The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Defend the Dungeon-Chapter 247: Without Any Cost (11)

Karin Krexar didn’t know much about war. She knew even less about combat, and she had read no more than a couple of general books on military history and strategy. She was far more familiar with ceremonial dress than weapons of war. Yet, she held command as the highest-ranking delegate on the war council for a reason.

Bang!

A man in his early fifties wearing a single star on his collar burst open the door to the command tent. Covering both his arms were massive mechanical gauntlets, each nearly eight centimeters thick. Those arms were fully capable of shattering Karin Krexar’s slender, elegant limbs like twigs and wrenching a scream from her throat in an instant.

The mechanical gauntlet was a weapon born of relentless modification and brutal reinforcement. It was a custom-enhanced war machine, the pinnacle of mechanized armor that the grizzled veteran now claimed as an extension of himself.

"Councilor! This is outrageous!"

Karin looked at the man shouting in front of her with a mixture of disappointment and pity. This was a battlefield, a place this man had spent over thirty years preparing for. Nonetheless, it was pathetic for him to have no integrity, competence, or even the dignified bitterness of old age. His life must’ve been simple, survivable with only bluster and bravado.

Watching the brigade commander strain the veins in his neck and flush red with rage, Karin found herself almost laughing.

"You arrested my quartermaster without even informing me?! At a time like this, with the enemy right at our gates?!"

"The arrest was made urgently due to significant risk of evidence tampering."

"Evidence tampering? I don’t even know what the crime is!"

Just as the commander tried to argue further, Karin tossed a stack of documents onto the table.

Thud.

"You should know."

"What’s this..."

The brigade commander picked them up with his unarmored hand. Despite being nearly sixty and indulging in drinking and smoking, his muscles were grotesquely overdeveloped. There were undeniable traces of Visage, used to enhance his body.

The Krexar family’s public stance was to avoid mechanized bodies, supposedly to fully experience human weakness. In truth, it was a populist gesture to win the votes of the lower class who couldn’t afford augmentation. Even aside from that, Karin had always disliked body enhancements. Maybe it was because she was born with a body that needed no improvement.

"Hmm?"

Even in this situation, the commander’s eyes drifted down her long, elegant legs as he stooped down to pick up the papers. He blinked, confused.

"I tried to organize it simply. You seriously don’t understand it even after reading? Your instincts are pretty dull, huh? Most of the charges trace right back to you."

"Councilor! That’s absurd!"

"Page six. The budget report for the iron division’s maintenance is a mess."

A vein bulged on the commander’s forehead when Karin abruptly switched to informal speech.

"You messed with core components like reactive gears?"

She’d spent over five years on the parliamentary audit committee. A mech brigade that had never faced a proper internal investigation could be completely dismantled within four hours. Even without knowing what each item was, the numbers alone made it obvious. None of them matched.

"You’re wasting time with accounting while the enemy’s right in front of us?! I’ve spent three years building this brigade!"

"You’ve been embezzling from that brigade for three years. As of now, all your duties are suspended."

Military police surrounded him.

"This is madness. Hey! Get your hands off me! Why are the rest of you just standing there? Are you insane?!"

The other officers remained silent.

"Tch."

They’d already crossed over to her side long ago. He hadn’t even noticed. Pitiful.

Once he finally read the mood, he lowered his voice and tried to reason with Karin. "We can’t afford infighting right now, not when the enemy’s right outside. Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding..."

Karin ignored him and folded her arms, turning to the sharp-featured man in his early forties.

"Intelligence officer. Continue your report."

The message was clear: that pathetic man wasn't worth their attention anymore. He truly wasn’t. What the messengers were reporting now was far more shocking than any military corruption.

The officer cleared his throat and resumed. "Yes, sir. We’ve confirmed the complete annihilation of imperial army squads eight and seven. When compiled with this morning’s report..."

"What? Annihilated?! You didn’t report that to me!"

The brigade commander’s voice was drowned out by the sound of the map table's upper boards being flipped.

Clatter. Clatter. Clatter...

"At present, the imperial defensive line at Filnas has completely collapsed."

"Impossible..."

"Take him out. He can confess the rest at any time. We’re in the middle of a war. Let’s not waste time. Come clean and receive leniency."

As the former commander was dragged out, Karin Krexar turned her eyes back to the operations board. "Who did this? Did a Wizard from Azure descend, moved by our cause? I could use the insight of a proper war expert here."

"We have limited intel on that. However, based on reconstructed evidence... the attacker seems to rely mainly on a sword."

"Didn’t they say traces of ice magic were found as well?"

"Y-yes... Please look at the next image."

The intelligence officer flipped the board. What appeared wasn’t a painting, but a detailed still-frame capture, a photograph. The processing took five hours and was not widely used within the Free Confederation. Only one in ten citizens had ever even seen one. Even messengers only used them in the most critical cases.

"This was from the first annihilation. The strike pierced a ten-centimeter iron plate at the waist of the iron man unit."

"Hmm..."

"So we’re talking swordmaster level?"

"All four of the empire’s recognized swordmasters are currently stationed in Ember."

"They wouldn’t be insane enough to destroy their own supply lines."

"A swordmaster and a mage, moving together?"

"Could it be that the gods have chosen to help our Confederation?" a middle-aged man muttered from a corner of the room.

Karin smirked and pointed at another image. "If we’re talking about piety, the Empire’s far more devout. If someone is helping us... it’s probably a demon."

Karin also thought, Then I should be the one to take that demon’s hand. No one else.

The image showed corpses torn apart by massive claws. Most of the dead had been cleanly decapitated or frozen, but on the outskirts, there were shredded corpses, mangled beyond recognition.

"Councilor, perhaps we should report this to the central command?"

"Report what? That we don’t know anything?"

"Even just a note that something unexplainable is happening..."

"No," Karin Krexar replied firmly. "There will be no report. We’ll continue to advance, tracking these traces of enemy annihilation. And all of this..." She gestured at the map board with deliberate confidence. "...will be counted as our achievement."

***

"Whew..."

Karin Krexar sank deep into the sofa. She let her eyes glide up and down the blue-haired woman standing silently by the door, sword at her waist. Her gaze lingered on the woman’s pale, elegant neckline.

"Secretary. Ever consider growing your hair out?"

"It would obstruct my vision."

"Hm. I think it would suit you."

The woman by the door said nothing. She didn’t even blink.

The raven-haired beauty lounging on the couch crossed her legs and whispered in a teasing tone, almost flirtatious, despite being of the same sex. "That neckline... You shouldn’t expose it so casually. It’s dangerous. Only I should be allowed to see it."

No response. The secretary remained still, hands lightly resting on the hilt of her sword.

"Alright, alright. Let’s talk business. Can I have your attention now?"

The secretary’s lips parted slightly. "Go ahead."

At around 175 centimeters, the secretary was tall, and she was about ten centimeters taller than Karin herself. If Karin Krexar was a beauty painted in jet black and deep crimson, then the woman before her looked carved from icy sapphire, cold and statuesque.

"That brigade commander folded surprisingly easily, didn’t he?"

"Your assassination would have had zero chance of success at that moment. If he retained even a shred of rationality, submission was the only option."

"He didn’t even know you existed. Still think the chance was zero?"

"You had already secured full control of the brigade. Someone else would have intervened."

"Well, technically it wasn’t me but my family that had them by the throat, wasn’t it?"

"..."

"Silence is dangerous in moments like this."

"It was all thanks to your esteemed reputation, councilor."

Karin snorted and waved her hand as if brushing off the performance. Each flick of her wrist sent her long, silky hair cascading down.

"Enough. Stop it."

Louis Claude was her purest and most loyal subordinate. She was not someone assigned by her family. Twenty years ago, she had seen the orphan girl fight off seven others by herself and was possessed, somehow. Karin spent all her allowance to buy her loyalty.

"It’s been over two decades now..." Louis trailed off.

"You heard the meeting just now, right?"

"Yes. You said we’d take all the credit for ourselves."

"That was just misdirection. You have to offer a little lie to hide the real scheme."

"What are you planning to do?"

"I want you to find that unidentified angel."

"You want me to do it?"

Karin nodded, her gaze fixed on her aide’s slightly wavering eyes. To achieve her goal, she needed more than loyalists from the Confederation. She needed a force of her own, independent of the family, allegiance, or politics. She needed someone who would move solely for her, like the woman standing before her.

Karin had no intention of ending her career as just another councilor filling out her noble house’s roster. With both sides’ main forces pinned down in Embermere, there would be no dramatic shifts in the heartland. So, she threw the dice, and surprisingly, it was beginning to pay off.

"Right. You can’t trust them. All they care about is selling gear. I’ve kept them in line for now, but there’s no telling what they’re plotting. I’m sure they’ve already reached out to the eldest son and the second son."

"..."

"I’m counting on you. If you succeed, it’ll paint a perfect picture. The great commander who swayed the battlefield’s lone sovereign sounds poetic, doesn’t it?"

"Understood."

***

A short scream sounded, but it barely qualified as a scream. The sound of blood spurting and a person collapsing after being decapitated echoed louder.

Thwack.

[Experience increased by 3.]

There wasn’t much time until sunrise. I had to move quickly.

Fwing!

A blind arrow quivered in a corpse’s back. I hurled it aside, then beheaded the panicked archer. The leather collar around his neck split cleanly in half, and a jet of blood burst forth.

[Experience increased by...]

Detection.

The hunt was over. Within a hundred-meter radius, not a single human remained alive. I had let around ten slip away. Those humans had sharp instincts, commanders who had either mounted up in time or sacrificed their men to escape. Nonetheless, I didn’t give chase.

"Gaaah!"

The scream that followed sounded far more agonized than anything my own victims had uttered.

Shhhk!

Blood splattered. A far more violent hunter than me, one who loathed humans with a deeper intensity, was cleaning up the rest.

Years ago, humans hunted wolves in these woods. Now, all the strong ones were concentrated on an island elsewhere. One wolf, who had never forgotten, wandered the darkness spilling human blood. Even after all this killing, I felt none of the pleasure humans spoke of.

I left the mop-up to Brody Valdorf and activated my wide-range absorption. By the time I had devoured half the battlefield, a system message popped up.

[Your Wisdom stat has reached 100!]

[Stat efficiency increased by an additional 10%!]

Just one more step remained. At the same time, the pale green glow that had drifted from one corpse to another, pooled in diagonal lines, and soaked into the soil started to vanish. As if it had never existed, darkness stitched the forest back together.

I opened my status window. All stats had reached 100. Each glowed in the air with an added 10% bonus. The skill I’d been monitoring, Essence Absorption, no longer granted experience. Perhaps this was the ceiling of the ability I’d received from the Gith-Za-Rai.

[Malphas can observe your stats and sense balance.]

Malphas’ blessing had risen one level. I had offered plenty of sacrifices with my own hands, so it's no wonder they were pleased. As the level rose, I started getting more frequent messages that weren’t particularly helpful... but truthfully, the effects were overwhelmingly powerful.

[Perk: Darkness Lv. 2

— Attack Power increased by 35%

— Defense increased by 50%

— Wings of the Crow: Movement Speed increased by 25%

— Eyes of the Crow: Allows detection of those who serve other Demon Kings. Grants resistance to illusion.]

I wasn’t sure how to use the eyes yet, but the boosts to attack, defense, and movement were absurdly high on their own.

I slid my sword back into its sheath. The three swords I received from the dwarf village remained unscathed. Just as I was wondering whether my bond with Malphas would remain intact if I were to return again, I heard the sound of labored wingbeats.

Flap! Flap-flap!

A crow puppet flew toward me, clutching a pouch stuffed with valuables gathered from across the battlefield. Its eyes rolled to meet mine.

"They should be biting any moment now..." Isaac murmured.

"Biting?"

"Yeah. Biting the bait. The Confederation should be seriously trying to find you by now."

"Do I need to kill them too?"

Isaac shook his beak side to side. "Why would you kill them? You’ve worked your ass off, so it's time to collect your reward."

"Reward?"

"Yeah, you’ve fought this hard. You'd better get something for it. If you don’t take compensation for a job well done, that’s called wrecking the economy, my friend."

Compensation? What could I squeeze out of them?

"You mean... Lurium?"

"Exactly! That’s the least they could offer. Looks like your brain’s warming up again. If the person who finds you first is smart enough, they might offer even more. Like..."

Boom! Boom! Boom!

From the south, a heavy, deliberate tremor raced toward us.