulted when combat skills and evasion skills met proper planning.

    If any of the three werent up to par, you died.

    It was as simple as that.

    She had understood that quite well, to her own surprise. There was a freedom in knowing that only death awaited in true failure. It took some of the pressure off.

    Emily didn''t understand that in the slightest, but Annie embraced it like a warm blanket.

    When she turned the corner, she found a man skulking through the halls at a low crouch.

    He reached a corner and rounded it with a tray in hand.

    Annie moved forward like spilled water, and caught a brief whiff of balsamic vinegar.

    Princess Sara was said to love salads, and no salad was being served in the communal dining hall. She had already stolen a meal from there. They were eating some vegetable pie thing.

    She was sure that Matt could tell her a million uses for balsamic vinegar, but she only knew that it went on salads.

    More importantly, her gut told her that she was onto something.

    The Pather quarters were a perfect hideout for a Princess trying to lay low.

    She followed the man as he made two circles around the spatially expanded quarters. Finally, he went into an unremarkable door.

    Annie was far enough back that she couldn''t follow him into the room, so she positioned to get a good view into the room as the man exited.

    He was just as furtive when he opened the door, and ran out of the room while crouching. Annie got a half-decent view inside, and that little glimpse was enough to give her pause.

    Nothing was wrong. Not overtly, at least.

    The only thing out of place was the missing alcove that was normally at the entrance of each room she had been in. It was meant for people to drop off jackets or coats as they entered their rooms.

    It was missing here, but was standard issue for every room.

    She could think of a million reasons why it was missing, but none were good. Or at least, it triggered her paranoia regarding small details that shed earned during her training missions.

    She would assume that it was just broken or moved in a normal situation. But there was no reason for the space to be filled in like that.

    Annie hunkered down and waited. She was patient.

    Whoever needed to have food delivered would eventually have it delivered again. Then she would make her move. Until the moment came, she would watch.

    The hill under Matt crumbled, and the mana cannon he was standing behind crumbled with him.

    Matt put every bit of his mana generation into [Cracked Phantom Armor]. 40 MPS went into the normal layer, and 35 MPS went into the secondary layer. The remaining 5 MPS went to his AI to figure out how he was going to live through this and give orders before he died.

    His first order out was to hold the line, as he could see the explosion only affected the top of the cliff, and not the entire thing. The second was to reinforce the chain of command.

    As Matt fell into darkness, he read the report that showed hed most likely survive the fall. It was only a question of if he could dig himself out of the rubble before he suffocated.

    When the world stopped rumbling, Matt oriented himself from the AI connections with his men, and tried to feel around himself.

    He started digging as best as he could when he hit something hard. Feeling around, he found that it was a metal tube.

    He smiled as he checked its orientation, then checked his AI.

    The odds looked pretty good. His AI also noted the anomaly that let this area remain in the anti-flying formation had disappeared. It wasn''t hard to realize that it was just a part of the Queendom trap Adam had set.

    Matt filled the mana cannon with mana, then put everything he had into his armor.

    The world rumbled, and Matt felt [Cracked Phantom Armor] break under the close explosion. But despite his ringing ears, he was alive. He coughed out what he was pretty sure was blood, but ignored it.

    His flying sword that had been at the edge of the only anti-flying formation raced to him and hovered around his head. With one hand, he gripped the blade and hoisted himself up out of the crater in the landslide.

    Using his flying sword and [Mages Retreat], Matt pulled the mana cannon out of the rubble as well, and started charging it as he rose into the air.

    The Queendom troops, who were flying up the side of the mountain, froze for a second after seeing the flying mana cannon fully charged and ready to fire.

    Matt let it loose.

    The world went blue for a second before he slammed into the ground from the kickback.

    While he had [Cracked Phantom Armor] to protect him, the Queendom troops did not.

    He started charging the cannon while he unstuck himself and flew to his troops, where his most recent orders to get into the air were being followed. Together, they flew out of the trap, with an enemy force keeping a very respectful distance behind them.

    Anytime they got too close, Matt let loose a blast from his cannon. He also wondered if he could build a platform to carry their two other cannons, and just fire them from the air.

    Their squad ran until they met up with another team of equal size, and then turned to chase the Queendom soldiers.

    Or at least they tried.

    The Queendom troops didnt hesitate long enough for Matts forces to turn on them. They quickly retreated back to the safety of their greater army, instead of fighting it out with a force that they only outnumbered by fifty percent.

    Once they landed, Matt began giving orders while healers came to tend to him. He wanted to ignore them, as his wounds weren''t too bad, and some of his men had far worse. It was only after a quiet and uncomfortable reminder that he was the only reason they were out here that Matt let the healers do their jobs.

    The man quickly left, but not before Matt topped him off with his Concept. They needed their healers in the best condition, and he did feel better from the healing. At least one rib had shifted uncomfortably during the process, which only confirmed what his AI had been telling him.

    Their teams harassed the enemy armies while avoiding conflict for the next week. Seven brutal days of little sleep, and being constantly on the move.

    Still, their hard work paid off in the following days.

    Neither city had fallen, despite the Queendom bombarding them night and day. The defenders were able to repulse every attack, and rumor had it that Prince Albert was preparing for a grand campaign when he came off of his healing cooldown, in four more days.

    While they were all tired, their presence had slowed the Queendom down enough to have a fighting chance at relieving one of the cities.

    Their chances were so good that a large portion of the general troops even clamored for it. They were easy points, they said.

    Matt and the other commanders all believed it to be a trap.

    The Queendom had only reinforced one of the cities the entire time. It wasn''t as if the Queendom hadnt had traps before and something so obvious made them all wary.

    In the end, Matts threats and presence had placated the dissenters. He didnt have to kill anyone, but he had to go and give some friendly chats to a few mid-level commanders. A few questions about their loyalties were enough to stop any more of those complaints.

    After the traps and betrayals, any hint of being a traitor was enough to merit an instant killing. No one disagreed with the method after the third poisoned camp stew, and a bomb planted under the command tents.

    The bombs had been ineffective because Matt refused to hold any personal meetings, insisting on only using their AI. He purposely avoided gathering everyone together. It made things harder for him, since half of his authority came from the threat of him kicking someone''s ass if they refused his orders.

    He had to substitute in threats of giving generals and commanders personal visits to keep them in line.

    That was, until they got the news.

    Sara had been killed, along with a number of her higher officials, in the chaotic aftermath.

    Someone, presumably Annie, had finally killed the woman.

    ***

    Annie had grown tired.

    Not just physically, but mentally as well. Standing watch on a random door had been too much for even her after two days, and she looked at other methods.

    She trusted that barging into that room would mean her death, when she had an idea.

    Do I really need to stab her?

    A quick message to Liz had provided her with the name of a particularly subtle poison, and she had spent 200,000 points on a small vial of the stuff.

    The list of ways the little vial could kill someone was longer than her forearm.

    Even the fumes were toxic if breathed in too long. The advantage of the stuff was that it was odorless and tasteless to humans. Most beasts could smell it, but Sara wasn''t a beast, so Annie expected it to work.

    She stalked the kitchens for days, following the one man who brought down the food the first time. He was a mid-level manager, who was unremarkable besides delivering the Princess''s food.

    When he started cutting a cheese and fruit board, she knew that she had the right person. It was also not a part of the general menu.

    Annie also noted how he tasted each piece of food before he started walking down the hall.

    She shadowed him until he was about to enter the same door as last time, when she put a drop of the poison on a halved grape as he went through the door.

    One drop was all that the little vial contained.

    With things already in motion, Annie ran to one of her marked locations, and watched key members of Sara''s side.

    She was only one woman. She couldn''t operate like a dozen assassins and take out their entire command structure, but she could take out a few key people. Or at least, people that she thought were key.

    When the panic started, she began stabbing.

    Blood ran as she worked her way through the ranks.

    When people started bunkering up, she concluded her bloody work and ran.

    She had to use a bomb to blow out a window, as they had an anti-teleportation formation active after the first murders. Also, her mana was too low after all the time she spent behind enemy lines, and without Matt to refill her.

    Her escape was messier than she would have liked, but after two and a half hours of mingling in the shopping district, she was happy with the operation.

    ***

    Victor smiled as he watched the chaos Annie had caused.

    She had a knack for assassination.

    So many young recruits got overly attached to one plan, and couldn''t pivot to another when the situation demanded it. It would have been better if she had changed her plans faster, but he was still happy with the results.

    He was going to turn her into another Blink. Her Talent wasn''t as good as the elusive man''s, but Talent wasn''t everything.

    Annie enjoyed it. He could tell.

    A predator recognized a fellow predator.

    A dark-haired woman appeared out of nowhere next to him, and Victor had to repress the urge to stab the intruder.

    Luna was a menace with her void element. She was able to erase her presence better than nearly anyone, and when she appeared, it made him jumpy.

    The infamous manager shook her head without looking at him, her attention on the piece of paper she was writing on.

    You won''t get what you want.

    Why do you think that? She''s perfect. Victor was actually curious. He knew when he was outmatched, and in predicting young Pathers, Luna was one of the best. Listening to her was just good business.

    She''s going to settle on a more cause and effect Concept. She realized something with the gardening she saw earlier. the delicate nose wrinkled as she sniffed. Smells like it at least.

    Victor shrugged. If her phrase is still the same, it will fit well enough. I can work with that.

    Luna paused and met his eyes before the orbs of obsidian wandered down his body in a slow path.

    It made him shiver.

    I guess you have grown up, Vicky. Lunas attention then drifted back to the paper she was scribbling on.

    That was closer to the truth than he liked to admit, so he tried to play it off. It''s been a long time, and even immortals can grow, if given sufficient incentives.

    She just nodded along before asking, Are you about to leave?

    He nodded. I intended to. She''s a good candidate, and I need to get my affairs in order before she reaches Tier 10.

    Luna tisked, The final show is about to happen. Stick around to see it.

    Victor shook his head. I''ve already noticed and extrapolated. I don''t need to see the aftermath. Weve all seen her tantrums. I don''t want to get caught in the crosswind.

    Luna smiled a toothy smile. But she didn''t say anything, just wiggling her fingers in a half-wave.

    Victor hadn''t been lying. She was going to be pissed, and he didn''t want to be in the same sector as the madwoman. It wasn''t the first time she had done something like this, and after the events that had occurred on this planet, anyone who knew her could predict her intentions.

    It didn''t mean the Emperor wouldn''t be pissed as well, even that wouldn''t stop her.

    The time to leave was now, while the getting was good.

    Victor took one last look through realspace at the King.

    He really didn''t envy the man.