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Astrus entered his office and locked the door behind him, before sighing heavily. He had already made an emergency call informing him of the attack, but he didn’t give too many details and focused on dealing with the aftermath of the attack.

He sat down in his chair and opened the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk. There were only documents in the drawer, but the bottom was fake and inside was a single wooden box with a communication device.

It was a small black cube that fit in the palm of his hand. He fed the cube with mana and a buzzing sound sounded for 5 seconds before the other side connected. A circle of light shone on top of the cube and a hologram appeared.

A royal scribe answered the call and immediately asked him to detail the situation of the fortress and how much damage it had suffered. He spent nearly an hour reporting it all and the scribe frowned as he listened but said nothing.

Contrary to what most commoners thought, scribes were not only responsible for writing the laws. They could also act as representatives of royalty in domestic affairs. It was a way for royalty to sneer at servants who failed important missions, saying that it was beneath them to deal with incompetents and that a scribe would suffice.

Royal scribes worked directly under the royal and had access to almost all important information about the kingdom, so it was only natural that they would hold an important position. There were no ministers for internal affairs as the nobles were almost autonomous in their territories and the scribes were responsible for resolving most matters.

The king only had to worry about the truly important matters, like dealing with his harem or the internal power struggle.

“So the undead escaped, as did the one responsible for creating the acid cloud? The large-scale spells, the only thing keeping the fortress standing in the face of constant attacks from the demihuman savages, completely inoperative? And to top it off, was the general still defeated in battle?” the scribe asked disdainfully.

.....

Despite Astrus being a general in the army, the scribe was currently representing royalty and therefore his position was superior. Also, the general’s great failure left his current position at best uncertain, so all he could do was duck his head so the scribe wouldn’t see the murderous light in his eyes.

“Yes sir, I have no excuses for my mistake.” The general spoke.

‘What a headache.’ The scribe thought. ‘According to the general’s report, the mage who attacked the small town of Faltra and the mage who attacked the fortress are the same person or at least they are linked, but there are some things that don’t fit together.’

‘The methods and timing between attacks are simply too different to make any sense. The distance between Faltra and the Iron Fist Fortress is only a few days by chariot, so there’s no point in waiting that long for a second attack.’

‘But if these attacks are not orchestrated by a single person, that raises other questions. Who and why? These attacks make no sense and only cause destruction, there is no gain for anyone.’ The scribe wondered for a while, but had no idea.

A necromancer’s attack on a stronghold made sense. There was already a precedent for this. Necromancers trying to gather soldiers’ corpses for experiments and targeting distant fortresses had already taken place. How he invaded the fortress was still unclear, nor how he managed to create and control undead powerful enough to fight the general, but it was still within reach.

But why kill several soldiers, cause massive damage to the fortress and then just run away? The lack of logic was giving the scribe a headache. Before he could share his thoughts with the general, someone began hurriedly knocking on the general’s office door, causing the latter to frown in annoyance.

‘I ordered no one to disturb my meeting. Someone’s head is going to roll over this.’ The general spoke before apologizing to the scribe. “I’m sorry, I’ll scold my subordinates right away, so-”

“Let them in. It seems to be important.” The scribe spoke and increased the cube’s sound pickup, making sure he could hear the conversation.

The general nodded and shouted for them to come in and a soldier immediately opened the doors and shouted. “General, it’s an emergency. An undead army is approaching the keep. They should arrive later today, just after dark.”

“What??” The general and the scribe shouted at the same time, but for different reasons. The general gritted his teeth realizing that the invaders were just an advance team and that the real army was on the way, while the scribe was wondering how an army had moved within his territory without them knowing.

‘How did an army appear near the borders without anyone noticing? Besides, how did he manage to gather so many corpses?’ The scribe wondered as he leafed through some papers in front of him, with all the relevant information from the attack on the city of Faltra, when he finally understood.

The messenger arrived in the city two weeks after the attack and there has been no news from the city since. It was quite possible that the city had been attacked again in the meantime and had fallen this time. What if the enemy mage had spent those two weeks turning the city into the undead.

“How many undead are there in the army?” General Astrus asked, interrupting the scribe’s thought.

“Approximately 8000, sir. All black skeletons, like the ones seen yesterday. Most skeletons are humanoid, but there are skeleton beasts pulling carriages, as well as several skeleton birds in the sky.” The soldier reported.

‘The numbers match.’ The scribe thought, reading a second report, this one containing information from the city of Faltra. The number of citizens in Faltra was approximately 10,000, and 2000 people had died according to the messenger.

“General, the soldier has already done his duty, so dismiss him for the time being. We need to continue our meeting.” The scribe spoke and the general dismissed the soldier, but his expression was not good.

“With all due respect, but I need to leave now to organize an emergency defense, so I’m going to have to stop our meeting here.” The general tried to end the call here, but the scribe intervened.

“General, I want you to call me the moment the attack begins. There is an unknown enemy on the borders that has already destroyed a city and somehow also invaded its stronghold. We know that he is a powerful necromancer capable of creating black skeletons and has some knowledge of alchemy, but we don’t know anything else about him.

We need to discover the identity of the enemy.” The scribe concluded.

The general nodded in agreement, but made a request in return. “Can’t you send emergency reinforcements? The fortress won’t withstand attacks if there are other powerful undead like the ones that invaded the fortress.

“It is difficult to mobilize many soldiers until nightfall, but I will see what we can do.” The scribe answered uncertainly and ended the call. The fortress usually relied on barriers as its first and main line of defense, the siege weapons and magic of court mages to reduce the number of enemies.

When the demihumans finally broke through the barrier, their numbers would have already been reduced and the army commander would order a retreat to reduce casualties in the army itself. They would also set fire to all food as they retreated, leaving the demihumans only with an empty shell.

A retake force would be formed and they would attack the fortress a few days later. This is how the strongholds have remained to this day and this thought has spread throughout the army and royalty. The constant failed invasions, the idea that the fortresses could be retaken and not necessarily defended tooth and nail, made the kingdom careless with its borders.

It would be a headache to convince those stupid nobles that they needed to send reinforcements quickly and it wouldn’t be possible to retreat and counterattack like they always did. Just the thought of dealing with that stupid king and all those stupid nobles made him feel disheartened.

**********

General Astrus prepared as best he could for the attack, moving most of the catapults and ballistae in the intended direction for the undead army to appear, as well as ordering soldiers to dig and bury alchemical items to form a defensive perimeter. .

The scribe also managed to gather reinforcements, but not as many as Astrus had expected. The nobles didn’t take the threat seriously, or didn’t want to commit their own forces to something that wasn’t profitable for them, but the church pledged to help as soon as they heard that a necromancer had amassed an army.

50 priests and 50 paladins, each paladin leading a unit of 20 crusaders were sent as reinforcements, totaling 1100 fighters. It was all they could muster so quickly, but it was a relief to Astrus. All priests and paladins could use magic from the light element, the weakness of the undead, while crusaders were famous for their fanaticism, so they could be used effectively as shields of flesh.

The spell order didn’t move a single mage to help, but they used dimensional crystals to conjure purple portals and send the church troops to the fortress. Purple portals were a variation of teleportation crystals that, instead of teleporting everything within a certain limit, opened a portal and kept it active as long as it was fueled with mana.