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Volume 6 Chapter 7 Part 2

Translator: Kell

“Please hold on,” Sachylis said, stopping me as I was about to head to my next target. “I have a message from our domain.”

This is the main reason why Sachylis is assisting me: to convey emergency communications from the Count.

People with classes that possessed long-distance communication Skills, such as Spirit Archers, are stationed at every important locations across Count Meigis’ vast territory. They are constantly exchanging important information that involved the domain.

The information that needs to be sent to me, Mylia, or Count Meigis is immediately communicated by their assistant Spirit Archer. They were basically like human cellphones.

We can simply leave behind the monsters I’ve defeated and continue hunting because Sachylis communicates the location of the corpses to a different retrieval party.

This communication network reaches even outside the Count’s territory.
Inside the branches owned by Meigis and Maxia are people with communication Skills who work with the Count’s army and are responsible for relaying information. Of course the external network is not as elaborate as the one we have inside our own territory, but for conveying only important matters, the number of people we have is enough.

What’s more, with the king’s consent, the Count’s communication network passes through even the royal palace. One could say that Meigis’ army’s information network is spread across the entire kingdom.

If the empire moved, that intel would immediately be transmitted through the network to the Count’s army, allied nobles, as well as to Myna of the Maxia Trading Company. Even if they launched an attack in a remote area, preparations to intercept will be done in no time. Skills sure are nice to have. It only takes a few months to build such a network.

This is one of the reasons why we didn’t bother with the Empire. Within a few months, we can drastically change our internal structure, and when the time comes, we can fight favorably.

Not taking up the fight means giving the Empire more time, but still, delaying the battle is to our advantage. A month for us is worth more than a year for the empire.

If we had ten years of preparation time before the war, a month of extension wouldn’t have much of an impact. But if the preparation time was one month, then a month’s extension would make a tremendous difference.

The Empire attacking first means they’re already combat-ready. Giving them more time wouldn’t really matter much. In fact, they might even spend more for their military to prepare for a possible surprise attack from us, which means they’ll be taking financial damage even if we left them alone.

In other words, this “no fighting” scenario is the most advantageous for us.

“What did they say?” I asked.

“An Area Boss has been spotted.”

Sachylis’ report was the same as usual. About ninety percent of the reports I receive are about finding Area Bosses.

There are many adventurers in Count Meigis’ land, and the army sometimes hunts monsters for training. And sometimes Area Bosses become a problem.

Area Bosses are not only powerful, but sometimes require special tactics to defeat them, making them a great risk to fight if you are not familiar with them. I heard that more than eighty percent of deaths among mid-level or higher adventurers who have mastered basic tactics and strategies are caused by Area Bosses.

The stronger that Area Boss is, the less likely it is to be defeated, and the more dangerous the surrounding environment remains. It’s not uncommon to hear of nearly a hundred adventurers being killed just because an Area Boss is left to roam around.

If the strongest adventurers are sent in to defeat an Area Boss and fall, the Adventurers Guild suffers a huge blow in manpower.

So Area Bosses should be defeated in a short amount of time by those who are able to actually kill them with certainty. Therefore, all Area Boss information that circulates in the territory go to me.

There are a lot of goodies in defeating Area Bosses that you normally can’t get anywhere, such as large amounts of experience and items that are difficult to obtain. I’d pay for any information about their whereabouts, and in fact, Area Boss intel was sold at high prices in BBO.

Now I’m getting that intel for free and from all over the Count’s domain. I can’t pass this opportunity to farm all the experience points and items that I can—I mean, as a resident of the Count’s domain, I must fulfill this noble duty of ensuring the safety of our land.

So basically killing Area Bosses has become a part of my daily routine.

My assistant Sachylis also joins the battlefield without fear of the Area Bosses and is in charge of leading the evacuation of the surrounding area, (although she does not participate in actual combat). She had gotten so used to our routine, that when the Area Bosses were far away, she started worrying about dinner rather than the battle itself. But this time, Sachylis’ expression was grim.

“Location and type of monster?” I asked.

“An Emperor Ogre at area D17.”

“Finally.”

The Emperor Ogre is one of the Area Bosses I’ve been searching for. Not because I’ve got some beef with its type back in the Demon Venom case, but because I want the item it drops, the Divine Stone.

If you use it well, it can have a tremendous effect—using the item alone could give you the power to bring down the empire solo. Since I couldn’t use it back then, I converted it into a lower-level item—a Sage Stone—using a forbidden spell. But right now I can use the Divine Stone.

Since it’s not an Emperor Ogre affected by the Demon Venom, I can’t really kill it using the Mana Corrosion I used back then. I probably can’t burn a whole forest either.

In order to streamline information transmission, every place in the territory has a designation. D17 is the forest near the central city of the former Cardinal territory, Gildia. It’s one of the monster areas closest to a settlement.

It’s also where the a huge branch of the Maxia Trading Company is located. Forget causing a fire, I probably can’t even let one monster escape.

Then again, I’m stronger than I was back then, so I should have better odds now. Since I can’t see my stats here unlike in BBO, it’s a good way to test just how strong I am.

“Due to its proximity to a densely populated area, our elite troops are responding to the situation! But they might not last long!”

“Got it! Let’s go!”