The Necromancer Who Was Despised - The Necromancer Who Was Despised chapter 183
“I estimate that the total number of enemy troops is around 2,000. Of course, most of them are mercenaries. The problem is that there are over 100 priests and at least 50 knights.”
The knight’s combat power wasn’t included. Considering the size of the territories, there shouldn’t be more than 20 knights.
“The Eclamba you visited last time has also joined forces with Jutus.”
Geographically, it made sense.
“There are three mages… and we have a demon mage on our side.”
I nodded in agreement with Er-yan’s words.
That’s correct. Normally, we wouldn’t know, but we have a 7-class demon mage on our side.
The mediocre mages on the other side were nothing compared to us.
On the other hand, our military power consisted of barely over a thousand mercenaries, and a handful of priests sent from the Temple of the Earth.
Our knight power was filled by the free knights who joined us, and we had four 4-class mages and five 3-class mages.
The quality of our mercenaries was high, which was why we had managed to hold out until now against Jutus, who had the support of the goddess’s faction.
The number of mercenaries we had taken out was considerable, but the front line was being maintained because of the significant difference in military power.
“But now the situation has changed.”
It’s clear that they have tremendous military power, and it’s not something to be taken lightly.
However, the troops I can personally operate are beyond that.
To be frank, with just one skeleton knight unit and a thousand zombies, I could handle that much military power on my own.
If my main undead join in… it’ll be a one-sided massacre.
There was no reason to be nervous.
I confirmed the corpses and, unfortunately, found out that there were no knight-class talents.
Priests and knights were, of course, protected with top priority.
I turned all the corpses into skeleton warriors and fed the remaining flesh to Draug, making him grow bigger.
I created a commander-type undead, a pale general, on the way and assigned all the skeleton warriors to him.
Er-yan’s body trembled slightly at the rapidly increasing number of undead and their oppressive presence.
Over 200 undead. With this many, we could definitely find the place that was taken from us.
We had already set up our position, so we pushed forward with Erayan at the forefront, breaking through the enemy’s lines.
Before we left, I had informed them of our destination. It didn’t matter who gave the orders, as long as they were informed.
Erayan seemed to doubt me at first, but he didn’t hesitate to guide the undead army, and we marched towards the place we had lost.
It took a day.
That was the time it took to recover the lost ground.
As soon as we arrived, we confirmed that the enemy’s forces were only around 300, and I immediately deployed Draugr to lead the undead in a charge.
The enemy’s camp was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the undead, but they didn’t seem too intimidated.
There were ten priests and five paladins inside the camp, and they claimed that they had made the right choice by allying with the dark wizard.
And I cut them down one by one.
Draugr gained two more, and my skeleton warriors now numbered 500.
The Mira Priesthood was established, and the paladins were all promoted to white dragon generals.
Thanks to an expert-grade warrior, a skeleton knight was also added.
It was disappointing that there was only one expert-grade warrior in such a large stronghold, but that was unavoidable.
“What’s going on…?”
The enemy, who had been unable to counterattack, was easily defeated by me.
“There’s a lot of supplies. Some of them are spoils of war?”
We found a large amount of supplies that hadn’t been moved to the main base yet, and I put them all in Athina’s subspace.
I didn’t hesitate to show off the subspace artifact.
I had enough power to protect it.
I wrote a report of the situation and had an undead deliver it. The report would surely be delivered safely, just like my undead had seen.
After resting for a day, we crossed the border into Juiterus.
There was a large carriage among the supplies, so I connected it to the skeletal horse and rode it.
Over 500 undead were escorting us in an orderly manner.
“…Inha, every time you level up, you show a new side, but this time it’s extreme.”
“That’s true?”
“The biggest change was when you reached 5th class, right? Even that was shocking, but this is on a different level. What is this…?”
It’s not for nothing that they call me a master.
In reality, I was becoming more familiar with my power and was still growing steadily.
For example, creating permanent undead was one such task.
I could make temporary undead permanent with just a little touch-up, and even low-level ones could be made permanent with just a thought.
I could also extract the shadow of a soul with just a gesture, and create high-level undead like skeleton paladins, skeleton knights, and Mira priests without breaking a sweat.
By repeating this process, I was gaining a deeper understanding of magic and optimizing it for myself.
“If I keep developing like this, I might not need to enhance my strength in battle.”
It seemed possible that I could make it so that I wouldn’t need to do separate enhancement work in the future.
It didn’t even feel that far away.
I thought that if I kept going, I might be able to conquer Juiterus.
“But, are you really going to conquer the town?”
Erayan asked, and I nodded calmly.
“That’s right. This time, we’re going to become a separate unit.”
We planned to plunder the towns and, if we found an opening, take down the main stronghold of Juterus, the castle.
However, we didn’t intend to force the issue. If we couldn’t capture the castle in a short period, we’d be stuck between our main force and the castle, which would be a precarious situation.
A head-on collision wasn’t scary.
But right now, we lacked the numbers.
My calm response seemed to darken Eryan’s expression.
It seemed he thought I’d slaughter civilians to fill the undead ranks, but that wasn’t my intention.
I planned to send all the civilians I’d secured to Riena.
The lord of Doriem couldn’t stop me either.
“It’s not like there are no mercenaries in the towns.”
And it wasn’t like our main force would move from the start to suppress the separate unit, so I intended to catch as many of them as possible.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t kill any civilians.
If there was a temple in the town, I’d kill the fanatical believers and bring them back as undead.
So, I didn’t make excuses to Eryan.
I just ordered him to fulfill his role.
And first, Juterus attacked Doriem’s town, and in this world, the weak were guilty and would be devoured – it was only natural.
As I gradually conquered the towns, Kaila silently performed her duties as my guard.
Thanks to her, I felt secure even in the midst of war, and I successfully captured all the towns under Juterus’s jurisdiction.
The enemy’s army discovered us and sent a suppression unit, but it was meaningless.
There was no one in Juterus who could handle me, and according to my plan, the number of undead gradually increased.
I destroyed the temples of the Goddess Church in the captured towns, caught and executed the related individuals, and brought the dead back as undead.
It was implied that they shouldn’t believe in the Goddess Church anymore.
This statement could have given birth to more fanatics, but I didn’t want to remain silent.
Kaila asked me, holding the prisoners, “Do you plan to send them all to Riena?”
“Yes. Honestly, I’d like to take the personnel from the main force as well, but that might be too much for the territory to handle.”
My response to Kaila’s question about the number of people being insufficient was that it was actually lacking.
Of course, that wasn’t true – we had enough to create two towns.
It was just that we had killed a considerable number of people.
It was only natural, given that the Goddess Church’s domain was like a sacred territory, and the number of devoted believers was substantial.
Even though they didn’t have divine power, I didn’t spare them as I had initially thought.
So, I didn’t fear them, and even if I handed them over to Riena, they wouldn’t be seen again, which didn’t bother me much.
Surprisingly, there were no humans consumed by revenge.
After all, from their perspective, I was like a natural disaster – and who would harbor revenge against a natural disaster? They just wanted to get past it.
“It’ll be a hassle to take them all.”
“It won’t be that difficult with the skeleton horse. We can plunder food and wagons.”
That much was something even Doriem couldn’t complain about.
On the contrary, if we lacked something, I’d request it from them as well.
“…You’ve become a bit more daring since becoming a mage.”
“Maybe.”
I think I haven’t changed much.
I can now do things that I couldn’t do in the past due to lack of power, relatively freely.
In the past, I had to be cautious and consider others’ opinions, but now it’s the other way around.
If I need something, I can ask for it. I have earned that right.
Even if I become a king, I still need to be cautious, but I don’t need to be overly cautious like before.
“Besides, they should have realized by now that I’m more dangerous than Doriem…”
I have a thousand skeleton warriors and fifteen mummy priests. On top of that, I have five drake riders and a golem.
Although I still only have two skeleton knights, I’m well aware that the situation is not going in my favor.
“…If you don’t give up your territory, I’ll come first.”
“But judging by their slow actions, it seems like the Goddess’s influence is quite significant, doesn’t it?”
From the Goddess’s perspective, it wasn’t necessary to occupy the surrounding territories, including Justus.
If possible, it would be better to have more. But if not, I’ll try to reduce the kingdom’s power as much as possible.
Looking at the current situation, it seems like Doriem’s occupation is unlikely, and even Justus might not be able to hold out, so I want to make a last-ditch effort, but the lord of Justus, no matter how pro-empire they are, cannot give up their territory.
So, they will definitely send troops to this side.
That’s why Athena is currently on a reconnaissance mission.
“I wish they would bring their entire army.”
We’ll have to give up the front line, but if we don’t want to lose our territory, we have to do that.
And fortunately, it seems like they’ve agreed to attack me first.
Justus has abandoned the front line and is marching towards us with their entire army.
◈ Support
It’s a welcome development.
If we handle the main army, then the royal family’s request will essentially be over.
I initially planned to complete the request as soon as possible, and I think I’ve achieved everything I wanted.
I’ve created a large number of undead using humans as targets for the first time in a while, and through that, my proficiency in undead creation has greatly increased.
I’ve also grown in scale and even obtained the ‘person’ that Prina requested, so if I can just complete the request and return, it will be a perfect outcome.
And there are many knight candidates among my undead army.
With over ten knight-class undead and mercenaries who can manipulate mana…
“I can make over thirty.”
I think that’s enough to form a decent knight corps.
And I can secure several corpses as well….
When I think about it, I didn’t even achieve this much in my previous life.
I didn’t have no experience, but since my old master was hiding, it was easier to obtain monsters than humans, so I mainly learned magic using monsters as targets.
That continued into this life, and honestly, I’ve done more undead creation using monsters as targets.
So, being able to do large-scale experiments on humans legally this time was more effective.
I’ve done things that I couldn’t do before freely.
Of course, there’s still room for development.
I’m still at the stage where I’ve just become a mage, so I need to try many things.
That’s why I plan to annihilate their entire army.
And I plan to collect all the corpses as well.
“Have you given up on the front line?”
“I’ve cleared it out. The entire army is moving towards us.”
Artina said, as if she had confirmed it with her own eyes.
Although their movements were slow, once they made a decision, they would carry it out with certainty.
“Do you know that our current power is not ordinary, yet you’re opting for a head-on confrontation… Are you trusting your priests?”
“Probably.”
The Dark Mage was weak against holy power.
It was basic common sense.
I couldn’t deny that their judgment was incorrect, considering my extreme case.
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“Even if it’s a bit late, judging by our current power, I think we can win if we go all out.”
Additionally, if possible, I wouldn’t give up on using Dorieleum.
If we continued to receive support, it wasn’t impossible.
In reality, we had already succeeded in occupying parts of the front line and infiltrating the inside, so the Empire wouldn’t cut off their support.
The royal family wouldn’t just sit back and watch.
“Of course, assuming we can take me down with minimal damage, it’s possible.”
They didn’t know that my undead were stronger against holy power than those of other necromancers.
Even if they were weakened, it wouldn’t be to a serious extent.