Pioneer Lord: I Have Conquering System

"Yes, Auntie," Liya chimed in, her expression serious. "Just now, some Demons disguised themselves as Northern Soldiers and tried to enter Kolon. If Levi hadn’t been so cautious, it’s hard to imagine the consequences if they’d made it inside the city."

Levi had already explained the whole situation to her on the way over.

The Lord shot Liya a grateful smile for helping him out, but the girl apparently misinterpreted it, flashing an even more radiant smile back at him.

Watching the two exchange flirty glances, Fulina pressed a hand to her throbbing temples. With such sudden, grave news, she was no longer in the mood for jokes. "Didn’t I send Andao south to gather intelligence?" she asked in a solemn tone. "How could Demons reach Kolon City without us receiving any word?"

"In fact, this Demon Corps has already ambushed Count Andao’s army," Levi said, his expression calm as he relayed the information he’d gathered. "I’m sorry... Count Andao’s entire force has been wiped out."

A dreadful silence fell over the study. Everyone present knew that a Demon Corps capable of annihilating a two-thousand-man Cavalry Team without a single word getting out was no simple foe.

"Your Grace, please forgive me for speaking out of turn, but regardless of our course of action, we must make a decision as quickly as possible."

Monvert, the resolute, middle-aged Count, continued, "Kolon’s walls are high; the Demons won’t be able to break in. But the surrounding villages will be completely defenseless against them."

"We all know they can recover their strength by feeding. If we don’t eliminate them quickly, they will become much harder to deal with."

In truth, while this was part of Monvert’s reasoning, his true motivation was simpler—he couldn’t bear to witness such widespread death and devastation.

Since the Demons couldn’t get into Kolon City, it was obvious to anyone that they would ravage the surrounding villages instead. These creatures weren’t like humans, who could be satisfied with plundering treasure and food.

Humans were on their menu. In other words, there was no possibility of peace between them. Any encounter would be a fight to the death. This was a war of Races.

"I will give orders to defend Kolon City," Fulina decided quickly. "But with the enemy situation unclear, marching out at night would be a foolish move no commander would make. We can only pray those poor villagers can hold out until morning."

At Duke Fulina’s command, the Female Knight named Reggie quickly departed for the Northern Border Corps’ camp, carrying a dispatch order.

"Since that’s settled, Duke Fulina, we’ll take our leave. We’re still needed back at the wall."

Fulina understood the priorities and nodded.

The group departed, taking the same path they had used to arrive.

"Levi, does this mean the Demons have already reached Kolon City? And what about Fatir...?" Liya asked as they walked side-by-side through White Castle, her face etched with worry. She was especially concerned for her friend, who had gone south to fight the Demons.

There had been no news from the south, so it was hard to say whether Fatir had already met with disaster.

"Liya, don’t worry too much," the Lord said, patting her soft hand reassuringly. "Fatir’s Magic Cultivation is very high. Besides, even if the Griffin Knights couldn’t win a fight, they could still escape. They wouldn’t just stand by and watch a Holy Light Saintess die at the hands of Demons."

"Frankly, I’m more inclined to believe this Demon Corps bypassed the White Bone Fortress to get here."

Levi offered his speculation, unintentionally hitting upon the truth.

"If this were the main Demon Army, they wouldn’t have needed to ambush Andao’s two thousand cavalry."

"While you can’t rule out an ambush designed for total annihilation, based on what I just saw, their numbers weren’t as large as I’d expect. I only saw Babu Demons, not even a trace of an Eight-armed Snake Demon."

’It’s most likely not the main Demon army.’

Levi suspected that something unknown must have happened at the White Bone Fortress to cause this situation.

...

The sleeping barracks awoke like a startled beast. A single dispatch order roused countless soldiers from their dreams. Barked at by their officers, they poured out of their bunks, assembled, and hurried toward the city wall.

As they marched through the city streets, the sound of their footsteps, the clash of their Armor, and their rough, boisterous chatter woke many of Kolon City’s residents.

Terrified, and at the urging of their wives, they mustered the courage to peek through cracks in their doors to see what sort of madness these rowdy soldiers were up to in the middle of the night.

Seeing them fully armed, the townspeople prayed that the soldiers weren’t about to use the pretext of "searching for traitors" to cause them trouble.

When the soldiers reached the city wall, the shocking sight of the corpses below left them speechless and dry-mouthed.

They were ferocious-looking, blood-red monsters. At first glance, they looked like flayed, skeletal humans, but the thick horns on their foreheads and the tails on their backs proved their true identity—Demons! They were Demons!

On the Middle Ages Continent, everyone had been scared by their parents as children with tales of Demons—stories of being carried off and eaten by Demons or the Undead if they didn’t behave.

They never expected that now, in the prime of their lives, when it was their turn to tell those stories to their own children, they would see the real thing with their own eyes.

Their inner shock was naturally beyond words.

News of the Demons had been kept circulating only among the highest echelons. Forget the common grunts; even some junior officers were in the dark.

Fortunately, these Northern Soldiers were no greenhorns. As veterans of bloody battles, they believed that anything that could be killed was nothing to fear.

And the field of corpses before them proved that these Demons weren’t quite the invincible beings of legend.

They could be killed by an arrow just like anything else. Aside from their bizarre appearance, they were no different from the goblin dogmen of the Wilderness.

The soldiers quickly calmed down and began pointing and talking amongst themselves.

In contrast, the High Cliff Castle contingent had already withdrawn to their camp and started feasting.

High Cliff Castle’s forces were too small, after all. They were fine for patrolling the walls, but a true siege would leave them stretched thin. Thus, the Lord had directly handed the job over to those better suited for it.

He’d led his troops back to camp for a late-night meal.

A battle was almost certain tomorrow, so these hearty eaters planned to eat their fill, get a good night’s sleep, and finally scratch their itch for a good fight.

They had been idle in Kolon City for some time now, and the peace had been so unnervingly comfortable that their bodies were starting to feel sluggish.

They pestered their Lord every day, asking when they could return to High Cliff Castle. They felt that if they stayed in Kolon any longer, the idleness itself would make them sick.

As for the Demons?

In the words of these brutes: how many Axe swings could a Demon possibly withstand? If one could take three hits, they’d call it a worthy opponent.

The Lord wasn’t particularly worried, either. Based on the performance of that pack of Babu Demons, he was confident his High Cliff Castle troops could slaughter them until they were crying for their mothers.

He was just curious about the true strength of the High Tier Demons. That would allow him to properly judge the balance of power between the two sides.

"Levi, what happened?" Sophia asked cautiously.

If there was anyone present who wanted war the least, it was Sophia.

She had been enjoying the recent peaceful days so much that she’d almost forgotten her worries. She’d been blissfully happy every day, thinking that with the last war over, she could go back to High Cliff Castle, eat and drink for free, and still work to earn money for her own little purse.

But she hadn’t expected the sounds of battle to erupt outside Kolon City again tonight.

This troubled her greatly.

"It’s probably nothing serious. Look at them, they’re eating with such gusto. That doesn’t look like a group that’s facing a major crisis," Heather, the busty Zor Elf, said as she unhurriedly peeled an orange and offered it to Levi.

To be honest, at first, she had only approached him out of a desperate need for a way to reach the surface world and escape the sunless depths of the underground forever.

Now, however, her feelings for the human were pure admiration.

Zor Elves are drawn to the strong, and she was no exception. His power made her instinctively want to cling to him.

But all her attempts at seduction had been like performing for a blind man, making her wonder if she simply wasn’t his type.

’But I’ve asked around,’ she thought. ’Humans generally think bigger is better, and I definitely fit that description. It doesn’t make any sense...’

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