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Volume 7 Chapter 2 Part 7

Jeremy said happily.

「Your strategy is to lure Milza and his army into this forest, right? 」

「If you say so, then yes. But if you say that we shouldn’t do anything, then we won’t do anything. Because we have already taken The Forest of Eternal Darkness back from Milza. 」

「Eh? 」

Not understanding what Siluca was talking about, Repart looked at Jeremy in confusion.

「But, this place… 」

Jeremy started speaking hesitantly as well.

Isn’t this the place where Lord Theo originally lived? 」

Repart, feeling frustrated, cut Jeremy off and continued at a rapid pace.

「The previous Lord of this Land was Villar Constance, the former Earl of Artuk, but when he passed away, it has been decided that both his title and all the lands that he had Lordship over will be given to Milza Kuches, the Viceroy of Dartania. Therefore, Lord Theo has retreated from the Forest of Eternal Darkness and… 」

Silka slowly began to explain things.

「That’s what happens when you follow the peerage system. 」

「However, now Lord Theo has come back here. I see… 」
Jeremy ran his pen over his notes while grumbling to himself.

「Yes, right now, we’re basically trespassing on what should be Milza’s territory, and we’re going to spread the news of that fact wherever we can. 」

And since the one thing that all the people of Artuk have in common is their patriotic love for their homeland, they’ll be more than happy to spread that blatant ridicule of the Dartanian invaders even further.

「But if we’re just being here without moving anywhere else, Milza won’t need to do anything, since we’re not going to b an actual threat to him. But even so, you’re certain that he’s going to attack us anyway? 」

「That’s right. Because Viceroy Milza hates Lord Theo more than anyone else in this world. 」

「That’s the only reason? Because he hates him?」

Repart was stunned beyond belief.

「I know that for the two of you, this must be a significant change in the worldview. You can decide whether you like it or not later, but if you really have to try to find logic in it, do so later once everything’s going to be over. 」

When they’re teaching their students, the Mages Association always places the most importance on being as objective and rational as possible when making judgements, but what they’re often forgetting about is that the Lords do not tend to behave in such ways.

「There’s nothing that Lord Theo doesn’t like, on the other hand. And he values intuition more than anything else. 」

「You should also be careful not to make yourself disliked with you attitude. 」

Helga calls out to Rewalt while looking at him with a cold gaze.

「I… I will make sure to do that. 」

Repart still seemed to have something on his mind, but he dropped his head and remained quiet.

「With Lord Theo here, it is more than certain that Viceroy Milza is not going to be paying attention to anything else but him. And in the meantime, we’ll complete our preparations for the besiegement of his forces. 」

「And how are we going to do that? 」

Repart asked. He doesn’t look confident, probably because he doesn’t have any thoughts on his own about the situation that was entirely foreign to him.

「That will be discussed later. We will give advice to the Lord, but it is the Lord himself who’s going to be making the final decisions. 」

「It would be unbearable if someone decided something based simply on whether they like it or not… 」

Repart spoke to himself with a bloodthirsty face.

「Even if something like that were to happen, it is the job of us contracted Mages to do something about it. 」

Siluca retorted back against Repart’s comment. This young Mage is about to realize that unlike what they’re teaching at the Magic University, the real world can and will be a pretty unreasonable place.

* * *

Siluca and the other Mages then moved to the castle’s grand hall, where Theo was currently chatting with the other Lords who came to this castle to aid him in his efforts against Dartania.

However, the largest of his subordinate Lords, Petr Morva, who is in charge of the entire territory of Veltava, and /baron Radovan Torias, who was in charge of the island of Sistina during Theo’s absence, were not present there.

Aside from theo, who is now an Earl, the person with the highest title among them now is Baron Juzel Rossini. He was a man of great strategy, and he never shyed from having his abilities put to the test, all for the sake of clearing the tarnished name of the Rossini family, and it’s all thanks to Theo, who put aside his personal feelings and preconceptions towards the Rossinis in order to make Juzel his subordinate Lord, because just like he declared, he wanted ti return to those times when the Rossini family was serving the original Cornero family as their most trusted subordinate Lords.

Thanks to that, many of the Rossini family’s forces were attracted to Theo, and even those of the rebels who harbored hatred towards the Rossini family were somehow convinced that with Juzel acting as the family’s head, they might change for the better. This is exactly what Theo’s biggest strength was: the ability to influence the hearts of the people to make them look past their differences and act together for the greater good.

「Alright then, I think we can get the strategy meeting started now. 」

Theo declared and left leading of the proceedings to Siluca.

「As you already know, we will be trying to lure Milza Kuches and his army into battling us here in this forest…」

Siluca stood next to Theo and looked around at the other Lords around them.

「… and the members of the Werewolf race, the White Witches and the Lords of Artuk are going to aid us in our efforts. 」

Elder Zelma, King of the Werewolves Geed and others offered to cooperate with Theo, and he gladly accepted their help, and now Siluca could form a concrete strategy involving them.

After Dartania’s forces will enter The Forest of Eternal Darkness, their forces will launch a series of coordinated guerilla attacks with smaller commando units to whittle the enemy down little by little, and in the meantime they’ll also hold a banquet in the castle in order to undermine the enemy’s morale. If Dartania still decides to continue marching to reach the castle and try to take it via siege, they’ll simply continue attacking them through the guerilla warfare while cutting off their supply routes.

「If we keep the Dartania’s army centered here, it will give us an advantage in future battles. 」

Of course, the castle might fall in the process, but there’s no way around it, since they’re most definitely going to lose if Dartania manages to drag them into a battle in an open field. This is the only option.

But Siluca was sure that Milza won’t miss this occasion to attack. As long as Theo is going to be here, he will definitely try to come after him.

「In fact, that’s exactly where the problem lies. 」

Siluca looked around at the Lords gathered in the room.

「Of course, there will definitely come a day when we’ll be forced to leave this forest in order to lay siege to Castle Unicorn, and when that day comes, we won’t be able to avoid a field battle anymore. 」

「But won’t the residents or Artuk stand up and join Lord Theo’s fight if he calls out to them and rallies them to his side? 」

Juzel asked.

「Yes, that is a possibility, and if it came to pass, the I’d like to gather as many people under our banners as possible, so that with their help we could try to force Milza to give up the idea of engaging us in a field battle and confine the Dartanian army to Castle Unicorn itself… 」
However, they have no way of knowing how many people would actually respond to Theo’s call, and knowing how much of a madman Milza was, he’d probably still choose to fight them in afield battle no matter how big the difference in their numbers would be. After all, he hates Theo and his fighting style, which involves organizing the people of his territory into an armed militia.

And also, even with the militia forces by their side, they still have no guarantee that they’d be able to defeat the professionally-trained Dartanian soldiers led by Milza himself.

「Let’s say we win the siege battle here, then win the field battle, and lock up Milza in the Castle Unicorn. That’s going to be great, but If we lose in either case, that’s probably going to be the end for us. 」