Chapter 164: The Northern Anomaly

Rayrn had not forgotten about the Black Crows.

Not content with personally teaching them stealth techniques, he had also pushed the mages.

“Why are you making things like this? Are you trying to create an assassination squad?”

“Not at that level. They need to be better.”

They produced all sorts of magical equipment.

Cloaks imbued with stealth techniques, boots that suppressed one’s presence, and weapons customized and improved with magic tailored to their specialties.

“Living… I never thought I’d be outfitted like this.”

“That’s why you better do well.”

It was outfitting that even the armed Black Crows marveled at.

It was superior to the armaments given to knights, the most prized in this world.

Hah!

‘This still probably isn’t enough. But it can’t be helped. I’ll have to properly upgrade them someday too.’

In fact, only Rayrn, who had armed them, felt uneasy to that degree.

It wasn’t unreasonable.

“This mission is the most important. You understand, right?”

“Of course. Things beyond common sense are happening. The North is going mad.”

“That’s right.”

The place the Black Crows assigned under Rayrn had to go was the North.

The place where the orcs were causing changes was the North.

The orcs, moving as if possessed by a strange power, were developing as if their entire race was evolving.

They were toppling giant monsters like ogres and using them for their own armaments.

‘It’s said that orcs grow stronger the more they gather… but this is beyond common sense.’

With no natural predators, their numbers were increasing at a maddening rate.

Orcs are already known for their reproductive abilities, but this was overdoing it.

They were growing with the wind at their back.

Considering that orcs reach adulthood in at best three to four years, or as quickly as one to two years, it was a calamitous situation.

‘They can’t be compared to a swarm of rats. Even Letman would be slaughtered if he ran into those orcs.’

And those orcs were on the move.

Fortunately, it wasn’t towards the South.

It was towards the Empire in the North.

Whatever the Empire had done, the orcs regarded them as mortal enemies.

For Rayrn, this was fortunate.

However.

‘I can’t let my guard down. Monsters are monsters.’

Monsters were unpredictable.

Rayrn had no hobby of letting his guard down and getting hit from behind.

Therefore.

“Right. Go and do well.”

“We’ll show you a proper job.”

“I trust you.”

He sent the Black Crows, including Kimoa, far to the North.

Their primary objective was to scout the orc horde.

Their secondary objective was to scout the North itself in preparation for potential battles with the orcs.

They faithfully carried out their scouting.

Originally, the Black Crows were from ranger backgrounds.

This kind of work was their original specialty.

With Rayrn’s stealth techniques added, they were unlikely to face danger under normal circumstances.

The North.

And deep within the mountain range was uncharted territory even for them.

They had tried to find the orc territory, but even the Black Crows had no memory of scouring the entire North.

For them, it was a new exploration as well.

‘Let’s do it.’

They were tense, but it wasn’t a fearful task.

They moved on endlessly.

And then.

“…Squad Leader. Isn’t that over there a bit strange?”

“Hmm… Another one? The Northern Mountain Range is more bustling than I thought.”

They discovered countless unexpected traces.

Ruins.

They weren’t places where people had lived.

“This is… hmm…”

“It’s something different. Well, it’s not a place where slash-and-burn farmers could live anyway.”

There’s a saying that taxes are scarier than monsters.

But that saying didn’t apply in the Northern Mountain Range.

The North was barren, to the point of being terrifying for slash-and-burn farmers.

Instead, there were other traces.

“Indeed. If it’s like this, there aren’t many things it could be.”

Traces that were neither monster nor human.

They were of other races.

If one dug into holes barely large enough for a person to move through, or even smaller…

“It’s huge.”

“Indeed… amazing.”

A massive cavern was located inside.

What was inside weren’t strange rocks or anything.

There were traces of civilization.

It didn’t matter that many important facilities had been moved or destroyed.

What remained was enough to evoke admiration.

“This must be a trace of dwarves.”

“The space is considerable too. It could even be used as an evacuation shelter in an emergency.”

“It would be good for setting up a temporary base too. We need to mark this place.”

The Black Crows checked such places.

For monsters, other races were also enemies.

They killed each other upon discovery.

Therefore, places where other races lived were different from where monsters lived.

There were many places advantageous for defense if monsters invaded in an emergency.

“Here too… quite interesting.”

“I’ll mark it down.”

“That’s good.”

Caverns as caverns.

Forests as forests.

Just by making good use of what remained, there were many places advantageous for defense.

All these places were marked on the map the Black Crows carried.

“We’ll have a lot to report.”

“Better than nothing. It’s fortunate, considering we had no results before.”

Kimoa could only nod at the squad member’s words.

Compared to the results Rayrn showed, their results were meager.

Ever since the fortress was built, the Black Crows’ work itself had decreased.

They had no place in the slaughter, let alone subjugation, of monsters.

So much so that after the Hell Spider raid, they spent their time like layabouts, only training.

In that situation, this mission was like rain during a drought.

If Rayrn saw them feeling proud while performing their mission…

‘Heh heh. Good slaves… no, good talents.’

It was a sight worthy of a very pleased smile.

“Let’s go further north.”

“Yes!”

Like young soldiers who had just received their orders, filled with excitement, the Black Crows continued to advance.

And at the end of it…

“…This. It doesn’t seem like a problem we can just report and be done with.”

Whoooooosh—

They encountered a massive cavern.

It was a cavern large enough for a giant monster to use as a nest.

But no monsters approached.

In fact, many avoided it.

Whoosh—

The drifting wind contained mana.

It was mana insufficient to be called demonic mana.

That mana was rather clear, not sinister.

But it was artificial.

“Is a magic circle operating or something?”

“In this North? That’s absurd…”

“Hmm… What in the world.”

The mana was immense.

Mana to the degree that mana-seeking monsters avoided it.

No, the mana that faintly instilled a sense of terror was something even Kimoa had never seen or heard of.

‘It’s an anomaly.’

It was an anomaly unknown to them.

When such an anomaly occurred, there was one thing they had to do.

“We need to move immediately.”

“Unfortunately, the scouting ends here. We’ll prepare to leave right away.”

“Let’s do that. Let’s go.”

They had to report to Rayrn.

“Hmm. Is that so?”

And so, Rayrn heard the entire course of events.

Interesting.

A cavern with unidentified mana flowing through it.

‘And the lords of the Northern Mountain Range just left something like that there?’

It was a variable Rayrn hadn’t even considered.

In the middle of a war, such a variable would be undesirable.

But now was a good time.

The Merchant Fortress was making a fortune as time passed.

The caravans coming and going were money themselves.

They didn’t just buy goods.

They also sold.

Reportedly, they stopped by the territory of House Ofern along the way on their journey here.

‘Their intention is obvious. It’s a merchant-like move, so there’s nothing to say about it.’

Their intent was plain to see.

They probably wanted to spy on House Ofern, or get on the family’s good side to secure exclusive sales rights or something.

Or maybe they wanted to receive some small privilege.

For such reasons, he allowed trade with them, not charging exorbitant prices.

An appropriate price, so to speak.

Thanks to that, more goods began circulating in the Ofern territory.

Goods circulated.

As money began to gather, luxury items also circulated.

Money grows by circulating.

Not just the fortress, but commerce throughout the entire territory was flourishing.

‘Thanks to the dead Marquis of Owen, there’s no one to dare block it. As for Gisert, it’s even better if he stays put.’

Because of this, the taxes collected increased considerably, no, multiplied.

It was more than enough to cover the war expenses of Count Ofern, who was far down in the South.

That money, according to Rayrn’s ordered plans, was making the Ofern territory prosper again.

The family’s direct holdings increased, and the soldiers’ armaments became substantial.

People also began to gather, to the point that they were now moving to build an administrative officer academy, something they couldn’t do before.

‘The highlight is the academy.’

Machinery was soaring even higher than Merchants.

The mercenaries who began to cling to the Machinery Academy were strong.

They also became loyal subordinates.

They captured enormous monsters.

Talents that had no chance to bloom, bloomed here.

Strong individuals emerged one after another and were absorbed as Rayrn’s subordinates.

Now, following the revealed Iron Fist, another new armed group was secretly growing in power.

‘The more hidden cards, the better.’

It was a world where force was power and authority.

Hidden power was better than revealed power.

‘Everything is going according to plan.’

The situation was very good.

Even though his father was on the battlefield, it wasn’t a place to die.

If needed, he could even send the Iron Fist as support.

‘Rumors say the power Gisert revealed is quite peculiar. Hmm…’

Whether spurred by the exploits of his father, Count Ofern, Duke Gisert was moving quite actively.

But there was still plenty of time before he would clash with his father.

That’s how wide the Owen Marquisate was.

It was originally much wider than the Ofern family’s territory, so it was only natural.

‘The Owen family has many plains in the North. If we take all of that, it’ll be quite a sight.’

There was no need to completely destroy the Owen family.

Just taking all the plain regions might cause them to collapse on their own.

‘I need to calculate well. That much… Father will handle it easily, so maybe it doesn’t matter?’

There wasn’t a single place that required his intervention.

This situation, where he didn’t need to step in personally, was pleasing to Rayrn.

And in the midst of that, a variable.

For Rayrn, who was starting to feel a bit bored in the fortress…

“Interesting. A place with no monsters. And in the Northern Mountain Range at that…”

He felt a deep curiosity rather than fear.

“It’s a new variable. Definitely. Isn’t it strange that those orcs haven’t come? And it’s not the power of a Black Mage either.”

“That’s right. That’s the peculiar thing. I actually thought we’d find a few Black Mage dens.”

“Strangely, we didn’t see any Black Mages at all.”

“That’s a curious thing too. Maybe they fled because the orcs were moving. Anyway, it’s interesting.”

An unexpected variable.

‘I should find out.’

Making it his own suited Rayrn’s temperament.

A power that wasn’t Black Magic.

And on top of that, didn’t they say there were traces of other races here and there?

‘I might even meet them if I’m lucky. Hmm… is it too much to hope for?’

Rayrn, who had been holed up in the fortress, stretched for the first time in a while.

“Where is it? Show me. No, just mark it. I’ll go see right away.”

“Alone?”

“What could go wrong? Hurry up and mark it.”

“Umm… understood.”

Rayrn obtained the coordinates from the worried Kimoa.

And using those coordinates, he instantly arrived at the place with the anomaly.

“Oh… is this it?”