My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem

“In that case, what do we have?” I asked, trying to keep my spirits up.

“The Osterians will fight!” Nova declared proudly. “I have 2000 able-bodied Osterians.”

My eyes couldn’t help but dart to Xin. She had already warned me that the Osterians could be a double-edged sword. They only fought for who they determined was powerful. If they believed that Roth was a stronger leader, they might abandon me altogether. That wasn’t to say that Osterians were disloyal.

They would follow someone who showed time and time again to be strong, but there simply was no history between me and then. Until very shortly, I had been their enemies. They had upended their entire country for me, and they now expected me to do something equally as impressive. Defeating Nova and the demon lord was a start. I had also pulled the Illusory sword, although technically I defeated a dungeon, and the sword, I held was nothing like it, plus no one had seen me come out of it, so there was room for doubt. In the end, it didn’t win their hearts as much as one would have hoped.

“Our local forces only number 1500 at the moment,” Xin added. “They are more capable than they once were. I would no longer call them a rag-tag militia… but a functioning army. That said…”

“We’re versus an experienced army of animalkin.” I finished.

“Can you manufacture more malacrum weapons?” Shao offered. “If we make all their deaths final, then we can wear them out. It’ll be like with Calypso’s army. Since we can be resurrected and they can’t be, we’ll simply outnumber them.”

“Soul-reaping is the last thing we want to introduce.” Miki interrupted. “Once you’ve chosen perma-killing, then you’ve only opened up a field for mass killing. Their side will use such weapons and nefarious moves as well. The Dioshin king may be a lot of things, but he has his sense of pride. He gave us a week, and in exchange he expects us to fight fair. If we don’t fight fair, and he’ll have the moral high ground. It will demoralize our troops, and drive his troops into a frenzy. Remember when Lydia entered her beast mode? Imagine that across an entire army!”

At the mention of Lydia, several eyes peeked my way. If it came to knowing if Lydia was alive or dead, I still didn’t have the answer. I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about that right now. Once this battle was over, I would beat the answer out of him. To think that he openly bragged about wiping out an entire variant of the catkin, and no one called him on it. He truly did have the power in Dioshin.

“What about Deeksville and the southwest territories loyal to me?” I asked.

“I’ve brought back 500.” Celeste declared proudly, but when she saw no one else was acting very excited, she put on a pouty face.

“So, after everything, we have 4000 trained soldiers. That’s truly not bad for a single territory this young.” Elaya spoke up. “Aberis altogether could only gather 10,000 soldiers to when they planned outright war with the Ost Republic.”

“It’d be nice if Edward could give me some of them.”

“It’s not so easy, he had already just gathered and sent them home. Furthermore, it’s already known that King Roth only has his eyes set on the wilderness. Most don’t even consider it part of Aberis yet. Those in the east would feel no desire to risk troops to protect a fledgling lord, no matter how high he’s ranked. Your rapid ranking has made it less likely for them to want to help. Some might see it as a quick way to lose the competition. I’m sorry, Deek, but this is politics. Until you’ve fought and bled protecting each other in battle, the rest of Aberis won’t acknowledge you. Tibult is the only major family that truly supports you right now, and you knew what it cost to get that.”

“What about the king himself? Doesn’t he have any people?” I asked helplessly.

“Forces officially under the crown only number 1000 and don’t forget that Prince Edward has yet to take the crown. He’s delayed taking it for a while now, and it’s cost him. He doesn’t have control of the King’s legion. All Edward himself has is 200 guards. He’s less defended than you are.”

It turned out that as far as Aberis went, I was in a better position than most of it. It was no wonder I wasn’t getting very much help. We had always functioned outside Aberis, and now we’re practically bigger than them.

“What about Dioshin, then?” I asked the dreaded question. “How much do they have?”

“According to the little bit of experience I had with them, during a meet, the King would be able to take 1000 able-bodied men per tribe. There are twelve tribes, so their forces will equal 12,000… at minimum.”

It wasn’t enough.