Chapter Ninety-Four: Take this pot? Still not answering?

The Principality of Marino is small, surrounded by mountains, and the terrain is generally oval. It is more than 40 kilometers from east to west and less than 20 kilometers at its widest point from north to south. According to official statistics, the country’s area is just over 6,000 square kilometers.

Just looking at the area of ​​the fiefdom, let alone an independent principality, it would not be qualified as a dukedom. A standard duchy on the Kaos continent starts with at least 10,000 square kilometers, and some grand duchies have 30,000 to 50,000 square kilometers.

Fortunately, there were silver mines in the nearby mountains, which could make up for the income of a duchy.

As the silver mines were mined thirty years ago and the veins dried up, the economy of the Principality of Marino began to decline.

Due to the deterioration of finances, the last two Grand Dukes of the Principality intended to return it to the direct jurisdiction of the Empire.

On the map, the Principality of Marino is sandwiched between the Kingdom of Cervantes and the Empire of Barbarossa. It is surrounded by mountains. The mountain road transportation is extremely inconvenient. From the principality to neighboring countries, whether it is to the kingdom or into the hinterland of the empire, quickly It takes at least a week to reach Madu, which has been considered an enclave of the empire for more than two hundred years.

It was this kind of tastelessness that made the emperor readily give up jurisdiction.

Now that the silver mine is used up, I want to put it back. Isn’t this a joke?

The duchy of a duke who is loyal to the emperor is essentially different from a principality with a high degree of autonomy:

Although this kind of duke would not give the emperor a copper plate in ordinary times, if the emperor wants to fight a war, the duke is obliged to send troops to help the emperor according to the area of ​​​​the fiefdom. In the same way, if such a duchy is attacked by the enemy, it is equivalent to invading the empire itself, and the emperor must help the duke fight back the territory.

The principality… Although the contract states that if the principality is attacked, the empire is obliged to rescue it, but it does not say how to rescue it or to what extent.

A hundred years ago, the Barbarossa royal family began to slack off on the requests of the Principality of Marino. Even if something happens to the principality, some knights with titles but no lands will be sent over with some knight retinues.

There is no way, the core of feudalism is territorial enfeoffment.

In the early days of the founding of the country, any knight could seize thousands of acres of uninhabited wasteland.

As the territorial area solidified and time passed, the emperor found that he had no land to seal.

[Devil’s Mouth] is a black hole that swallows money and human lives.

As long as knights who sacrificed their lives for the country still have heirs, even if the knighthood is not hereditary and those heirs do not have the title of knight, the lord will be embarrassed to confiscate the territory. At most, it will be temporarily managed and the harvest of the territory will be taken away.

The result is that the fiefdom given to new knights by the Barbarossa Empire today has been reduced to a bridge (collecting tolls for knights) or even a mill.

If the Principality of Marino is re-administered directly, even if the Principality sends troops to help fight, the day lilies will be cold by the time the Principality’s army walks out of the mountains.

There is no advantage for the empire, and it has to carry such a big burden. The then Emperor Barbarossa was unhappy and ordered that the situation remain as it was.

As a result, the Principality of Marino has become the half-dead state of decline it is today. The economy has declined and the land cannot support such a large population. Civilians went out to work one after another or became mercenaries.

No one expected that something would happen to the principality in this late autumn.

……

Time goes back to late night two days ago.

A messenger with blood all over his body and two wounds lingering in green spiritual flames rushed into the castle of Marino City, the capital of the principality, with his last breath.

“The Grand Duke’s crusade was ambushed and the entire army was annihilated! Grand Duke, Grand Duke, he died and was transformed into a death knight by the hateful lich on the spot!”

“What!?”

“The Grand Duke brought His Highness, His Highness the Second, a team of master adventurers and all the elites!”

For a time, the nobles and officials who stayed behind were in chaos.

Originally, this was supposed to be a relatively simple crusade. The former Grand Duke Albert Marino received the news that a village was slaughtered by a corpse witch, and more than 500 people in the village were turned into zombies.

And spread out, causing harm to the surrounding villages. Since there happened to be a group of level 5 adventurers nearby, and after a hard fight, they were defeated and retreated. Therefore, the Grand Duke obtained clearer information, and the adventurer reconnaissance team sent later also confirmed this.

In the continent of Kaos, corpse witch and lich were originally the same word, because they were both spellcasters who were tempted by the power of darkness, fell into darkness, and became undead.

Gradually, in order to better distinguish the two, the Adventurer’s Guild discussed and defined corpse witches as [low-level undead spellcasters of level 10 or below]. Only those above level 11 are called lichs.

In the past hundred years, there have been few reports of lichs appearing in the world. Most of the known corpse witches were transformed from hard-working low-level warlocks.

The low-level corpse shamans have caused considerable damage. If left alone, zombies can turn people they bite to death into zombies. A corpse witch can easily turn the entire principality into a country of the undead.

There is nothing wrong with Archduke Albert’s approach in the eyes of others.

He mobilized almost all mobile forces – more than 150 formal knights, more than 300 knight retinues, and six brigades of spearmen, sword and shield soldiers totaling 1,200 people. In addition, there are three adventurer teams, one of which is a master-level elite team with an average of 12 levels per person, and 10 priests who believe in the God of Light.

The undead that a corpse witch can directly control can only be a hundred or so zombies or skeleton soldiers at most. The rest can only be left alone and let them follow their instincts to attack the living.

In order to let his son experience the atmosphere of the battlefield, the Grand Duke took his only two sons to the battlefield.

Everything seems to be going well, this is going to be a sledgehammer fight.

What’s the result?

As the enemy changed from corpse witch to lich, the situation immediately turned 180 degrees.

The Grand Duke’s entire army was wiped out.

The latest news is: Lich has led tens of thousands of undead troops and begun to crush towards the capital of the principality.

Inside the Grand Duke’s mansion, there was a scene of chaos and chaos everywhere, and even high-ranking officials like the Palace Minister were panicked.

At this time, no one even noticed that a beautiful young woman in the middle of the hall lowered her head in grief.

In my ears, I was filled with useless insults and excuses.

The air is filled with cowardice and despair.

The ministers discussed how to escape.

The remaining knights have no masters.

Her mother had already burst into tears.

Only she slowly opened her palms and looked at the sword cocoon on her palm that had faded to the point where it was almost unrecognizable.

If what happened today had not happened, she would have become a real lady as her father expected, and would have been sent to the capital of Cervantes, three hundred kilometers away on the mountain road, to attend endless dinners and dances.

But what happened today changed her life again.

When the voices and smiles of her father and brother echoed in her mind countless times, she gained courage.

She stood up resolutely, grabbed her beautiful shawl red hair, swung the dagger and cut it, and with a “swish” sound, only a short, sleek hair was left.

With the next blow, she cut off the hateful waistband on her right waistline, allowing her waistcoat line to stretch out again.

“Why are you panicking!?” The woman shouted loudly, with supreme majesty in her magnetic voice: “The bloodline of the Marino family has not been cut off! Since all my father and brother have been killed, and the people need me, then I—— Sofia Marino will take charge of all affairs of the principality!

Her fiery red eyes first swept across the entire scene like a battle axe, and then turned into sharp swords, piercing the hearts of every weak person one by one.

In the blink of an eye, the entire hall fell silent.

The palace minister came out and saluted: “I have no objection if you, the noble one, take office as the Grand Duchess. However, I would like to remind you that that is a lich, not a terrifying existence that our country’s remaining combat power can contend with. “

“Then ask for help from the Barbarossa Empire and ask them to send the Pegasus brigade over.”

“The war in [Devil’s Mouth] has been intense recently. I’m afraid the empire won’t have any extra Pegasus troops to send over. Regular troops can’t keep up.”

“The Kingdom of Cervantes?”

“I can’t make it in time!”

When the atmosphere reached a stalemate, the palace minister hesitantly said the last proposal: “Legend has it that as long as a princess or queen of a country sends a pink envelope to Archmage Tesla, the Archmage will consider helping… …”

In an instant, all eyes were fixed on the face of Grand Duchess Sophia.

Her face turned red, veins even bulged on her neck, and her plump breasts kept rising and falling, but in the end she said: “If this is the only option to save the people, I will send out pink envelopes in my name.” Yes. But…”

At this point, Sophia changed the subject, pulled out the long sword from the waist of her guard captain, and raised it high. Her voice suddenly became high-pitched: “Before any reinforcements arrive, I will pick up my sword. For me People, let me roar to the goddess of destiny for the last time in my life! If you have the guts, come with me!”

All of a sudden, the entire Grand Duke’s mansion was boiling.

“Oh oh oh oh!”

“Women are on the battlefield! If you are a man, follow me!”

Countless people waved their fists and raised their swords high. They followed the footsteps of the new Grand Duchess, made deafening shouts, and began to surge onto the city.

On the streets, citizens who knew the news also picked up everything they could use as weapons, and merged into the crowd like hundreds of rivers flowing into the sea.

……

Just like that, the pressure came to Ren’s side.

This pot, take it? Or not?

(End)