Descending Into A Novel-Chapter 86:Rayleigh Von Mez (16)

The vampires were a pain in the neck to try and convince.

Being so isolated for so long, as well as their immense personal strength. They were fully confident in themselves, believing that they could eradicate the Virex Empire if they ever reached this part of the north.

Rayleigh was unable to directly show them any bits of the future as well. Largely because he was afraid of the Punishment.

In the end, after revealing his identity. Pretending to cast several spells that let him see into the future, and basically becoming a fraud oracle. They believed him.

He did feel a bit bad for deceiving them like that. But the whole continent was on the line here!

Now that he had their emblem of approval however, that made it significantly easier for him to help convince the other races to go into even deeper hiding.

After paying back the time spent on his true future time clones. He set foot on his journey to prevent the war.

He continued travelling throughout the continent, visiting the different races. Convincing them to hide, and supporting them with said hiding—helping to stockpile food, helping with magic. His identity as a human let him easily move through human cities to obtain supplies.

Despite the prices for many goods rising due to war preparations, and the fact that the other races used a different currency system. By bartering and selling any specialty items. They were able to obtain the funds needed.

It did hurt Rayleigh on the inside a little. As a mage, seeing all these precious resources being sold away just to buy stuff like grains and metal was painful. He could have used those!

Even his own meagre savings were all used up. Money earned from the occasional commission, bounty or when he sold any artifacts, relics or charms he made.

But he grit his teeth and used it all up anyways, money could be earned again. Lives couldn’t be reclaimed from death. At least, not on too large of a scale. It had to be earned.

Pulling his hood over himself, Rayleigh left the small town of Triyu. Casting several spells to hide himself before returning to the one of the beastkin cities in the north.

Obtaining the trust of the beastkins was also harder then he expected. The vampires all consolidated under Bloody Mist King, the strongest vampire currently. As long as Rayleigh got his trust, he got the trust of all vampires.

The beastkins however, were completely different. The term beastkin simply referred to all humanoids with animal-like characteristics.

Anna was a cat beastkin, there were fox beastkins, horse beastkins, rat beastkins, crocodile beastkins, deer beastkins. Each one with different features and different traits.

There was no one singular beastkin leader when they were all so spread out and diverse. Often clashing with themselves. The majority of the beastkins in the north were the wolf beastkins and the bear beastkins. But they constituted the strongest of the beastkins.

Lucky for him however, since he had raised Anna and frequently helped other beastkin settlements in hiding within the Virex Empire. He had enough reputation to be trusted to enter their cities. From there, it was just a game of trying to persuade them. As well as use them to spread the word to the other beastkins.

***

Finished with convincing most of the beastkin, Rayleigh set foot south. Although several races also lived south, the most prominent was naturally—the dwarves.

The dwarves were extremely prevalent throughout the south. Most lived inside mountains, hollowed out over centuries. Making then easy to find.

After deposing their nobility several centuries ago. The dwarves were now all ruled by a council of seven, each a ruler of their own respective territories. So he just had to convince at least four the of seven.

Easy enough, one could be bribed. Two were convinced right away when he revealed his identity as Rayleigh Von Mez. The last one required a lot more persuasion and proof however.

Finally, after giving a quick speech to the gathered council. Letting them debate and put it to a vote (which was won by the four he convinced). The dwarves were officially halting all trade with the Virex Empire and migrating further south to hide.

That only left the trickiest one. The elves in the east. Once he managed to convince them, the rest of the other races—such as the merfolk would soon follow suit since the top dogs had all done the same.

They were prideful, snobbish, and refused to even communicate with the other races unless you were on equal or superior level to them. It was near impossible to enter their cities unless given permission. Heck, it was hard to even see an elf. He had never even seen one until the war.

He really wished he had asked Sophia, but barging in would probably be even worse. They might respect him for his strength but they wouldn’t listen. Even if he had the trust of the other races.

Rayleigh only knew the rough location of one of the cities. The elven army frequently received supplies and reinforcements, making it clear there was definitely an elven city nearby the elven battlefront. Where exactly was unknown.

He sighed, teleporting to the elven battlefront where he had first returned from the future. Over the past few months, he had barely even slept. While he could probably go for months or years without stuff like food, drink or sleep. Doing these things had become one of those small habits that grounded him. It kept him human, rather then becoming some sort of machine.

Arriving at where the elven army camped, Rayleigh flew up into the air. Searching around for possible locations. Elves loved nature so it was probably in a forest right?

Except, aside from the plains he was in. It was forest everywhere he could see. It would take him weeks just to scour through trying to find any trace of the magic that hid them. While he was confident in being able to find one and break in. He didn’t want to forcefully intrude, and it would also take too long.

According to the timeline, the war should have started nearly half a year ago already! With Rayleigh’s efforts in convincing most of the races to hide, there had been no attacks on the empire yet.

His father didn’t have the Jus ad bellum to wage a war that bloody and intense. Waiting for an event to fall into his lap, and if there wasn’t one? He could just create it.

There was no point in trying to incite any trouble within the empire. Most citizens were grateful to his father and looked up to him. He may have been a horrible father but he was a great emperor at least. He also held absolute sway within the empire. None of the nobles could do anything even if they all gathered together.

He doubted he could convince anyone to rebel against the empire anyways. The best option were the few remnants of the seven kingdoms, but most were long gone by now. He didn’t have any friends, and he had never even met his family on his mother’s side.

Judging by how they treated his mother, the de Valois duchy were all bastards anyways.

Resigned, Rayleigh started his search for the elves. Flying over the forest, all the while pushing his mana senses and magic to its near limits as he tried to find the slightest hint of any magic in the large forest.

A few times, he discovered several old buildings. Abandoned by its residents and left to time. He was tempted to explore some of them but he simply marked it down on a map before continuing his search.

Ruins, wreckages, remnants of old civilizations. Caravans whose merchandise was long lost, the occasional traveler or explorer in the forest. The forest was so large that there were likely hundreds more of such things hidden within.

He even came across a massive skeleton of a winged serpent, each rib bone the same size of the trunks in the forest. The flesh had completely rotted away, leaving only pristine white bone and a few scales. Which he stored inside of his tenth storage dimension. Good things shouldn’t be wasted after all!

Rayleigh scratched his head, he was looking for elves. Why did he seem to keep stumbling into everything except for elves?

there were at least a few million elves in total, a pittance compared to the billions of humans but the city he was looking for had to have at least a few hundred thousand. At this point, was there really a need for him to convince them to go into hiding when they were already so good at it?

No. He had to at least tell them. Even the other races seldom communicated with each other until the coalition was formed. If the elves went and got themselves into a war. The rest of the races would follow in an attempt to protect themselves.

But at this rate, it would take him a month to find these damn elves!