[SOUTHERN REGION CRACKDOWNS]
[Goals: Stop the rogue units of the Imperial Army from their ‘crackdowns’ in the former elven lands of Letia.]
[Status: 2nd Group Army crackdowns ongoing.]
[Projected Effects: +5 opinion of the Imperial Army, -10 opinion of slaves, -5 opinion of commoner strata, -5 opinion of burghers, -5 opinion of landlords.]
Alexa stared blankly at the new crisis window in...
The leader of the 4th Group Army, General Erik Essen—now a co-conspirator with the Society of the Most Honorable Sons of Lotharingia, or Young Lotharingia, looked down at the letter on his desk with a grim expression.
His aide, Captain Raoul Ramberg gulped a bit on the side as the old general grunted, frustrated.
“So the brat is running rings around us,” Erik said.
“She indeed seems like she’s a growing threat,” Raoul admitted.
“Hmm.”...
It had been more than a month since Alexa reentered the Grand Academy.
So far, things have remained normal. But under that veneer of normalcy, Alexa and her allies were on the move. They had been observing Henry thoroughly, especially the people he met with and worked with.
Considering the threat he posed, any effort wasted at blunting his plans was potentially fatal. Luckily, when Alexa checked the novel, it seemed that Henry had delayed a lot of his plans for a good while.
...
It was now July 14th, 1841.
Alexa Theresa von Wolgast—the Crown Princess of the Lotharingian Empire, and the designated villainess of the Iron Saintess novel, was now, well, she was now friends with many people somehow.
It had been more than half a year now since she, a normal young woman, found herself in this fantasy world, and in that timeframe, she changed herself from a haughty, spoiled, and quite frankly, villainous lady into something slightly better.
That was wh...
Ludwig. You sly bastard.
Henry Richard von Hecker looked down at another dead opponent. He was a powerful SS rank adventurer, with four S rank adventurers supporting him. They’d been sent to attack him on his way to Perlenstadt.
But, as usual, no matter how powerful and hyped up they were, they ended up with the same fate that befell those before them. They were bleeding below Henry’s feet.
He supposed his days of being a mere ‘mob character’ were t...
“Water pulse!”
A single magic circle appeared in front of Alexa’s wand, and in seconds, a barrage of powerful water-based spells fell on the incoming monsters. While Wilhelm and Adele dealt with the minotaurs in seconds using his powerful glyph spells while she covered him with her fire magic, Alexa and the adventurers cleared a path forward.
[2ND MAGIC CIRCLE (WATER) MASTERY: LOW (LV 1 >>> 2)]
[2ND MAGIC CIRCLE (WATER) MASTERY: LOW...
“Ludwig. I thought we had an agreement,” Henry frowned, as he sat on the main seat of the Regency Council’s meeting room. “Why is Her Highness still running around freely?”
“Henry,” the old statesman politely narrowed his gaze. “What do you think you are doing right now?”
“I took the most comfortable seat,” Henry answered. “Hey, do you have some good wine?”
“Of course. But why? Do you feel so bold about your position now that you do…all this?...
Akome Leaves, Dragonblue Thyme, and of course, Redhill Moss.
They were the three most essential ingredients to aid people with Alexa’s condition. For a good while, the Defense Forces essentially refused to hand over dozens of pounds worth of these extremely rare herbs.
Well, not just rare, it was, at this point, apparently impossible to acquire.
Learning that in the past few months, the Defense Forces had been pushed back badly in the Northern Front, with at le...
Interesting…
It was already May, 1841.
It was a pleasant, warm day in the Monile Palace. Defense Minister Helmuth Hindenburg watched from the sidelines as the Crown Princess herself spoke at the center of the long table they were sitting on.
Arrayed on the left side of the table were he and the leadership of the Defense Forces. Opposing them on the right side were the representatives of the Imperial Government. Leading them were the last two members of the rege...
“Wilhelm…what are you cooking up again?” Alexa narrowed her eyes.
“Nothing, Your Highness,” Wilhelm said, standing stiffly in front of Alexa’s desk.
“...Really now?”
“And even if I am doing something sneaky, I wouldn’t tell you,” a lazy grin grew on his face. “You should have eliminated me when you had the chance.”
“You damned peasant, you really are a massive headache.”
“I shall take that as a compliment, Lady Alexa.”
Henry Richard von Hecker never remained inactive.
“N-no, it cannot be! Who are you? Who are you to do this to me—?!”
“Silence.”
With a final slash of his rapier, the second Grand Regent fell in front of him.
The entire estate of Count Reitz von Veringen was now on fire. Masked members of the Imperial Army, all of them under the Young Lotharingia society, wiped out the regent’s security force.
Earlier, Henry had to fight against three powerful kn...
Even with the food distributions and mass deployment of aid into the Schengen Region, they still were dealing with a major problem.
Perlenstadt City was a truly major population center. It held, practically at least twenty or thirty percent of the population of the Schengen Region during its peak, and nearly half, or more than half of the city, was destroyed.
Before this crisis began, Alexa found out that the Empire was already suffering a major housing shortage.
Almost a...
“Sir!”
That shout from an aide caught the attention of an aged, pale man. One of his eyes was dead, white, and the other was sickly blue. The only way he practically saw anything was through his monocle.
He was Defense Minister Helmuth Hindenburg. Already at the age of 72, he had seen everything that could be seen in this war, and now that an Archdemon had been apparently slain.
Well…
He could only laugh at heaven's comedy.
“Enter,” Helmuth s...
“W-whoah, whoah!”
Alfred charged forward, and in a split second, Wilhelm’s wooden training sword flew high up. The young boy in front of Alfred collapsed on the training ground, his eyes wide.
“That was so cool—” Wilhelm’s amazed eyes turned away as someone interrupted the two.
“That’s enough!” a woman’s voice called out. It was their eldest sister, and she went straight for Wilhelm, helping him stand up. “Alfred, this is just a training session. Y...
Arlen City.
Surprisingly, unlike the other cities throughout the Schengen Region, Arlen was less devastated by the ongoing refugee crisis. Panic had been largely subdued in Arlen, as the current ruling noble—Countess Helene von Stuttgart, kept the monster hordes largely contained in the Arlen Dungeon.
Unfortunately, right now, it is still in lockdown. The adventurers who normally ventured underneath to obtain high-demand magic crystals and monster cores to power the city’s i...
An elven waitress kept herself silent as she walked toward a fancy hotel room carrying two plates in her hands. She passed through another group of waitresses, all of them carrying the usual neutral smiles as they got out.
Immediately, a fake smile was plastered on her face as she served four men at a long table. They seemed to be in deep discussions with each other, while they indulged in the most luxurious food this private hotel provided.
One of them was a fat, old man, slici...
Rost City’s dungeon was…certainly not a welcoming place, Alexa thought.
Compared to the wider hallways and slightly better lit up interior of Perlenstadt’s Great Dungeon, Rost was more of a discount version of it. It was dark, with cobwebs and dust nearly everywhere. Quite frankly, now that the Battle of Perlenstadt was over and Alexa’s more refined tendencies returned, she was starting to struggle.
She was sneezing and coughing more. The dust was getting to her. It anno...
Phoebe watched from behind nervously as Alexa stood in front of a caravan of horse-drawn wagons that carried hundreds of despondent refugees. Some of them dismounted when their carriage stopped, and many of them, mostly men, seemed to eye Alexa warily, who stood beside Wilhelm and Alfred.
U-um…what am I even supposed to do? Smile? How will that fix any of these people?
They needed food, water, medicine, healing mages…hell, she’d bet most of these people would just...
[1ST MAGIC CIRCLE (FIRE) MASTERY: MODERATE (LEVEL 6 >>> 7)]
[1ST MAGIC CIRCLE (FIRE) MASTERY: MODERATE (LEVEL 7 >>> 8)]
[1ST MAGIC CIRCLE (FIRE) MASTERY: MODERATE (LEVEL 8 >>> 9)]
“Wait, you mean, even if I manage to maximize my mastery of the first circle, I can’t do the next formation ritual yet?”
Alexa was just finishing practicing her fire magic, which she had been doing in the ...
“Seems to be that way indeed.”
“What? It can’t be.”
“It’s quite obvious that it’s over.”
Henry laughed as he lowered his telescope. Observing the entire battle from the eastern wall of Perlenstadt, right as units affiliated with Young Lotharingia arrived, was about as safe as it could get.
Unfortunately, it seemed that he was extremely late. He was planning to take credit for Wilhelm’s hard work and liberate Perlenstadt while using Phoebe…
...
“Now. I won’t mull my words here. You did your job. You won. Your little scheme killed the first Sin Archdemon. Humanity might be saved now. You’ve achieved so much,” Alexa frowned and crossed her arms. “But how will you answer all of these?”
“I make no excuses,” Wilhelm said, his face still planted on the ground. “I wanted to win when I knew humanity itself was losing. I planned, prepared, and executed this plan with the full knowledge that I’d be killing off at le...
“As you wish, Lady Alexa. It shall be done.”
Ten golden magic circles appeared in front of Phoebe, and a beam of light suddenly sliced through the pinkish skies. The force of her attack was so great, that it almost seemed like it illuminated the whole city more than the setting sun.
Blood fell like a geyser from the Archdemon’s body, as she fell, her eyes bleeding tearfully.
“Is this the work of his diligence?! This is unfathomable. It has been…rewarded? How? Wh...
“Fuchs Brigade HQ to Corps HQ! The vanguard teams in the Great Dungeon are now on the fourth floor and counting. Casualties are severe—”
“You will continue in your task, Captain Erhart,” Wilhelm calmly said, as he eyed the distant amplification tower. A bluish glow emanated from it, indicating that it was fully active.
As planned, it improved his men’s coordination. Instead of garbled voices, he could hear his subordinates clearly now. Both in their progress...
It was already early afternoon.
Two officers holding telescopes observed the western side of Perlenstadt from the rooftop of the cathedral. Beside them, teams of soldiers made targeting calculations for the fireball artillery spell’s targets on their maps.
Work, even in the rear, was heavy.
Alexa and Wilhelm stood behind them, and Alexa herself was transfixed at the landscape of her nation’s capital. Fires and black smoke were visible everywhere, with the constant sou...
“I…I don’t…”
A soldier mewled in pain as three demonic wolves munched on his body. The only thing they weren’t eating was his left arm, and it slowly began to aim a crossbow armed with an enchanted smoke arrow to the sky.
“I don’t…wanna die,” the soldier said. “Damn you all…just you all wait…I swear…Major von Eisen will make sure…that you’ll all just be a bad nightmare one day!”
His finger pulled the trigger, sending the arrow flying high...
“I see…”
“I see?”
“You’re definitely going to be useful in this battle,” Wilhelm smiled. “As you may know, right now, morale is low, supplies are not up there, and we’re experiencing major communications issues on the battlefield.”
“So…I can use my ability for that?”
“Indeed. I’m going to need you to synchronize and resonate with a communication network I already established with my skill.”
Wilhelm produced a bluish crystal ...
“All you have to do is to stand at the back and take potshots until you reach moderate mastery.”
That was Wilhelm’s advice to Alexa when she asked him how she could improve her 1st magic circle’s mastery to moderate. She wanted to complete her tutorial quest fully at this point because it would mean that Alexa would unlock ‘Rose Eyes’ and ‘Civila Mandato’.
Apparently, before demons emerged from the Great Dungeon, everyone heard a young girl bragging abou...
“Everyone! Duck low to the ground!”
That scream from Alexa’s lungs quickly gained the attention of the soldiers ahead of her. She herself dashed to Phoebe, pulling her down to the ground to make sure she was safe, as fireball artillery spells rained down all around them.
Damn it! Do they have no idea that there are friendly soldiers here? Why do they have to drop all of this firepower so dangerously close to us?
Those questions remained unanswered as the ba...
Wilhelm gingerly walked out of one of the auxiliary entrances to the Great Dungeon. His clothes were tattered, with smoke coming from some of their holes. He also bore some wounds, but a healing potion he had ingested earlier was taking care of most of the effects.
He took a swig of whiskey from his flask, before withdrawing it inside his coat.
“Why does she not want a full rematch with me? What a let-down.”
He eyed a pack of demonic goblins ahead of him. All of them ...
What?
Alexa watched as Alfred nearly cut Wilhelm in half—only to be stopped by Wilhelm’s men.
What?
Then, she was running with Alfred, Phoebe, and Adele.
What?
Then, there were these strange creatures, with black shadows surrounding them, eating people.
What?
Students, teachers, professors...even academy guards and knights—she watched them being killed or eaten.
What?
It didn’t ...