19 The Iceborne

The small group was exhausted. The last few days they had to be wary at all times. They had a difficult fight with a bunch of rats and had to climb hundreds of 1-meter tall stairs in order to get back to the surface.

When they walked through the forest the 3 regular warriors could clearly feel a threatening aura around their Lord and Geralt. Thanks to this none of the animals in the forest dared bother them. Jay did this on purpose as he was tired and wanted to get back as soon as possible, meanwhile, Geralt was unable to control his aura as he had only just gotten his.

Soon after getting out of the forest, the group of survivors got back to the village. Everyone seemed to be extremely busy, low-grade houses were being demolished and mid-grade houses were being built in their place. Other then this the main road was getting built out of stones, something Jay had told architect Gariel to do before he left.

When he got closer to the marketplace, Jay could see architect Gariel. He seemed to be rather busy making a blueprint for the marketplace. In fact, he was so focused on this he only noticed him when he stopped just in front of him.

"My Liege, I am glad you have returned. We are busy upgrading the current low-grade houses, the road you requested is being built and we are also working on a new siege weapon. I hope my work was satisfactory?"

Jay nodded before looking around some more. He was still a little worried, at this point they should have well over 50 people due to the daily increase. Yet he estimated there were only about 30 people in the village right now, and this included the miners who were assisting in the building of the road.

"It seems to be going well, where is General Green?"

For now, he decided not to praise anyone just yet. He wanted to make sure he had a better oversight of the current situation before rewarding those that had done well.

After hearing the general was in the barracks, Jay quickly made his way there. But before he even got into the building he sensed something. It looked like General Green also had the seed of sword intent now. Obviously general Green was still stronger than Geralt though, after all, he had better base stats.

When he entered the barracks he saw General Green talking with 2 D-grade generals. They seemed to be hunched over a map, this brought back memories, reminding him of the first test he had to do in order to become a Lord.

"My lord, you have returned!"

Seeing Jay walk in the General as well as the 2 new talents promptly kneeled.

Jay walked up to the map on the table between them before speaking: "General Green, please fill me in on the situation, who are we fighting?"

General Green looked slightly nervous as he started speaking. Shortly after he had left, one of their soldiers went scouting in the Icy mountains. It seemed like luck was truly on his side since he found a valuable vein of lightstone which started on the surface. Lightstone was a very valuable resource so obviously, the miners were immediately sent there.

But only a few hours had passed before the miners got attacked. A small group of Iceborne came and attacked them.

Even though they managed to kill the first group of Iceborne it didn't stop there. More Iceborne came and so General Green told the miners to come back. Ever since then troops were sent out often to fight the Iceborne, both sides lost a decent amount of warriors leading to the current situation.

The Iceborne were an intelligent race. Their faces looked similar to those of polar bears, with different colors of fur depending on their bloodline.

Usually, the Iceborne would walk on 2 feet just like humans would but if they were in a hurry they would run just like a beast would.

Hearing how everything went on Jay was both glad and disappointed. He was glad that the General didn't hesitate to fight for these valuable resources yet he was heavily disappointed by how basic their attack method was.

The only bit of tactic General Green used was attacking and defending the resource points from different angles. Other then this and the use of formations he didn't do anything more. He didn't know how many Iceborne there were nor did he know their base of operations. These were both pieces of information that absolutely could not be missed.

"I am disappointed in the lack of thought you have shown for our future. You decided to continue playing cat and mouse without any information on our enemies. You haven't even mapped their base despite losing nearly 2 dozen soldiers.

"As punishment, I will name Geralt the new main Commander, you will be demoted to Second-Commander. I sincerely hope you will not act this idiotic again. Next time I will not be this lenient."

Jay felt mixed emotions saying this. He knew general Green had a very low intelligence score but he hadn't expected a general not to think of these basic things. He knew that normally the punishment of such actions should be a lot harsher, especially since he was ruling what could be called a military state. But he needed general Green and he could not afford to punish him more severely this time.

Ignoring the now kneeling general, Jay started giving out orders. For the time being General Green would act as his bodyguard remaining by his side whenever he wasn't in the village, when he was in the village he would continue acting as the drill sergeant. He hoped that by keeping the general close to his side Jay could teach him the intricacies of war and the importance of politics. If he could understand these he would surely be a worthy commander.

After dealing with this he headed to the blacksmith. Right now there were only a few people here, the highest grade blacksmith was a woman called Adriell. When she had just arrived she was just F-grade but now she had grown all the way to E-grade showing a shocking amount of talent. And so he decided to give her the 'Great Blacksmith Manual'.

When this was soulbound to her she immediately managed to get a bunch of insights reaching D-rank. This meant she would be able to make F+ rank weapons, and if she got lucky she would be able to make an E grade weapon.

After this, he headed towards the magic tower. On the third floor, miss Evergreen could be seen working hard. It looked like she had almost finished the body of the first golem which greatly pleased Jay. After giving her the First-Grade golem manual, the ice and earth elemental cores and the 4 magical crystals she seemed exhilarated. These items arrived at just the right time after all the difference between a common golem and a first-grade one was the addition of an elemental core. This would greatly increase the golem's strength and toughness.

Once all of this was done, it was time to prepare for the war. First came intelligence. He heard that they had a soldier who was also an F+ grade spy and so he was promptly sent out, he simply had to follow the Iceborne who were transporting lightstones home.

Once he did this he made his way to his study, after all, he still hadn't opened the package he had gotten in the legacy. The package was rather small but still weighed a couple of kilograms. But once he actually opened the package a wide smile appeared on his face.

In the package there wasn't any sort of weapon or anything that would help in a fight at all, instead, it could be said to be the complete opposite. Before him was an unmarked Lord's seal, something extremely important for politics and handling his future empire.

This seal was an extremely necessary item. The seal would copy the user's mana waves when used. This not only would reveal the general strength of the Lord but it would also be utterly impossible to copy. Something which was extremely important.

Once he safely stored this item he went to sleep. Tomorrow he would meet, and fight, the Iceborne.