“Now then, back to business.”

Kain walked the rest of the way from where he had landed to the throne room. He fully expected that the former Heroes would take their time and slowly come to appreciate his nation before deciding to pay him a visit. While he did not know the exact time or date that they would arrive to see him, he fully expected it to take no less than a month and half.

With that estimate he felt that he had more than enough time to retake the territory lost to the Crusaders and Heroes on his south eastern border. He would need to be cautious, however. Lord Wolfenstein’s warning was still fresh in his head and while he trusted the enigmatic entity about as far as he could throw him (which was less than a millimeter, by the way), Kain did trust the information that LW gave. Not once had Lord Wolfenstein’s advice been faulty, never had the entity steered him astray. That said, the entity known colloquially as ‘LW’ did not force others to listen to its advice.

That said, if LW said that crossing into Ititlis was a suicidal move for any and all involved, Kain would be a fool to ignore it. He much preferred to avoid nonexistence, thank you very much. Thankfully, LW had informed them that simply retaking the lost land would be far less deadly than making a counter-crusade. If LW was to be believed, which he most certainly was, then it would take at most a few years before Ititlis could be invaded.

Finally having made it to his regal and comfy chair, Kain took a seat and sent out a message to all who served him as military leaders. The message was simple and all it relayed was his order to cease their movements deeper into the enemy controlled territory. Neo Albion and the Greater Teutonian Union State would have to cease their advances into the People’s Union of Rusk and instead consolidate their control over the territory that they had seized. Likewise, any attempts to invade Ititlis by land, sea or air had to be put on the back burner for the time being. They could plan those invasions and prepare for them, but executing them was out of the question, at least for now.

Kain was grateful that the ones under his command were smart enough to obey his words without much questioning. As much as they wanted to ignore his orders and advance, the potential invocation of Kain’s wrath was a risk too great to dismiss. When Kain told them about the trap Ititlis had created (with information courtesy of Lord Wolfenstein) and how they were stretched too thin as it was, only a few of the higher-ups deemed it appropriate to ask for a chance to advance regardless.

Kain would have none of that. After watching no small number of documentaries and having no end of history teachers explain things, he knew all too well what happened when you fought a land war in Asia/Russia. The only way to win was to secure the territory that was occupied and drown the territory in bodies, but this would have to happen over a longer period of time than most military men were keen to endure. In the case of such a conflict, slow and steady would win the race, and such a conflict was exactly what they were in on that front.

With that out of the way, Kain once again turned his attention to the land lost to and occupied by his nation’s mortal enemy. It would not be enough to simply retake his rightful clay; he would need to make certain that those who survived would try and convince anyone who would listen that invading Darksol was a terrible idea. While yes, he had planned for those lands to be taken by the Luminas Confederacy, he also wanted to send a clear and distinct message.

He would take to the field and personally deal with the incursion. However, he also wanted the victory over these pathetic forts to be so overwhelmingly total that those he let escape would bring stories filled with terror and despair to those they met. It was quite the conundrum. On the one hand he wanted to spread fear and sow discord among the members of the Luminas faith, but on the other hand he wanted to crush the resistance that the wooden forts created with absolute and ruthless efficiency. He would need to delegate tasks in order to make things work the way he wanted, and he knew just the people for the job.

It was time to call the House Founders and have them earn their keep once again.

…

“I see… I see… Yes, very interesting…”

A thin and deathly pale man with glowing red eyes spent his time reading from the large amounts of tomes, grimoires and other documents in the tower he had come to occupy. Its former residents now either existed as Undead of various kinds or as living cultists devoted to his creator. The House Founder of House Nefarius, Alec Nefarius, was enjoying the mass amounts of information around him. He loved his House’s new base of operations; it was a far cry from the dusty ruins and abandoned watchtowers that they used to use.

“My master, what do you find so interesting? What here could possibly add to your immeasurable knowledge?”

The voice of the former head of the Anglond Mages Guild, now a powerful lich, snapped Alec out of his reading trance.

“Ah, well… What is interesting is that there is little to nothing in this book that isn’t muddied by false information. In fact, most of the documents in here are filled with lies and half-truths, and that very fact is what astounds me. It makes me wonder just how you people had managed to even learn to use magic in the first place. Take this book for instance. It is supposed to teach you how to start manipulating your internal mana, yet the methods it lists are so inefficient that it could take at least a decade for anyone to even begin to tap into their internal mana.”

“That was the point, my lord.” the lich said with a mix of sadness and guilt.

“Excuse me? So you made it hard to tap into your internal mana on purpose? Why? What point would that serve? It makes no sense!” Alec half yelled at the lich.

“As we were a guild, we had to make sure that only the best could join. Anyone who used those practices and achieved results was deemed to be worthy, and the rest were simply too weak to be of use. After all, if someone managed to use those wasteful training techniques to unlock their own potential, then they almost certainly had a deep wellspring of mana. Plus, the longer you were in the guild and training the more you had to pay, so these difficult training methods kept the Mages Guild afloat by exploiting the desperate and the untalented.”

Alec stared at the lich for a moment before sighing and finishing the book he held in his hands.

“What a waste. Under my management, this kind of exploitative practice will no longer be tolerated. Then again, once I took control of this place, I already did stop it and implement new training regimens. So what we have here is a bunch of useless books that teach nothing and just take up space…”

At Alec’s words, the lich prepared a fire magic spell.

“Wait, wait, wait! No! Bad lich! Just because they are a waste of space does not mean we can simply destroy them! As much as I hate to say this, every book, even the bad ones, have value! They are testaments to the hard work of others and thus should be preserved. As much as these books are useless, they are also a useful reminder of where you once stood and how far you have come since then. So, no burning books!”

The lich nodded and dispelled the flames in its hands.

“Now, back to-.”

Alec almost started reading again, but instead immediately shot up from his reclined position and closed his eyes. After a few minutes of him standing straight and holding his eyes shut, he put a braided string in the part of the book that he stopped on, shut it and then began to walk away from the library at an accelerated pace.

“My lord, what is the matter?” the lich asked.

“I have been given a new task by my masters. I, along with the other House Founders, are to occupy and rule over the land formerly known as the Siempre Dorado Kingdom while sending our initiates and youngest members to aid in the retaking of lands seized by the Luminas Confederacy.” Alec replied while still walking away.

“So then, where are you going?” the lich asked.

“To move this place into a new spot. Tell everyone to stay inside and to shut all windows, doors and vents. This is going to be a wonderful test of how much I have grown in such a short period of time. I do hope that this place doesn’t end up halfway into a mountain or under a lake.”