Back at Stony Rock Mountain.

Previously Zhao didn’t relate what’s the accident that happened at Black Wasteland, but with Zhao’s call, Green quickly made the preparations. As soon as the party entered the living room they were teleported to Iron Mountain Fort.

TL Note: Barren Black Land is the Black Wasteland, the previous translator changed the name

In the courtyard stood four people staring at their surroundings, the fort was as peaceful as ever. Green gave a puzzled look and asked “young master… what’s the matter?!

Zhao calmly responded “sorry for not explaining, there are intruders in the Black Wasteland, mostly envoys of an aristocratic family. Outside the castle are 5 intruders stirring trouble, four are already dead the last one is cornered by my undead, we can’t let them leave otherwise it will be troublesome to deal with them, grandpa Green please go bring him here”

He didn’t hesitate he quickly turned around and made his way outside the castle. Merine looked at his disappearing back and said “coming to make trouble huh? Why would they do that?”

Zhao answered with a cold voice “they want us dead. Until then they won’t feel relieved”

Green quickly came back, in his hand was a corpse. This person’s strength wasn’t high, only around the 6th level. This figure was black and swollen.

“Young master, at the moment he saw me, he swallowed a pill and quickly died”

Zhao nodded with an ugly expression “he thought death will save him from me” he waved the ghost staff, suddenly a black cloud covered the corpse, it was a high leveled black magic spell called ‘the sleepy spirit technique’, the point behind the naming is: when the spell is cast and the skeleton is raised it will keep a strand of the corpse’s spirit in the body, therefore it will keep it’s memory. That’s the difference between the high leveled spell and the lower one called ‘hammer the bone’ which only consist of forging a body with no will.

The corpse came back to life and bowed, Zhao on the other hand nodded and asked “who are you and who are your subordinates?!”

“This one is called Ink Line, and is the leader of the 5th squad, I’m an envoy of the Purcell family accompanied by four other people”

TL note: the Purcell family holds the Purcell duchy which borders the Black wastelands. They had a marriage engagement for Adam with their heir. But after the fall of the Buda family they did nothing to aid them

“How many squads in total, and how many men are in each squad?! “

“There are 10 squads in total, 2 were wiped out in stony mountain so only 8 remains. Each one holds 50 men.”

Zhao asked “what’s the point of you five people coming here?!”

“We received orders to scout the area of Black wasteland, and see if you are dead, in case you are alive we are to head back and report immediately”

Zhao put the undead in the space and started walking toward the living room. At this moment Rockhead and Blockhead arrived from outside the castle and noticed the situation. So nobody dared to act unreasonably.

He sat down while Green followed him, face grim he said “I haven’t thought that the Purcell family will be this strong, they must even have suffered a complete wipe out at stony mountain and yet they still have that many strong soldiers.”

Zhao responded “that’s not strange, after all they have ruled for so many years. But if they start paying attention to us now, that would be troublesome”

Merine said with a calm face “I heard that the Purcell family have two level nine experts that’s why we had the engagement with them, it might not be strange if even the current king wanted to meddle with our affairs. Plus a long time ago the Buda family had an agreement with the old king to infiltrate the Purcell family and help him disintegrate it bit by bit”

Zhao was shocked he never thought the aim behind his engagement would be this wicked, but at the same time it made him puzzled. So he asked “grandpa Green, grandma Merine, according to what you said we must have a very intimate relation with old king, furthermore the imperial family only copes with the important pieces of the board games, if it wasn’t for us standing in the wrong team we wouldn’t be here right ?! We are already banished in this barren lands does it really matter anymore?!”

Green’s complexion grew uglier and said with an ashamed tone “of-course it matters, you see before the current king sat on the throne he had the help of the big aristocrats. The very aristocrats the old king wished to get rid of. So to take their revenge they have firstly killed the king and tried to exterminate anyone of his servants. So certainly they won’t let us off that easily”

Zhao frowned he never thought that the situation will be as such, it seems that these aristocrats held some power and could do whatever they wanted.

Merine interrupted his train of thoughts saying “every Purcell envoy have died today, so normally they will send more”

Zhao nodded and said “it seems they are watching our movements because of the engagement, plus they also want to see if we survived the first beast tide. If we renounce that engagement, it’s possible that they won’t mind us anymore. Its better we do it first and take away any reason they have to meddle in our affairs”

Green smiled and replied “this marriage isn’t a good thing, after we got in trouble they didn’t even move an inch to help us, which is not very good for their reputation “

“I don’t know what is their aim, however it can’t be superficial. Otherwise why would they suspect us at such a sorry state? Is there any method to deal with them?”

Other people in the room were thinking, they knew that it’s not easy to deal with Purcell family

Suddenly Blockhead interrupted the silence saying “young master why not send some undead to ravage their lands so they won’t have time to deal with us?”

Before Zhao could even respond Green shook his head and said “absolutely not, if they know that we survived the bestial tide, and the beasts passed beyond the black wastelands, they will suspect our young master’s identity and it will attract even more attention”

The room fell back to silence, everyone was trying hard to find a solution. Meg impatiently said “we can’t deal with the Purcell family unless they have a disaster. But that’s not the case, this year’s weather and crops were outstanding, plus there is no way an insect plague will hit them anytime soon”

Zhao showed and an unexpected smile and said “Grandpa Green, unless an insect plague infects their grains they wouldn’t have time for us, where is their granary?!”

Green stared in shock “Yes, Purcell duchy’s grain main production area is the Llica Plains, it’s a very fertile land which holds a massive granary that contains enough grains to feed the whole duchy for one year, this granary have great importance !”

Zhao laughed loudly “Ha-ha insect plague ha-ha, we can make it happen, let’s see if they can scheme with no food!”