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Chapter 667: Shadow

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

The Aurora Knights were the ace troop type of the Northlands. Back before the Holy War started, they were already the strongest Northlands knights, all at Gold rank or above. Some even viewed the Aurora Knights as the strongest human knight job class of all. Even though the Aurora Knights couldn’t compete in numbers or grandiosity with dragon knight squadrons, they would still be one of the strongest available knight job classes for humans.

As the Aurora Knights were the aces, of course the militaristic East Mist Communal Country would treat these heroic knights excellently.

The Aurora Knights didn’t personally need equipment as they were capable of summoning ice as weapons. However, the royalty had custom-made magic metal alloy armor for every single Frigid Nightmare steed. This allowed the Frigid Nightmares to continue wearing armor even after transforming, and with the rise in the Elemental Tide and the influence of the new Ice Elemental Plane, the Frigid Nightmares had greatly increased in strength over all, which corresponded with a rise in strength for the Aurora Knights.

However, the Aurora Knights had the same weakness as dragon knights in that more than 90% of their combat strength depended on the steed. Rather than calling them knights, it would be more accurate to call them tamers... but that wouldn’t change the fact that they were strong.

To use the previous generation’s standards, these Aurora Knights would be at a level where people would address them as “grandmaster”. Many of them were at Legend rank or above in the previous generation’s power ranking system. But now, one Aurora Knight was unconscious and the other was seriously injured just from trying to scout the beasts’ location. This seemed quite inconceivable.

“...Burns? Here in the Northlands?”

Well, at least they still survived. Soon, the still conscious Aurora Knight, whose name was Lavin, told us what happened to them.

Lavin had split up from his scout partner. It was a normal practice as it would help them cover as much ground as possible. While scouting, Lavin saw a distress signal flare from his partner, and went over to save him. When Lavin arrived, his partner was being attacked by a pack of winter wolves, lions, and tigers. His partner had already collapsed, while his partner’s steed was trying its best to protect him.

When Lavin went down to save his partner, he was suddenly ambushed by a red-clothed person. The red-clothed person knew how to use fire magic. Strangely, even the winter wolves were able to spit out black flames. Lavin hadn’t expected this, and was instantly put at a disadvantage. If it hadn’t been for his Frigid Nightmare casting an ice shield in time to protect the two Aurora Knights as they escaped through the air, things might have been much worse.

“Black flames?”

Nobody wondered how ice element winter wolves were capable of spitting fire. This was quite obviously the work of the lower planes. It would be related to either a dark cultist who worshipped an Evil God, or someone who was a loyal follower of a demon or devil. It would seem that trouble had truly arrived.

However, I laughed loudly when I heard this.

“I’ve finally caught their tail...”

One of the reasons why we had rushed back to the Northlands was because of the new activity of the Demon Abyss.

The Demon Abyss of the Northlands. This was just the local nickname for this place. Its official name was the Lugy Valley—it was a deep valley where sunlight wouldn’t reach the bottom even at noon.

Since demons had invaded the mortal plane from this location multiple times already, the dimensional laws there were tattered and incomplete. It wouldn’t be that difficult for the lower planes to teleport something here.

Previously, the Mist Kingdom had had a fortress here, but after the Karwenz’s rampage from before, the aura of the Chaos Abyss became very weak here. No new demons had teleported here in several decades, and the new Mist Kingdom didn’t have enough personnel and resources to commit to maintaining a fortress in this location.

Still, the Mist Kingdom maintained an observation post here. Recently, powerful magic reactions had been detected from this location. It was quite evident that something had arrived from the lower planes. However, the scouts here were unable to find out what it was.

The worst possible result would be a Demon Lord together with an entire demon army. That would mean all-out warfare. The best possible result would be just a few demons which might wreak some havoc.

But, since our troops had yet to find any signs of the demons even now, it was likely that only a few demons had arrived. This was within expectations. Rather than a place as tough as the Northlands, other places in Eich would be much easier to conquer, and would provide far more resources for the demons. Demon Lords weren’t that idiotic. They wouldn’t be interested in conquering a far more difficult location when there were easier locations to attack.

Although there were several visitors from the Chaos Abyss here, this was neither major nor minor issue. If we didn’t deal with this properly, major trouble could still occur. A demon plague or a blood sacrifice to an Evil God would be quite troublesome to deal with.

The Mist Kingdom hadn’t done anything on the surface over the past few days. However, every single spy was working overtime. They were all busy investigating the outsiders’ identities.

Yet, we still learned nothing. It seemed that the visitors from the Chaos Abyss didn’t intend to disguise themselves as humans.

But now, I finally located a sign of their existence. It seemed that they wanted to do something with the beast stampede.

It was already expected that this year’s beast stampede would be the strongest in all of history. Now that demons were also involved, it seemed that it would become an even greater headache, yet my heart was filled with delight.

Powerful enemies wouldn’t be that fearsome—only the unknown would. Over the past few days, I had constantly been calculating what schemes the demons might have, such as kidnapping people in power, trying to cause infighting between our Mist Alliance members, detonating a bomb at the Caso Dam and creating a flood, and so on. I kept scaring myself like that. Perhaps it was true that those who were evil would be the best at seeing through the thoughts of the others were even more evil. I was becoming extremely paranoid.

Only a hidden scheme would be scary. Now that the scheme was exposed, of course I was delighted.

Still, the most important thing right now was...

“We’re going to personally go out and capture those demons!”

I transformed into my War Angel form, but right when I flew into the sky, a cold gust blew past and made me shiver to the point where I fell out of the sky. When considering how my ice resistance was at the peak of the world, it seemed that I was still a long way from recovering even though it had almost been a month since I cast the forbidden spell Ice Aeon.

I helplessly shook my head, and decided against being a burden to everyone else. I watched the other aerial knights rise up into the sky. Perhaps now was a good time for me to find a warm place and drink some hot cocoa!

Meanwhile, the silly cat was abnormally silent as she rested on my shoulder. It was almost as if she was asleep with her eyes open. She had constantly been like this ever since I recovered to the extent where I could move around by myself.

As she was now the Elven Empress, she really did have a lot to deal with for the elves’ impending immigration to the Northlands.

Although her true body was by my side, she was quite overworked from having to direct her clone acting as the Elven Empress. If I didn’t touch her, then she would seem just like a cat doll sitting on my shoulder.

Well, it would be boring to wait around for more information, so perhaps I should try drawing something on her face?

I was rather hesitant, but then the silly cat suddenly turned her head around 180 degrees, just like in a scene out of a horror movie.

“...Roland, I’ve discovered some new information.”

“I definitely didn’t write ‘sex slave’ or ‘use me as you please’ on your head! ...New information? What information?”

And then, I witnessed the silly cat forget what she just said as she touched all over her head, even bringing out a mirror to look at herself for quite a while.

“I was just joking, haha, I fooled you! You actually believed me! Do I look like someone who would do such a childish thing?”

“Yes.”

The silly cat showed off her complete distrust of me as she checked all over her entire body. She was now carefully inspecting her tail as if she was worried that I left some tiny words which would be difficult to see.

The aerial knights returned before this little drama was over. The Aurora Knights swiftly took action now that they knew where the enemy was located. It would be highly difficult to escape from the Aurora Knights’ tracking here in the Northlands.

Several dozen high-level aerial knights personally set out, Reyne included. The pack of winter wolves was annihilated before they could even react, while the red-clothed person was instantly captured alive. When he was tossed down in front of me, I saw something familiar.

Although this thing was wearing a cape, underneath the cape was a demonic creature wearing a mask. After taking off the mask, his face had nothing on it at all.

The creature’s face was completely blank, with no eyes, no ears, and no mouth. His limbs were as distorted as noodles, and barely counted as humanoid. He seemed like a mollusk, some type of nightmare right out of a fairy tale.

“What is this?”

“...Evil.”

This was a scout creature that was the pure amalgamation of Chaos and evil. Its distorted body was red and black, with a distinct black glow. With such a high degree of pure Chaos, it was probably some species of devil.

I nodded in satisfaction. The rest could be left to the professionals at dealing with the denizens of the lower planes. The only difference between demons and ordinary humans when it came to torture was that demons would be able to persist for a little longer.

The knights who returned didn’t only bring back this demon creature. They also brought back some winter wolf corpses. I conducted a brief inspection, and found the corpses had horns and scales on their bodies. This was obvious evidence of demonization.

The great majority of Northlands beasts would be of the ice element or no element. If they were capable of spitting out flames, even if it was demon flame from the lower planes, this meant that they had been transformed into a completely different species. Such fast demonization was beyond common sense.

Now, I was no longer so delighted. This was no coincidence. If the beast stampede began to demonize in large numbers, its threat level would multiply immensely.

With this new change in the situation, the winter hunt procession troops who had previously been chatting and joking with each other suddenly became completely silent. It was as if something invisible was pressuring us.

The Mist Alliance was facing the Holy Church’s scheme on the outside and the devils’ scheme from the inside. It would seem that others were truly placing great importance on us.

Soon, other scouts returned with new information as well. They also located more red-clothed devils among other beast packs. It seemed that we weren’t lucky after all. There were far too many of these amalgamations of evil. These devil creatures also wouldn’t be afraid of incurring losses.

“A storm is coming...”

—

To be honest, the reason why I hated governmental work wasn’t that I was lazy, but rather that if I started working seriously, I would always find that the harder I worked, the more work there would be for me to do. The more seriously I took my responsibilities, the more responsibilities would be pushed onto me.

“...That sounds quite logical, but the Holy Church’s scheme is probably directly related to the forbidden spell you’ve cast at the Moonwheel Capital.”

“Yes, I admit this, but—”

“It’s the devils that are making trouble for us with the beast stampede. When mentioning the devils, who do you think they hate more than anyone else right now? Why are the devils even here in this icy land? Shouldn’t you be taking responsibility?”

“I acknowledge this, but—”

“Stop complaining just because you helped out the elves. Besides, who’s behind the elves’ mass immigration? Since you made them come here, shouldn’t you be the one responsible for them?”

It was truly troublesome when there was someone who knew you well, and if that someone was a silver-tongued woman, it would be utmost trouble.

I was rendered speechless before I could even complain. I now sounded like the source of all evil, the cause of all trouble? Wouldn’t that mean that everyone would have it much easier if they killed me?

“Hey, you said it yourself. Just think about your current Calamity Ranking. I feel like that’s highly reasonable.”

We were currently still at the Mist Kingdom’s royal palace. It was just that the Superior Elf tribe leaders had arrived. They were currently discussing the territory of their future Elven Empire.

Even though I was just joking around with Harloys right now, this was actually huge trouble to deal with. Internal warfare and chaos would likely follow if this wasn’t dealt with properly.

Although the Northlands was large, there was no land that wasn’t claimed already. Even the emptiest and most barren of lands would still already belong to some country.

Perhaps others were unable to use this land to develop anything, yet they would still fight you to the death if you took that land away. Most people would be quite unreasonable regarding territory and national land.

However, there was one piece of land that had always belonged to the elves. In fact, this place was the only ownerless land in the entire Northlands currently.

That was right. Perhaps the perceptive among you might have recalled already, but it would be the former Tassel Kingdom of the Northlands. The death of the Elven Gods had caused the nature magic maintaining a permanent spring climate to collapse. The karmic result of twisting natural laws meant that nature’s wrath would descend upon that location. Countless natural calamities had utterly demolished that land.

The former Tassel elves had all immigrated to East Mist already, becoming citizens of East Mist. I had spent a great deal of effort on helping them immigrate and dealing with refugees back then.

Now, eight years had passed. That land had calmed down now, and become a buffer zone between the Mist Alliance’s human kingdoms and elven kingdoms. Nobody was in control of this land.

And now, it seemed that it was time to return this land to the elves. But when we really began, we found so much trouble waiting for us.