Chapter 103: An Age of War
The courtyard of Oriana Castle is filled with Spellswords, both employed by the royal family and hired as mercenaries either from abroad or domestically (the former is higher in number than the latter due to Oriana's poor treatment of Spellswords). They stood in line facing a man who stood on a higher platform, allowing them to gaze upon his visage.
The man is Raphael Geerk Oriana, the king of Oriana, slayer of King Klaus and the warmonger who split his country into two. Instead of his usual white robe, he's currently wearing a black armor with chainmail hood adorned with a golden crown in order to give himself the image of a king of war, not the king of art.
The gathered Spellswords are here to listen to his warmongering speech with crazy grins mirroring his own. The cold winter did not hinder them as they could use their magic to protect them from the elements to some extent. After waiting for awhile, the king started his speech.
"Welcome, my friends, my brothers in arms, to a new age! An Age of War!" Declared the king with his arms spread as if giving a welcoming embrace. The audience cheered like madmen.
"My friends… You may not know… or you may have forgotten… but Oriana was born through might. My blood… the blood of Oriana royalty descended from the Hero Freya himself! Our blood is strong! That is why despite many opposition from the nobles, I allowed my beloved daughter Rose Oriana to study in Midgar Royal Spellsword Academy to become a Spellsword herself! Our kingdom was a country of warriors! Not a kingdom of art!" The king declared, his words roused the audience.
"Many would think that we are living in peace… that peace is preferable to war. But we are NOT living in an age of peace! We are living in an age of oppression! An age of stagnation! Our blades rusted and unpolished! Our powers wasted! Unused! Our efforts and legacy spat and looked down upon!" The king continued his speech.
"You know what we are? We are Spellswords! We have the power and right to exert violence upon this world! To take what is our right and to destroy our enemies! And yet the so-called artists… they looked down upon us, called us barbarians! Even though it is our blades that have protected them and saved them from so many threats since ancient times! Including the Demon Diablos! It was thanks to us, to the sacrifices of our ancestors that their ancestors survived and allowed those fools to be born in the first place!" The king affirmed their identities and the audience agreed silently.
"As you all know, ever since our last war against Velgalta and the Tragedy of Black Rose, our kingdom has been in decline for far too long! You, no… WE Spellswords have suffered through the decline far worse than everyone else! You know how it was! How you were treated! How our proud country was turned into a country of art! How we were defanged by the pressure from other kingdoms! Especially Midgar!" At the mention of Midgar, the audience started murmuring.
"They have called themselves a country of Spellswords for long enough! Forcing us into an alliance as if to say our military is not adequate enough to protect ourselves! Mocking us while pretending to be our friends! All the while demanding tributes! Tributes that came at your expense!" The king pointed at the audience and they understood what he meant and agreed with it.
"That's why I killed their king with my own hands! To liberate us from their oppression and bring Oriana back to center stage! To prove that we are still strong! And I did prove how strong we are! The kingdom of Midgar, proud of their Spellswords, have grown rusty due to enjoying too much peace and are now trembling in fear to the threat we posed! We shall not make the same mistake they did! They are now the prey and we, the predators!" The mad king clenched his fist and raised it above his head. The audience followed suit while shouting and cheering.
"If we simply play nice and talk to them, negotiate with them, will they even consider any of our words worth listening, let alone grant our requests? Will they ever consider giving us any fair deals? Oh no, my friends. We are already lesser beings in their minds. They will never take our wishes, our wellbeing and our livelihoods into consideration. It's never their priority in the first place! No amount of words or tribute will make them treat us better! In fact, they will slowly drain us of our wealth and leave us with nothing! And when we already have nothing left they will still continue to take from us whatever we have left! Our bodies! Our families! Our very souls! Everything!" The king explained the futility of peace and negotiation.
"The status quo isn't favourable for us! The peace is not beneficial for us! It will make us weak! Make us stagnate even more! Make others take advantage of us as they always have! In time, we would've been turned into their vassal state! Our citizens would be treated like second class citizens, if not outright treated like slaves! We would be taxed so heavily that we would forever struggle for scraps while they feast like swine! Our Spellsword legacy, our proud connection to the Hero Freya, all of it will be erased from history! I tell you here and now, my friends, that the peace will make us surrender our rights without a fight!" The king continued, still with clenched fist.
"Do you want to surrender without a fight!?" The king shouted.
"""NO!""" The audience replied in unison with loud voices.
"Of course you don't! No one in our proud country ever will! Unless said person is a weak and traitorous swine! Any loyal and true sons and daughters of Oriana knows that we shall never achieve anything without fighting!" The king declared.
"Only through war shall we be able to prove our worth! Only through war can we become stronger! Only through war can we claim what is rightfully ours! Only through war shall we be able to prove our existence to this world! To become who we are! To become who we are always meant to be! And so I welcome you again, my brothers! To an Age of War!" The audience cheered at his words.
"If we do not stand up to them, they will continue to oppress us! Continue to pretend like they are our betters! Continue to treat us like slaves!" The audience cheered in agreement.
"Who's to blame for our decline? For defanging us? For weakening us!?" He shouted a question.
"""Midgar Kingdom is to blame!""" The audience shouted in response.
"Who's to blame for our decline!?" The king asked the same question again.
"""Midgar Kingdom is to blame!""" The audience shouted again, this time with louder voices.
"That's right! They are to blame! We shall soon turn our fangs and claws against them! But before that, we need to turn our fangs inwards! Towards domestic threats to our cause! Towards corrupt nobles who enjoyed life of luxuries while you suffer and decline!" The king shouted and the audience cheered, excited at the prospect of revenge against nobles and rich people who mistreated them.
"Those nobles and rich artists… they live in luxury while you all struggled to survive! You've done all the work, protected them all from bandits and foreign threats! But what do they give you in return? They mock you! They treat you like lesser beings! They never appreciated the blood, sweat and tears you've shed for them! Not even a single word of appreciation has ever been spared for you, let alone proper treatment and payment!" The audience agreed at his words as they are already fed up with how they are treated.
"Do you know who leads these corrupt nobles!?" The king asked the audience.
"""Marquis Grantz!""" The audience replied in unison.
"And do you know what we shall do!?"
"""We shall destroy him and his allies!"""
"Indeed! We shall strike them all down and restore Oriana to glory! We shall make Oriana great again! And so, cheers my friends! For WE ARE WAR!"
That was a success. Mixing villainous speeches with some hypnosis worked wonders. It wasn't hard for the hypnosis to work considering that deep within their hearts they agree with most of the contents of the speech. I'm not as good as Hitler, Goebbles, or a certain Major at giving speeches so I had to do that to give myself an edge. And I'd like to think that I did pretty well back there. I've always wanted to try giving a warmongering speech.
King Raphael's previous speeches weren't good enough to rouse the Spellswords to join him so I had to intervene.
Oh yes. King Raphael Geerk Oriana. It is indeed surprising that King Raphael had to defy me at this crucial moment. But it doesn't matter now. I have taken care of him, and luckily I did it before he had the chance to ruin my plans… though this means I have to spend more time in Oriana to take care of things. How busy I am even though it's winter. Being a villain is indeed a fulltime job. No rest for the wicked as they say.
Perv…Pfft… Asshat (Fuck that name) has joined Marquis Grantz' Anti-Raphael faction, letting Marquis Grantz be King Raphael's target so he can conveniently replace him once the king eliminated him. But Perv's position in the Cult has been… shaken because I hypnotized him as Alucard and there are other First Children aiming to replace him. I hope they won't hinder Perv's performance or I would be forced to act on my own again. I hope it won't come to that. Taking care of King Raphael is annoying enough.
I hope things go according to plan. I want to have some time for myself after all. I still have the Blood Queen, Soul Research and the Shadow Garden Members' corpses to deal with. The latter one has… some complication. I never imagined that Shadow Garden would possess the memory shield spell that I invented years ago. It was a spell that I should've created a way to crack but I didn't due to not anticipating others possessing it. Where did they learn that spell I wonder? If I try to pry open the memories of the corpses, the spell would simply destroy their brains, and thus I cannot access their memories even after death. No matter. I can still use their corpses anyway.
As for the Ring of Succession, it is now in my hand. And because I've had King Raphael retrieve it pretty early, I shall have some time to investigate its enchantments thoroughly. Even if I couldn't have full access to the ring due to me not being its owner (and neither do King Raphael at the moment, Rose Oriana is) I can still do some limited hacking to figure out what I wanted to know the most, how the ring creates portal to another world, or the Black Rose as they called it. I should be able to gain more information on the portal opening method from the ring rather than from Lord Laugus' notes, which has limited information about it for some reason even though portals to another world became Lord Laugus' next object of obsession after he's done with the Tears of Diablos.
As for Rose Oriana, I don't have to rush. She will come to her father of her own free will. And I shall be there to guide her to the path I wanted her to take. Heh heh heh.
*Knock Knock Knock*
A knock on the door. Who dares interrupt me when I'm inner monologuing!?
"Enter." I allowed the person on the other side of the door to enter the room and he did so. He is a robed man with skull mask, a member of the Reaper Squad.
"My lord, Necromancer. I am here to report on the development of Duke Perv's faction as you ordered. Some Cult affiliated nobles, led by Count Rajta, has begun moving to remove Duke Perv from power by sending assassins to kill some influential nobles within Duke Perv's faction." The man delivered his report, which is unfortunate but not surprising.
"Haaah… In the end I still have to do things myself." I murmured. Perv Asshat is still the most useful pawn to me and Mordred due to how charismatic and cunning he can be (not to mention I've already had him in my hypnosis so he's an easier pawn to control). Whoever wants to fill his shoes will have a lot to prove, which I don't have time to deal with.
"What are your orders, my lord?"
"Continue your mission. And summon The Black Knight to Oriana." The Reaper Squad member reacted a bit when he heard the name of the newest member of the Seven Wraiths who replaced the zombie Mundane Mann.
"As you command." The Reaper Squad member bowed before leaving the room.
Now… how should I take care of the internal conflict within Perv's faction, which is an internal conflict within an internal conflict of another internal conflict?
Oh, I know! Since this country is a country of art, I know just the thing. Heh heh heh.
Author's Note:
King Raphael finally made his war speech. And what is the Necromancer's next plan? Find out in the next episode of the Necromancer in Shadow!
Also, Web Novel readers will recognize the name Count Rajta.
Bolvar57: Claude tendrá su apoteosis? Todo poderoso nigromante trasciende la mortalidad. El arco de la guerra causara suficiente muerte para que sea posible llevarlo a cabo.
Answer: I have plans for the Necromancer to ascend to a higher being much later in the story. Now it's far too early for him to do so.
A-Yellow-Liz: It'd be pretty cool if we get a claude fanclub lol, like the alexia and rose fanclubs from female eminence.
Answer: Maybe I have to write some scenes of Claude dealing with his fanclub (sycophants) later.
Guest: Is it possible for Claude to make chemical weapons?
And does Claude even know how to make a modern day terrorist cell?
Answer: No, because I don't want Claude to become a character who knows everything from earth down to the smallest details (hence why I had him not knowing everything about guns). But that doesn't mean he doesn't have alternatives. He will soon commit some war crimes.
