Free Web NovelChapter 21: Expedition preparation⁵
In short, for a father who saw his child in that situation—
a scene that he had nothing to do with, or with the North itself and those terrifying creatures—he could never forget it. He was struck with terror in his heart as a father and has remained fearful for his children regarding matters such as abduction to this day, right up to his latest decision to send Jori and her children to the Marquis, as he sensed the Duke’s goodwill towards the Marquis and chose safety over refusal and thereby causing a tragedy for his family, despite all the other doubts filling his head.
And even according to the intelligence reports he receives from time to time, he hears of the extent of this child’s misery; in fact, news did reach him just three days ago when the child went mad once more and attacked his servants, but his knights intervened and subdued him, and the situation continued for four days until he finally came to his senses.
Usually, he doesn’t really care about the internal problems of the nobility unless they have a significant impact on his empire or his imperial family, but let’s just say that this child left a deep impression on him and he felt sympathy and sorrow for him; so he got into the habit of following his news, especially after he became emperor five years ago, when he sent one of his spies specifically to hover around the boy and report back to him on everything concerning him.
Anyway, back to the main topic...
Delegating a thousand of your elite forces and sending them under the command of a mentally unstable sixteen-year-old...
Also, what is going on with this man? Why is he deploying his Death Knights like this? Even if someone told him right now that the Duke intends to dismantle the family, he would believe it.
Even the Imperial family has no more than a hundred of these fearsome men; and even if they had many, let’s say they had two or three hundred at most, if he wanted to exaggerate!
He couldn’t even imagine more than that, because the Askelund had entered a losing war some four decades ago, which lasted for over a decade and drained much of the Duchy’s forces. Yet even that war was nothing compared to what happened ten years ago: within months, the number of casualties among the Duchy’s forces reached astronomical figures due to the Duke’s recklessness and his defiance of the former Emperor’s orders by venturing deep into the North, and when he found his child, he retreated.
—but he himself witnessed the deaths of more than fifty of Askelund’s Death Knights on a single front alone!
So it is hard to imagine that they even have a hundred active Death Knights; it’s not as if Death Knights grow on trees!
But Alaric is literally handing them out left, right and centre, even giving them away as gifts to others
According to all analyses, and over the past ten years, only 40 active Death Knights have appeared in Askelund, excluding, of course, the 74 elderly deathknights who have retired and retreated to the rear ranks after taking the title of Lord and a small plot of land somewhere within the realm of Ascoland.
As for the active Death Knights,
each of the Duke’s children has always been accompanied by two of them, and each of the Duke’s brothers has had one under their personal command since the days of the previous Duke; the Duke himself was accompanied by just one, whom he chose after his previous death knight was killed ten years ago.
As for the rest, they were scattered throughout his armies and along his borders, except for one whom the Duke had sent specifically a year ago to remain with Basil after Basil had been the target of an assassination attempt and his deathknight had died in his place.
So as for the other twenty-two deathknights,
now, he had given five of them to the Marquis and eleven to the expedition, or perhaps even more, leaving him with only six Requiemknights to command his armies, whose whereabouts had been unknown for the past five days!... freewёbnoνel.com
"What the hell you’re doing, Alaric?!"
As far as he knew, the Marquis Gaius himself possessed only three Deathknights, whom he treated as true treasures; so you can imagine how delighted he must be now that he’s acquired five more for free!
Had he been wrong to choose Askelund as his target? If he’d known the Duke was so decisive, he wouldn’t have minded begging himto give him something, and he wouldn’t have minded trampling on so-called imperial dignity.
But there was another matter: had he overestimated Askelund’s strength?... After all, the last two wars Askelund had fought were so devastating that the capital itself had intervened, and troops had even been sent from Estella to support them. Indeed, for a time, they were the only forces guarding the western front against the western tribes. Three decades ago, when the former Duke of Askelund was forced to mobilise all his duchy’s forces to the northern front He even raised the black banner at the time, signalling the possibility of the northern front falling.
However, the situation was somehow averted after the enemy suddenly retreated for some reason, and things returned to normal for a while. Consequently, the former emperor issued orders to halt any advance northwards, instructing Askelund to fortify the border without crossing it under any circumstances, unless the enemy attacks from the north, do not do so.
So... even he no longer knows the truth, because the Duke makes illogical decisions no matter how you look at it.
Does this man want war, or does he simply want to give up everything?
