My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem - My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1436-1438

Chapter 1436

“So, we have one week to prepare for a battle.” I finished.

We were once again in the planning room of my mansion, where I met with everyone and explained the situation. I didn’t just have the girls present, but the Mayor, Ruby and the Guild Leader, Lapis, and I even brought General Nova in. I didn’t like him, but Nova had a closer connection to the Osterians than Alysia did, and he was also once a top general. When it came to war, he knew what he was talking about. When it came to the foxkin, not that they had a say in this meeting, it was Miki who would speak for them.

“How presumptuous! I saw we march out now and destroy him!” General Nova snarled.

“Master… my… mother…”

I made a face, and then pulled her wings out of the soul world and handed them to Celeste. She took them in her hands and looked over them. The other girls winced or looked away at the sight of the once beautiful black wings, now wrinkled and torn.

“A fairy’s body is created by magic. We’re ultimately mana beings. Our wings represent our connection to the mana of the world, much like a foxkin’s spirit tail shows her connection to the spiritual world. Ripping off the wings shouldn’t kill her, but she will be weakened by this. I’m afraid the harm is more mental.” Celeste explained in one of her more serious moments.

“My King, give me permission to ride out and-” Nova began again.

“We’re not just going to attack them.” Lapis suddenly interrupted him. “The Dwarves haven’t even gotten out smithy up yet. We need time to get out blacksmith production going.”

“Dwarves!” The Osterian made a face. “What good are dwarves in a fight?”

“What good is an Osterian without a weapon?” Lapis shot back.

“Enough!” I barked, causing them to stop. “We can’t be reckless here. We need to do what we did with Demon Lord Aberis. We need to regather the army to repel our enemies. I just regret that there aren’t two of me anymore.”

“Things won’t be able to move the same way as before.” Ruby sighed. “For example, the adventuring guild won’t be able to help.”

“What?” I glanced up at her, causing her to blush.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. However, before, when you were dealing with Demon Lords and monsters, we could justify our participation. Now, this is considered politics. We can do small requests and errands, but anything we do would be reported to the main headquarters, so they’d know. We also won’t lift arms for any country.”

“Alright…” I gritted my teeth. “That’s one group we no longer have.”

“You can count the Tibults and the church out too.” Elaya declared.

“What are you saying? Is Aberis abandoning us again?”

Elaya sighed. “The Tibults were ordered on a mission to the southeast. There have been issues going on seaside. Something about the Knifefall Isles being under attack. It was Eliana who demanded their help.”

I was just about to curse Prince Edward, but when I heard Eliana’s name, it faltered. “E-eliana… right, how is she?”

“In the absence of the Osterian race, she’s been doing everything she can to keep the Ost Republic stable. She is all but their de facto ruler at this point. She needs the Aberis forces to maintain stability and keep it from falling to bandits as the west did. As for the church, they have a similar position to the adventuring guild. Demon Lords are a special case.”

“They helped with the Ost Republic!”

“That’s because they were opposed to the Ost Republic church. Dioshin’s church doesn’t specifically go against their teachings.”

“Those freaking butt lovers!” I slammed my fist, causing the girls to all look behind them in confusion. “Ahem… your butts are fine.”

Chapter 1437

“In that case, what do we have?” I asked, trying to keep my spirits up.

“The Osterians will fight!” Nova declared proudly. “I have 2000 able-bodied Osterians.”

My eyes couldn’t help but dart to Xin. She had already warned me that the Osterians could be a double-edged sword. They only fought for who they determined was powerful. If they believed that Roth was a stronger leader, they might abandon me altogether. That wasn’t to say that Osterians were disloyal.

They would follow someone who showed time and time again to be strong, but there simply was no history between me and then. Until very shortly, I had been their enemies. They had upended their entire country for me, and they now expected me to do something equally as impressive. Defeating Nova and the demon lord was a start. I had also pulled the Illusory sword, although technically I defeated a dungeon, and the sword, I held was nothing like it, plus no one had seen me come out of it, so there was room for doubt. In the end, it didn’t win their hearts as much as one would have hoped.

“Our local forces only number 1500 at the moment,” Xin added. “They are more capable than they once were. I would no longer call them a rag-tag militia… but a functioning army. That said…”

“We’re versus an experienced army of animalkin.” I finished.

“Can you manufacture more malacrum weapons?” Shao offered. “If we make all their deaths final, then we can wear them out. It’ll be like with Calypso’s army. Since we can be resurrected and they can’t be, we’ll simply outnumber them.”

“Soul-reaping is the last thing we want to introduce.” Miki interrupted. “Once you’ve chosen perma-killing, then you’ve only opened up a field for mass killing. Their side will use such weapons and nefarious moves as well. The Dioshin king may be a lot of things, but he has his sense of pride. He gave us a week, and in exchange he expects us to fight fair. If we don’t fight fair, and he’ll have the moral high ground. It will demoralize our troops, and drive his troops into a frenzy. Remember when Lydia entered her beast mode? Imagine that across an entire army!”

At the mention of Lydia, several eyes peeked my way. If it came to knowing if Lydia was alive or dead, I still didn’t have the answer. I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about that right now. Once this battle was over, I would beat the answer out of him. To think that he openly bragged about wiping out an entire variant of the catkin, and no one called him on it. He truly did have the power in Dioshin.

“What about Deeksville and the southwest territories loyal to me?” I asked.

“I’ve brought back 500.” Celeste declared proudly, but when she saw no one else was acting very excited, she put on a pouty face.

“So, after everything, we have 4000 trained soldiers. That’s truly not bad for a single territory this young.” Elaya spoke up. “Aberis altogether could only gather 10,000 soldiers to when they planned outright war with the Ost Republic.”

“It’d be nice if Edward could give me some of them.”

“It’s not so easy, he had already just gathered and sent them home. Furthermore, it’s already known that King Roth only has his eyes set on the wilderness. Most don’t even consider it part of Aberis yet. Those in the east would feel no desire to risk troops to protect a fledgling lord, no matter how high he’s ranked. Your rapid ranking has made it less likely for them to want to help. Some might see it as a quick way to lose the competition. I’m sorry, Deek, but this is politics. Until you’ve fought and bled protecting each other in battle, the rest of Aberis won’t acknowledge you. Tibult is the only major family that truly supports you right now, and you knew what it cost to get that.”

“What about the king himself? Doesn’t he have any people?” I asked helplessly.

“Forces officially under the crown only number 1000 and don’t forget that Prince Edward has yet to take the crown. He’s delayed taking it for a while now, and it’s cost him. He doesn’t have control of the King’s legion. All Edward himself has is 200 guards. He’s less defended than you are.”

It turned out that as far as Aberis went, I was in a better position than most of it. It was no wonder I wasn’t getting very much help. We had always functioned outside Aberis, and now we’re practically bigger than them.

“What about Dioshin, then?” I asked the dreaded question. “How much do they have?”

“According to the little bit of experience I had with them, during a meet, the King would be able to take 1000 able-bodied men per tribe. There are twelve tribes, so their forces will equal 12,000… at minimum.”

It wasn’t enough.

Chapter 1438

“There is one place.” After a long bout of silence, Sapphire, who had remained rather quiet in the back, spoke up. “It’s a place you might be able to find more troops.”

Everyone looked in her direction.

“What place?” I asked.

“You defeated Demon Lord Aberis, right?” Sapphire asked.

I sighed, immediately knowing what she was saying. “You mean Alerith.”

It had been several months since I had dealt with Alerith. The Demon Lord Aberis had taken all of his demon knights and marched south, leaving the city mostly abandoned. Lord Reign hadn’t been among those identified after the battle, so my general assumption had been that Lord Reign had remained behind. It wasn’t clear if Lord Reign was an enemy working with the demon lord, a pawn of the demon lord, or even a puppet with no autonomy of his own.

The city had become eerily quiet in the last two months, and even Prince Edward didn’t know what was going on up there. The traveling guild had been shut down when Demon Lord Aberis made his move, and even after their defeat, the city remained cut off. That could mean that the place was ripe for conquering. If I could ride into Alerith and bring order to it, I might be able to raise a small army from whatever was left. Aberis under Lord Reign had been building forces. Most of them had been polluted by the demon knight token, but my experience was to the point that even if I found the demonic knights, I could fix their karma and restore them to normal.

“So, it’s time to take care of Lord Reign,” Xin spoke out loud.

The first time I had tried to deal with Alerith, I had found myself over my head, and it had almost cost me. Yet, at this point, I had mostly ignored them because they weren’t even a threat. Now, it felt like it was a good time to finally visit Alerith and finish what I started.

“I wonder what they’ve been up to these few months.” Celeste pondered.

“Don’t we have spies in Alerith that can report what is going on?” Shao asked.

“Hmm? We do?”

“Oh… that’s right, there were those people who were fight managing for Carmine.” Miki nodded. “What were their names? Um… Drake?”

“…”

“Master, you did remember you had a group of servants working out of Alerith, right?”

“… I forgot.”

The girls couldn’t help but collapse. Thankfully, Elaya spoke up, trying to recover the situation.

“They went silent shortly before Aberis made his move.” Elaya shrugged. “Their life insurance crystals haven’t shattered, so they’re still alive. I just assumed they were in a prison somewhere.”

“Shouldn’t you have said something if three of our people were in jail!” Miki cried out.

“Well, it’s not like any of you were asking after them,” Elaya responded snobbishly.

“Still, we should care for our own, right? We need to seriously stop abandoning people!” Miki declared, causing the group to be silent for a moment.

“So… we’re agreed on Alerith?” I offered.

“Ignored? I feel bad for the male characters in Master’s lore!”