Building A Human Empire By Creating A Clan [EN]: Chapter 82

Creating a Vassal and Building an Empire 84

I will give you nothing.

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“Oh, woe is me!”

The magic scholar, Griff, exclaimed in admiration.

In the lord’s manor in Ollimus, in his office.

Griff sat alone at the head of the table, popping dried fruit into his mouth.

A scene caught his eye as he chewed. Ayrick Thurdret harboring murderous intent toward Harald Thurdret.

He was observing the situation through a familiar [a magical creature or spirit bound to a witch or wizard] he had sent to Duke Thurdret’s mansion.

“Blinded by jealousy and deluded by religion. Truly a hopeless family. What kind of bloodline… No, would that be insulting Edar-nim?” [Edar-nim is likely a respectful title or name of a deity or important figure in this world.]

He chuckled and turned the familiar’s head back.

The Grand Temple in the center of the city came into view in the familiar’s, the hawk’s, gaze.

Dark clouds gathered over the Grand Temple, and a familiar sensation washed over him.

Griff knew well what that meant.

“It will begin soon.”

He severed the connection with the familiar’s vision.

Then he glanced at the documents piled high on the desk in the office.

Originally, Edar would have handled the bulk of the work, with Griff assisting.

Because Edar was away, Griff was acting as the lord’s proxy.

“Ugh. So much to do.”

Muttering to himself, he picked up a document.

“Ollimus-Rozenne Road construction plan. Approved.”

“Fire at the factory… Is it the work of a minion?”

“Request for participation in the war from Wallachia, no.”

“Lagoa mine production target increased. Naturally approved.”

While he was flipping through documents, someone knocked on the door, bang, bang.

It was so violent he wondered if the door would break.

“What’s going on now?”

The Golden Artisan, Pasimea, burst into the room.

“What’s the problem this time?” Griff asked, without looking up from the documents.

“The situation is terribly bad.”

“When was it ever good?” he grumbled, and Pasimea scowled.

“Those pig heads. Their numbers keep increasing. They’re increasing by 10,000 a day? It’s insane. How can nearly 120,000 of them have gathered in the barren wasteland with nothing to eat?”

“Oh.”

Griff exclaimed briefly and put down the documents.

Just as Griff communicated with Edar through familiars, the magician vassals, including Pasimea, used familiars to monitor the Great Plains and the surrounding areas.

Pasimea’s area of responsibility was the Nerup Plains.

It was where the Ugdashi Steel Mist Tribe had been stationed.

“It seems someone is giving them a lot of support from behind. It must take a lot to feed those pigs.”

“Elves or dwarves, probably. Or maybe those mosquito bastards.”

“Predictable.”

“We can’t stop them from coming down with just us. Edar has to come.”

“I know. That’s why we’re giving up on defense and everything else and sending word to Edar-nim.”

She plopped down in a chair and looked at the map spread out on the desk.

The map was a world map, with various markers placed on it.

Griff chewed on dried fruit, pointing to each marker.

“This is Edar-nim, this is a pseudo-cultist, this is Old Man Nuadil, this is Hilde’s patrol…”

“Wait a minute.”

Pasimea tilted her head.

There were several unusually small markers on the map.

The markers indicated vassal transport units.

Transport units made up of vassals to fill the logistics gap due to the disappearance of nobles and merchants while conquering northern Wallachia.

After Gerhard’s governor-general stabilized the north and merchants naturally emerged and logistics stabilized, the transport units’ role was reduced.

Afterward, they were returned to Griff’s direct control and were responsible for periodically purchasing food from Germania and Wallachia or selling textiles produced in the northern industrial complex.

“Why are there so many transport units? When did you increase them so much?”

The number of transport unit markers, several times the original number, was concentrated between the Great Plains and Germania.

This meant that there was a large-scale supply of goods to Germania.

“I increased them recently. I gathered the non-combat personnel among us and reorganized them.”

“Why? Wouldn’t it be better to give them weapons and send them to Edar rather than do that?”

“No. Now is the time to fight with numbers. It’s more important to reliably provide food and funds to feed a hundred people than to send one or two of us.”

She still looked puzzled.

Griff tossed a dried fruit up into the air and caught it in his mouth.

“Did you hear a while ago? That a bishop in the Rozenne margraviate turned into a wolf.”

“Yeah. Horro… or Horbid gave him some kind of blessing?” [Horrid is likely the name of a deity or powerful entity in this world.]

Griff nodded.

“Edar-nim says that the further west you go, the closer you get to the Theocracy, the more of those guys there will be, and the stronger they will become.”

Pasimea’s eyes widened.

“Does that make sense? Turning humans into something like a different species?”

“I didn’t understand it either, so I asked, but even a fake god is still a god because all the humans in this world believe in it. We can’t ignore it.”

He got up from his seat and poured the fruit bowl over the Germania area.

The dried fruit filled Germania, covering the markers.

Griff took out the markers and placed them on top of the fruit.

“The situation is like this now.”

“Does that fruit represent the Wolf Cult believers?”

“That’s right. Even if we only pick out the zealous believers, not just the casual ones, there would be that many. To put it in perspective, Rachel is living all over Germania.”

Pasimea chuckled at the words Rachel and living.

“…Rachel would be upset if she heard that.”

“She won’t if she doesn’t hear it, right?”

Griff shrugged.

“Anyway… imagine lunatics who can receive Horbid’s power at any time receiving food, weapons, etc. from ordinary believers and carrying out guerrilla warfare.”

The number of vassals, even combined, did not reach one thousand.

If conscripts were mobilized, tens of thousands would be possible, but their strength was weak, so they could not even handle one zealous believer empowered by God.

“If they were just hostile to us, we could somehow manage, but they’re running around saying they’re going to kill everyone except the zealous believers. What difference would it make if we added a few more people?”

“This is driving me crazy…”

Pasimea scratched her head nervously.

“That’s why Edar-nim took the pseudo with him. This fight was a religious war from the beginning. A religious war that advances by converting ordinary believers.”

However, the initial plan was small in scale.

The plan was to occupy only the core cities of Germania.

Rozenne, Thurdret, etc… The plan was to win over key families and gradually reduce the influence of the Wolf Cult and expand into regions with fewer bases such as population and resources.

“Because the bloodline’s servant is plotting something strange. The plan was to stop it and use it as an excuse to say to the nobles, ‘Do you want to be treated like this?’ and persuade them.”

Just as there were many people who followed Horbid with pure faith, there were also many people who followed him because it was beneficial to believe in Horbid.

Edar was aiming for those people.

“I wanted to start by completely replacing those inhuman people like in northern Wallachia… Well, we have to change our approach depending on the environment. Once Edar-nim gains the throne and starts controlling things, there will be a lot to fix, but fixing it will be easy.”

He made a gesture of slicing his neck with his wrist.

“But the situation has completely changed.”

“What can we do when they were so determined? If we leave it like this, the people of Germania will all return to the soil.”

“Hmm.”

“So, in order to match the enemy’s numbers with our numbers, we are also winning over and supporting the nobles. Like Margrave Rozenne here, there will be many people who will gather as much as possible and fight if we just give them financial support.”

“……..”

She covered her mouth and pondered for a moment.

“Going out while converting… The existing religion would be the Wolf Cult, and our religion would be the Public Church that Rachel mentioned?”

“Yes. That Imperial Church, which Gerhard insisted on calling it, but was rejected.”

She recalled the legion commander who had enthusiastically advocated the naming at the time.

It was thwarted because Edar exercised his veto power, but if there had been no veto power, it would have received enough votes to become the Imperial Church instead of the Public Church.

Pasimea sighed.

“Edar will eventually become a god, even though he hated it so much.”

“Well, he must have known from the beginning. It was just a matter of taste.”

She tilted her head.

“Taste? Does that human have such a thing?”

“Edar-nim is also a person, so of course he has hobbies.”

“Oh… I’ve only ever seen him working.”

She scratched her head awkwardly.

“He hasn’t been able to feel fatigue well since he got the ring. He says he doesn’t have any physical problems even if he stays up all night for several days. Plus, he has more time for administration. So he enjoys his hobbies in his spare time.”

“Really? What does he do?”

“He shells peanuts.”

“What?”

She blankly opened her mouth and blinked her eyes.

“He just shells peanuts and plays around.”

“……..”

“At first, it was fruit carving.”

Griff recalled.

Edar, who had finished work late in the evening, brought a bowl of fruit that he had placed in one corner of the office and sat down quietly and began to carve the fruit.

He gave the peeled fruit to Calliope, and when Calliope didn’t want to eat it, Griff ate it, and even then, he had leftovers, so he shared it…

“Wait a minute, he shared it?”

“You ate it a few times, didn’t you? When Callie shared it.”

Was that it.

Pasimea realized belatedly.

“But you can’t carve fruit all day long. The fruit itself is a bit bulky, and who eats it if you carve it in the early morning? It dries out in the morning. So I said, ‘Why don’t you shell peanuts?’ and gave them to him.”

So that’s why peanuts came out so often as provisions in the lord’s manor…

He said to her, who was agonizing over what expression to make.

“Gerhard will arrive tomorrow. Take out all the cannons.”