[VRMMO] Dead One

[Current location: Holy kingdom capital city.]

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT THE KINGDOM OF MAQ WAS ALREADY CONQUERED?!" – shouted a furious priest.

"It is just as I've said…. The king of the Maq kingdom, alongside all members of the royal family and the nobility, were killed and had their heads put on the pikes on the borders with the kingdom of Kor…. While also leaving a board with a message."

THE TRAITORS WILL BE PUNISHED

"…"

"This is bad…. Very bad." – said the paladin with a bandana covering his eyes.

"Kingdom of Maq was indeed a weak nation… But for them to be destroyed that quickly and easily?"

"It will hit our own troops' morale."

"Honestly, I'm more worried about the kingdom of Kor turning into cowards." – said the elderly paladin.

"That message that they had sent had a goal of scaring the Kor kingdom."

"Not only that, but they directly attacked soldiers, nobles, and royal family, while completely not touching any civilians at all that did not took direct part in the war."

"It may be possible…. But the Kor kingdom may end up facing a civil war."

"Even though we helped the previous king of Kor ascend to the throne in the succession war, the opposite faction that followed his brother are still active within the kingdom and they may see this chance to stage a Coup."

"…"

"We cannot let the kingdom of Kor fall." – said the elderly priest.

"If it falls, then we would end up being from 3 different directions."

"Not only that, we cannot lose the Kor kingdom after investing so much into it already."

"Then how about we launch a full-out assault on the beastman nation?" – proposed middle aged priest.

"The beastmen and the monster empire are working together, AND they are protecting each other."

"We can maybe force the empire to weaken their attacks or maybe stop completely in order to save their allies, while we would go and take back the Maq kingdom."

"Rejected." – said the paladin with a bandana.

"How do we know that the empire would really go and support the beastmen?"

"Maybe they will instead use this opportunity to attack us?"

"This plan is too risky."

"…"

(This is bad.) – though the pope king.

(The attack they launched on us was a total distraction, and we had fallen for this….. And we paid the price.)

(The Maq kingdom was conquered.)

(Well, we honestly did planned on abandoning Maq and Kor kingdoms.)

(They were only there to buy us time to summon the heavenly army.)

(We have summoned a large army of angels already…. But it is not enough.)

(We need more….)

"…"

(We did recruit adventurers, including the Red Lion guild that once served the first prince of the Oin empire.)

(They apparently justwants revenge.)

(I've also tried contacting the Scarlet Gryphons, but by the looks of things, they left the continent…. But we did recruit some other "rankers" or some strong adventurers to our side.)

"…"

(Should we request dwarves to provide more support?)

"…"

(No… They may end up doing something behind the scenes…. OR they may just abandon us when we show moment of weakness.)

(Dammit…. This is problematic.)

"…"

"Still, even if the Garog empire army consists of undeads, a lot of its troops ARE living beings." – spoke up suddenly Pope King.

"They cannot continue nonstop conquest without stopping to rest up."

"?"

"Are you suggesting that we should… Let them continue their rampage and just attack them when they show weakness?" – asked the elderly paladin.

"No. We cannot do that." – said the pope king.

"The necromancers of the monsters' empire will turn the civilians and soldiers into the undeads, filling out their missing numbers."

"We need to continue stopping the monster empire attacks in order to reduce the casualties as much as possible."

"Once the enemy assaults are weakened, it will be time for us to counterattack and push back the heretics."

"…"

"Your holiness… I'm against this plan." – said the paladin with a bandana.

"This plan would be perfect…. But there are problems."

"The healing does not restore mental health."

"Many of the soldiers who were sent to the battlefield again and again after getting healed were forced to just stay back in order to recover mentally."

"Not only that, but the enemy are using fear and confusion tactics as well in order to discourage our soldiers, causing the mental drain to be even more deadly."

"We can use the angels to somewhat assist us…. But splitting our forces too much and forcing them to take on even harder tasks…. No. It would just…. There is also the sea."

"What if we were also attacked from the sea while nobody is looking?"

"…"

"True… This could end up problematic." – said the elderly paladin.

"But what else can we do?"

"If we don't stop the empire's advance, the number of corpses on the battlefield would just keep increasing, and that would obviously mean more undeads to deal with…. We really don't have any other option."

"Yes." – said the pope king.

"We need to hold off the empire in order to buy time for the holy army to descend."

"Once they are here, there won't be anything standing in our way."

"…."

<<Welp, according to the reports I have been receiving latterly, it seems that the holy kingdom intends to fully focus on the defense and supporting the kingdom of Kor at the same time to make sure that they would not fall.>>

<<But obviously, that allowed us and our allies to fully focus on the offense without worrying about defense. They screwed up because they changed their tactics.>>

<<However, obviously there were still dwarves on the loose, and their assaults have been getting more and more annoying to defend against.>>

<Our defenses had taken…..Well, a lot of them were pretty much destroyed or received such heavy damage that we had no choice but to destroy what had remained in order to rebuild them.>>

<<The border between our two nations had also completely changed.>>

<<There was once a forest here and life… But now it pretty much looks like something from a post-apocalyptic movie or game.>>

<<We also had more breaches and enemy forces managing to break through our lines of defense…. The dwarves know what they are doing. They are going full power in many different spots, forcing us to split our forces and forcing me and Rampage to decide where to go.>>

<<This is… Problematic.>>

<<The elves are also actively more and more suspicious…. I honestly believe that they may attack us at any moment…. Maybe they are waiting for an opening when the dwarves break through our deferens completely?>>

<<…. And there are also witches.>>

<<They have said that they had not spotted any traces of the "benefactor" nor anything related to illegal slavery.>>

<<They could not find any traces regarding the "benefactor" like movements at all….. But even so, we can't be sure that they won't show up.>>

<<Besides humanoid monsters, they have also other things like undeads and possible demons.>>

<<…. Currently, our most likely suspect that could be in alliance with "benefactor" are either dwarves or the holy kingdom…. Both of them are more than greedy enough.>>

<<I've also suspected the two smaller kingdoms being used as pawns by "benefactor" … But they are too incompetent.>>

<<….>>

<<Am I too paranoid?>>

<<…. Honestly, I want to say "yes" that I'm…. But we still don't know how the "benefactor" appeared and disappeared without leaving a trace.>>

<<This is annoying…. But still, we are winning.>>

<<The assault on the Kor kingdom was already underway.>>

<<The holy kingdom obviously tried supporting the Kor kingdom, but the assault from two different sides obviously made things problematic for them.>>

<<Not only that, but our own forces alongside the beastmen were also putting pressure on the holy kingdom, causing the holy kingdom forces to be split even more, and that obviously resulted in us being able to push further into the Kor kingdom.>>

<<And to make things even more interesting, our little "vampire" infection had started spreading within the two kingdoms, hitting the enemies from inside.>>

<<I've also received some positive news from Oron that our species discovered something interesting.>>

<<Mental drain.>>

<<The holy kingdom soldiers are being drained mentally AND their faith is shaking up.>>

<<AND THIS IS BIG!>>

<<Churches and the nations that are fused with churches in this world rely heavily on the "Faith" stat.>>

<<The stronger the "Faith", the stronger the summons and miracles they can perform.>>

<<But right now the situation with them is pathetic….. To the point that we did not even see that coming.>>

<<…..Huh….. At this rate, we will really win the war.>>

<<I mean, I did thought that we would we would win this war and stuff, but…. At this rate, we would won this far easier than we could have ever imagined…. To the point I'm even more scared.>>

<<THIS WAR IS TOO STUPID!>>

<<No, I mean, we did suffered losses and our land was badly damaged, but at this rate we will just destroy everybody AND the war would not really last that long at all!>>

<<And to make things even more interesting, we know the holy kingdom plan already.>>

<<They plan on doing large-scale summoning multiple times, calling forth the "army of heavens"…. But are they idiots or complete zealots? It would be nowhere near enough!>>

<<…. Is this really it?>>

<< Overconfident zealot holy kingdom and over-greedy dwarven kingdom? Is that really it?>>

<<No hidden plots or anything? Just idiots that are…. Plain "Idiots"?>>

<<…..Honestly…. I wish that were the case…. But there are too many questions and actions that do not make sense, as well as the fact that elevens are planning something….>>

<<Yeb… I can straight up smell some bullshit coming our way from miles away.>>