ARCHDEUS

NEW WAVES(1)

The March of Whitesburg

Whitesburg was a feudal territory that became the western gateway of the Kingdom of Artchania. The Kingdom of Artchania had a border with the Kingdom of Cephareae. It has been almost seven years since the two kingdoms were still at war. The conflict between the Kingdom of Cephareae and the Kingdom of Artchania had long since entered into armed conflict with so many waves of wars of size that occurred from major battles to minor battles on the border. The initial conflict of the war between the two governments began when the struggle for resources at the border. Found in the southwest there are areas that have a large concentration of dark coal. The two kingdoms claimed each other and ended in a bloody battle. Over time, the conflict widened with the joining of the Archantolian Kingdom, a small kingdom in the Archiberian region that sided with the Kingdom of Artchania.

The Kingdom of Cephareae was a kingdom outside Archiberia and was larger than the combined territory of the Kingdom of Artchania and the Kingdom of Archantolia. The size of the kingdom is also supported by their military capabilities, especially the kingdom is supported logistically by the Gredonian Empire. With all those conditions, indeed the Kingdom of Cephareae was the most feared enemy by the Kingdom of Artchania. Even the impact of the war between the two kingdoms was far more massive than the impact of the war between the Kingdom of Ibeltia and Artchania two years ago.

The border between the two kingdoms was precisely in Whitesburg where the conflict between the two countries occurred was one of the bloodiest borders between all the borders owned by the Kingdom of Artchania.

Perhaps you could say 1/5 of the defense budget of the Kingdom of Artchania was exhausted to maintain this border.

Aethborough Fortress was a frontier fortress that served as a border guard for the Kingdom of Artchania. This fort is also known as the fortress of death because every day there will be soldiers who die in guarding the border. There were many small skirmishes between Artchania and Cephareae that made the military unable to relax their neck veins in this place.

Currently not far from the gate of the fort, the corpses of fallen soldiers lined up neatly covered with shabby cloth. They were the soldiers who died in the battle that started two years ago.

It was late at night, the patrol team found a group of enemy troops that seemed to be a spy unit trying to enter the territory of the Kingdom of Artchania.

A battle ensued and after that a follow-up battle began to emerge.

Surely the battle resulted in not a few casualties.

So on this day all those who have fallen will soon be rested.

If conditions were normal they would bury these people but in this fortress, they would rather burn the corpses of their comrades in arms.

It wasn't without reason. Too many died in this place making the concentration of dark mana in this region even higher. Not to mention this place is an area where large amounts of dark coal are found. It was not impossible, it could be that one day they would have to fight the corpses of their fallen friends. It was because it was not impossible for the enemy side to have a magic caster like a necromancer capable of awakening undead.

Young soldiers are seen starting to lift the bodies of their comrades in arms and pile them up in piles of firewood in large numbers.

Oil is poured there. Then a black haired young man was carrying a torch in his hand.

With a stern face without blinking, he burned the pile of corpses.

The giant fire seemed to smolder, as if eating the corpses that were the source of the fuel.

This is like the last resting place of the knights of the God Lareal the god of fire or often referred to as the god of war. They will worship and believe in the fire god and be born of the fire and buried in the burning fire.

"Jared, come here Sir Pyrodicus calls you!" shouted a young soldier.

Jared or his full name is Jared Alger Fertiphile the second son of Count Fertiphile. Jared is 18 years old and has just graduated from a military academy. During his time at the academy, Jared had shown incredible abilities in swordsmanship. As expected of the descendants of the Fertiphile.

That is why, one of the senior knights of the kingdom named Sir Pyrodicus Severus Capitinax interested in making him as his student. Getting educated directly from one of the strongest knights was obviously a pride in itself.

But who would have thought, immediately after Jared graduated from the academy, he was directly assigned to the most dangerous border in the kingdom.

It's been two and a half months that Jared has been here. It seems he is getting used to it. At first of course he got a shock from living in the most unstable region. He was often struck by insomnia due to the sound of fighting that sometimes sounded from behind the castle walls, often had diarrhea due to consuming strange foods, and even had to be full of wounds due to extreme training.

But now Jared has managed to at least adjust from it all in less than three months.

It was a time that tended to be very quick to be able to adjust.

Jared, led by a young soldier named Fruel, walked to where Sir Pyrodicus was.

"Huh .. shit, lately eating that we can be much worse than usual," complained Fruel.

Fruel has lost a lot of weight. Before being in this place, he was a young knight who had a prosperous body but now thanks to food that was like dirt had made his weight fall. It was not because of the effects the food provided but because of his barely existing appetite.

Fruel Adelphonsus Granadia is from the House of Granadia. He is the eldest son of Count Granadia and is expected to be the heir to Count Granadia.

Fruel was Jared's senior at the academy but he was sent in this place by a not-too-distant margin with Jared. Previously Fruel was in the capital as a knight in a military police unit. But he had made the mistake of accidentally angering the son of a great noble.

If he remembered that, Fruel could not hold back his emotions, he would sometimes punch something to vent all the anger in him.

Like now, for some reason he suddenly remembered the face of that damn noble.

"Damn, if I ever see him again, I'm really going to kill him" Fruel said.

"Here you go, you better forget it."

Jared who was walking beside him could only give a short piece of advice.

"How can I do that! You know, how unlucky that bastard is! He threatened me at the court of nobility because because I punched his ugly face ....."

Fruel continued to chatter to Jared. While Jared could only sigh resignedly with all of this. He had heard this man's story many times.

".... and you, that guy! The Morhust bastard how dare he punch me just because of a lowly whore!" fruel .

It turned out that the person Fruel spoke of was none other than Regis, the eldest son of Count Morhust.  In short the two men were fighting in a luxurious brothel in the capital just because of a prostitute. The two fight for a prostitute who is touted as the prettiest prostitute in the capital.

Of course this becomes ridiculous especially when a drunk Fruel threatens Regis who is also drunk by showing his position as a knight of the military police unit.

Later the matter was extended when Regis filed a complaint at the military police station against Fruel's actions. The clear military police had an image that had to be guarded against quickly disciplining Fruel by sending him to this border.

Initially the Granadia House tried to get in the way but who would have thought that Morhust interfered in this disciplinary decision.

"Damn, he also used his connections to make sure I was brought to this place. Uh! Right, from what I heard, he asked a new noble family called Alexandreia to send me here. Isn't that the new noble family formed by your brother?"

Fruel found out after hearing from his own father, Count Granadia, who said Alexandreia used her connections with the prime minister to make sure she was sent here.

"Don't say his name!" jared shouted in annoyance.

This time Jared was angry. He was fed up of hearing all his brother's achievements while in the academy. Starting from the Otilia-Canadia conflict, the Isolation of Canadia, until his appointment as a count.

What Jared felt this time was not ordinary anger but anger that was caused by disturbing emotions. Not only agitated, he was also annoyed and envious of the achievements of his eldest brother. He felt himself while struggling desperately in the path of a knight while his brother got various achievements but still got to enjoy the aristocratic life.

She now realized that her brother was no longer a trashy noble. That person has the potential to become a ruler. What Jared felt was nothing more than worry about his defeat in the succession of inheritances. Because he knows, his father is not the type of person who likes to share property evenly with his children. His father was the type of person who would give everything he had to the most powerful and the most capable person as a ruler. So if he were to lose then be it him, his sister, and even his mother would lose all the luxuries they enjoyed from the Fertiphile House.