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She had just watched the proceedings so far without getting involved, just waiting for the parts relevant to her, but seeing that the meeting was winding down and no one had brought up the subject, Florence felt compelled to intervene.

Florence was a woman of approximately 1.70 meters, with red hair and green eyes. She appeared to be in her 40s, although her actual age is unknown. Florence was known by the nobles as a troublesome political opponent, despite the guild’s neutrality.

Throughout her career, she had won several laws that protected adventurers’ rights and favored their interests.

The nobles had almost forgotten about the bloodline oath amidst all the chaos, but they were forced to turn back after hearing his words. Those most interested were their neighbors as they would certainly be able to claim some of their land, although the majority still ended up belonging to the crown.

“And why would that interest you? Wasn’t it against guild rule to get involved in kingdom affairs?” Commander Ragnar asked through gritted teeth. He hadn’t forgotten about the bloodline oath, but had purposely left it out.

The nobles were proactively collaborating and he wanted to keep it that way. But if a territory as large as House Mifar’s was suddenly freed, greed would take over and the nobles would fight tooth and nail to secure a piece of it for themselves.

Even those without adjacent territories interfered with the division of territory, to ensure that their rivals did not outrun them. This would divide the kingdom at a time when they should unite.

“I’m not interfering, just reminding you of promises that seemed to have been forgotten. House Mifar’s territory is close to the borders where the undead are, so I believe it’s dangerous to leave this territory without a proper ruler.” Florence spoke with a perfect poker face.

.....

The surrounding nobles agreed with her and Ragnar could see more than one noble glowing with greed.

“This is a time of war, so partitioning the territory can wait until the situation is resolved. The crown can retain control of the region until then.” Ragnar tried to offer a solution, but none of the nobles supported him.

“Territory sharing should take precedence. It’s not like the undead are moving to attack us and without the portals, it’s going to take a minimum of a month to organize things in the closest territories and even longer to move the troops from the most distant territories.” One of the dukes present spoke and the surrounding nobles nodded in agreement.

‘Looks like I don’t need to get involved anymore.’ Florence thought with a mysterious smile on her face.

The meeting ended quickly after they set a date for the withdrawal of the title of nobility from the remnants of House Mifar and this time no one raised their voice to stop them. They were scheduled to meet again in a week to discuss progress on countermeasures, but none of them expected to have another emergency meeting in less than a day.

************

Some hours later.

‘Stupid master! Why does he have to be so reckless and attack a fortress with just the skeleton dragon?? I know he’ll be safe with the dragon, but couldn’t he have at least taken a teleportation crystal in case things went wrong? Is it that hard to be careful with your own life?’ Emilia complained to the mage slayer skeletons that accompanied her.

Treevor had shared with all the skeletons that Athos had fled with the skeleton dragon to destroy the nearest fortress. Emilia panicked when she heard this and insisted that they should go after them, but it would be impossible to catch up with the dragon flying at full speed.

Besides, she already had her own orders and couldn’t disobey them. Emilia left for the mountains as soon as all her preparations were in place, forcing the mage slayers to listen to her complaints the entire way.

Despite Emília’s casual complaints, they were moving quickly and silently, taking care not to be seen. None of the mage slayers were wearing their suits, wearing only dark overcoats to blend in with the night.

‘Hey, is it going to be long before we get there? One Kaa for yes, two Kaa for no.’ Emília stopped complaining to confirm her position with the queen of the hive hawks flying high in the sky, almost at the limit of her communication range.

The queen did not immediately respond and started to check her position before replying: ‘Kaa!’

‘Still far, huh? Let me know when we’re getting there or if you see any dwarfs up there.’ Emilia warned and returned to pay attention to the surroundings.

The mountain terrain was steep and uneven, making their progress slower than anticipated. They also had encounters with monsters native to the mountain, such as rock bears and gray wolves, but they were all easily killed and turned into the undead, before being sent back to the stronghold.

Emilia and the mage slayer skeletons continued climbing for almost 3 hours, before the hive queen said they were close to where she saw the dwarf.

‘Stop. From now on we will move slowly and look around for clues. Take care not to be seen and avoid any monsters you encounter. Divide into teams of five and if you find any leads or our target, let me know before doing anything.’ Emilia ordered seriously and the skeletons split left and right to search the mountain.

They scoured the mountain silently for nearly half an hour, using death vision to look for anything useful. Death vision didn’t reveal mana the way mana vision did, but it would still give you a good clue where to look.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard they looked, they couldn’t find anything but rocks and plants all over the mountain. Even the animals and monsters they encountered while climbing the mountain were nowhere to be seen. The death vision didn’t reveal anything useful either, just shadows where there were dead plants.

‘There’s definitely something here. All the monsters are gone in that area alone, although I can still see some less than two hundred meters below us. Something is preventing the monsters from approaching.’ Emilia thought as she looked at the monsters below.

She tried to go down as far as she could see the monsters, scaring them all away, and went back to see if she felt any difference, but nothing changed.

‘Tch, still nothing. What’s going on here? I can’t feel anything, no matter how hard I try to scan the surroundings.’ She now started to get frustrated, not understanding how the damn dwarves were hiding.

Emília knew they were hiding underground, but without finding an entry point, they would have to dig blindly hundreds of meters, risking being discovered by the dwarves.

Their objective was only to capture and kill a sentry, not to invade an enemy underground base.

That’s when Emilia realized her mistake. If there really was an underground base here, whether it was just an outpost or an entire village, they would have sentries and a way to keep an eye on the mountain’s surroundings. It was likely that the skeletons had already been discovered and so they could not find any traces of the enemy.

‘Skeletons, assemble at my station. We are retreating now. Queen, keep an eye on our rear. Emilia ordered all the skeletons to retreat except for the queen in the sky. If your guess is correct, no matter how hard they search the mountain, they would never find anything.

In fact, if they stayed too long, they risked being ambushed by the dwarves. The best choice was to stand back and let the queen watch any changes behind them.

The skeletons quickly regrouped and retreated, covering their tracks as they descended the mountain. They even killed all the monsters on the way, to make sure it wasn’t a wasted trip. The skeletons stopped at the base of the mountain, waiting for any news from the queen.

Less than twenty minutes passed before the queen alerted them of a change. Right where they were, a small hole opened and six armed dwarfs came out. They were armed with axes or hammers that seemed inappropriate for their size and all wore heavy metal armor.

‘They really knew about us! I very much doubt it was your own senses that detected us. It is likely to be the effect of a magic item that revealed our presence.’ Emilia spoke as she watched the dwarves through the queen’s eyes.

The dwarves were looking down the mountain, probably looking for them. Emilia wasn’t too worried about being seen, though. Their black bones were perfectly camouflaged in the dark and they were hiding under rocks in case the dwarves had magic items that allowed them to see in the dark.

‘Mage slayers, do any of you have earth affinity? If so, start casting something right now. Queen, prepare to ambush them. Let’s kill these dwarves.’ Emilia ordered and two of the mage slayers raised their hands. They still had their rings of conjuration, so they could each cast one spell each.

Emilia also took out her wand and prepared a spell of her own. When everyone confirmed they were ready, she ordered queen to attack. ‘Now!’