Back in the Bard kingdom, the base for the worshiper of Ares.
Desmon, sat in his study, going through the few new documents he had been given by his subordinates, which was giving him a headache.
It was clear that the finances and human resources in his dukedom were a complete mess, with those nobles below him working for their own selfish purposes, and falsely evading taxes. More importantly, they were doing whatever they wanted within the regions they governed, as though they owned the place.
Mason, who was standing behind Desmon, coughed a few times in an exaggerated manner, bringing the young Duke's attention to him.
"What seems to be bothering you?" he asked. The white wolf Nix, also stuck out from inside Mason's shirt and tilted its head to the right while looking at Desmon out of curiosity.
"The nobles below me are all selfish idiots."
"Then the solution is simple." For the first time, Don took the initiative to speak.
"What?" Desmon asked, while Mason turned his attention to Don.
"Kill them all. Assassinate them all at once, before sending your soldiers to seize their family and wealth before news of their deaths spreads. As long as you have enough soldiers, this should be easily possible."
Mason burst out laughing, but he had to admit, although this idea seemed incredibly straightforward, it was true that such a method would allow Desmon to fully gain control over his entire dukedom in one fell swoop. The only issue was that he did not have enough soldiers.
"I do not have enough soldiers" As expected, Desmon was able to immediately extricate the one flaw within this cold-blooded plan, not even hesitating for a moment to think about the countless lives that might be lost, or the consequences should even one assassination fail.
"But we can wait, can we not? We can send spies to each of the noble houses to keep track of them and search for perfect assassination opportunities, while secretly training a large batch of soldiers. They need not be extremely skilled, just strong enough to defeat the troops the various nobles keep as 'bodyguards'. The operation to cleanse the traitors of the church of Ares should be nearing completion. However, we can still use this excuse a few more times to cause chaos within the noble houses by searching everything, not only taking this opportunity to take account of everything they have, but also using the chaos to sneak in our spies." Mason, came up with an incredible plan.
After learning from both Desmon and the butler, both Don and Masons' personalities grew exponentially, far exceeding the expectations of both the Duke and his butler.
Now, not only were these two kids incredibly strong in combat, but their minds were already incredibly sharp, still being polished on a whetstone like a sword.
"Alright" Desmon immediately agreed, and so began a ruckus in the Bard Dukedom, one that was a prelude to an even greater, apocalypse level storm, that would arrive when the secret soldiers of Duke Desmon had been formed and trained.
…
At this moment, in the southern continent, Heron was standing at the top of a dune, those following him were also climbing up that very dune on the mounts looted from the slave trader's base. However, Heron stood there unmoving for almost a minute, exuding an imposing majesty to those behind him as they sighed in their hearts,
'He has the aura of a ruler.'
Heron himself, on the other hand, had his own, ever-so-slightly differing thoughts.
'This f*cking desert! It has no end! How long do I have to keep travelling for? It's been nearly a month since we left the slave traders' hideout, but there is still nothing in sight. Our speed is pretty fast, but this desert just has no end!'
He was cursing and complaining in his mind like a child throwing a tantrum, and was feeling incredibly dejected, at the possibility of having gone in the wrong direction. Maybe the city that the slave traders did business with was in the opposite direction?
However, now that he had made it all the way here, there was no way he would turn around. Gritting his teeth, which now had a tonne of sand in them due to his frequent battles with the monsters within the sand, Heron continued his long walk to civilisation, with no clue as to when the walk would come to an end.