Chapter 199

Goblin Castle and the Prince of the Sky

The Greenskin Alliance currently had a population of a little over five thousand.

Including Root Village, there were eleven settlements in total and seventeen waystations.

Its territory covered roughly six hundred square kilometres, about the size of a major city on Earth.

That was right.

A little over five thousand people lived across a territory that large.

Naturally, the alliance did not actually control every stretch of land within those borders.

Only the villages, waystations, and roads connecting them had been properly secured.

The remaining territory, roughly eighty percent of the whole, was still wilderness teeming with monsters.

That was why Karath had assumed their destination would be somewhere inside alliance territory.

Perhaps the cockatrices had settled in one of the countless areas that technically belonged to the alliance but had yet to be cleared.

Apparently not.

“Berners. Are you certain we’re going the right way?”

At some point, they had crossed beyond the alliance’s borders.

Instead of travelling from Lake Village at the southern edge of their territory, they had departed from the easternmost settlement and continued east for another half day.

“The hobgoblinsh living around here told ush about it. They’ve been having trouble with cockatricesh lately.”

“So these goblins live outside alliance territory.”

“That’sh right.”

Karath decided to look at the positive side.

They could hunt cockatrices and potentially bring another goblin clan into the alliance at the same time.

Two birds with one stone.

“And I think you’ll be pleashed when you shee the place, Grand Chief.”

For some reason, Berners looked remarkably proud as he guided them onward.

It was unusual for him to insist upon something this strongly.

Karath decided to trust him.

He turned away from Berners and surveyed the warriors travelling with them.

Nearly a hundred fighters marched together.

Orcs.

Goblins and hobgoblins.

Silver Wolf warriors.

Several orcs and hobgoblins rode Giant Wolves.

Compared with the early days of the alliance, their force had become almost unrecognisable in both variety and strength.

Among all those warriors, however, one strange figure drew Karath’s attention more than anything else.

“...Are wyverns supposed to walk like that?”

It was Wyvie.

Karath had acquired the egg during the battle against the wyverns the previous spring.

The creature had hatched around the end of the rainy season.

Now, roughly ten months later, the young wyvern had already grown to the size of an orc warrior.

Each of its wings was nearly a metre long.

At this point, Karath would have expected it to start flying.

Instead, Wyvie crawled along on all fours.

Rather than flapping its wings and taking to the sky, it planted them against the ground like forelegs.

Its thin bird-like legs served as hind legs while it pushed itself forward in an awkward four-legged gait.

Somehow, the sight was stranger than watching it fly would have been.

Those massive wings were being used as front legs.

Those tiny legs were being used as hind legs.

If Wyvie had simply run around on two legs like an ostrich or chicken, Karath might have understood.

This?

This was ridiculous.

“No matter how I look at it, this is your fault, isn’t it, Buddy?”

Karath would have bet anything that Wyvie had learned this bizarre behaviour by copying Buddy, whom it considered its parent.

Buddy ignored him completely.

The wolf had an astonishing talent for pretending to be stupid whenever it suited him.

“Hahaha! Perhaps he simply wishes to resemble the great Buddy, Grand Chief.”

Doltz laughed heartily as he walked nearby.

That was the problem with the Silver Wolf Tribe.

Anything Buddy did became admirable in their eyes.

What a waste of a mana stone.

Watching poor Wyvie crawl along with the marching column, Karath felt his dream of creating Wyvern Riders drifting farther and farther away.

The march continued.

What Karath had originally expected to be a one-day journey stretched into three full days under Berners’s guidance.

At one point, Karath began wondering whether they should simply have expanded the alliance farther east before bothering with the cockatrices.

Berners remained adamant.

“You need to shee thish place! You’ll be shurprished, Grand Chief!”

Karath had already decided to trust him.

So they kept marching.

After three days, Berners finally looked ahead with confidence.

“We’re almosht there!”

A short while later, Karath stopped.

“What?”

Something completely unexpected stood before them.

A grey stone wall rose roughly three metres high.

It looked like a miniature version of Root Village’s enormous fortifications.

Other alliance villages possessed similar stone walls.

But this was not alliance territory.

Did someone else in the Grimwood Mountains build settlements like ours?

Several goblins stood upon the wall with bows in hand, keeping watch in every direction.

Berners stepped forward proudly.

“I am Bernersh! I have brought the Grand Chief and warriorsh of the alliance! Open the gate!”

The goblins atop the walls erupted into cheers.

“F-finally!”

“The alliance is here!”

Karath could only stare.

And the walls were merely the beginning.

The goblins eagerly opened the gate.

Inside, Karath found rows of earthen houses that looked remarkably similar to those built throughout the alliance.

He finally turned to Berners.

“What exactly is going on here?”

“Thish ish a fortress built by goblinsh living beyond alliance territory.”

“This place already existed?”

“No. It wash built only about half a year ago.”

Karath continued staring at him.

Berners puffed out his chest proudly.

“You know how we hobgoblinsh can communicate through our hornsh.”

Karath nodded.

“So hobgoblinsh outside the alliance have been hearing about the alliance’sh technology from ush for a long time.”

That much Karath already knew.

“Most of them wanted to come live in the alliance, but thoseh too far away couldn’t make the journey. They might be discovered and killed by monstersh before reaching ush.”

“I know. That is why we keep expanding our territory and bringing the goblin clans we encounter into the alliance.”

“That’sh right. So most goblinsh stayed hidden and waited for ush to reach them.”

Berners smiled.

“But thingish started changing last year.”

“How?”

Berners pointed proudly at himself.

“After I awakened aura, other hobgoblinsh learned how to shense mana too.”

Karath’s eyes widened.

“Then the hobgoblins outside the alliance also learned?”

“Exactly! But most of them had spent their livesh hiding in the wilderness. They weren’t trained, and they only had wooden bowsh, so awakening mana didn’t help as much as it could have.”

“That makes sense.”

“Then one day, a hobgoblin named Durang found thish place.”

Berners paused.

“More precisely, he found a mine nearby.”

The instant Karath heard those words, several pieces clicked together in his mind.

A faint chill ran down his back.

“Don’t tell me there’s an iron mine here.”

“There ish!”

Berners grinned.

“Durang used the knowledge shared by alliance hobgoblinsh. He mined iron, made metal weaponsh, and even built weightsh for training.”

Karath slowly turned toward the walls.

“And did he also find limestone nearby?”

The walls had been built in a way strikingly similar to those of the alliance.

They lacked reinforced concrete because these goblins had no magic powerful enough to produce the extreme heat and refined materials the alliance used.

But Karath could clearly see cement filling the gaps between the stones.

“There ish! Both an iron mine and a limestone deposit are nearby!”

Berners sounded even prouder.

“After Durang found the place, he started finding goblinsh living nearby. Some he rescued himself, and othersh he called here. Together, they built thish fortress!”

This time, Berners had every right to be proud.

Karath had already been worrying about what they would do when their existing iron and limestone deposits eventually ran dry.

And now both problems might have been solved at once.

I wondered whether allowing the outside hobgoblins to share our knowledge was too dangerous.

Apparently not.

The decision had returned benefits Karath had never expected.

Then he remembered something.

“Berners.”

“Yesh?”

“What if the goblins living here refuse to join the alliance?”

They had already constructed their own fortified settlement.

Perhaps they no longer needed the alliance.

Berners stared at him as though the question made no sense.

“Why would they refushe? They’ve been begging ush through the horn network to come get them.”

“Really?”

“Thish place ish better than hiding in the wild, but it’sh still much worse than living inside the alliance.”

Berners spoke as though the answer were obvious.

“Ah.”

Karath realised he had once again been thinking like a human from his former world.

There had been rulers on Earth who valued preserving their own absolute power more than improving the lives of the people beneath them.

Authoritarian states throughout history had provided plenty of examples.

Hobgoblins apparently thought differently.

For them, improving the lives of the goblins they led came first.

“Then why didn’t you tell me about this place sooner, Berners? If it has existed for nearly half a year, we could have visited before now.”

Berners scratched his cheek.

“You’re alwaysh busy taking care of the whole alliance. It felt wrong asking you to help only the goblinsh first.”

He lowered his voice slightly.

“And recently, you were trapped near Lake Village dealing with the black magesh.”

Karath fell silent.

Berners had been thinking about his burden.

The admission touched him more than he expected.

“From now on, tell me immediately if another fortress like this exists. Especially if useful resources are nearby. Such places deserve priority.”

“Oh. That’sh okay?”

Berners brightened.

“There are a few more.”

Karath froze.

“Where?”

“Far away. Pretty far. Even the closesht one would take at leasht fifteen daysh travelling straight there.”

“...We’ll leave those for later.”

A journey of more than fifteen days was too far.

Without roads, supply lines, and some way to transport resources, reaching those settlements immediately would accomplish little.

“But we will reach them as our territory expands. Make sure they know that.”

“Heheh. Understood!”

Perhaps the goblins would accelerate the alliance’s expansion far more than Karath had imagined.

Chapter 200

Goblin Castle and the Prince of the Sky

After Berners finished explaining the settlement, he led Karath toward the largest building inside the fortress.

A hobgoblin was already waiting for them.

“Welcome, Lord Berners!”

“Shorry we took sho long, Durang!”

So this was Durang.

The hobgoblin who had founded the fortress.

Despite effectively being the lord of his own goblin stronghold, Durang greeted Berners with immediate respect.

Apparently the hobgoblin communication network had already established their hierarchy long before the two ever met face-to-face.

“It is an honour to meet you, Grand Chief.”

Once he finished greeting Berners, Durang turned toward Karath.

Then, as though he had rehearsed the movement, he dropped to one knee.

“Rise, Durang. Someone who worked hard enough to build a place like this has no need to kneel before me.”

If anything, Karath almost felt like he should be the one kneeling in gratitude.

An iron mine.

A limestone deposit.

An already constructed fortress that could immediately function as another alliance settlement.

And Durang intended to hand all of it over to the alliance.

What more could Karath ask for?

“No, Grand Chief. I only used the knowledge Lord Bernersh and the alliance hobgoblinsh shared with ush.”

Durang remained on one knee.

“I heard many thingsh about you through Lord Bernersh. Thank you for shaving our hobgoblinsh and goblinsh.”

“I only did what needed to be done.”

It took several rounds of gratitude and repeated orders to stand before Durang finally rose.

“I am only shorry that we could not do more. We tried to bring nearby orc tribesh into the fortressh too, but they refused.”

“That cannot be helped. Orcs cannot communicate over long distances the way hobgoblins can. I will visit them and persuade them myself.”

Karath reassured him, then moved to the reason they had come.

“Berners told me cockatrices have been causing trouble nearby.”

“That’sh right. They settled near the limestone deposit. Becaushe of them, we haven’t been able to mine limestone lately.”

Karath’s expression hardened.

“That is a serious problem.”

Cockatrices had occupied his precious new limestone deposit.

Unforgivable.

“How far is it from here?”

“About half a day!”

“Then there’s no reason to delay. Guide us there. We’ll take the warriors immediately.”

Karath quickly prepared the expedition again.

They had limestone to reclaim.

And meat to turn into fried chicken.

Durang personally volunteered to guide them.

Half a day later, they reached the area where the cockatrices had settled.

Four of the monsters were resting nearby.

“Thoseh special attacksh make them difficult for ush to hunt.”

Durang glared at the cockatrices like a child reporting bullies to an adult.

“Their abilities are troublesome without magic.”

Cockatrices could unleash powerful sonic attacks through their cries.

Without magic, dealing with that ability was difficult.

“But I can stop it. Don’t worry.”

Once their special ability was neutralised, cockatrices were far less threatening.

Karath waited until the warriors formed their battle line.

Then he pointed.

“Attack!”

The orcs charged first.

They served as the heavily armoured front line.

Silver Wolf warriors followed close behind them.

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Arrows from the goblins flew overhead in support.

The cockatrices frantically began gathering mana.

Karath had already fought their kind before.

“Silence.”

The spell smothered their special attack before it could begin.

In the past, fighting four cockatrices would have been an intense battle.

Now, they were no match for the alliance’s elite force.

Within roughly five minutes, all four were dead.

The warriors had suffered no meaningful injuries.

Then, just as the fighting ended...

“SKREEEE!”

A piercing cry echoed from somewhere nearby.

Karath looked around.

“Are there more cockatrices?”

“No! We only knew about four!”

Durang shook his head.

Another cry rang out.

Karath immediately identified the direction.

“Above us!”

He raised his head.

“Wyverns!”

A group of wyverns circled through the sky above a nearby cliff.

There were only five.

Karath’s group had once fought more than ten at the same time, including a Wyvern Lord.

Five ordinary wyverns were hardly terrifying by comparison.

“Shield warriors, form up!”

“Goblins, prepare your bows!”

Krog and the other officers immediately began issuing commands based on their previous experience.

If the wyverns attacked, exterminating them would not be particularly difficult.

Wait.

Karath suddenly had an idea.

Do we actually need to kill them?

Chapter 201

Goblin Castle and the Prince of the Sky

Do we actually need to kill them?

The thought occurred to Karath entirely because of Wyvie.

He had hatched the young wyvern while dreaming of someday creating Wyvern Riders.

Instead, Wyvie had been corrupted by Buddy’s influence and learned to crawl around on all fours.

Could Karath really slaughter an entire group of wyverns right in front of the young creature?

The thought resembled what had happened when Buddy first encountered the pack of Giant Wolves.

Karath considered the issue only briefly.

The situations were different.

Buddy had defeated the Giant Wolves and become their leader.

Wyvie was still a juvenile.

Worse, the creature could not even fly.

There was effectively no chance of it becoming the leader of these wild wyverns.

But perhaps I could use that.

Karath remembered the documents he had recovered from the Sigmund School.

He had not finished reading all of them yet.

But among the research records was material specifically concerning wyverns.

I have never actually tried the spell.

His first practice attempt would apparently also be his first live experiment.

Ridiculous.

Still, it was worth trying.

If it failed, they could simply kill the wyverns afterward.

“Do not kill them! Subdue them!”

Karath immediately changed the orders of the officers preparing the defence.

“Ordinary warriors, fall back and focus on evasion! Aura Users, move to the front and engage the wyverns!”

There were only five wyverns.

More than ten Aura Users were present.

Capturing them instead of killing them should be possible.

“SKREEEE!”

The moment Karath finished giving his orders, the wyverns screamed and plunged toward the ground.

“Move!”

All five were attacking the same part of the formation.

Karath shouted to the warriors there and urged Buddy forward.

As always, Buddy accelerated through the battlefield with uncanny agility, slipping between terrain and allied warriors without losing speed.

But even Buddy could not outrun monsters diving from the sky.

Worse, the wyverns had chosen a position some distance away from Karath.

“Barrier.”

Several warriors had become trapped by the bodies of their allies and could not retreat fast enough.

Karath cast the spell to protect them.

BANG!

The Fourth Circle Barrier endured the impact of an enormous wyvern crashing down from above.

Once.

Twice.

But five wyverns were attacking the same point.

The Barrier finally shattered.

Wait.

Why were they concentrating upon one location?

During the previous battle, the wyverns had spread out and attacked multiple targets.

At first, Karath wondered whether this group simply lacked a competent leader like the Wyvern Lord they had fought before.

Then he noticed what stood at the centre of their attacks.

Wyvie.

They are targeting Wyvie.

No.

That was not quite right.

Their movements did not look like they were trying to kill the juvenile.

They were trying to rescue it.

The wild wyverns had apparently seen one of their own young travelling with the alliance and concluded that it had been captured.

Karath suddenly felt like the villain.

He decided not to think too deeply about that.

Such things happened constantly in the wild.

Besides, he intended to capture them rather than slaughter them.

“Take them down!”

While the five wyverns were occupied breaking the Barrier, Karath, Buddy, and the Aura Users reached them.

Buddy moved first.

One wyvern tried to snatch Wyvie away.

Buddy slammed its talons aside.

“Grrrr.”

Then the silver wolf planted himself in front of Wyvie and growled like a mother protecting her pup.

Meanwhile, the Silver Wolf warriors and orcs intercepted the remaining wyverns.

“Use the paralytic poison!”

“Understood!”

Berners answered immediately.

A moment later, the hobgoblins fired poison-coated arrows.

Thud!

Aura-enhanced shafts pierced the wyverns’ wings with ease.

“SKREEEE!”

The paralytic poison spread through the wounds.

One by one, the wyverns lost control of their bodies and crashed to the ground.

“Pin down their wings and bodies! Don’t let them move!”

Instead of killing the fallen creatures, the Aura Users worked in groups of two or three to restrain them.

Within moments, all five wyverns had been subdued.

Karath approached the one Buddy was holding down alone.

“SKREEEE!”

Its wings were paralysed.

Buddy had one paw planted firmly against its back.

Unable to move, the wyvern could only thrash its head from side to side and scream.

“We aren’t going to hurt you, so calm down.”

Karath knew perfectly well it could not understand him.

He still spoke as he placed one hand against its head.

Then he began manipulating mana according to what he remembered from the Sigmund School’s records.

Good thing these are not unusual specimens.

Creatures capable of using mana could resist brainwashing magic.

The black mages had researched methods capable of controlling unusual specimens as well, but Karath had only just begun studying this branch of magic.

Attempting something that advanced would be impossible.

That was why he was not even trying to cast from a distance.

He kept his palm pressed directly against the wyvern’s head.

The mana pattern they used for wyverns should have looked something like this.

Karath manipulated his mana with extreme care.

He was already a Fifth Circle mage and had considerable confidence in his control.

Still, this was a spell he had never used before.

More importantly, it dealt directly with thought patterns and the brain.

Caution came naturally.

A minuscule stream of mana left his hand.

It passed through the wyvern’s scales and reached a particular region within its head.

Just like the records described.

Karath immediately felt resistance travel back through the mana he had extended.

A firewall.

One passage from the Sigmund records returned to his mind.

Intelligent living creatures possessed instinctive mechanisms for protecting themselves.

The activity of the brain generated subtle mana patterns, and those patterns formed a defence against foreign mana attempting to intrude upon the mind.

In simple terms, the creature could not resist physical force created through mana.

But it could repel raw mana attempting to invade its thoughts.

The Sigmund School’s magic dealt with methods for bypassing or destroying that defence and reaching the target’s mental patterns directly.

To Karath, it felt remarkably similar to hacking.

The analogy was imperfect.

If he wanted to be technical, infiltration and destructive intrusion were different things.

But as a broad comparison from Earth, it fit well enough.

Though I am not convinced the black mages themselves understood what they were actually doing.

That impression had grown stronger while Karath studied their documents.

Most of what they left behind was less like theoretical magical research and more like experimental logs.

Mana pattern A penetrated the mental barrier.

Mana pattern B failed.

Pattern A worked on one monster but failed upon another.

Their records consisted of countless observations like that.

Perhaps Sigmund himself had understood the principles and intentions behind the school he created.

But somewhere across the generations, the theory had vanished.

Only the patterns remained.

That did not matter at the moment.

This was live combat.

In practice, proven experimental results mattered more than elegant theory.

And fortunately, among the records Karath had read were experiments conducted specifically upon wyverns.

Haa.

He took a slow breath.

Then he adjusted his mana according to the recorded method.

A moment later, his mana slipped around the wyvern’s mental barrier and penetrated deeper.

Karath manipulated the mana that had entered and began forming a particular pattern.

This is the pattern that makes it recognise me as its master.

According to the records, once the pattern was fully engraved into the wyvern’s mind and its resistance disappeared, the brainwashing had succeeded.

Karath continued carefully shaping the imprint.

Then...

There.

The resistance vanished completely.

Only the final step remained.

Instead of leaving the imprint inside the wyvern’s mind and withdrawing completely, Karath formed an extremely thin thread of mana.

He connected the imprint in the creature’s mind to the infinite circuit flowing inside his own body.

“Stop.”

Karath sent additional mana through the thread while issuing the command.

“Skree...”

The wyvern stopped moving.

It had understood.

The spell had worked.

Karath immediately approached the next wyvern.

Once again, he placed a hand against its head.

Once again, he cast the spell.

One by one, he repeated the process.

Four wyverns.

Then the fifth.

The moment the final imprint settled...

“Mmm.”

A faint throbbing appeared inside Karath’s head.

About five wyverns is my limit, then.

Brainwashing, or perhaps domination magic, possessed clear limitations.

If the distance between caster and controlled creature became too great, the mana thread connecting them would break and the magic would collapse.

The records also warned that controlling too many creatures could negatively affect the caster’s brain.

Still, Karath had successfully marked all five attacking wyverns.

There was no immediate problem.

Quite the opposite.

I never needed to raise them from eggs at all!

He now had five adult wyverns that obeyed him.

At this moment, Karath had finally become a Wyvern Rider.

Chapter 202

Goblin Castle and the Prince of the Sky

“Wh-what happened?”

After Karath finished subjugating all five wyverns, the nearby officers stared at the creatures in confusion.

Only moments earlier, they had been thrashing desperately while the warriors struggled to restrain them.

Then Karath touched each one on the head.

Now they were completely docile.

“Krahahaha! Isn’t it obvious? Even the wyverns must have been overwhelmed by the Grand Chief’s majesty!”

“Krahahaha! Kaden speaks the truth!”

Karath ignored the two muscle-brained orcs enthusiastically inventing nonsense.

“I used the magic practiced by the black mages.”

Krog looked toward the wyverns.

“Then these creatures will obey you now, Grand Chief?”

“They should. You can release them.”

The warriors hesitated only briefly.

Then they let go.

Just as Karath expected, none of the wyverns resisted.

They simply sat where they were and stared at him.

“Bring the medicinal herbs.”

Karath approached the nearest creature and cast Healing.

He first provided magical first aid.

Then, once his subordinates brought the herbs, he began treating the wounds caused by the arrows and the struggle.

“Skree?”

A curious sound came from behind him.

Wyvie was approaching.

The juvenile tilted its head as it stared at the five adult wyverns.

An identity crisis?

Wyvie had hatched beneath Buddy’s care.

It had grown up believing the silver wolf was its parent.

It had even learned to walk on all fours rather than fly.

But perhaps instinct was telling it something now.

Buddy might have raised it.

Yet these creatures were the same species.

“You can come closer.”

Wyvie continued standing there.

Naturally, it could not understand Karath’s words.

Perhaps ordering the five adults would be easier.

“You may move. Just don’t attack.”

Karath sent mana through the threads connecting him to the wyverns.

The five adults rose.

Then they slowly approached Wyvie.

They behaved almost like birds Karath had once seen in nature documentaries on Earth.

The adult wyverns pushed their snouts against Wyvie and sniffed its scent.

Some gently tapped it with their wings or beaks, almost as though trying to communicate something.

Wyvie looked uncomfortable at first.

Gradually, however, it relaxed around them.

Maybe Wyvie will actually learn how to fly soon.

The creature had grown up beneath Buddy and learned to behave like a wolf.

But spending time with its own kind might teach it how to fly and hunt properly.

Then another possibility occurred to Karath.

Could we hatch every wyvern egg we find from now on?

Young creatures imitated their parents.

Wyvie’s behaviour had already proven that.

What if new hatchlings grew up watching these five adult wyverns obey Karath?

What if the adults also taught them how to fly and fight?

Karath’s eyes slowly widened.

We might actually be able to create a Wyvern Rider unit.

And newly hatched wyverns would not even need to be brainwashed.

The thought led immediately to another important realization.

Five wyverns had attacked them.

That meant there might be a nest somewhere nearby.

And if there was a nest...

There might be eggs.