NOVEL NEXT Chapter 329: Enemies
Thankfully the borders between duchies, as well as the Central Lands, were not protected by border patrols. At least, not by the actual armies of the kingdom. Considering that the Central Lands are the jewel of the kingdom, the Valorian family is strict on criminal activities in their own territories. Some small-time gangs definitely exist in this place too, but nothing even remotely on the scale of the Vesper Consortium or the Phantom League.
The Central Lands are like Pyongyang, made to look good while the rest of the country is left to fend for themselves.
That's not to say slavery and such don't exist here, it does very much so. However, only the legal side of it, meaning debt slaves, criminal slaves, etc. Kidnapping people to turn them into illegal slaves is significantly less common in the Central Lands.
We stepped through the border of Greenvale and the royal territories without being obstructed at all. My initial impression was that the lands were the same as in the duchy I was transmigrated to, but that opinion quickly changed once we entered the nearest city.
Braedon and Aldoria were the biggest cities I've been to thus far, and the difference to this one was like homeless shelters compared to luxury hotels. Okay, that might've been an exaggeration, but the contrast was stark. Greenvale was stuck in the ugly Middle Ages while the Central Lands were centuries ahead in the Renaissance era or something.
The fact that we were in a world of fantasy was quickly apparent too due to the many quality-of-life improving artifacts like street lights, self-cleaning garbage bins, and road heaters which made it so that city streets were never obstructed by winter conditions for long as the snow melted, and it also heated the city up, letting people get out of their homes even in the coldest months. It was likely the culmination of multiple decades worth of hundreds of Artificer classes working in tandem to upgrade the roads to such a state.
Although it wasn't the capital city of the Vraven kingdom, the one we arrived in was still bigger than Aldoria or Braedon. Supposedly more than a million people lived here. The buildings no longer resembled shabby construction of the Winterwood county, as multi-story homes were rather common, and the city itself was very wide.
Anyhow, we began enacting our plan, which was renting multiple carriages and pretending to be merchants. Vex handed us a small bag of coins for the operation costs, saying that although it wasn't planned by Black Fang to use such a method to enter Silverwind territory she herself approved, so the silver-haired girl financed us. We then loaded the carts with produce. Some were cheap like wheat and such, but we also had to have expensive items since otherwise having so many strong guards made no sense. Yes, we planned to pretend that most of us were merchants while others were guards.
We were stopped by patrolling guards a few times along the way, but not much else occurred. They gave us no trouble. We traveled north alongside the Silverwind duchy's border so that we could enter the territory farther from Greenvale. The Phantom League likely posted most of their sentries alongside the direct border between the two duchies, so we would face fewer dangers as so. This method inadvertently also allowed me to enter a total of three central land cities, which included the capital of the 'World', as the locals so arrogantly prefer to call it.
Valorian was the city's name, just like the royal family's. It was by far the biggest settlement I've seen, with over 10 million people living in it. Such a place must be brimming with opportunities, something I will be sure to exploit with my portal once we're done with the mission.
However, we didn't dwindle around. We loaded our carts with a few more products to seem like real merchants and then finally turned the caravan to Silverwind.
Just like it was when stepping into the Central Lands, reaching Fujimori territory wasn't hard at all either.
Our caravan moved into the nearest city where we sold our stuff off and also left the carriages and animals behind. We even turned a small profit, how nice. From here on out our plan was to sneak to the place where Consortium intelligence reported a highly probable drug operation to be taking place.
We could burn the fields down and rush back, completing the mission. Though I don't know how happy Black Fang would be with us only ruining a bit of their psychedelic operations.
"Ghost smells nothing troublesome." Blossom, our primary guide informed us.
We've been traveling through the lands without obstruction, however, it was now time to move off from the road and head towards Phantom League territory. Just like the Consortium, they didn't place their outposts and other territories close to Silverwind's settlements. It's almost like nobility and the criminal underworld had an unwritten agreement not to bother the other party.
They were coexisting rather amicably.
I was brought out of my thinking about few minutes later when my dog-kin frantically shouted. "People ahead! No, wait… They're all around us! Close to a hundred! We are completely surrounded!"
Damn! How did they find us this quick? We've been very inconspicuous thus far. And their numbers… Something's not right.
<Master… Blossom is so sorry…> Blossom's dejected voice entered my mind. Yeah, I understand her frustrations. She didn't sense Vex at all before, her nose somewhat failed during the first-round massacre due to all the blood diluting her senses, and now she let an entire army get this close to us. Blossom likely feels that she's been failing me constantly. However, it makes no sense that she didn't smell them sooner since they were coming from all angles, thus the wind should've carried their scent to her no matter from which direction it blew.
The only thing I can think of is that their smell was being suppressed by an artifact or an AoE spell.
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"Let's break out of the encirclement by spearheading an attack in one direction." Blossom's revelation was met with shocked gasps, but my command brought most out of their daze.
Gragan hoisted her giant axe off her back and lowered the visor of her helmet to be in place. "Finally! After weeks of being sissies, a good battle is ahead of us!" Her shout was reciprocated by her two surviving Heralds.