Chapter 120: The Secret Fortress

Three war mastiffs whimpered as they circled a patch of ruins, constantly clawing at the ground with their forepaws and sending splinters and dirt flying everywhere.

“Dig!”

At Victor’s command, several burly men leaped onto the ruins and began clearing away the wreckage of the collapsed wooden house. Before long, the rubble had been removed, revealing a square wooden trapdoor in the ground.

A militiaman lifted the door and peered into the pitch-black pit beneath it. “My lord, it’s a cellar!” he shouted.

Victor leaned over for a look. The cellar entrance was roughly two meters square, with a wooden ladder leading underground. Beyond that, nothing could be seen.

“Release the hounds!” Victor waved his hand with imposing authority.

Two war mastiffs the size of calves sprang into the pit. Before long, they began howling to signal that it was safe.

“Go in and see what treasures the Chipman family left behind,” Victor ordered the militiamen around him.

Four nimble Monkey Militiamen filed into the cellar. When they emerged, the smile on Victor’s face could no longer be restrained.

Thirty sturdy bows, six crossbows, three thousand arrows, two hundred bolts, twenty iron-steel spears, twenty shields, two suits of chain mail, fifteen suits of leather armor, more than a hundred sacks of flour, and over four hundred pounds of salt. The militiamen carried everything out of the cellar and stacked it neatly on the ground.

Victor picked up a twenty-kilogram spear and easily spun it through a graceful flourish, chuckling. “Count Chipman must have intended to use these supplies to buy over that gang of Baire’s. Now they’ve fallen into my hands instead.”

“Busso, what else did we find in the mithril mine?”

“My lord, we collected one hundred and thirty-two pickaxes, forty-seven hammers, ninety-seven shovels, twenty-seven small mining carts, fifty-seven pairs of leather boots, sixty-nine pairs of leather gloves, five large bundles of hemp rope, four cartloads of mithril ore, twelve cartloads of silver ore, and eleven white crystals.”

Busso reported every item to Victor with meticulous precision. His face, build, and voice were exactly the same as before. Yet who could have imagined that Busso had once been torn to pieces by an army of ant-men?

“Move everything onto the dog carts and bring it all back to Brick Kiln Village!” Victor said cheerfully.

“My lord, we have only seven dog carts. We cannot transport everything in one trip,” Busso reminded him.

Alchemical humans had low emotional intelligence, but their intellect was little different from that of ordinary people. When given an order they could not fulfill, they would still raise an objection to their master.

“Then make several trips. Keep going until everything has been moved.”

The alchemical war mastiffs serving as draft animals hauled seven dog carts piled high with supplies toward Brick Kiln Village. Victor stood atop one of the carts, facing the fierce wind rushing against him, and declared proudly, “What a harvest!”

Four full days had passed since he issued the latest manufacturing orders. At present, Victor had three Bull Militiamen, twelve Monkey Militiamen, four Alchemical Auxiliaries, forty-one alchemical war mastiffs, and sixty-seven alchemical ravens at his side. In addition, the Alchemy Tower was producing alchemical humans at a rate of three per day.

Yet Victor awkwardly discovered that he now had manpower but no supplies.

The ant-men had overrun Hill Camp. They had eaten every scrap of food there and carried away all the weapons, leaving behind not even a single arrow. Fortunately, they had no interest in clothing or leather armor. Otherwise, the newly created Alchemical Auxiliaries would have had to run naked all the way to Brick Kiln Village.

Watching the alchemical humans arrive at Brick Kiln Village one after another with empty hands, Victor began to worry. Every person meant another mouth to feed, while the alchemical war mastiffs possessed truly astonishing appetites. Fortunately, his territory was large enough that gathering and hunting could keep them fed. But Victor had not created alchemical creatures so they could hunt game and gather wild vegetables. His goal was to build an army of his own.

The alchemical militiamen were all elite soldiers. Without weapons, however, their combat strength was far inferior to that of the alchemical war mastiffs.

Victor decided to gather supplies first and resume production afterward. He therefore led his followers on a territory-wide scavenging expedition.

Their first stop was naturally his main base, Hill Camp. It had contained the greatest reserves, and it had also suffered the worst destruction. Nearly twenty thousand ant-men had trampled the place into ruin. Fortunately, Victor knew Hill Camp extremely well. With the help of the alchemical militiamen, he cleared the ruins of two warehouses and unearthed a cellar. In the end, they found some production tools and more than sixty barrels of purple-sugar liquor.

Transporting the liquor away barrel by barrel proved to be a problem. Ultimately, Victor buried it all again.

Victor needed means of transport, so he led his men to Carpenter Village, which specialized in producing wagons. To his delight, Carpenter Village had survived relatively intact, just like Brick Kiln Village. Apart from the food and weapons, which the ant-men had swept away completely, the carpentry tools and unfinished wagons had all been preserved.

The problem was that although the wagons could be repaired, there were no horses to pull them.

Of course, that problem was solved quickly. Victor turned his attention to the powerfully built war mastiffs. At his request, Busso led the Alchemical Auxiliaries in swiftly converting the wagons into “dog carts” suitable for the mastiffs to pull.

The war mastiffs did not disappoint Victor. Their speed, strength, stamina, and intelligence left ordinary draft horses far behind. The massive beasts pulled the dog carts swiftly and steadily.

Once Victor had seven dog carts, his scavenging efficiency increased many times over. He visited Flax Village, Stillwater Village, and the Highlander Camp in succession, finding quite a few useful supplies. Unfortunately, he found neither food nor weapons.

The unexpected harvest from the Chipman family’s camp sent Victor into raptures. Besides the food and weapons, what pleased him most were the mining tools left behind in the mine.

Victor now possessed food, weapons, transport, various production tools, and alchemical humans. All he needed to do was restore production, build a smithy, mine iron and thorium, manufacture weapons, and arm the steady stream of alchemical militiamen.

When they reached Brick Kiln Village, Victor jumped down from the dog cart and directed the alchemical militiamen to carry the supplies into the drying shed. Looking at the blue bricks the ant-men had knocked to the ground, Victor asked Busso, “Can these bricks be used to build a furnace?”

Busso picked up one of the bricks and examined it before nodding. “They can, my lord.”

“Dean really did a decent job managing Brick Kiln Village,” Victor muttered.

Brick Kiln Village lay farthest from Hill Camp. Dean had withdrawn in excellent time, carrying away all the food and weapons along with the production tools. Of course, this was also because dozens of wagons had all been in Brick Kiln Village, and because its villagers were more organized than ordinary farmers. They usually worked in groups, which allowed them to clear out the village so thoroughly that it suffered the least damage of all.

For that reason, Victor chose to make his temporary residence there.

At present, there were roughly six thousand ant-men in the territory, concentrated along the Goldenwater River at its southernmost edge. This gave Victor plenty of room to develop. After all, the territory covered twelve thousand square kilometers. A few thousand ant-men were as insignificant as stones in a pond.

To prevent accidents, Victor suspended his operation to hunt down the ant-men commanders and instead arranged for more than twenty alchemical ravens to monitor the swarm. Should the ant-men make any major movement, Victor would know at once.

The most important matter now was choosing a site for a furnace and smithy. The location needed water, abundant timber, distance from the ant-men, and proximity to the territory’s iron veins. Ideally, it would also be near a thorium vein.

Victor turned his attention to the area around the old ogre nest. It was the most suitable location.

“Caw!”

An alchemical raven circled overhead. Victor’s pupils contracted when he noticed a parchment letter tied to its leg.

Three hours later, two parchment letters lay spread before Victor. The first had been written by Barritt. The other had been sent back by Lilia through Blackfeather.

“Baron Wilpan’s castle has been breached! That means that, apart from me, Esker, and the York family, there are no other powers left in the entire Centaur Hills. Sylvia has placed Lilia under house arrest, is having me watched, and has even sent a grand knight to fetch me. What is she planning? No—that is the wrong question. What will she do?”

The information Barol had sent was simple and clear. Had this happened a few months earlier, Victor certainly would not have been able to draw any conclusions from it. But he was no longer the inexperienced novice lord he had once been.

Victor had learned to consider matters from a lord’s perspective. For instance, he could cold-bloodedly order his alchemical war mastiffs to slaughter freemen while sparing no effort to rescue other freemen. Such seemingly absurd and contradictory behavior was something only a lord could do.

With a lord’s perspective, Victor quickly deduced what Sylvia intended.

“Sylvia plans to nurture a bandit threat so she can strengthen her own authority and seize the entire Centaur Hills!”

Victor might not possess Barol’s talent for analyzing intelligence, but he knew three things far more important than anything the old spy did.

Special bricks. Ant-men commanders. And the York family killed one or two ant-men commanders every day.

The Alchemy Tower was receiving soul fire and funds every day.

Once he looked at it that way, everything became clear.

To seize the entire Centaur Hills, Sylvia needed control of two crucial factors. First, the secret of the ant-men could not be allowed to leak. Second, she needed to build fortresses using special bricks.

That was why they had placed Lilia under house arrest. She knew the ant-men’s weakness.

And Victor possessed both of those advantages.

“Sylvia, you want my people, my bricks, and even my territory!” Victor slammed his hand down on a brick beside him and crushed it to pieces.

After venting his anger, Victor gradually calmed down. He pondered the matter for a while, then smiled.

“Since you send me money and people every day, I’ll grant your wish.”

“Busso, there is an iron-steel vein in the mountains west of the territory, along with a vast forest of oilwood trees. I want you to lead a team there and build a small fortress with special bricks. It must produce thorium crossbows, thorium shortbows, iron-steel spears, chain mail, thorium bolts, and arrows. You are also to raise livestock and grow crops. Four months from now, I expect to see five hundred fully armed alchemical militiamen.”

“Jack, you are responsible for the fortress’s security. Depending on the circumstances, you may mobilize every war mastiff and militiaman to protect it. Do not allow any strangers to approach the fortress. If anyone sees it, imprison them.”

“If any problems arise, I will contact you through the alchemical ravens.”

The mountain range west of Victor’s territory ran from north to south, cutting across the entire Centaur Hills and stretching for thousands of kilometers. Its animal and plant resources were abundant enough to sustain more than a thousand alchemical humans.

Every ant-man commander killed by the York family provided the Alchemy Tower with thirty points of soul fire and more than ten thousand in funds. The tower could produce three alchemical militiamen each day. Before long, Victor’s strength would grow like a snowball rolling downhill, becoming larger and larger.

In this world, strength was ultimately what mattered.

Besides, Victor had no choice but to make a trip to Blackcastle Town. His followers were all there, and they represented a fortune too great for him to abandon.

“As you wish, my lord,” Busso and Jack replied calmly.

Victor looked down at the letters in his hand, his brows tightly furrowed.

“Nelson, where the hell have you gone? Don’t tell me the ant-men killed you.”