Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

No matter what world it was, the police, military, and other official organizations permitted to use violence would always arrive late. This wasn’t only because the story needed them to arrive late. It was that a significant amount of time would be needed after receiving the report to understand the situation and summon enough people.

A well-run organization, elite training, and advanced equipment could all help in shortening the response time, but those wouldn’t be able to completely eliminate the response time. It could be said that the response time was also a direct reflection of the organization’s overall strength.

As for Starwood City’s residents, the Sala Dukedom’s royal army reinforcements finally arriving was a good thing for them. At least, this represented that the city was now safe. However, even those with the best of tempers were still filled with fury when they saw the reinforcements finally arriving.

This was because by this point in time, the battle had been over for two weeks already, so the reinforcements were rather late. Not only that, the reinforcements had fought in a battle on the way, and lost over 50% of its forces. So, the reinforcements arrived while filled with injuries and fatigue, with more stretchers and injured soldiers than actual assistance. Rather than calling them reinforcements, they seemed more like refugees who were seeking assistance themselves. This made it difficult for the Starwood City residents to accept.

“Get out of here! Are you here to reinforce us or to fight against us?”

“…Even Marquis Stanley was much better than you all! It was his ally ‘Blood Spear’ Salima who protected us. What did your domain lord do!? He allied with the undead and assassinated Prince Link! This brought danger to everyone here!”

Starwood City’s unfriendly welcome infuriated Earl Debalon, the leader of Sala Dukedom’s royal reinforcements. He even considered whether or not he should secretly kill some of the mercenaries and commoners who spoke so arrogantly to him.

“These dirty lowborn commoners. We wouldn’t have been ambushed by those traitorous Marquis Stanley loyalists if it wasn’t for our coming to save you all. You actually dare to speak so arrogantly to us?”

Since the issue of the Sala Dukedom prince’s assassination was still at hand, not dealing with it well would likely mean huge trouble down the road. Earl Debalon considered if he could use hunting down the prince’s killer as an excuse to vent and kill some of the people here, since based on typical customs, whenever a member of the royalty met with harm, there would always be many people killed as a punishment.

But unfortunately for Earl Debalon, he was unable to do that this time…

Human defenders weren’t the only ones on the walls of Starwood City. Short wood spirits were patrolling everywhere as they had now taken charge of the city. Gigantic magical flowers and war trees grew all around the city’s outskirts. The wood spirits were now the new rulers here.

It would have been still fine if it was only the wood spirits, but the aerial fleet in the skies also gave Earl Debalon an invisible sense of pressure. Not only that, the gigantic ancient tree in the center of Starwood City was the best explanation of what had happened here.

“The Sky Tree from the Forest of Dreams? What do they intend to do here…”

The Sky Tree was the mother tree which gave birth to the entire wood spirit species. Only when constructing a wood spirit city would such a precious tree be planted here. The wood spirits were capable of receiving the Forest of Dreams’ support through this tree, allowing them to reincarnate in this area, along with having many other miraculous uses that outsiders didn’t know about.

And as the wood spirits became more and more famous as a species, their Sky Tree that brought tremendous results in their war against the undead was no longer viewed as only a powerful weapon. Anywhere that their Sky Tree was present was directly treated as the wood spirits’ territory.

As the wood spirits’ main territory, the Forest of Dreams, wasn’t that far away from the Sala Dukedom, Earl Debalon naturally knew what this towering tree represented.

Starwood City was no longer a shoddy or even a mid-rate city. It was unmistakably a well-defended fortress city now, and it now belonged to a different country and different species entirely.

“Isn’t this an invasion? This is an outright military invasion!”

If Earl Debalon had been a purely militaristic person, he would have unsheathed his sword and attacked the wood spirits to defend his country already. But as someone important enough to be entrusted by the royalty with dealing with such a major incident like an Undead Calamity, rather than a military personnel, Earl Debalon was more of a politician.

“Why did they do this? Could it be that rumors of that treasure were actually real?”

But no matter what guesses or analyses he made, Earl Debalon was unable to act by himself. At most, he could send reports to the ruling Archduke. But, as for the Archduke’s royal family who supported Earl Debalon… it was likely that they would also be unable to do anything about the wood spirits.

This was the sad fate of small countries like the Sala Dukedom, made even more pitiful by the fact that the Sala Dukedom was embroiled in a civil war. Since all semblance of order was shattered by the fires of war, the law of the jungle where the strong preyed on the weak became even more evident and cruel.

If the wood spirits really wanted to take some territory for themselves here, what could the Sala Dukedom possibly do about it apart from grumbling a little? It wasn’t like the Archduke could afford to use his royal troops to fight against the wood spirits that were powerful enough to face an Undead Emperor when the royal troops were already busy dealing with the traitorous Marquis Stanley.

“…You’re worrying too much about nothing. We have absolutely zero interest in such a rundown city. We are a species that loves peace, so we would never start an invasion. There’s actually a reason that we’re establishing a scouting camp here…”

A sudden voice interrupted Debalon’s thoughts. Although the words were meant to be reassuring, he wasn’t reassured at all. Instead, he was frightened because his very thoughts had been seen through.

A short wood spirit with black hair had appeared before him. Her young-appearing figure was quite similar to how a very young elf would appear. Debalon had seen such young elf slaves before at the major nobles’ parties he’d attended before in the Sala Dukedom. A single young elf slave could sell for an astronomical price more than sufficient to buy an entire city like the formerly shoddy Starwood City.

The wood spirit before Debalon appeared incredibly weak, as if he could casually restrain her with one hand. However, Debalon didn’t dare to secretly do any nefarious deeds, since he knew that the average combat strength of an individual wood spirit was far above that of average humans or even elves. This seemingly weak and young girl would be equal to or surpass any Silver-ranked human warrior.

Meanwhile, the black-haired wood spirit’s gentle smile suddenly turned vicious as condescension, killing intent, and rage swept across her face simultaneously.

“Are you another one of those lowlife slavers? Or, are you intending on doing something to me?”

Debalon was truly frightened as he had no idea how the wood spirit before him saw through his dark thoughts as he hurriedly denied everything.

“No, no, I’m truly grateful to all your support. I was just thinking about how to report everything to the Archduke…”

The black-haired wood spirit had completed her main mission despite all the chaos. She had given an explanation to the official representative of the Sala Dukedom about why the wood spirits had constructed a fortress, and indicated that the wood spirits didn’t intend on invading. It was just that the situation was rather unique.

“A dimensional portal to the lower planes has appeared in the ruins, with swarms of demons pouring out? The Dimensional Door there has gone out of control…? Damn it, doesn’t that mean that this place will be conquered by the demons sooner or later?”

This was no good news to hear. Debalon was now regretting having volunteered to lead this mission so that he could gain military achievements. If a major demon army suddenly appeared before him, what could his army that was more than half dead and injured even accomplish?

Debalon was even considering whether or not he should find some excuse to escape from here. However, he hadn’t accomplished a single thing while suffering heavy losses. If he returned in such ignoble fashion, it probably wouldn’t be much different from dying here in combat on the battlefield. And, perhaps dying in combat would even be more glorious and “noblelike.”

The black-haired wood spirit, whose name was Muen, shook her head. Nor did she request the most natural thing that also would have pained Debalon the most—she didn’t request his army to stay here and protect the Sala Dukedom citizens.

“Out of control means that both the enemy and our side have lost control of the Dimensional Door located there. That portal to the lower planes has now become a random teleportation portal. Every once in a while, it might toss out a resident of the lower planes. However, it will be impossible for a large demon army to start an invasion. And, in order to prevent those demons from harming Starwood City’s residents, as well as preventing all possibility of the demons invading other areas, we constructed this fortress at Starwood City.”

All of this sounded quite reasonable to Debalon. He also managed to calm down quite a bit after hearing that no major demon army would be arriving. Still, he felt that there might be some trickery behind the scenes, but he was unable to discern truth from falsehood with his abilities… And with the Sala Dukedom being only a small country that was still at civil war, even if the Sala Dukedom learned that this was all a lie, there was nothing the country could do about it.

Muen paused for a moment before continuing.

“All of this was too sudden. We didn’t have the time to inform your country’s royalty. Please deliver our apology to your Archduke.”

Word choice was quite important in diplomatic relationships. While the words “inform” and “apology” appeared to be polite, these words actually meant that ‘We’ve been nice enough to tell you our intentions already. You can do anything you want; we don’t care.’

“Right, I took your land, sorry about that… What? You want me to demolish my own fortress and return home? Are you dreaming? I’ve already been nice enough to apologize for it.”

Constructing a fortress in another country and being so forceful about it was basically the equivalent of asking someone “do you surrender?” while choking their neck. However, Debalon actually heaved a sigh of relief after hearing such a forceful “apology.” This was the diplomatic attitude that he was accustomed to meeting with facing powerful countries. If this wood spirit had actually sounded truly apologetic while giving him a detailed explanation, then Debalon would have had to carefully think about what all of this really meant.

Of course, his relief also included the attitude of “all of this is too important for me to worry about, so I’ll leave this headache to the royalty instead.” Not to mention, it probably also included “with such a major incident still ongoing, nobody will be likely to care about how I lost so many troops in battle.” He even felt lucky about the demons’ arrival.

As for the legendary treasure within those ruins? Debalon wouldn’t give up on that, either. He would naturally send his spies, rogues, and thieves there. But, he wouldn’t dream about starting a direct confrontation here unless he obtained more information as well as a direct order from his royal bosses.

And from another standpoint, Debalon felt that his safety here was now guaranteed. Even if it was only due to the wood spirits, Marquis Stanley’s rebel army wouldn’t possibly dare to continue attacking him as long as he remained here in this fortress.

What Debalon didn’t know was that even though the wood spirit Muen didn’t actually know how to mind read, there really was someone in Starwood City that had mind reading powers. His intentions were all clearly exposed in front of her powers.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Although it’s exactly what we expected, with such a person as the royal troops’ commander-in-chief here, this would have been the equivalent of sending free troops to the undead if we hadn’t intervened here.”

I felt rather helpless about the situation. Although the Sala Dukedom sending someone like Debalon to be in command was a good thing for us, it would have been more probable to hope that Goddess Eich would suddenly revive rather than think that such an army would have any chance of fighting back against a dimensional invader like Undead Emperor Conservation.

“Well, it might not be as bad as you think. Although that Debalon fellow only thought about himself throughout the entire conversation, he still graduated from a proper military school, and has decent foundational knowledge of how to command in battle. As for his personality of being selfish, cowardly, and afraid to take responsibility… aren’t all nobles like that?”

Amelia unhesitatingly spoke openly about her condescension for nobles, seemingly forgetting that she had also been born as a member of the Bardi Empire’s royalty. Or, perhaps it was even more than that: it was likely that she had long since stopped thinking of herself as human.

And, while in front of Roland, Amelia didn’t need to conceal the fact that she had the power to read minds. She only needed to say everything that she directly thought. Amelia couldn’t even remember when it was that Roland saw through to the fact that she had mind reading powers.

Originally, Amelia had mentally prepared herself for Roland to distance himself from her if he ever found out about her mind reading powers. That was because anyone else who learned the truth about her mind reading, no matter how good a relationship they had with her beforehand, would always end up running away as far as possible, never meeting with her again. Or, there were those who reacted even worse by trying to kill her as they worried that their deepest secrets would be exposed.

Yet, Roland’s response to learning about her being able to mind read left a deep memory in her that she remembered clearly even today. Not only did his response broaden her horizons of how to understand abilities, she also suspected that something was wrong with Roland’s head.

“Such a convenient ability. That means that whenever I want to communicate something with you, I can tell you without worrying that I won’t be able to explain myself clearly. That will save so much time and effort!”

All lies were completely meaningless in front of Amelia. This truth that Roland told her shocked her far more than even the prettiest lie. He truly thought this way, that he was completely unworried about having his mind being read, and that he even found it a convenient method to communicate.

Should it be said that Roland lacked a little something in his brain, or that he had an open heart? Even though he was clearly no good person and always schemed against others, Roland wasn’t worried in the slightest about someone else seeing his thoughts. And, while his “trust” astonished Amelia, it also caused her new favorite activity to become chatting with Roland.

“Being trusted like this, and being able to say anything that I want, is something I can only experience when I’m together with him…”

So this time, when Roland evilly schemed how to dig pitfalls for others, Amelia unhesitatingly agreed to be his accomplice.

“By the way, Roland, when are our real reinforcements arriving?”

“Soon. If you calculate the distance, and if he doesn’t get lost, he should be arriving within three days…”

“Then, we should be making our preparations?”

“Not yet. Although he travels quite swiftly, it’ll be incredibly lucky if he can get here within ten days. It’ll be normal for him to only get here after two months. This is because he insists far too much on always leading the way, and never listens to others…”

“Being able to find us within two months despite being half a continent apart doesn’t count too much as having no sense of direction, does it…? Teehee, I understand now.”

Amelia covered her mouth and chuckled as she had already seen in Roland’s mind a flashback memory of a certain myth-like journey all across the continent. From this certain standpoint, the Rolo who led his adventuring team really didn’t have it easy.

“Yep, the first month is so that he’ll finally give up and admit that he can’t find the way. The second month is so that even if he got lost and traveled to the end of the world, he’ll be able to return…”

I had a pained expression as I recalled those experiences which made me want to cry. People with a bad sense of direction weren’t that scary. A person with a bad sense of direction who never looked at maps or asked people for directions wasn’t that scary, either. However, the person with the worst sense of direction in the world who kept believing that he was the best pathfinder in the world was what truly made me feel helpless.