After I descended the stairs that led to the underground tunnel, I immediately deleted the said stairs.
Like this, no one should be able to follow after me.
“Geez! You’re such a risktaker! You really shouldn’t have gone behind enemy lines by yourself!”
“S-sorry. But being alone’s probably the only way I can talk to him without making him be on guard…plus, if you came with me, there’ll be some complications with the Bazurata house, right?”
As soon as she saw me, Selen who was waiting in the tunnel expressed her annoyance once more.
I intended to negotiate with Raul all by myself.
The area where his army has camped was part of the territory under my control, hence how I was able to build the underground tunnel. Given that, escaping was simple, and I could even fight with a golem if ever I needed to buy some time.
However, Selen thought that it was still too dangerous for me to go alone and insisted on coming along.
Her waiting for me in the tunnel was the compromise we had.
“So, how did it go?”
“Not great. I was able to talk with him, but he refused to believe anything I said.”
“Hmm, I thought as much.”
At this point, a fight with Raul and his army was pretty much inevitable.
“Still, he has 5,000 soldiers at his command. Without a doubt, we are facing a threat far greater than the one the orc horde posed.”
“Yeah…but I might have something to help.”
“You have a strategy?”
“I don’t think it qualifies as a strategy, but yeah…”
◇ ◇ ◇
The next morning, Raul’s army resumed their march on the wasteland.
“But is there really a city here that warrants these many soldiers? I mean, look at this wasteland…”
“Really not feeling this. We just got back from a war, too. Hope this ends quickly so I can finally take a break.”
The soldiers’ morale wasn’t great.
Being drafted all of a sudden was bad enough, but then they find out that they were drafted this time for a fight between members of the Albert house.
Even if their side wins, it wouldn’t benefit them that much. In fact, whichever brother won wouldn’t change things too much for them.
Given that, it was no wonder that their motivation to fight was so low.
“Oy, did you hear about last night? Apparently, Luke-sama popped out of nowhere in the center of the camp. Our camp.”
“Seriously? Why though? To surrender? No, can’t be it; we wouldn’t be still marching if it was…”
“Yeah. But you know what’s more bizarre? I heard that right after talking to Raul-sama, Luke-sama vanished all of a sudden. Like a ghost or something.”
“What? You sure they weren’t just imagining it?”
Knowledge of the enemy being able to reach their supposedly well-guarded leaders and then escape was deemed not beneficial before the start of the battle, so a gag order was issued to those present.
Yet, information about last night’s events were still spreading among the soldiers.
“Or maybe…maybe he used some kind of high-rank magic…”
“If that’s true, this fight might be more troublesome than I thought.”
“I mean, the city we’re headed to is supposedly built by Luke-sama within a year, yeah? Just for that, they must be something else…”
Perhaps sensing that the soldiers were either slacking off or getting too anxious, Raul’s retainers shouted at them to set them straight. It didn’t do much good though.
“Tsk…every last one of them…”
Irritated by his soldiers, Raul distanced himself from them.
He even had half a mind to leave the soldiers behind. He knew he could win all by himself anyway. In fact, he as a show of force. He had hoped that once his brother saw the difference between their armies, the latter would immediately fall to despair and beg for forgiveness.
“But just what happened last night…!? He appeared and vanished all of a sudden! To make it worse, instead of crying and begging, he acted like my army wasn’t anything to worry about!”
While clenching his fist so tight that his nails bit into his skin, Raul swore something.
“Luke! I’m not going to stop until I make your face twist with dread and despair! And then, I’m going to torment every fool who has supported you…kukuku, I can picture it now: your ugly, pitiful mug as you cry and beg for forgiveness…”
Consumed by such terrifying emotions, Raul said so and then laughed maniacally.
At that time though, the vanguard of the army became even noisier. When Raul looked, a retainer was desperately rushing toward him.
“Raul-sama! T-terrible news!”
“What is it?”
“The wasteland…the wasteland…!”
Based on that, something clearly happened in the wasteland.
However, because the report was so incomprehensible, Raul was forced to see it for himself.
What waited for him was…
村–––>Village
ラウル軍————>Raul’s army
障壁—————>Ramparts
Please consider supporting me. You can do this either by turning off adblock for this blog or via my Patreon page. Thank you.
RPGNovels 
One tqctic is to make them march forwver by having the ground under them move back for every step they take, theyd just give up and it woudnt cost qnything
LikeLike
HAHAHAHAHA!!! A maze!It’s a facility or did he come up with it? Anyway, isn’t the village not even connect to any path!? HAHAHAHA!!! I clearly see a pitiful future for this hopeless bastard.
LikeLike
Jeez, shut up Selen. This is why you’re a low tier heroine.
LikeLike
Thanks for the chapter! So it wasn’t teleportation or projection. Sadge. Idk. I think that it may have occurred to me that it was just the existing skills that he was using, but stepping down ten steps is not instantaneous, and I thought that Raul and the soldiers were actively watching him at that time. Still though. A maze with no solution is a rather interesting idea.
LikeLiked by 2 people
* I mean that the character for the village is surrounded by ramparts, but that might just be indicating the village itself. (I still think a maze without a proper ending is better though.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
I thought he was going to move the floor the enemy army was camping in and move it as far away as he can every time they camped, making it impossible to reach the “village”, but I guess this is also pretty good!! Wahaha
LikeLiked by 2 people
He could also just drop the army in a pit or something, and if he really wanted t get rid of them, he could ask the dungeon for help by sending a bunch of monsters down a tunnel toward the pit. That being said, I don’t know if the monsters are able to leave the dungeon though. Well neither of these options really suit Luke’s style though. Moving the floor and making a pit are both pretty active/directly interfering, whereas a maze is pretty passive, and Luke is pretty passive as shown with the intelligence agents. He won them over with just the village itself. He didn’t do anything to them unless they were uncooperative.
LikeLiked by 2 people
At first i thought luke is gonna move the village to confuse and exhaust the enemy soldier, but this is another level of confusing. This will give other forces lesson, never mess with luke anymore.
LikeLiked by 2 people
hahaha… that’s not a strategy? builiding a maze in the middle of wasteland where they can’t get food.. hahaha. luke is a genius if i may say it… thanks for the chapter!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s not even a maze! A maze has a way to reach the end! The village is still completely encased in walls! It’s a dungeon in its own right!
LikeLiked by 1 person
faux il y a une sortie l’aveugle
LikeLike
Thanks for the chaptef. Well done MC. Sneaky walling in the village with a way ouy for everybody.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“In fact, he as a show of force.”
huh?
LikeLiked by 1 person
ded end
thank you for the translation
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!
“In fact, he as a show of force.”
There’s something missing in this line.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A-MAZE-ZING!!
OUTSTANDING MOVE
LikeLiked by 6 people
I labyrinth!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s not going to go Raúl’s way. This is going to be sweet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Why did he even bother to make the maze solve-able? Its not like they can’t leave the “village” through underground tunnels while trapping the troops with crushing walls…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Crushing their wills is better than crushing them literally~
Since you can torment them later, unless you’re a lich or something~
LikeLike
Momonga- Sama could
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s not actually solvable, because the village is walled in. How would they know they are passing village walls instead of maze walls?
LikeLike
Also, It’s highly possible for Luke to manipulate the walls and change the direction lmao
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for this blessing, I hope u doin okay!
These labyrint puzzles can be easily solved if you track back from the end goal instead of starting from the entrance, just sayin’
LikeLiked by 2 people
For anyone wondering, the maze is actually possible.
The path is quite winding though.
Now to slowly abduct the soldiers and convince them to move in…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Solvable even with the simple right hand rule (at least till the village ramparts). Since they were going to invade a city in a wasteland, they should have prepared for a siege right?
Also, they forgot to include a back door for merchants.
LikeLike
Well he could always move the walls when ever he wanted…
LikeLike
Lol! A maze. Nice!
LikeLiked by 2 people