Chapter 41 - Mysterious Circumstances

Chapter 41 – Mysterious Circumstances

Author's Note: None Today!

The queen was furious that Ren and Motoyasu refused to train, and thus she issued an order barring them from leaving the country.

The two of them had given up on the training entirely, instead preferring to lounge around or fight monsters on their own. This was quite annoying, but I mostly let Naofumi deal with it. I focused most of my time on the training instead, preferring not to indulge myself in such matters.

Naofumi, however, was constantly berating Ren and Motoyasu on the fact that they did not want to train with us. They did not care much about his complaints and called him a self-serving cheater.

In the end, Mirellia came up with a compromise. I wasn't part of it, as I spent all day training.

If Ren and Motoyasu were to eradicate some strange monsters that kept popping up around the world, which my spies had also informed me about, and that the two would participate in the wave next week, she would guarantee their freedom. They hastily agreed and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Regarding the Hengen Muso training, Rishia had apparently learned to identify the energy inside of her. Eda and Welst also had some significant improvements, and Indigo also did pretty well. I, however, didn't progress very far, most likely due to the fact that I was a hero.

After the queen struck the deal with Ren and Motoyasu, she had announced that the Hengen Muso training was over.

"Why shall we halt the training now? We were making tremendous progress."

"Due to the strange monsters emerging all across the world, the training must halt for now. Would you please help the other heroes in eliminating the threats?"

"I will eliminate the threats. However, Queen Mirellia, I must eliminate those in Arcium before dealing with the ones in your country. I am the President of Arcium after all, and I first and foremost owe my allegiance to that country."

The queen thought about it for a second, but then she agreed.

"Very well. Come back when you have dealt with the issue."

When I teleported back to Messeblick, I was informed by the Ministry of Defense that there were reports of some mysterious monsters in the newly industrialized city of Sauderhausen. There were heavy coal reserves nearby, so it had quickly become an important city and center of commerce.

"Got it. I'll deal with it immediately."

As soon as I arrived, there were a swarm of raccoon looking creatures with strange shells on their back. They were mainly targeting the grain stocks outside of town which were frequented by workers, wreaking havoc on a few plots of farmland and injuring a few people.

The army was also there, having already eliminated much of the threat. They were praising the new effectiveness of my Light Maintenance Rifles, of which they preferred to mount the larger caliber versions on filolials and horses for maximum mobility.

Then, I suddenly came up with a genius idea.

"Rojeel. Do me a favor real quick. Could you lay down right there as bait?"

"I'm not sure what you're getting at there, boss."

"Just trust me. When have my ideas ever failed?"

I covered Rojeel in rye and BioSeed plant stalks. Then, the army and I proceeded to build a barricade of sandbags behind him.

A soldier chucked an explosive at the rabid racoon, hoping to draw their attention.

Hundreds of them charged at me, extremely infuriated. Saliva dripped out of their mouths, and their fur was frizzled in rage.

We waited for them to approach one thousand feet. Then, I gave the order.

"Fire!"

Countless rounds of lead completely punctured the monsters, them all dropping dead upon being hit. The crazed beings did not know how to stop or when to retreat, and they kept coming.

Soon enough, they were all dead. Good thing most the army was around the first level cap, some not quite there and others surpassing it, or not the bullets wouldn't have done much damage.

"Indigo, you're on corpse duty. Rojeel, you can get up."

I walked over and picked up one of the dead racoons with gloves on. Who knew what diseases they had?

Indigo kicked all the corpses into a giant pile, which I then proceeded to burn with a fireball. I couldn't let any disease spread from the racoons, lest an epidemic spread around the country which would be a pain to deal with.

According to the map from the Ministry of Defense, these monsters were spotted all over the world. If we wanted to survive, we needed to build a wall.

I sent an urgent letter via pigeon to the parliament, asking them to gather a bunch of earth magic adventurers to erect a barrier to the east. That seemed to be the source of the issues.

Concerning the east, Arcium was technically no longer a republic, but a confederation. During the Hengen Muso training, where I was completely zoned out, one of the larger kingdoms directly bordering the east of Arcium had a coup, launched by revolutionaries inspired by Arcium's similar revolution. It was quite bloodless, and the king fled the realm. The revolutionaries then confiscated all the noble's land and declared an independent Republic of Montereira.

Literally a few hours later, they changed their mind. They were afraid of the animosities of other kingdoms towards the new revolution, and the old king's possible return. Due to this development, their leaders decided the only way they could survive was to unite with Arcium. But they didn't want Arcium to boss them around or vice versa. They wanted an equal union where all nations had equal rights and privileges.

The Arcian leadership was very interested in this. Montereira was bountiful in natural resources, while Arcium was more developed and full of new revolutionary technology. The two could get extremely good benefits from cooperation.

Thus, the two countries came to a compromise a few hours later, at a meeting in the Montereira capital. They came up with the Arcian Confederation act.

This Confederation was a union of the two countries, giving each one equal rights with the other. This created a federal state, with myself still as president and the president of Montereira as vice president. The prime minister was Adria, the commander of Arcium's rebels during the revolution, and the deputy prime minister was from Montereira.

Seats in the new Federal Parliament would be proportionally distributed in the Confederation based on population, with each constituency averaging 20,000 to 25,000 people. Arcium's current parliament would transfer over to the Federal Parliament, while Montereira would hold elections in half a month to elect their share of the Parliament's seats. Overall, this arrangement was quite fair, benefitting both sides equally.

I had not heard of this development until my arrival at Messeblick, which became the capital of the Confederation due to its modernization and size. I was quite fine with it, as it didn't adversely affect anyone. I even made a public speech lauding it.

Upon my arrival in Montereira in order to build the wall, the people there were quite content with my arrival. I shook hands with my vice president, which turned out to be quite a swell guy, and the deputy prime minister, which shared most of my views. We said our goodbyes as they headed towards Messeblick to join the parliament there.

Another good thing about Montereira joining the confederation was the fact that they had plenty of good magicians, and an absurd amount of earth mages. The wall would be built in no time. Parliament already sent me a letter via pigeon confirming that they had passed a bill allowing for the construction of an earthen wall.

While administering the building of the wall, I had received news from the locals. Apparently, there was something called the Spirit Tortoise, which had caused the strange appearance of the monsters. The monster was big enough to carry a whole city on it. For reference, I would look like a splotch standing next to it, and I was over 6 feet tall! It was one of the guardian beasts, which were tasked with defending the world. However, to accomplish this, it must kill two-thirds of all living creatures in the world, which was a definite no go for me.

Apparently, some ancient heroes sealed the tortoise away, but they carried the knowledge of doing so to their graves.

Further intelligence reports indicated that Ren and Motoyasu were heading towards the Spirit Tortoise themselves to try to kill it. I would head there as soon as possible.

The wall was completed surprisingly soon.

Soon, I received terrible news.

The Spirit Tortoise was moving towards heavily populate areas. It had already destroyed five cities, three forts and two castles, causing tremendous causalities. Thank god it hasn't reached the Confederation yet. Melromarc formed a coalition with a few countries that were in the Spirit Tortoise's path, and the Confederation joined as well, fearing that the tortoise might move in its direction. This wasn't certain, as it could head towards Melromarc instead, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

One of the countries in the coalition launched an offensive against the Spirit Tortoise, and they got utterly obliterated. Scary thing is, they weren't even that far from the Confederation.

I immediately headed towards the tortoise with my party. No Confederation soldiers joined the fight, as I had tasked them to garrison the border instead.

After a while of travelling, I had reached the location of the Spirit Tortoise. Man, that thing was massive.

Its shell was like a mountain and a ruined city was on its back. The plan was for Naofumi to hold the line, and myself to go inside of the tortoise and destroy it from the inside. At least, that was what the ancient heroes did to stop it, and it had apparently worked.

Seeing the sight, I retreated and went to a large tent quite the distance away from the tortoise. A large group of military leaders were gathered there for a meeting on how to destroy the tortoise.

Why could I never catch a break?

Chapter 42 out soon!