Trinitas Mundus

Tria Calendar 326, January 24.

Knowing that Luna had already left, Ray decided to cross a wilderness called "despair (Desperationis)" by the demonic tribe, in the heart of the dangerous Quaedham Tenebre, if he could not catch up with just the pursuit.

The wilderness of despair was an untouched, just the land of death.

About two thousand years ago, the Demons were chased from the West. At that time, they have lost many of their compatriots in the land.

The wind only touched the skin, leading to death... a bottomless marsh that appeared untouched... In addition, alien demons, such as the giant vermin Worm, which exceeded 100 m in length, and the indeterminate demons like liquid metal (slime), as well as other living armor (living armor) and synthetic beasts (chimeras), were attacked by demons, and the highly physically capable ghosts, and the talented demons of witchcraft, lost their lives one after another.

That is precisely what crushes all hope, and those who survived only marginally named the land “a wilderness of despair” as a contraindication.

He was then told that there were many who challenged the land, but no one had returned, and that he was even afraid to come near among the demons.

I hear that story from the captives of the Little Ghost tribe, Darvé and Lauri, but they also had no more information than rumors.

And there was a lot of information we both knew that we didn't know how true it was, but if it was in the West, they definitely had second- or third-equivalent demons at their disposal.

But those demons never crossed a certain realm, and it was enough to say that the demons and their demons coexisted without invading each other's realm.

Ray declares that he will "once he has left Leriche to some extent, he will head northeast" with the map that Uno has obtained.

I was persuading Ashley and the others during last night, and no one said anything.

Ashley nodded at Ray's words, confirming his future course of action.

"Confirmed, about fifty km from Lerice is the forest at the foot of Aquila. Hunt as edible beasts and demons as you can here and secure food. Secured food is stored in Ray's Storage Magic (Item Box). They can't drink water beyond that, so all drinking water will rely on Ray's magic. In other words, once through the woods, Ray doesn't use magic as hard as he can to keep his magic alive. That's good."

Ashley bows her head toward Uno, making sure they all snort.

"Ahead we will need the power of Lord Uno. Three hundred kilometers or more in the wilderness without a map. I wish my vision was open, but I should probably be hit by snowstorms again and again. We need to ask Lord Uno to keep an eye on the perimeter and check the direction. Keep it up."

Ray and Stella bow their heads the same way.

Uno marvels at the sight, says hastily, "Keep your head up," and kneels one knee. In the same way the four Beastman slaves kneel.

"With slight force, we will serve you"

Only the captives of the Little Ghost tribe, Derve and Lauri, are outside the mosquito nets, but they have a restricted self and no particular emotion.

After Ray looked around at everyone,

"Then let's leave. Mr. Uno, please scout."

Uno says "thank you" and goes ahead.

The Rays also proceeded through the snow-covered mountains, guarding their surroundings.

Through the village of Leriche, a gentle downhill continues towards the east.

The trees mix deciduous and evergreen trees, and it feels more like a cluttered forest than a deep forest.

I feel uncomfortable with the name Kwaedam Tenebre, which means “eternal darkness” in the woods that are richer than I thought.

(Isn't it very much the same around here as the eastern border of Lax? Looks richer than around Turok, and I don't think you have to bother invading the West if you open up here...)

As Ray thinks, the east from the village of Leriche is a fairly rich land. So much so that I find it stranger that the northern powers, near Fort Chulock, the eastern border of the Kingdom of Lax, are at lower altitudes, abundant in water and do not pioneer.

In fact, the ghost tribe also had the will to pioneer. But the ghost tribe had repeated massive invasions every few decades from a thousand years ago, and there was not enough surplus of personnel to depopulate and turn to pioneering each time. There was no shortage of agricultural land even in the towns and villages where they currently lived, and their chances of trying to pioneer the foothills of the Aquila Mountains, where dangerous demons roamed.

The reason why ghosts do not become active in farmland development is because there is already enough farmland, but given the size of their army, it is not surprising that there is a massive food supply base at the foot of the Aquila Mountains. There is only the village of Leriche, where only hundreds of troops can be fed.

Ghosts' armies differ greatly from those of western countries. That is in that it is a demon summoned by the main force.

The demons you summon basically don't need food. Thus, there was little concept of a soldier station in the ghost tribe. Originally, if thousands of units of the army move, the size of the supply force would not be foolish. We need hundreds of units of heavy troops and dozens of towing horses, but the ghost tribe, whose demons we summoned, did not intend to pioneer this neighborhood as a food supply base because it would only be enough to allow us to carry our own food.

Of course, not only the summoned demons, but also the wild demons may be taught, in which case we need food, but if you're an orga or an oak, feed the summoned goblins and you have no problem.

For these reasons, abundant forests were left intact.

Going northeast after going through the village of Leriche, there were reports of narrow streets from the preceding Uno.

At a distance of about 10 km from the village of Leriche, it is a narrow street leading north, but there are signs of round-trips of wagons or sleighs, but now there are no signs of people.

"Maybe Luna and the others are stopping by. Let's see what's down the road."

Uno and his men Seyce preceded him, and the Rays cautiously proceeded off the streets.

After about an hour, Uno came back.

"We have a settlement ahead of us. But..."

Always briefly report why he speaks.

"What do you have? Is it something to do with Luna?

"No," he shook his head sideways to Ray's inquiry,

"There were dozens of caves on chopped cliffs, a dozen ghosts and a lot of oaks and goblins... more..."

I said to Uno again, "More?" When asked, Uno continued his words in a spicy way.

"A younger woman was incarcerated in it. That number, about three hundred. Connected by chains, so that you can't escape... a good number of them seem to be pregnant. Perhaps the ghost tribe is summoning his family, Orc..."

Uno seemed worried about how to explain to Stella, Ashley, a young woman with a strong sense of justice.

The three of them cease to describe Uno. As Ashley squeezes out,

"Is rescue possible to free? ……

I put it in my mouth, "I'm sorry. Forget about that now," he corrected immediately.

Though I tried to rescue them and put them out in my mouth, it's impossible to survive where I freed those women. That's what I realized, so I withdrew my foreword.

(It's impossible to rescue them. Assuming we wipe out all the ghost tribes here, we can't cross the midwinter Aquila. And we have to rescue Luna... but Ray will suffer. I could have walked by if I knew, but I would think of doing something about it more than I knew...)

As she expected, Ray had a bitter look on her face. After about thirty seconds of silence,

"Let's move on. There's nothing we can do... we just have to keep this place on the map... and then we'll have to tell Toa this fact..."

When I say that in agony, I am forced to make a smile and raise my face.

Ashley hugged him and said, "Don't push it. I know what you think," he whispers.

It stayed that way for about ten seconds, but Ray said "thank you" and left her.

"There's nothing I can do. And now we have to do something about Luna... but it's a little easier thanks to Ash."

Now I smiled like a faint smile.

Stella knew how Ray felt so painfully, too, but she couldn't take direct action like Ashley did. Because I instinctively pulled it off if I didn't want to break my current relationship by getting in between them.

(It's a good thing Master Ray got back on his feet... what should I do with this feeling...)

Without realizing Stella's feelings, Ray turned Seyce back and told her she was leaving here as soon as possible.

"The sun will be down in about three hours. I don't expect soldiers to patrol us, but stay as far away from us as you can."

That's what I said and walked away from an unknown settlement.

As Uno's report suggests, the settlement was where ghosts summon their families.

The Rays do not know, but it was one of the facilities that could be described as a “manufacturing plant” for biological weapons, mainly manufacturing (...) oak and goblins. Many women had been forced into pregnancy because the Western contingents of Orvo Cronvar and others had originally planned to attack the adventurer city of Periclitle and then assault Fort Toa as the second line.

In the secret of summoning, a demonic crystal stone is implanted in a woman's womb, after which the demon is fertilized. Furthermore, the Manipulators (Tamers) inject the power of the Spirit into the Demonic Stone, transforming it into the power of life, magic, and rapidly growing demons. For this reason, "manufacturing plants” were often created where the power of the Spirit was strong, especially using caves with many spirits of dark attributes.

Depending on the intensity of the Spirit's power and the amount of magic that the manipulators (Tamers) follow in the summons of the demons, they are born in Goblins in a few days, in orcs around ten days, even in orgasms in about thirty days, and grow into adults in about the same period of time. In other words, goblins can produce adults in about ten days.

However, because this method is heavily burdensome on the mother woman - the ghost people call it the “nursery bed" - and she dies debilitated in about a month, there is usually no forced infusion of magic, and it takes about three times as long - half a month in goblins, a month in oak, and three months in an ogre.

Thereafter, the operators (Tamers) inject more Spirit power into the Demonic Crystal Stone, causing it to grow rapidly.

Demons created by this summons, but there are many advantages, such as being submissive to the manipulator (Tamer) and needing little food.

But there was a fatal flaw.

That's a short lifespan.

Six months in a goblin, a year in an oak, even an ogre, about three years, and only a few tenths of a lifespan compared to those in the wild. This is because we live with the magic stored in the Demonic Crystal Stone, and its depletion of magic is said to be longevity. For this reason, it is said that the quality of the Demon Crystal Stone and the ability of the Tamer will increase the life expectancy by more than double if the good Tamer uses the Demon Crystal Stone on one rank.

This time it was expected to expand the front after the occupation of Pericritle, and more than a thousand bodies had already been built around the oak. Those demons were not allowed into the village of Leriche, but hidden among the surrounding woods, so the Rays did not notice.

This time, Auga was not seen because the summons of Auga is heavily burdened with nursery beds and is not suitable for mass production. The Great Ghosts are aware of that, too, and are capturing and teeming wild orgasms as much as possible.

For the record, if Ray had tried to help them, he would have ended up failing.

Because most of the women who were here were formerly people who had been grabbed from the West, but were treated as livestock (...) for hundreds of years and were unwilling to flee.

I can't even teach words busily before that, and I can only live with my instincts. It was brought to life as a demon-bearing livestock.

Fortunately, the Unos' reconnaissance didn't tell us that much and Ray never found out about this fact. If Ray knew about this fact, what action would he have taken?

Driven by proselytism, my feelings for the Demons should have leaned rather negatively.

If he had known that fact, he would have had a lot of impact on his subsequent actions...

The Rays were hurrying through the woods to leave the demon-producing settlement.

They were shocked by the fact that Uno brought them, silent all the time. We managed to go about five km by sunset and there was no longer any fear that they would be discovered.

Find a relatively dry place where shrubs thrive in the snowy woods. There are still leaves in this shrub, and because it replaces the roof, I decided to make this an overnight inn.

Little fires are set on fire, warm up, but many times on Ray's head comes up about the women who have been made tools to produce demons.

In the bitter air, Ocho and Diez, Uno's men, bring home two rabbits and three wild birds.

Ashley tried to change this air,

"That's a treat inside. Ray, can you get me some seasoning? Stella, give me the bird."

Ashley was trying to make a bright voice, and Stella also said, "Yes!" and responds well. Ray soon found out what Ashley cared about, too.

"There are quite a few spices, so let's use plenty... I can't cook, so I'll leave them to you."

Ashley was sighing at the rabbit, exhaling relief that the brightness had returned to Ray's voice.

(This will do. It's less dragging than it used to be, but it's still going to take a lot of work... well, I'd love that...)

Stella was similarly hiding from him and exhaling in relief.

(Good for you. Lady Ray is sweet, so I wondered what would happen... but Lady Ashley is getting more and more feminine care these days. I have to work hard too......)

The meat is cooked in incendiary flames and the bones and guts are turned into soup.

"Ray's storage magic is really handy. I can't bring pots or anything for an expedition without heavy troops. Don't hesitate to eat, Lord Uno. It's a physical battle ahead of us..."

At first they were reluctant unos, but in Ashley's words four non-watchmen surround the burning fire.

Because it is a small bonfire, it is quite cramped when surrounded by nine people, but on the contrary Ray thought it reinforced the sense of union.

Finishing the meal, Ray and Ashley, Derve and Lauri of the Little Ghost clan lie down. Uno and Stella take turns watching.

I could hear a wolf-like howl in the distance, but there was no sign of a dangerous demon. Around their camp, only the sound of snow falling from the branches was echoing.