At the very front of the army walked a young girl clad in bright golden armor. The feminine armor did nothing to conceal her graceful, slender, perfect figure. She possessed breathtaking beauty, skin as smooth and fair as ivory, a long, snowy-white neck like a swan's, and a magnificent cascade of golden hair that glittered dazzlingly beneath the sunlight. All that beauty gathered upon her, giving her a valiant bearing while also lending her an ethereal nobility and elegance untouched by the mortal world.
"And those confused eyes, like an abandoned little animal... Tsk, tsk! A textbook tragic princess!"
Punk was not the sort to lose his head at the sight of a beautiful woman. He had not been bewitched by the girl knight's nation-toppling beauty. With the System's analysis, he discovered that although she carried a trace of battle aura, she could only be considered a Level One Apprentice Level knight. Moreover, seeing how she did not know how to use that tiny trace of battle aura to help bear the heavy knight armor that had already drenched her in sweat, Punk guessed that even this little bit of battle aura had probably been forcefully induced through medicine. For a girl with absolutely no talent for becoming a professional, it merely served to strengthen her body.
"Well, that fits the template of a weak, distressed princess even better! Wait? A distressed princess? Could that group of 'special forces' who died in the Forest of Undead have been there to pursue her?"
Sharp as ever, Punk immediately thought of the horribly dead skeletons in the Forest of Undead!
Just as Punk was about to send his magical eye closer for a better look, he suddenly spotted a figure in green robes entering his field of vision. It was the Formal Mage—Mainesi!
Punk quickly dispelled the magical eye. At the same time, he sensed many similar magical fluctuations around him vanish the instant Mainesi appeared. Clearly, no one dared provoke a powerful Formal Mage!
As both a mage and Konola City's strongest individual, Mainesi was also the lord of this region. Now that Mainesi, as lord, had taken in such a group of soldiers, it undoubtedly signified the formation of an alliance. And the purpose of an alliance was naturally to face war together.
Sure enough, just as dusk arrived, when the little sun, Mira, had just set and the great sun, Chikasa, still lingered on the horizon, the "lord" Mainesi issued a summons to every professional. The summons was written high in the sky with green Life Element energy, easily visible to everyone in the city.
Punk arrived at the square relatively late. By then, most of the professionals in Konola City had already gathered there. The spellcasters had clearly formed a small group on the left side of the square, while the martial professionals had formed another small group on the right. Between them lay a distinct dividing path.
The dancing girls of the Church of Harvest were long gone from the square's stage. In their place stood the valiant girl knight, delivering a speech in a solemn and resolute voice! Mage Menesif stood quietly behind her, his gaze cold and stern, without saying a word!
Most of the warriors below wore leather armor reinforced with metal and carried crude weapons. Their muscular chests and arms, marked by crisscrossing scars and tattoos, were exposed. They struck their armor with their weapons as they roared loudly, and the entire area radiated a fervent, heroic atmosphere.
The mages formed a stark contrast with the warriors. One mage after another, young or old, hid most of their faces beneath the hoods of their robes. Every spellcaster stood quietly with a staff in hand, looking toward the passionately speaking girl onstage with expressions that were either tranquil, deep and gloomy, hollow and cold—but never impulsive or fiery.
Punk had arrived at just the right time. The girl's speech had only just begun.
Just as Punk had expected, the girl wanted to obtain the professionals' aid. Although there were few of them, only two or three hundred, and most were merely Apprentice Level, their power was beyond what ordinary people could imagine. It was no exaggeration to say that they possessed greater combat strength than a hundred thousand city guards. Punk himself was confident that he could face an army of ordinary people alone. No matter how numerous they were, as long as they remained in the age of cold weapons, slaughtering them would only be a matter of time. Even if they attacked from every direction without a single blind spot, the power of cold weapons could not break even one layer of Mage Armor. Furthermore, the energy consumption caused by those attacks was nowhere near the recovery speed of a Journeyman Mage's mana. As for Journeyman Mages, their offensive methods were entirely beyond the ability of ordinary iron armor and steel plate to withstand. Thus, in war, professionals were the main force for killing enemies. Aside from serving as cannon fodder and dying, ordinary soldiers were more useful for protecting commoners from the slaughter of the enemy's ordinary soldiers.
All in all, winning over professionals was far more important than winning over ordinary armies. Every lord understood this, and the beautiful girl was no exception. However, the speech she used to recruit professionals made Punk wonder whether Her Highness the Princess had read too many knight novels!
"Brave warriors, I am Nasya Kamos, the Seventh Princess of the Kingdom of Kamos."
Her Highness the Princess announced her identity in a youthful, pleasant, yet persuasive voice. The warriors below howled even louder, though Punk still keenly caught the faint tremor in her voice.
"I have come to announce unfortunate news. My father, Nikai III Kamos, was cruelly murdered by my elder brother, the Third Prince—William Kamos!"
"Too hasty!"
Punk gave this announcement his evaluation in his heart. News needed to be revealed bit by bit to stir people's emotions. Throwing everything out at once like the princess had would only leave the audience stunned!
Sure enough, even those warriors who had been staring only at the beauty fell collectively silent upon hearing such explosive news. In this era of underdeveloped information exchange, news within a kingdom was often transmitted slowly and vaguely. Before Nasya's arrival, the Kingdom of Kamos had retained an image of peace and stability in people's minds. Now, the beautiful princess had appeared and immediately dropped a massive bombshell, leaving even quite a few mages stunned.
Although the princess noticed that the atmosphere below the stage was unlike the outraged, rage-filled response she had imagined, she still stiffly continued:
"Not only did the evil Prince William murder my royal father, he also intends to seek refuge with the brutal Minoe Imperial Kingdom and lead the people into misery. Worse still, he plans to give me as a gift to Grand Duke Minoe, who has a perverse fondness for torturing young girls to death. Now, my warriors, are you willing to follow me in fighting evil and help protect me and our kingdom?"
"Willing! Willing! Willing!"
Moved by the princess's pitiful speech, the warriors loudly displayed their "boiling blood" and "zero intelligence." Punk estimated that these "big baboons" had not cared at all about what Nasya had said earlier. Many of them were probably lustful idiots who had merely heard a few words like "together" from the princess's red lips. Others had been brainwashed by knight novels, believing themselves to be legendary protagonists who were about to "rescue" the princess and rise to the peak of life. These warriors, lowborn, blindly devoted to muscles, and indoctrinated since childhood by so-called "knightly spirit," had not thought things through at all before selling themselves completely.
In contrast to the warriors on the right, whose blood was boiling and whose emotions were inflamed, the mages on the left were in an entirely opposite state!
There were no benefits, no guarantee of victory, and they did not even know what the truth of the matter was. Yet this princess, who had appeared from nowhere and whom they had never even heard of, expected "brave warriors" she had known for less than ten minutes to charge into battle and brave fire and water for her? Was she dreaming? Even those "hot-blooded baboons" would begin weighing gains and losses once their excitement faded! Let alone the mages, who had remained calm to the point of coldness from beginning to end and believed in putting profit above all else!
The war begins next chapter. Please bookmark and vote!
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