I Became the Commander in a Trash Game Who Copies Skills-Chapter 112 : Chapter 112

Chapter 112. Treaty (4)
Let’s say I became a game developer.
What ways are there to adjust the difficulty?
The easiest is numerical manipulation.
A method where the stats of all NPCs except the player are increased as the difficulty rises.
In an RPG, stats like strength, agility, or HP would be manipulated.
In a strategy game, the NPC faction’s food, funds, population, research power, and the like would be increased.
The developers of Warlord Conquest made a different choice.
In this game, enemy soldiers don't become harder to kill, nor does the damage of the same cannon change just because the difficulty goes up.
The difficulty of this game is controlled solely by ‘probability’.
The probability of positive or negative events occurring.
The gap in the speed of development created by the chain reaction of such events becomes the difference in difficulty.
The higher the difficulty, the more negative events pop up for the player.
Conversely, the NPC factions get far more positive events.
Should I call it the butterfly effect?
At first, there's not much of a difference, but after just a few years, an overwhelming gap opens up.
For example, while the dwarves are operating bipedal steam-powered war machines and the Ratmen are building tunnels and underground cities across the continent, committing acts of terror, the Empire is just barely managing to quell its civil war.
Or while the Lumer Legion is fully revived and swallows the entire southern continent, and the elves break their silence to begin a massive ‘forest construction’, the City-State Alliance only just manages to achieve unification.
What was the Inferno difficulty like?
The war with the vampires broke out much earlier than usual.
Without giving any room to breathe, a civil war struck the Empire.
The beastmen sent legendary heroes to invade the south whenever I was about to forget them.
The Ratmen swallowed a provincial fortress whole and began to run rampant even in the Imperial Capital.
Seeing the Lumer ruins awaken, it was clear that the Emperor of Lumer in the south of the continent had also been revived.
In the midst of all that, the Orc Great Chieftain rallied the horde and besieged the dwarven capital, and even the Vampire Duke, who had been asleep for over a hundred years, woke from his slumber.
‘Ahem, Master. Wasn’t the last one your doing?’
‘Is this insubordination?’
‘No, that’s not it….’
Anyway, it was a difficult situation in many ways.
I had anticipated it.
To overcome this, I had laid out two long-term plans.
The first step was to rapidly grow the viscounty, the foundation of my power, by fully utilizing my game knowledge.
The second was precisely….
Rustle.
“Halt.”
I raised my hand.
The Lesser Vampire Necromancer and the five hundred-odd Necro Ogers following me stopped.
As the massive figures, each three meters tall, stopped in unison, a strong gust of wind swept past my back.
Letting out a dry laugh in disbelief, I summoned a single Vampiric Bat.
“Tisha.”
I gestured to the vampire with my chin.
As one of my oldest companions, she instantly understood what I wanted and placed her hand on the head of the Vampiric Bat.
Kkiiing?
The giant bat, the size of an adult man’s upper body, rubbed its head against my side before soaring high into the sky.
While the bat-drone and its pilot, the Lesser Vampire Necromancer, were engrossed in reconnaissance, I examined the Necro Ogers that had followed me.
Guooong?
The ones I had been making in my spare time already numbered over five hundred.
To be precise, five hundred and twenty-eight.
They were broadly divided into two types.
First, the senior ones were the three hundred or so Necro Ogers made from the corpses of beasts.
These were the ones I had assembled in my spare time after defeating the beastmen army led by ‘The Consecrator of the Beast Hide,’ burying the byproducts in the forest.
True to their beastly origins, they were composed of abundant viscera, muscular limbs, rough hides, and goat heads.
Kiririk. Kirik.
The remaining two hundred or so were closer to Skeleton Ogers than Necro Ogers.
After all, the bodies of desiccated mummies would have more bones than flesh.
As could be glimpsed from the bandages peeking out here and there, these were recycled from the corpses of the legionnaires left after conquering the Lumer ruins.
In fact, I could have made many more.
If only I hadn't burned more than half of them with fire magic while dealing with Randal and the legionnaires that day.
The [Spliced Death] trait processes most corpses wholesale, but it wouldn't accept ashes left after burning as material.
It was something I hadn't considered at the time, when I had to break through and clear the ruins immediately.
“My lord, I see archers… Ack!”
Our bat-drone pilot flinched her shoulder.
It seemed she had lost a drone.
“Hit by an arrow?”
“Yes, I apologize….”
“No need to apologize.”
I would have lost it too if I were the pilot.
Dodging a ranger's arrow in a forest with a Vampiric Bat is next to impossible, no matter how skilled the pilot.
That’s right.
Rangers.
We were now at the southern border of the viscounty, near the border where I had set up outposts and deployed rangers.
It had been quite a long journey.
After raising the Necro Oger unit in the western clearing, we had come down south along the forest for two days.
If it weren't for the sacred relic from the Lumer ruins, ‘Starfish,’ or rather ‘The False Star that Shines in the Shadows,’ I might have had quite a headache.
Without its cloning ability, I would have had to leave the lord's seat vacant for several days.
‘You mean the range of the clone made by that Starfish thing? Well. Based on a human’s walking pace, it should be more than a fortnight’s distance, I suppose?’
That was Kkumteuli’s answer to my question one day while I was training with the clone body.
It was just as it said.
Was an Outer God still an Outer God, even with limited abilities through a sacred relic?
The Starfish's cloning ability had a very generous range limit.
Furthermore, as if there was some communication between Outer Gods, Kkumteuli’s transformation ability also applied, so I could choose which one to use for which role.
At first, the sensation of having two bodies was strange, but after more than half a year of training, I had adapted sufficiently.
Now I could handle daily tasks without much trouble.
Though combat was another matter.
Still, I probably wouldn't get ambushed in the middle of Wolfskrig, surely.
Cutting off my thoughts, I raised my staff.
It was time to move.
[[Phantom Step] is deployed.]
I minimized my presence, just as I learned from Barum of the Black of the Imperial Secret Knight Order.
[[Hebrun’s Blood Scent Concealment] is deployed.]
With a spell stolen from Hebrun, who had dismembered the Beastpriest of the Full Moon and the beastmen monster together, I concealed my scent, traces of mana, and my very perception itself.
[[Scattered Shadows] is deployed.]
The applied stealth effect was simultaneously cast on the five hundred-odd Necro Ogers.
[[Wide-Area Silence] is deployed.]
Finally, completely silencing my footsteps, I adjusted my mask.
“Kihihi… Let’s go.”
I led the army of the dead into the darkness.
An army of Necro Ogers, each comparable to a small car.
That advance was far from smooth.
Their massive bodies broke trees and uprooted bushes.
Their rough steps overturned the soil, and the animals sleeping within scurried away.
That’s right.
Even wild animals, whose senses were extremely developed for survival, did not even notice our approach until their homes were destroyed.
This was because the layers of added spells and abilities had silenced even a march that should have shaken the very earth.
In that silence, I saw an outpost in the distance.
“No combat. We pass through.”
Uooong…!
There was no reason to cause friction.
We broke through the border, staying as far away from the outpost as possible.
Was it because of the Vampiric Bat we shot down earlier?
I could see the rangers loitering outside the outpost, but this should be fine.
No matter how outstanding a ranger’s five senses were, there was no way they could detect the presence of my army, slathered in mid-tier skills, from hundreds of meters away….
“Th-there…!”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Look over there! Necro Ogers…!”
…Seems they can.
It appears Karen trained them better than I thought.
Fortunately, only one of them noticed us.
I struck first before they could give chase.
[[Chincharina’s Shackles of the Flesh] is deployed.]
[[Chincharina’s Shortened Breath] is deployed.]
[[Banshee’s Scream] is deployed.]
Kyaaaaaaaa-!
“Ugh! My ears! My head!”
“My chest, I can’t breathe…!”
Sorry, friends.
This trip abroad is for a ‘closed-door meeting.’
I mainly used curses that wouldn’t be life-threatening, so they should be fine after a few hours of rest.
There was no trouble after crossing the border.
There was no pursuit from the rangers, which I had been slightly worried about.
A would probably reach my clone body at the Wolfskrig castle in a day or two.
I could just send the most reliable Olif to clean up the traces.
It was while I was walking for several hours, concentrating a bit of my mind on the clone body and handling overdue administrative tasks.
“My lord.”
The vampire walking beside me called out.
“The mana of necromancy is growing thicker.”
The Vampire Archduchy.
“Maintain a state of alert.”
I summoned the one remaining Vampiric Bat and operated it as a drone.
The formation was a skirmish line with ample space between each other, in preparation for any potential spell bombardment.
There was only one reason I went to such lengths to enter the Archduchy.
To overcome the malicious favoritism of the probability lottery that came with the Inferno difficulty.
If the first method was to build up power, the second was to gather forces.
This included not only the Imperial faction to which I belonged, but all other available forces as well.
The world of Warlord Conquest is unique.
Each faction, country, and race has characteristics that are so distinct they seem exaggerated.
Some have feudalism, some a loose federation, some an absolute monarchy, and others follow representative democracy.
There are races that live a nomadic life close to barbarism, and countless others that have built unique civilizations with things like necromancy, steam engines, magitech, or spirit magic.
Just look at the Empire.
While its politics and culture are stuck somewhere in the mid to late medieval period, isn’t its military system, centered on a standing army, similar to the early modern era?
Even though magic, a substitute for science, is commonplace in the Empire, from the battlefield to the daily lives of the upper class, the technological level of adjacent races like the dwarves or Ratmen has in itself already surpassed the industrial age.
What I want is to integrate all of that.
Gunpowder and technology from the dwarves.
Spirit magic from the elves.
The Theocracy’s biotechnology and forging techniques.
The magic and perseverance of humans.
Of course, among them, creatures like the Ratmen would have to be fought with the fate of my faction on the line, let alone extracting their technology.
Anyway, the gist of it is to not simply acquire enemy forces through Warrior's Binding, but to make their technology, spells, and the factions themselves our allies.
The Vampire Archduchy is the first case.
Our official relationship with them is still hostile.
However, because I had done a favor for the Princess of Blood in the guise of Tribus, and because I had overwhelmed the Vampire Duke’s ‘sounding out’ disguised as a gift, I opened the way for back-channel diplomacy.
There are two things I will demand from them.
A non-aggression pact.
And a path.
By signing a non-aggression pact, I will use the Archduchy as a breakwater against the likes of Indika or Lumer that will come up from the south.
By demanding a path to the east, I will be able to send support troops to the dwarves.
This is only the beginning.
By repelling the orc invasion, I will also strengthen my friendly relations with the dwarves.
After driving out the beastmen of the Black Forest, I will be able to open trade with the Theocracy and the City-State Alliance.
With this, Wolfskrig will go beyond being a remote city that produces high-quality iron ingots and become the center of southern trade and a hub of technology.
And to properly fasten the last button, one must first fasten the first button correctly.
“Are you Lord Tribus?”
Was it about half a day after entering the Vampire Archduchy?
A vampire, accompanied by about a hundred undead guards, approached us.
Fortunately, thanks to our competent Vampiric Bat and bat-drone pilot, we had detected his approach in advance.
Shrugging my shoulders, I answered leisurely.
“Kihit? A bat can talk? Yes, I am Tribus.”
I saw the vampire’s expression subtly contort, but that was none of my business.
It wasn't my fault.
Tribus usually says something like this when he encounters a vampire.
Still, perhaps because of the experience that comes with a long vampire life, the fellow didn't show much emotion and spoke.
“Duke Yulister von Zarhill is waiting for you.”
The vampire guided the way with an elegant gesture, like a high-class tour guide.
Shall we sign an unfair treaty?