29.

After the war cry of the soldiers, it was replaced by the sadness of loss. Their comrades who lost their lives while doing their best to survive the war.

"Commander Charles, I leave the reclaiming of bodies to you. Commander Dale, I leave the reorganizing of the army to you. As for the rest of the commanders, tell them to gather at the front. The war is not over yet." I said seriously and they bowed to show that they understood.

I ran towards the front where the elite soldiers and the Royal Guards were and looked for Commander Yol, the commander of the elite soldiers. He is one of the strongest commanders of the territory. He also served my father when he was alive and he vowed his allegiance to me when I took over even when he could just go and serve another lord.

"Commander Yol, the war is not over yet. The enemy camp is still standing and we need to help out Wilhelm who was tasked to destroy the enemy's magic gun." I said seriously while gripping my spear. I didn't have the royal guards come with us since they are only tasked to defend the territory, after that, they have nothing to do with us.

'Hang on for quite a bit more, Uncle Wilhelm.' I thought. Commander Yol nodded and had me borrow one of the horses.

"Men! The battle inside the walls is finished but the war is still not over! Go and trample the enemy's army camp to your hearts content!" I shouted and urged my horse to run at the front. The elite soldiers followed after me and we quickly arrived at the enemy camp only to be stupefied by what we saw.

Dead bodies were all around the camp and it was all quiet.

'Did Uncle Wilhelm annihilated them?' I thought as I jumped down from the horse. The elite soldiers jumped down as well. We scoured the area and I saw Uncle Wilhelm inside a tent reading a bunch of papers.

"Uncle... Wilhelm?" I called out to him and he looked at me with a serious face.

"Aegis... I'm afraid that the Western Coalition didn't attack us with their whole army." Wilhelm said to me.

"I figured as much." I replied to him which slightly surprised him.

"You... knew?" Wilhelm asked me.

"Yes." I replied with a straight face.

"Aren't you curious that we haven't seen any soldiers or should I say their elite soldiers wearing blankšum armor? They also didn't bring a cavalry at all. I also noticed that other than the one you faced, there's no king class aura user or a 6th circle mage in their ranks? We haven't seen any big wigs in the war, heck, they don't even have a head commander." I continued by laying down what I've noticed from the war just now.

"True. It was indeed concerning. When did you notice?" Wilhelm said with a frown.

"When the messenger arrived before us at the start of the war. Western Coalition are not barbarians who didn't show honor before a war but that man is like a barbarian to me." I said which made Wilhelm nod.

"About that messenger, I tied him up for you. Consider it a gift for winning the war without me." He said while I have a huge grin in my face.

"Oh how generous of you, Uncle Wilhelm. I'll take care of him later. But for now, bring him back. We need to restore our territory as fast as possible. We don't have a clue whether the real main army will come and attack us now that our defensive wall was shattered." I said to him and he nodded.

With that said, we both returned to my territory and started the process of rebuilding the territory.

{A week later}

Thankfully, no invaders came to follow up on us and attacked us while we're done. The reinforcements that came were also stupefied to learn that the war was already finished, we didn't let them go back without providing them some gold for compensations and they left our land with smiles on their faces.

As for those who died in the war, men, comrades, and families were gathered at a land near the walls. I had Wilhelm set this space up for the honorable soldiers who died for our cause.

It took us a week to collect the bodies of the soldiers who died in the war. Wilhelm, their comrades, and I brought the corpse of the soldiers back to their family. The families who lost their husbands, or their son, were saddened by the death of a family member.

A woman even slapped me for their loss and when the soldier was about to reprimand her, I held them off and could only express my apologies. The person realized what she just did but I didn't blame her and told her that their family will receive the support of my territory for them to start over. It wasn't enough of a compensation for a life lost but to them it was enough.

As for those who were unrecognizable, all we could give their family was a badge of honor. We could only explain that we didn't find any remains because they were either trampled to death, slammed by mages' spells, and etc., but we didn't told them that.

As for the enemy soldiers, we burned their bodies and spread their ashes at the farm lands so that they can at least provide the land some nourishment. That was the highest respect I can give for the dead enemy. Although they were just following orders, they still killed my soldiers and burned my territory with no remorse.

After burying the honorable soldiers, I let the soldiers mourn while I left the place. I can't allow myself as a ruler to avoid my duties. After returning to my room at my manor, Wilhelm came in with a pot of tea.

"Uncle Wilhelm, what do you think should we do next?" I asked him for his opinion while holding the reports of the loot we gained from the enemy soldiers.

"I suggest that we should train far more skilled spies and send them to the Western Coalition. We were never informed about such information. I'm not calling the others incompetent because of this event, they just simply lacked the numbers and experience. The enemy also came through a teleportation array in their borders so we would be receiving the news late anyway." Wilhelm said and I thought about it. Restoring my territory was always first on the list, what I was asking is what we should do after that.

"We should also recruit another batch of trained soldiers to replace almost half of the soldiers that were lost in the war and continuously expand our military strength. Because of our feat in the war, many nobles would seek our banner and its the time for us to expand our contacts in the noble circle. We should also cast out those who were allied to us but were not willing to lend us a hand in our times of need." Wilhelm gave me a good suggestion on what we should work out next.

"We can also ask the magic tower to build a branch inside our territory and arrange a teleportation circle connected to our allies to improve the trade and relations between territories." Wilhelm said and I mulled over what Wilhelm said.

"Can our budget handle all of the expense if we do it all at the same time?" Wilhelm was stunned by my words.

"We can only do one at a time, Aegis. But if we do have more excess money, we can work on it." Wilhelm said after considering the cost of rebuilding and training new recruits that were essential for our territory.

"Hehe. Then we should be able to handle all three of them." I said with a grin.

"What are you going to do now...?" Wilhelm looked at me with a weird gaze. Ignoring his gaze, I spread out the Hebrion Empire's map and pointed two locations that could solve our financial problems.

"This land near Duke Whiterun has a rumor that a huge gold mine was in there but to this day, no one had seen a single piece of gold coming from that land. Duke Whiterun was interested at first but when he searched the place all over, he believed that the rumor was a lie, he didn't reclaim the land for himself. As for me? I believe in that rumor. I heard that there's a small waterfall in that land." I said and I didn't need to finish what I'm going to say before Uncle Wilhelm understood me.

"Just where do you get this kind of information and how sure are you?" Wilhelm asked me, his brows knitted in dissatisfaction.

"Hehe. Does it matter where I knew the information from? All that matters is that we extract it for ourselves and strengthen our territory. It is also a kind of revenge for the Dukes who targeted us. As for how sure I am, I'll say that it should be 60? No, 70% sure about it." I said to Wilhelm. Although in truth, it was 100% true since a wanderer managed to enter it in accident and reported it to the Duke.

"If there's a gold mine there, dig it up and empty the mine as fast as you can but stop when suspicions arise. We need to mine it quickly and secretly. We're not leaving a single gold nugget behind for the Duke to enjoy." I said to Wilhelm with a wide smile.

Wilhelm shook his head at my antics but he just let it go. He didn't care about how I know about this if it could strengthen our territory. He's already used to my weird behaviours and sometimes just thought that its just a whim of mine.

"As for this place, I'm going to ask this land as a reward from Uncle Gilltian but we could start mining two mines there, an Iron mine and a medium sized goldmine. We could start now since its near my territory and we could legitimately say that we found it after scouring the place since its also an unreclaimed land." I said to Wilhelm and he just nodded his head and proceeded to follow my instructions.

{Two months later}

Time flew by once again as we focused all our attention in rebuilding the territory. The civilians who volunteered to help in rebuilding their home greatly helped us and we paid them for their hard work. I even helped out by doing the hard work. Many people stopped me but I just laughed it off and even teased them by carrying even more heavy materials all by myself. The men who helped out had smiles on their faces after seeing their silly ruler who works with commoners like them.

With the rebuilding of the territory going at a quick pace, the civilians who were evacuated slowly returned to the place they called home.

My sister Felicia, and the servants returned as well. The worries on Felicia's face was eased after seeing that both of us are fine. She returned to the manor to continue her lessons from Aunt Lisa and Uncle Wilhelm.

Two months were enough for the news about the war to spread out even to the most isolated baron and many nobles were shocked about the events that transpired in the war. Some nobles were quick on their wits and sent us gifts of goodwill to congratulate us for the war.

The nobles who turned their backs on me were now burning in shame and fury. Because of what they did, they lost the opportunity to stand under a strong banner that can protect them.

I accepted their gifts with a smile on my face. It didn't matter if they are just gifts of goodwill. This will pave the path for my banner to gather more allies and filter out those who wouldn't stand on our side in times of danger. Many nobles realized it and they only had one shot of staying under my banner, if they failed, they would lose everything by offending a duke.

Not only that, I seem to have gained a few titles after the war. Apparently, I gained my former title much earlier this time. My title as a <Mage Slayer> spread out all over Hebrion while another title was coined after the soldiers saw my appearance in the war. They called me the <Lancer of Red>.

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This is the power rankings for those who are confused.

Mages - Aura user

1st Circle - Unclassified(Don't ask me it was written in the wiki)

2nd Circle - Pawn Class

3rd Circle - Horse/Knight Class

4th Circle - Rook/Tower Class

5th Circle - Bishop Class

6th Circle - King/Queen Class (Sword Saint since its the peak that they know of)

As for Wilhelm, he's traversing a new path of aura users to 7th rank. He's not a 7th rank yet, just bordering it. You could say that he's only a half-step 7th rank or a Quasi 7th rank.