Chapter 90

The game difficulty
was insane.

“Ah, Father. Why are you here…?”

Tris asked with a flustered expression as she looked at the head of the family.

“Hmph. My son returned to the estate but didn’t even show his face to his father, so I came to see for myself.”

He looked at the head of the family and Glen.

Two pairs of ash-gray eyes faced each other.

“There is something I would like to ask the Head of the Wordsworth family.”

“It’s nice to see those eyes again after so long, my son. You usually go around grinning foolishly.”

The head of the family narrowed his eyes.

“Go on. Speak.”

“A demon army totaling thirty thousand is currently advancing toward Avenue Fortress. However, the Gray Wolf Knight Order has only about eleven hundred troops.”

A sharp edge entered Glen’s gaze.

“Do you truly feel nothing about this situation?”

“Hm. From the way you speak, it seems the crow I sent still hadn’t reached you by the time you departed.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Two days ago, I sent a crow to Avenue. And I ordered Sir Javer to abandon Avenue and retreat to Deventer.”

Glen’s pupils shook.

‘Deventer…? Is he out of his mind?’

Deventer was an empty fortress located about a day’s ride east of Avenue Fortress.

With a narrow approach and rivers and mountains on both sides, it was advantageous for defense, and when Avenue fell, it was the first place where one should establish a line.

“With Avenue’s forces alone, it is impossible to stop the enemy’s main army. However, if we retreat to Deventer and hold out there, we can buy enough time for our main force to finish preparing to march.”

A cold chill passed through the same ash-gray eyes as Glen’s.

“Of course, I do highly value the fact that you defeated the enemy vanguard of ten thousand with only a thousand troops, but there is no guarantee that such a miracle will happen again.”

It was an extremely cold and rational judgment.

To put it bluntly, the chance of stopping the demon army’s main force at Avenue would barely reach single digits.

That was why, rather than gambling with the Gray Wolf Knight Order—the strongest force of the territory—he intended to boldly give up Avenue Fortress and plan the next step.

“The reason I issued the summons to the vassals is also because of that. Did you truly think your father made such a decision without any thought?”

“……”

The head of the family looked down at Glen as if scolding him. But Glen did not avoid his gaze.

“Certainly, the strategy you planned is valid, my lord. However, just because something is valid does not mean it is the correct answer.”

“…What?”

The head of the family frowned.

As Glen said, the plan he had devised was very cold and rational.

But that was all.

“Your strategy is wrong.”

If things proceeded according to the head of the family’s will, the Wordsworth territory would not be able to avoid the original scenario.

The scenario called destruction.

“My strategy is wrong? Hah, this is amusing. You, who spent half your life acting like a fanatic and committing all sorts of misdeeds, dare to criticize my strategy. Then tell me—what exactly is wrong with it?”

Anger rose in the head of the family’s eyes.

“It is true that abandoning Avenue and setting up a line at Deventer is a rational choice. However, if you do that, Haven and Philenbard will be directly exposed to danger.”

Unlike Avenue, which blocked the border region, Deventer was merely a fortress connecting Avenue and the Wordsworth territory.

If they set up their line there, the demons could ignore Deventer entirely and easily attack Haven and Philenbard connected to Avenue.

“Do you think I made that decision without understanding even that much? I am prepared to sacrifice Haven and Philenbard to maintain the front line.”

“I can guarantee this, my lord. The moment Haven and Philenbard are taken, all of Wordsworth will be finished.”

Glen’s eyes shone sharply.

The demon army was cunning and shrewd.

They were skilled not in frontal battles, but in tactics that slowly broke the enemy down.

“If Haven and Philenbard are lost, the demons will begin sending small numbers of mages, witches, and guerrilla units to harass the entire Wordsworth territory.”

And unfortunately, Wordsworth had no means to endure the hellish harassment of the demon army.

“……”

The head of the family fell silent.

As the ruler of this land who had faced demons several times, he surely understood well the danger of their cunning strategies.

A brief silence passed.

Just as Tris’s heartbeat beside them became audible, the head of the family opened his mouth.

“…Then what do you propose we do? If not Deventer, where are we supposed to stop that massive demon army?”

“We must stop them at Avenue.”

It was a single sentence that cut through the air.

“Only there can we protect our rear and avoid being dragged into their harassment tactics.”

Glen’s voice settled into a solemn tone.

“Form the main force as quickly as possible and ride to Avenue. The Gray Wolf Knight Order can hold out until the main force arrives.”

So send a crow immediately, revoke the order, and have the vassals in each region raise their troops.

That was what Glen was saying to the head of the family who had made the wrong choice.

“…Hmph. In the end, you’re still talking about ideals.”

However, the head of the family did not bend his will so easily.

He tightly furrowed his brow.

“Hold out until the main force arrives? Don’t make me laugh. You expect a mere thousand troops to withstand an army of thirty thousand led by an Eight-Star Witch? If you speak such ridiculous ideals before me again, I will punish you!”

With that, the head of the family sharply turned his body and left the reception room in quick strides.

Glen let out a snort.

‘Running away, huh…’

When he ran out of answers, the head of the family had chosen to leave his seat.

He hadn’t expected much, but with the head of the family being this uncooperative, Glen worried about how to resolve this damned situation.

‘That aside.’

“……”

When he turned his gaze, Tris was staring at him with eyes full of shock.

“Why… are you looking at me like that, Sister?”

“Well, it’s just… Today, you seem incredibly unfamiliar.”

“Ah, well…”

If it were the usual Glen, he would have acted like a fanatic and dealt with the head of the family using sophistry.

Seeing Glen calmly criticize the head of the family’s decisions one by one must have felt strange to Tris.

‘If anything, this is the real me.’

Glen scratched the back of his neck and turned his eyes away to avoid her gaze.

“Could you pretend you didn’t see it?”

“……”

Tris stared at Glen for a moment.

Then, as if she had some odd thought, she slightly lifted the corners of her lips.

“Okay! I didn’t see anything!”

Then, as if a question suddenly came to mind, she touched her lips with her index finger.

“But isn’t it strange?”

“What is?”

“I’ve never seen Father avoid a conversation like that.”

“Didn’t he often do that?”

As far as Glen remembered, whenever he did something bizarre, the head of the family would clutch his forehead and give up on the conversation.

“Sure, he did that when you acted strangely, but this time the topic was pretty serious, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

“The Father I remember always reaches a conclusion on serious topics like that… Well, he does that to you a lot.”

After touching her lips, Tris shrugged her shoulders.

Then she looked at Glen.

“So. What are you going to do now, Glen? If things continue like this, we’ll definitely retreat to Deventer, you know?”

“Ah, that’s nothing to worry about.”

Glen replied calmly.

“Nothing to worry about? Why? Do you have some kind of plan?”

“I already understand his thinking well enough. But that doesn’t mean I can let the territory walk down the path of destruction.”

“Right? So what are you going to do?”

“It’s simple. We just need to send a few crows.”

“Send crows…? Ah! Don’t tell me!”

Tris gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

“You’re thinking exactly what I’m thinking.”

The head of the family won’t cooperate?

Then the solution is simple.

Proceed without him.

Glen asked Tris to write letters to be sent to the families of each region.

To summarize the contents:

『To the lords of each family: Upon receiving this letter, immediately assemble your troops at Avenue Fortress.』

It was simply an order changing the assembly point from Wordsworth to Avenue.

Of course, the lords of each family were on their way to the Wordsworth estate due to the summons, so they themselves would not see the letters.

However, with such an urgent letter, the acting lord would make the decision on their own.

Of course, not every family would obediently send their troops to Avenue just because of that letter.

If their own lord had been summoned, and then an unknown letter arrived ordering them to send troops to Avenue, who would believe it?

‘But there is a way to make them believe.’

If the letters bore the seal of the Head of the Wordsworth family.

Even the same order became absolute if it carried the Wordsworth head’s seal, so if that seal was stamped on the letters, everything would be resolved.

‘The problem is having to stamp the head’s seal on the letters.’

Naturally, there was only one seal.

And it was on the finger of Henry, the current head of Wordsworth.

In other words, to complete the fake orders to be sent to the vassal families, he had to steal the seal from the head of the family’s finger.

‘This is like… plucking whiskers from a sleeping tiger.’

He would have to steal the seal from the finger of a Seven-Star Holy Knight, so it was no easy task.

But he couldn’t give up and let the demons destroy everything either.

Glen accelerated his thinking.

‘The method with the highest chance of success would be…’

Using the Four-Star skill Demonic Veil through the Gray Ring.

Demonic Veil could hide even demonic energy and presence, so he should be able to approach the head of the family without being detected.

The one concern was whether the head of the family might react to the sensation of the ring being removed from his finger while sleeping.

One might ask how sensitive a person would have to be to notice that.

‘But a Seven-Star Holy Knight is different.’

The head of a noble family was constantly exposed to assassination threats.

That was why they trained their senses to detect even the faintest presence or killing intent, even while asleep.

“Should I use some kind of drug to put him into a deep sleep…”

At that moment, as Glen was lost in thought, Romina quietly approached him.

“Why?”

“I was thinking about this earlier.”

“Earlier?”

Now that he thought about it, Romina had been quiet all day.

He thought she was just doing her job as his personal maid, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Your father. He’s human, right?”

Glen tilted his head.

He wondered if she was trying to pull another prank, but Romina’s eyes were unusually serious.

“Why do you ask?”

“It might just be my imagination, but…”

“It’s fine. Say it.”

“I sensed a faint trace of demonic energy from your father.”

A moment of silence fell.

“…What?”

At Romina’s completely unexpected words, Glen’s pupils shook violently.