Ran is the only city under my control right now. My intentions to become king have led to the fact that the country is on the verge of collapse, famine, epidemics and, of course, civil war. The great houses, instead of observing their duty, namely to protect the people, the country and lead it to prosperity, supported the unworthy heir in pursuit of their own ambitions. This was expected and yet the thought itself does not fit in my head. How is this possible? Are there really that many narcissistic and stupid people? Or maybe among them there are those who followed the herd, but in fact want something completely different? Unfortunately, I don’t know this and it’s unlikely that I can find out for sure. I currently have no way to verify this or contact members of the noble houses in any way.

On the other hand, Duke Fellrick is at war with his just intentions to take the throne. He is the brother of the late king and has absolute legitimacy, which means he has the right to take the throne. We could have an alliance, he gets the crown, and we would remain his loyal subjects and rule the kingdom as his right hand, taking up most of the royal affairs just like we were under King Leff. However, his paranoia about rivals for the throne got in the way. He wanted the death of every member of the royal family, including even those who had no right to occupy the throne of the kingdom, we are, of course, talking about Princess Ilifreeta. If she hadn't disappeared, we could have cut off her head like all the members of the royal family, but now that's not even necessary.

The birds flew in and told us that three cities had already fallen into the hands of Fellrick. The first battles between the ducal and feudal troops are already taking place along the river bank. After some battles, entire villages are already burning and people are fleeing in droves to the west trying to escape the war. What’s even worse is that this is happening against the backdrop of a possible invasion by the Antigone Empire, which could come here at any moment and crush us all. Instead of preparing together to repel the attack of a formidable force, we fought in the struggle for the throne of the kingdom, which now no longer has any meaning.

Sitting in my office, all I had to do was drink the last of the wine, having dried out all the barrels from the winery’s cellar. Sitting at the table, I continued to think about what went wrong. Has everything changed since the death of King Leff or maybe since Duke Fellrick decided to go to war with the kingdom. I don't know. And to be honest, this is no longer that important, the main thing is to understand whether this can be solved, and if it can, is it worth it?

It's a stupid question, of course. I swore to protect Lakuus, to protect the people. I will not turn away from my duty and my responsibilities.

Emptying one cup after another, I had no intention of sitting idle. Since I decided to do this, I need to try it. We probably still have a chance to fix everything and turn the situation in our favor. Right now, cultists are scurrying around outside the walls of the capital, most likely they are subjects of Prince Monrid, and soon Fellrick’s troops will approach the capital. We can expect that the two armies will clash in battle while we sit in a protected city and just watch what is happening.

However, what will this give us? Just a temporary respite. As a result, we will still have to fight an army that will outnumber the entire city garrison. Our main problem has not yet been solved. Where can we get an army? Or how to provoke discord in the ranks of opponents so that they kill each other without a trace? Or how to lure some of the opponents to our side? How to prevent unnecessary deaths? Questions, questions... just fucking questions that give me a headache. Even wine doesn't dull this pain.

At that moment I heard a knock on the door and, holding the cup with my palm and barely moving my tongue, said:

"You… can… enter…"

The door opened with a creak and a soldier ran inside, out of breath judging by his profuse breathing. He looks as if he was running across the whole city to get to me. Although most of his face was hidden behind the helmet, I could clearly hear his rapid breathing, and sweat was visible on the exposed areas of his skin. Kneeling in front of me, he humbly and obediently said:

"Sorry to disturb you, Your Majesty. I have an important message from the head of the guards at the northern gate. May I?”

"Yes."

I said, sitting more comfortably in a chair and began to listen to the message.

"Unknown people, a couple of dozen people, approached the gate. They are led by a magician who called himself Granid. They ask for an audience with the king.”

My head sobered up from these words.

Am I really lucky?

So I thought and at that moment jumped out of my seat and ordered:

"Lead me."

***

Several days have passed since Ripun attacked me with a terrible prediction of the future. All this time we secretly made our way through the dense forests to the royal capital. However, what was happening around did not inspire us with any hope. From time to time we encountered groups of people fighting. Fred found the native fighting quite a fascinating spectacle, but I demanded of him not to show our presence and to maintain our secrecy as much as possible.

Some of the natives of one of the sides, who seemed to have a numerical superiority, for some reason took the corpses of the defeated soldiers, but what is even stranger is that they did not take anyone prisoner. This oddity was noted by Fred along with Glate. As a rule, edged weapons with good protection from mortal wounds prevent people of this era from often dying in large-scale battles. The losing side suffers its main casualties when they begin to flee and their opponent begins to pursue. That’s why it doesn’t matter whether they really want war or not, they go to fight knowing that with a 75% probability they will survive even if they are defeated, captured, and the like. Therefore, the wars of this era are not as terrible as the wars of the future where the probability of dying is extremely close to 100%, and even taking into account the fact that you may not even show up on the front line, no one has canceled long-range strikes behind enemy lines.

Considering the above, it is strange to observe why one of the sides does not try to take prisoners, but simply kills them. In the end, no one has canceled the human resource; a prisoner can be given into slavery, ransomed, interrogated, but to kill? In general, this is all very strange and seems to make absolutely no sense.

And the very fact that so many small battles were taking place around us indicated that we were in the epicenter of a real war, which had not happened just a few days earlier. We were lucky to have camouflage with us, thanks to which we hid among the vegetation, but sooner or later we could be discovered, and therefore we need to hurry up and, most importantly, not kill anyone, otherwise relations with the natives will be ruined again.

"There's a group of twenty people in the south."

Will said looking at the scanner and fixing many dots on the screen indicating people.

"They're heading towards us."

"We have to speed up."

I ordered, parting the thickets to the sides and moving on.

Thanks to our camouflage, the natives were not often able to identify us among the thickets. As soon as we froze, we turned into vegetation. This helped not only us, but also Hippolytus and the Lakuusians. Often in the distance one could hear the screams of people and the clanking of swords with the neighing of horses. We tried to avoid the battlefields and sacrificed our time to safely reach Rana, the capital of this state.

"Ripun, well done."

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I thanked the native prophet.

"If it weren’t for you, then we could have been in their place.”

"My gift is to dream about things that should never happen one day. They didn't."

The prophet answered, moving after us, hugging the pregnant Alza.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, He's gone."

The dark-haired girl answered.

"My stomach hurts a little."

Her belly is already quite swollen, which clearly indicates that she is in an advanced stage of pregnancy. According to Fred, labor will begin in a month or two. I think that if the natives allow it, we should stay in Rana or go further east without them.

"It’s wild for me to be here.”

Niana suddenly spoke, attracting the attention of another royal, Princess Ilifreeta.

"This forest is so strange."

"That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the fact that men rule here, not women.”

"Isn't it the same with you?"

I asked Hippolytian, to which Zaden immediately answered.

"All the husbands of Hippolytus are servants of women. The queen rules us, the princess sits on the throne, women fight, work, and we raise and lay the seeds of offspring. They suffer for us, we work at home."

"Heh... henpecked."

Will commented with a laugh, for which he received a push from Forn.

"Moon."

"What?"

Zaden said, not understanding what Will said.

"Nothing."

I answered.

"You don't need to know that. Let's keep going."

Some time later, towards evening, we emerged from the forest thickets straight onto a large well-trodden road. Judging by the scanners, there was no one here, but not far from us, on the opposite side of the path, a fairly large battle was being fought. Therefore, we hurried and hurried to the city, whose stone walls were already visible in the distance behind the thickets.

"Is this Ran?"

I asked Granid and received a positive answer from the old man.

"True."

"Will they let us in?"

"They’ll even let you into the Sod garden with me.”

"I hope so."

I would like to believe Granid’s words, but he has already proven his reliability more than once, at least as a magician for sure. I am sure you can trust him, and most importantly, you can rely on him. After some time, we approached the walls of the city straight to the stone gates, where we were noticed by guards standing at the top of the towers, after which they immediately raised the alarm by starting to ring the bells. We, in turn, continued to walk until some kind of fuss began to happen ahead of us from all sorts of shouts and running around.

"Everyone get ready. We're not going into battle."

I gave orders to the platoon and took the assault rifle off the safety and kept my finger on the trigger.

We had some ammunition, but it was barely enough for one battle with the natives. The maximum we could achieve was to escape. Soon, when we approached the gate closer, archers took aim at us, and one of the guards with a steel helmet on his head shouted to us in a rough male voice:

"Who are you? The city is closed! Give your name immediately, otherwise you are corpses!”

Is it too harsh?

I thought and exchanged glances with my soldiers, released the assault rifle and began introducing myself.

"I am Boris Kipito, I am the leader of this detachment, and this is my employer Granid, he is a magician.”

"What do you need?"

"We want to go to the city."

"We're daydreaming, freaks. We know you cultists, you really want to get inside."

"We don't..."

"Shut up, freak. You're dead!"

"Wait! We don't want to fight!"

"Guys, let's finish them off."

It's rubbish.

I thought.

At that moment, I was about to raise my rifle and fire a shot, when Granid immediately interrupted me, blocking my view with his body.

"Don't worry, Boris. They won't touch us. I'll protect you."

His words were not empty. Coming out in front of us, he raised his staff and performed some kind of magic invisible to the eye.

"Shoot, damn it!"

The guard shouted to the archers and the arrows immediately flew straight at us, but the next moment their sharp tips crashed into an invisible wall and simply fell to the ground.

"What the?"

The guard was surprised.

"Where is your king?"

Granid said in a hoarse voice, looking at the surprised archers and in particular at the guard who dared to bury us ahead of time.

"Who are you?!"

"They told you my name. I am Granid, a free magician. Let us into the city or call the king here.”

"K-king?"

The guard stuttered, looking back at his subordinates.

"I... I won't do this. I have to... figure it out."

"You will do this or else I will come to the king myself."

Granid said threateningly as he began to gather a very huge fireball over his staff, which shone as brightly as the sun in the sky, if not tens of times brighter.

Wait... is he really going to use it now?

I was surprised.

"Okay, okay."

The guard surrendered and gave an order to one of his men, after which he turned to us again.

"Wait here. We won't let you in."

"Nice."

I breathed a sigh of relief, and in the meantime Granid dispelled his magic.

"At least we weren't hit."

I didn’t have to wait long, about half an hour later the gates opened and, accompanied by soldiers clad in steel plate armor, walked a man dressed in a rich aristocratic robe of green-blue color with a cross red ribbon on his chest, and of course with a golden crown on his head. This man was mature in appearance, with golden eyes and curly short black hair. His gaze was stern and at the same time curious and was directed at all of us, but in particular at Granid.

Approaching closer, the king’s servant in a black robe, hiding his face, demanded that we introduce ourselves:

"Who are you?"

Granid stepped forward and bowed respectfully. After holding his bow for a few seconds, the old man finally introduced himself:

"Granid Free Mage."

Having returned to an even position, he pointed at us with his palm.

"And these are my companions."

The king, looking at us all for a while, narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but returned his attention to the old man and smiled.

"It's good to see you, Granid. My name is Draun and I am the king of the kingdom of Lakuus."

"What?"

Suddenly a woman's voice was heard, belonging to Princess Ilifreeta.

"Are you the king?"

Seeing the princess, the king's eyes widened and he looked at the old wizard with anger.

"Answer me! What is she doing here?!"

Granid raised his palm, but answered in a calm tone:

"My companions rescued this maiden from Itsqueen. I heard from her that Count Laroy imprisoned her in his dungeon."

"Laroy means."

The king said in a calmer tone, looking at the princess with a stern gaze.

The king was clearly angry about something, and at that time Ilifreeta’s face showed only incomprehension of everything that was happening. The one who really didn’t understand anything was me. We looked superfluous and insignificant here, although it seemed that with our camouflage we looked much more suspicious than everyone else. Those accompanying the king really looked only at us from head to toe, and the king did not even deprive us of attention, but soon the king turned away from us and ordered his people:

"Let them into the city. They are my guests."

"As you wish, Your Majesty."

One of the servants bowed, and the guards, having heard the order, stepped aside to give us passage.

The king turned to us and said with a certain amount of joy:

"I’m so glad that you arrived here. The situation of our kingdom is precarious, the help of a free magician would not hurt us, especially after the attack by the cultists. I ask you to follow me to the palace.”

With great relief we headed inside.

We're finally here. All that remains is to get the right of passage, shoot and return to the 127th Army.

I thought, and while we walked between the narrow streets of the city, the king and the old wizard started a conversation.