The orc army marched for four days, and the blizzard lasted the entire four days.
The snow grew deeper each day. On the first day it barely passed the ankles, on the second it reached the calves, on the third it rose past the knees. By the fourth day, when the vanguard scouts rode frost wolves ahead to probe the road, the wolves’ bellies were already rubbing the snow, leaving gouged trails behind them like frozen furrows turned up by a plow.
Karl walked near the middle-front of the column. From that position he could see both the vanguard and the rear, the whole procession winding forward through the heavy snow.
He glanced back.
The column stretched behind him and faded into the storm, its end lost to the blowing white.
Orc soldiers marched in two long files along the trails cut by the frost wolves, one after another, silent and slow.
No one spoke.
In this snow-covered wasteland, speech was wasteful. Sound could not travel three steps before the wind shredded it. Opening one’s mouth only let whatever heat remained in the body escape.
They simply walked, heads down, eyes fixed on the heels of the man ahead, inching forward step by step.
Ahead was a gray blur where sky and land merged; it was impossible to tell where the sky ended and the ground began.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to pick out anything from that hazy gray—an isolated tree, a rock, a slope—anything. But nothing could be seen.
Only snow, stretching from one horizon to the other, filling the entire field of view.
But the terrain here was not always flat. Soon the orc army encountered a downhill slope and a low cliff blocking their way. They were supposed to continue along the escarpment, but Karl raised one hand and signaled for the column to halt.
“Ulgor.” Karl’s voice cut through the howling wind and snow.
Ulgor came up from the rear of the column.
His frost wolf was skinnier and grayer than the others’. As a priest, he didn’t need a battle-hardy mount.
He walked up to Karl and said nothing, merely narrowing his eyes as he followed Karl’s line of sight into the hazy gray ahead.
“There’s something out there. I want to see them clearly,” Karl said.
“As you wish, Lord Karl.”
Ulgor gave a slight nod, then closed his eyes.
He raised his birch staff and silently mouthed an incantation, his voice barely audible.
[Storm Guidance]
Then the wind changed.
The gale that had been blowing straight at them split, as if cut by an invisible blade, parting to both sides. It flowed around Ulgor’s body, rejoining behind him and continuing on.
The snow retreated. The hazy gray faded away like a window being wiped clean, and the scene beyond slowly revealed itself.
First, dark gray silhouettes appeared through the snow, then low houses came into view, thatched roofs half collapsed under the weight of snow, revealing charred rafters within.
There were barns that hadn’t yet caved in, withered trees, and a road running south to north—its surface covered by snow but the roadbed still discernible. Fields flanked the road, and crooked scarecrows stood at the fields’ edges. Tattered strips of cloth hung from the scarecrows and fluttered in the wind.
It was a large town.
Or rather, it had been a large town.
The little settlement emerged from the snow like a shipwrecked vessel stranded on a white beach.
Karl saw houses and farmlands, but he also saw things that didn’t belong to a farming village.
Outside the town where fields should be, rows of wooden stakes stood upright.
The stakes were two-persons high, sharpened at the tops, bound together with coarse hemp ropes and iron chains to form a crude but sturdy palisade.
Behind the palisade stood a stone watchtower of about four stories, topped by a wooden observation platform.
And inside that, there was a stone wall roughly mortared together with rubble and mud, its surface uneven but astoundingly thick. Karl estimated it to be at least four feet thick.
Here and there darker red shapes patrolled along it.
They could not be human, and the answer was obvious.
Demons.
They were on demon territory.
Which meant they were not far from the Royal Capital.
A half-smile tugged at Karl’s mouth as he waved a hand back toward his column.
Behind them, the scouts’ captain Vaughn rode his wolf ahead.
“Lord Karl.”
He sat forward on his wolf’s back, following Karl’s pointing finger with his gaze, and spotted the town emerging at the edge of the haze.
“Go,” Karl said. “I need to know these demons’ true situation.”
He chose caution over immediate assault and planned to let the scouts probe first.
“Yes.”
Vaughn nodded and turned his wolf’s head, gesturing toward the scouting ranks behind him.
“Get to work!”
Twelve frost wolves detached from the column.
“Let those demons see what we’re made of!”
“Charge!”
Under his lead, twelve scouts plunged down the slope, kicking up snow, and vanished into the blizzard within seconds.
When the last scout disappeared into the white, Karl turned and signaled to the main force.
The order ran down the line and the orcs began to rest in place, eat, or tend to their warmth.
Everyone knew war was about to break out.
.....
Slime City Palace, morning.
Dawn light filtered through grated stained glass, laying pale golden squares across the oak floor.
The snow outside had stopped, but the roof’s drifts were still melting and sliding. Occasionally a clump of snow slipped from the eaves and hit the stone steps below, shattering into a puff of white powder.
Chen Yu lay sprawled on the Oakwood Throne, flattened into a broad, jade-green disc. A thin hollow reed stem hung from his mouth as he contentedly sucked on the liquid inside a small clay pot.
The pot held maple sap sent yesterday by Viola’s envoy—a sweet, clean taste with a faint woody note.
Pretty tasty, Chen Yu thought with satisfaction.
Then he glanced at the oil painting the slimes had presented, supposedly painted by a dwarf artist from the Storm Territory.
The image was simple. At its center stood a green slime on a raised platform, a sparkling gem hovering above its head, and behind it a cluster of similarly green little slimes.
The artist had probably imagined the scene from a bard’s description and given that slime many clawed, waving arms like a demon. Yet the face had been rendered as two black bean-like eyes, giving it a foolish look.
Chen Yu felt that painted slime didn’t much resemble him, but he couldn’t be bothered to correct the artist.
That said, the dwarves’ artistic skill was somewhat tragic. Metalworking and forging could stir their creative instincts; painting? Not really their forte.
Little Flower squatted on a small stool beside the throne, a thick stack of papers spread before her. The pile was taller than her whole body, edges ragged and corners curled up in many places.
Her head bowed, one gel hand pressed on the paper while the other held a charcoal stick, scratching across the sheets with a dry, rustling sound.
After a long while she spoke.
“Brother.”
Her voice was soft and laced with worry.
“Aren’t you eating breakfast?” Chen Yu mumbled around his reed stem.
“The reports for this month aren’t optimistic.”
Little Flower pulled the top sheet free and hopped forward, pushing the paper into Chen Yu’s view with a flurry of slap sounds.
Chen Yu peered down.
In the expenses column the numbers were in red, densely filling an entire page. Some figures were written so small and cramped they looked like ants trapped in a cage.
“This much?” Chen Yu muttered.
Little Flower nodded, her gel body wobbling.
“Darkness City roadwork, wall construction, clearing the ruins—stone costs money, wood costs money, the laborers’ wages cost money.”
“Prisoners cost nothing to capture, but they need to be fed. Three meals a day for over two thousand people consumes a lot of tubers.”
“And we just manufactured two hundred Goblin Rippers to replenish defenses and form new gunner crews. That cost a lot.”
“And the Floating Fortress.”
Little Flower pulled out the bottom sheet. It was larger than the rest, folded several times before it lay flat.
Densely packed lines and annotations covered it. The handwriting was Selene’s: neat and machine-like, every line perfectly straight.
“Sister Selene says the base materials are ready. We can lay the first layer of the magic formation, but we lack high-tier magical materials. Those must be bought from outside.”
“Those materials are very expensive. Very, very expensive.”
She repeated “very expensive” twice, as if saying it once could not convey how absurd the price was.
Chen Yu stared at the blueprint. The Floating Fortress was drawn beautifully: a circular base, pointed towers, and a ring of small levitation fins—like a slime wearing a pointed hat.
If this thing could be built, it would probably be the most outrageous structure on the continent.
But the problem was that building it would cost money.
A lot of money.
“What about income?” Chen Yu asked.
He took another sip of sap, but his attention had already left the sweetness.
Little Flower pulled together several income pages and stacked them on top.
“There’s trade. The southern kingdoms bought a lot of Magical Dust, ores, metals, and gems. Golden Radiance Valley bought many Magic Leaves, grain, and medicines.
“And the Merchant Alliance won battles and seized supplies, but those have already been spent buying high-tier magical materials.”
“Taxes aren’t much. The kingdom is new, so we can’t tax heavily. There aren’t many caravans; many merchants don’t want to come here.”
Chen Yu nodded.
He already knew these things, but seeing them listed one by one made the burden feel heavier.
“Oh, the Merchant Alliance wants to ransom prisoners. They’re offering a lot of gold.” Little Flower’s eyes brightened at this.
“One thousand three hundred forty-seven prisoners, and the Merchant Alliance is offering two hundred thousand gold coins.”
Chen Yu considered it.
The price wasn’t low, but relative to the number of prisoners it wasn’t exorbitant either.
Still, that ransom could fill most of the Treasury’s shortfall. Prisoners needed feeding, water, lodging, and guards—costs that weren’t small.
But he refused.
“No sale.”
He wanted to keep the prisoners like a bargaining chip, let the Merchant Alliance sweat, and watch them panic.
Income would have to be found elsewhere.
Little Flower cocked her head but didn’t press him. She didn’t always understand his choices, but she knew he thought farther ahead than she did.
“So what do we do?” she asked curiously.
Chen Yu hopped off the throne and landed on the oak tabletop.
A large map lay spread across the table, drawn by Silver Sparrow a few days earlier. Magical light-dots marked all the forces around the Slime Kingdom—south were the southern kingdoms, west the Golden Radiance Valley, east the Merchant Alliance, northeast the White Horse Kingdom, and further north the Orc Palaver led by Karl.
His gaze settled on the northeast.
Chen Yu nudged the White Horse Royal Capital on the map with his gel body.
“The orcs are at war there.”
Little Flower peered at the map.
“War costs money.”
Chen Yu shook his gel body with pride.
“No, war is what costs them money. Making money is our job.”
He was about to continue when the flap of wings sounded at the window.
Chen Yu sprang and turned to see a gray-brown carrier hawk land on the sill, a thin copper tube tied to its claw and sealed with red wax.
The hawk shook, shedding snow dust, and tapped the window with its beak as if asking for food.
Chen Yu hopped over, withdrew the paper from the copper tube, and unrolled it while Little Flower fed the hawk some meat.
The handwriting was messy, but the message was crucial.
“War has broken out.”
The orc legion had been skirmishing in the White Horse Kingdom’s interior for some time and had finally run into demons.
The note was brief, likely hurried, compressed to the essentials but full of information.
The orc army had reached the demons’ western bridgehead, and the two sides had been fighting on the plain west of the Royal Capital for two days.
The orc vanguard had taken several small towns that the demons had fortified, but they stalled at the outskirts of Hundred-Steed City.
There were more demons than expected, seemingly endless.
Although countless lesser demons had died in these two days, orc casualties were significant as well.
Their long supply lines had been exposed as a critical weakness.
Frontline food and arrows were consumed quickly, but rear supplies couldn’t keep up. Some units had already begun rationing.
The orc envoy had left Iron Thorn Fortress and headed north. Before departing, they hoped the Slime Kingdom would promptly seize the east coast so the orc fleet could land along the shore.
They also requested material aid from the kingdom—food, medicines, arrows, anything.
“The east coast,” Chen Yu murmured.
The east coast was far from the White Horse Royal Capital, separated by a low mountain range and home to several bustling port cities.
Those ports were currently held by rebel human forces and small demon detachments, their garrisons weak.
If the Slime Kingdom decided to take them by force, it would not be particularly difficult—but it was unnecessary.
Allowing an orc fleet to land onshore was not in the Slime Kingdom’s interest.
They could do it, but there was no urgency. Let the orcs wait; a perfunctory response would suffice.
Little Flower blinked.
“What about the aid? The orc envoy asked for food, medicines, and—”
“Give it. Free of charge.” Chen Yu said.
“Free?”
Chen Yu hopped onto the sunlit patch on the windowsill. In the bright light his jade-green gel became translucent, like a water-washed emerald.
He said meaningfully, “Little Flower, you don’t understand yet. In this world, free is the most expensive.”
Little Flower tilted her head, confusion written in her tiny green-bean eyes.
“What do the orcs lack now?” he asked.
Little Flower thought for a moment.
“Food, medicines, and supplies.”
“Right. They come from the north and their supply lines are too long. The goods they bring aren’t enough. We will send them food, medicines, whatever they need.”
“For free. No charge.”
“And then?”
Chen Yu’s grin was full of mischief.
“Then they will get used to it. Once they start using it, they’ll like it. Once they like it, they can’t do without it.”
Little Flower’s eyes lit up at the idea.
“That sounds about right.”