Chapter 285.

I unlocked the wooden bars which imprisoned Gentamet and said, "Come out."

Gentamet looked at me with frightened eyes. "If, if I come out of here, aren’t you going to kill me?"

“No, I’m not. So just come on out.” Was my threat excessive? I just allowed him to realize the gap between us because I didn’t have time, but he’s overreacting.

Gentamet seemed nervous, and his movements were stiff. The guards and prisoners nearby looked at Gentamet as if they did not understand why he was moving so slow.

Gentamet and I were about to leave the tent when a tied-up prisoner bumped into the wooden bars, drawing my attention. “Heuheuk, please give me my antler back.”

“Antler?” I couldn’t help but become flustered as a prisoner suddenly asked me to give back his antler when I’d never met until today.

Gentamet looked at the prisoner leaning on the bars with sympathetic eyes and said, “A warrior of the White Antler Tribe.”

“White antler? Oh, that deer.” I didn’t recognize him because the Hunter transformation was undone, but it seems like this was the deer who charged me with a bunch of people and had his antler cut off.

"Heuk! Please return my antler.”

Gentamet looked at the sobbing deer with pity and spoke to me cautiously. "Um, if you’re not going to use that antler, why not give it back? In the White Antler Tribe, antlers are said to be symbolic, as well as their pride as warriors...”

I took the antlers out of my pocket space. "Hmm, it has mana contained in it, and it’s a valuable material. You can’t reattach it even if I give it back anyway, right?”

The imprisoned deer shook his head passionately. "No! I can reattach it!"

You can stick it back on? Now that I think about it, how is this still a deer antler when the Hunter transformation has been undone? Suddenly, I started to become curious.

"Really? It’s a waste, though. The antlers will regrow, either way, right?”

This was worthy of research. If it goes well, I might be able to figure out the mechanism of the Hunter transformation. If it weren’t for the war, I would have taken my time researching the Hunter Tribe.

"Heuk, heuk! It’ll take decades to grow back! Without my antlers, I cannot go back to my tribe. Please, have mercy!"

In addition, antlers with this much mana were not common. It was likely that only the deer in Olympus Forest had antlers similar to this one.

I grinned as I looked down at the begging prisoner. "Tribe, you say... hu."

At my smile, Yvain and Ovain covered their mouths and whispered,

"Wow, he has such a bad personality, that Crow Prince."

“Yeah, that’s cruel of the Crow Prince."

"I can hear everything. Why don’t you just say it out loud?”

The twins laughed playfully.

"Ayy, then it won’t feel the same."

"Talking behind someone’s back has that unique feeling."

I don’t know who the one with the bad personality is when they’re openly talking behind their master’s back.

I sighed and looked down at the weeping prisoner. "Okay, I’ll give it back."

"Re, Really?” The prisoner looked up at me with a joyful face.

"Really. But what can you give me?”

"What?"

I drew closer to the blank-faced prisoner and whispered in his ear, "It’ll cost something to get what you desire. I really want this antler."

For some reason, I smiled at the prisoner as he shook with a frightened expression, and I continued, "Wouldn’t I be happy to return your antler if you gave me something that would sate my greed?”

The prisoner swallowed dryly and asked carefully, "What, what do I have to do?"

I smiled and flicked my finger, releasing the prisoner’s restraints. "Well... besides that, Antler, what’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Antler.”

The suddenly freed prisoner said his name with a puzzled face. "I am called Perfilio Violet di Trahamolia."

It’s long! It’s unnecessarily lengthy; even royalty wouldn’t have that name. Why is it so long?

"All right, Antler. You come along as well,” I said.

Antler was confused and tried to introduce himself again. "No, my name isn’t Antler, it’s Per-”

"I know, Antler." I shook the antler while cutting off his introduction and inquired, “You don’t want it back?”

“My name is Antler.”

Good. It seems that Antler has realized his situation and accepted it.

"As expected, he’s evil.”

"No morals."

The twins murmured loud enough for me to hear again.

I hit the twins on the back of their heads with the antler and left the prisoner tent.

"Ouch! You’re so mean, hitting a lovely subordinate!”

"Really! Are you worried that someone won’t think you’re a Crow if you aren’t violent?!"

Ignoring the complaining twins, I took the two Hunters to my private barracks. When we arrived at the private barracks, I immediately handed over a bunch of paper and a pen to the two Hunters. I instructed, "Write down everything you know: the primary formations of the main force, the commander’s name, their personality, the most commonly used tactics, the structure and force of Shellen Fortress, and the amount and level of the available mercenaries."

At my request, the two Hunters swallowed dryly and looked down heavily at the bunch of paper. I pulled out a sofa from my pocket space, sat comfortably, and alerted them. "Oh, I’m warning you now. You’re banned from talking to each other from this point on. If you break this rule, I’ll impose a penalty.”

This was a natural measure since the two of them might work together to write down lies. At my warning, the two Hunters sweated and glanced at each other before looking back at the papers. What I was doing now was telling them to betray their allies, so I could understand why it wasn’t easy to write.

I magically made a blind between the two so that they couldn’t see each other and asked, "Why aren’t you moving your pens? Is there an issue selling out your own tribe? If so, then you don’t have to write about the Hunter Tribe."

The Hunter Tribe was a significant part of the enemy’s strength. It was a considerable concession to tell these two that they didn’t have to write about them. The two Hunters’ complexions noticeably improved.

"Honestly, you didn’t want to fight the empire either, right?”

The Hunter Tribe were simply allied with our foes and were not considered an enemy of the empire. It was different for each tribe, but most of them had a much more mild relationship with each other than the one between the Crow Tribe and the empire. In fact, to my knowledge, the reason why they were our enemies was that the Green Mane Tribe, the head of the Hunter Tribe, forced them.

"Now, the pen should feel lighter, but since you aren’t moving it yet, do I need to force you? All right, since we don’t have time, it’s not that bad of an idea to force you."

I spewed martial aura and clamped down on the two Hunters. "First, let’s start talking about the support of the Magic Kingdom and the Trade Union."

I let out martial aura and, at times, killing intent to forcefully make them confess. When the pens stopped moving, I talked about the time when their tribesmen were taken prisoner, mixing conciliations and intimidations appropriately.

I checked the statements around the time that I assumed they had no other information. "Hmm, I see."

According to the statements, the support of the Trade Union and the Magic Kingdom was greater than expected. It seems they didn’t declare war against the empire for no reason.

"Well done. Yvain, take these two to an empty tent and give them a proper meal." It would be annoying if they admonished me for giving them superior meals in the prisoner of war tent.

"Okay, I can just kill them if they try to escape, right?” Yvain purposely put pressure on the two Hunters with brutal words and martial aura.

“Um, my antler...”

When Antler trailed off, I smiled and cut off a small portion at the end of the antlers and threw the rest at him.

"Why did you cut the antler...”

"I told you, I’m going to research it. There needs to be a sample. A little bit should be fine, right?" After being forced to accept this, Antler transformed and placed the antler on the cut-off spot and attached it with mana.

"Oh, can you show me one more time?" I asked.

Antler freaked out and quickly undid his transformation. Then, the antlers also disappeared.

"Tch, that’s too bad. Well, this is a gift for writing the statements." I magically overlaid an illusion that made it look like they had a bunch of injuries.

"What’s wrong? Won’t it be suspicious if you just went back unharmed? Don’t tell me you want to be glared at by the other prisoners.”

They may not be masochists, but they’ve got a weird fetish. When I looked at them as if they were perverts, the two shook their heads and fiercely denied it.

"It’s a misunderstanding!"

"Never!"

I grinned at the two’s denials. "I’ll give you an exceptionally small meal at dinner, so eat well now."

If I gave them a meager dinner, the others would think that they remained loyal. And instead, if they had not responded obediently, I would have treated them magnanimously.

Shortly after Yvain took the prisoners away, Ovain selected two enemy generals and brought them to me.

"Hello, everyone," I said.

The enemy generals looked like they had chewed on a bug. Whether their dinner would be plentiful or poor all depended on how many details they gave me. Unfortunately, since I decided to believe in cowardice and being cheap, I didn’t plan on being kind in consideration of their circumstances.

* * *

"All troops! March!"

At each army commander’s cry, the imperial army began to move forward vigorously. It would take about two days to get to Shellen Fortress if there were no interruptions along the way.

"By the way, where did you learn to interrogate people? This information is very detailed. From what I heard, you even tortured them.

The chief of staff looked at the statements written by the prisoners and admired them.

"Ayy, what torture? I didn’t do anything so annoying or barbaric."

I really didn’t touch the prisoners. I just gave anyone who was uncooperative some luxurious treatment that matched their spirits. There was no need to stop them when they said they’d give me what I wanted to know.

"Haha, is that so? Well, if that’s what you’re telling me, then I’m sure it’s true. By the way, do we only have three days at most to attack the fortress?"

The prisoners’ interrogations yesterday told us that the enemies were located about nine days away, as we expected. Assuming that we and the enemy’s main force were moving at similar speeds, the time we had to attack the Shellen Fortress was limited to three days at most.

"Yes, if you can’t take it within that time, we will have to retreat."

If we failed to take the fortress within three days, we would have to retreat to the mountainous region, as first proposed by the chief of staff. Once there, we would need to conduct guerilla warfare against the enemy’s main force.

"Are you confident this time as well?" asked the chief of staff.

I shrugged. "I’m not sure. There’s a rumor in the information that said they might utilize the Mercenary King, which bothers me."

According to intel from the Big Mama Information Agency, the military achievements of the ahjussi named Mercenary King were no joke. At his level, he was capable of being scouted as a general, but I didn’t know why he was a mercenary. Now that I had to save as much mana as possible in preparation for the great madosa, this would be a great challenge.

The chief of staff examined the statements. “Most assuredly, if it’s the Mercenary King, he could be a substantial stumbling block. But even if he accepts the request and heads to Shellen Fortress, there wouldn’t be enough time to figure out the chain of command, so it shouldn’t be too significant of an issue, right?”

"I’m not sure if it will turn out that way.”

It’d be nice if this were just unnecessary worrying.