"… Holy Crusader has done an excellent job gathering your future brothers in arms," I said as I looked down at the army camp from the flying cart we currently occupied. Just me, and the sixteen Shades. Zolast had been tempted to join, but solving the city dungeon was a bigger priority than having another safety net for the new army.

Particularly since, once they reached level thirty, their leveling up from hunting wild beasts would slow down significantly, and they would need the dungeon to improve further. Naturally, that wouldn't free them from the task of cleaning the mountains, as I still needed my share from them.

The reason was simple.

[Experience: 0/11,619,072,000]

The Experience I needed to reach the next level. Not exactly a comforting number, particularly since I had to pay that for every single member of my Heroic Party going forward. No, even if we didn't desperately need the resources the mountain range represented, they would have to deal with it.

The army had gathered at the foothill of the mountain range, near a mountain passage that was far away from the cultist fortress, as sieging that was up to Takis. The current army was not fit for the task, despite their incredible numbers.

Fifteen hundred people, every single one of them wearing magic armor and carrying multiple magic weapons. However, despite wearing similar gear, they were two groups with wild differences. The smaller group was the veterans, each above level sixty, wearing the distinctive golden armor dedicated to our non-existent deity, shining brightly.

The other group, exactly a thousand soldiers, were the new recruits I had asked Mahruss to gather. Every single one of them were level ten, but not many of them had been until Mahruss had collected them. There were many types of people among them, but their common denominator was that they had been rejected.

Some had been limited due to some kind of disease, preventing them from even reaching level ten. There were some diseases that couldn't be solved by Health directly, requiring mana healing … and not many of the villagers were able to afford that.

Some had been rejected by their groups for various reasons. Insulting the village leader, disrespecting gods, daring to have a class with a weird sounding name, having the wrong class-gender combination — as female blacksmiths weren't the only discriminated group, just the most intense one — and were punished by not being allowed to hunt.

Some had other, similar reasons, but ultimately, it amounted to the same end result. They were adults below level ten in a world where everyone had incredible, System-Enabled capabilities, lacking a divine patron.

Mahruss reported that, when he had first started to recruit them to create a new church army, his challenge wasn't to fill the quota I requested — despite my restrictive request of making sure everyone was age twenty at a minimum — but to actually whittle down the numbers to a thousand.

It surprised me at first, but then I understood why. While I did my best to solve such problems in our territory, the newly declared duchy covered far greater distance, and the other baronies were in a far worse condition.

Technically, recruiting from another fief was impossible, as it was both illegal and a grave insult. However, Mahruss mentioned that none of the baronies even made a peep when our flying carts had collected the candidates.

I wondered what scared the baronies more. The fact that we took down three flying castles without using any of our own, our growing political influence over the princess … or the fact that we had killed one of their 'noble peers' without suffering the slightest ramifications even after the royal family tried to use it against us.

Regardless of the exact reason, it didn't change the fact that we already recruited the first company of our new army with ease, and in the background, others were already recruiting and training more — my initial plan was to recruit an army of ten thousand, all soldiers.

"Holy Steward is here. Attention!" Mahruss shouted, his voice muffled with the golden helmet he was wearing as he played the role of the Holy Crusader.

I left the cart, and the sixteen Shades followed me. "You have accomplished the task that's assigned to you, Holy Crusader. Congratulations," I said before turning to the army, taking note of their spears glimmering under the sunlight, which contrasted with their dark matte gray armor.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Not the most practical color for an armor to maintain, but I wanted to fit the theme of my system-assigned name, Shadow Warden. And, it was leagues better than shiny golden as a theme, a choice I still regretted.

"Thank you, Holy Steward. And, who are these noble warriors?" he asked. The question was for show, as I had already communicated the pertinent details, but as the new recruits were listening, putting on a show would help with their morale.

"These young men and women are the Shades, the sixteen brave warriors that have been chosen by the Great Shadow Warden to fight against the growing darkness!" I declared. "But, while they are the first, they are not the last, because you have been chosen to join the great army. From now on, every single one of you will be a part of the Shadow Guard!"

From there, I gave a lengthy speech about the virtues of the Shadow Warden, the importance of the mission, and other nonsense; all written by Zolast in a way that would fit in well with the approaches of the other churches. I even used my Charisma aggressively to arouse the exact emotions that were needed. A desire for victory, a fear of being inadequate, the happiness of belonging to a new group.

In many ways, Charisma was the most dangerous stat.

Mahruss snickered often as I delivered the speech, but luckily, with his armor, it wasn't as obvious from the outside.

Once the speech was complete, I looked at the Shades. "Bring the sigil, and start recruiting," I said. It was a good chance for them to interact with the rest of the army. Zolast's experiments had shown that, a priest was not necessary to trigger a sigil. It just needed to be drawn correctly, using a material reactive to mana, then use a mana stone to activate it.

Alternatively, a mage could draw it out of mana, and it still worked, confirming my guess that it worked almost as an ID for the System to register.

Notifications flooded a part of my vision.

[Potential Follower Detected

Analyze

Offer]

…

[Potential Follower Detected

Analyze

Offer]

As they flooded my view, I was glad that I had awakened Intelligence. Without the multitasking ability it granted me, I would have had to stay immobile as I checked them before making an offer, and it would have taken quite a bit of time.

Also, as the number of recruits increased, I started to notice another benefit. I could get a general sense of the location the notifications were coming from if I focused on them. It wasn't as accurate as the Heroic Party detection I had, but I could distinguish follower requests that were from here from the ones from Town Maell.

It was a nice feature. There was no great harm in collecting more followers other than a slight increase of the experience cost at the beginning, but I was aware just how badly that cost would snowball eventually.

Meanwhile, as I dealt with the notifications, I gestured for Mahruss to follow me to a tent. We had strategy to discuss.

He was first to speak when we arrived at the tent. "That Shadow Warden sounds like an amazing divine being, boss, when are we going to meet with such an incredible being—" he started, but I slapped his helmet.

"How dare you mock a divine being. I smite thee!" I answered in mock seriousness. He laughed even more. "Since you find my new name so funny, you're not allowed to disguise as a Shade. Have fun being the Holy Crusader, shiny boy," I said.

He gasped as he removed his helmet. "Come on, boss. That's a cruel and unusual punishment. Please have mercy!"

I sighed, enjoying the mood. It was good to see him joking around. It showed that the stress was not getting to them.

Not to mention, humor was a good way to remind them not to take their new roles too seriously. Power was useful, but I had seen how it could poison people, often when they started to take their titles and other nonsense seriously, forgetting that they had sought those titles for a reason.

Any title or status one couldn't sacrifice stopped being a part of their power, and turned into a chain that weakened them.

We chatted a bit as he shared the details of the recruitment, before I moved onto his other task.

"Have you identified the other candidates for the Heroic Party?"

"Yes, sir. I managed to find twenty-eight candidates that fit your criteria, though, currently, only twelve of them are above level sixty, and only four of them have classes above four stat points, but the one below four has Perception as a full stat. Every single one of them have been with us for a while, either in the guild or as a part of the church or both. They are driven, but not excessively ambitious, and they are personable enough."

"Good," I said. "I'm hoping that none of them are particularly obsessed with the honor of their current position, or future glory," I said. I wasn't against glory-hounds in principle, as they could be very useful under the right circumstance. Baron Maell was an excellent example for the potential benefits.

Unfortunately, he was also an excellent example of the drawbacks, worthy of textbooks.

People hungry for achievements required careful management to make sure their ambition was channeled to proper targets. The worst type of people for the purpose I had in mind…

"Naturally," he said, showing that he shared my opinion.

"Any good candidate?" I asked.

"Dahmut," he answered quickly. "He fulfills every condition. He's not an excellent warrior, but he's a very good manager. Also, he's very steady, and risk averse."

"Good. I remember him from the casino. He's a good kid," I said. "A good candidate for the first attempt, particularly since he had to manage a spy ring and a smuggling operation at the same time. Some extra steadiness wouldn't hurt."

"I'm glad," he said.

"Still, arrange some armor for all candidates and let them join the expedition force as guards. I want to observe them directly, and watch how they react under pressure."

Mahruss nodded. "Since we're here, do you have time for a training round? I'm having trouble properly bringing my Strength to the surface."

I nodded. If he wanted to suffer through my own brand of training, who was I to argue.