Chapter 253 : Chapter 253
Chapter 253. The Great Quartermaster
Only after finishing all that did Logaris casually pull a vial of potion from his robes and toss it over.
Smack.
Karlsas reflexively raised a hand and caught the potion with perfect accuracy.
“Drink it.”
Logaris turned and walked away at once. His black robe snapped loudly in the cold wind, and his voice drifted back with it.
“That potion has a market price of five hundred Golden Lion Coins. Add it to the bill for this support operation and have your logistics department reimburse it later.”
Karlsas’s hand froze in midair around the potion, and the corners of his mouth twitched twice.
This brat...
With the death of that unknown sixth-tier magical beast, the beast tide lost its unified command. The purple mist dissipated with it, and the magical beasts that had once charged forward without fear of death began falling into chaos.
Under the Northern Territory army’s utterly unreasonable blanket of firepower, their defeat was only a matter of time.
Cheers had already begun to rise in the distance, and the horn for the counterattack had already sounded.
But Logaris did not stay on the front line to enjoy the glory. He crossed the devastated battlefield, ignoring the soldiers’ reverent gazes as though they were looking at a god, and headed straight for the fortress’s core zone with several silent suits of Magitech Armor in tow.
...
Not long afterward.
In the fortress core zone, behind the Second Prince’s residence, lay a private armory.
The fighting had not reached this place at all. It still maintained strict security. Two heavy mithril doors stood tightly shut, their surfaces flowing with complex defensive runes. Clearly, even with the front line under immense pressure, the diehard loyalists left behind by the missing Second Prince were still guarding the secrets here to the death.
“Halt! This is His Highness’s private restricted ground!”
A squad of royal guards nervously raised their spears and blocked Logaris’s path.
Looking at this group of pampered guards in ornate armor, not a trace of blood on any of them, a flicker of disdain passed through Logaris’s eyes.
He said nothing. He merely shifted slightly to one side.
Behind him, two fourth-generation Magitech Armor units, each nearly three meters tall, stepped forward with heavy strides. Their metal boots struck the stone floor with dull thuds that made the heart tremble.
Click.
Corrected version:
The Magiburst Guns mounted on their armored arms finished charging. A cold blue glow shone from the barrels, pointed straight at the guards’ foreheads.
“Move, or die.”
“Private restricted ground?”
Logaris pulled out a sheet of parchment from his robes and shook it once in front of the captain of the guard.
It was a “Wartime Emergency Requisition Order,” and the ink on it had not even finished drying.
“Under Article Fourteen of the Wartime Special Regulations, when front-line supplies are insufficient, a commander has the authority to requisition every available resource within the fortress.”
Logaris’s tone was so flat it sounded as though he were reading off a lunch menu.
“Now. Open the door.”
The captain of the guard looked at the dark gun barrels, then at the “requisition order” that had obviously been forged only a few minutes ago. Cold sweat streamed down through the gaps in his helmet.
“This... this violates protocol! Without His Highness’s written authorization, we...”
“Protocol?”
Logaris cut him off and stepped forward.
The lingering blood-soaked aura he had brought back from the battlefield, mixed with the natural pressure of someone accustomed to command, made the guard captain take an involuntary step backward.
“The artillery positions at the front have ten minutes left before they run out of rations. If you refuse to open the door and the defensive line collapses and the magical beasts break through...”
Logaris removed his white glove and lightly patted the captain’s cheek. The motion was gentle, but the insult was overwhelming.
“When that happens, do you think your missing master will protect you, or do you think the gallows of a military tribunal will be waiting for you?”
The captain’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently.
He understood perfectly well what Logaris’s eyes were saying.
That bespectacled scum really did dare to open fire. And after killing them, he could casually pin charges like “delaying military action” or “colluding with magical beasts” on their corpses, and they would not even have a place to appeal their innocence.
“O-open... open the door.”
The captain forced those two dry words out of his throat as though he had spent all the strength in his body.
Accompanied by the heavy scrape of metal, the mithril doors—symbolizing the Second Prince’s last shred of cover—slowly opened.
Good lord.
The several-hundred-square-meter warehouse was piled high with high-purity Mana crystals, their silver-white glow reflecting so brightly it made one’s face feel hot. In one corner were crates upon crates of mithril ingots and fine gold sand.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
Logaris casually picked up a fist-sized magic crystal. Feeling the surging energy contained inside it, he finally revealed a genuinely pleased smile.
The front line was burning like a furnace, and yet the Second Prince had hoarded this much good stuff behind the lines.
“It seems our Prince Carlisle has done only one decent thing in his entire life—namely, serving as a competent quartermaster.”
Logaris casually tossed the magic crystal back into the crate, but his gaze did not linger long on those treasures.
As though he had sensed something, his eyes swept across the mountain of supplies and finally settled on an inconspicuous Black Ironwood desk in the corner of the warehouse.
He strode over and felt around beneath the desk with his long fingers for a moment.
Click.
A soft sound rang out, and a hidden compartment popped open.
There was no gold or silver inside—only a thick, dark red parchment ledger whose cover had already been worn smooth and glossy.
Logaris raised a brow and casually flipped through a few pages.
“Year 1024 of the New Calendar: Logistics Officer Balon privately sold three thousand winter uniforms, profiting...”
“Year 1025 of the New Calendar: Garrison Major Jeffrey falsified battle losses and fraudulently claimed compensation for the dead and wounded...”
Every page recorded, in exhaustive detail, the corruption and leverage tied to officers holding key posts inside the fortress—time, place, amount, and even the intermediaries involved.
“Interesting.”
Logaris closed the ledger and tapped the cover lightly with his fingertip, the smile in his eyes turning faintly playful.
As the heir to the throne, Carlisle clearly possessed these people’s weak points, yet he had never acted on them. He had even continued using this swarm of parasites.
The reason was obvious.
For someone in power, a pack of corrupt officials with compromising evidence hanging over their heads—officials who had no choice but to remain utterly loyal—were obviously far easier to use than a group of honest subordinates who were difficult to control.
This ledger was the dog leash Carlisle used to keep his men from betraying him and to ensure their absolute loyalty.
“What a pity, Your Highness. The leash you carefully braided has now fallen into my hands.”
Logaris tucked the ledger away on his person. He had originally thought he would need to spend quite a bit of effort determining who should be killed and who should be spared.
But now things were much simpler. Carlisle had personally delivered a ready-made “death note” right into his hands.
With this in place, the coming purge would no longer be “eliminating dissenters.” It would become a perfectly justified “rectification of military discipline.”
In an excellent mood, Logaris turned and waved a hand at the guards behind him.
“What are you all standing around for?”
“Move it.”
“Take everything. Crates, dirt, even the dust on the floor—clean it all out.”
“Not a single piece is to be left for them.”
“And be careful with it. This is the Second Prince’s ‘inheritance’ to us.”
Logaris stood at the entrance of the now-empty warehouse, a list pinched between his fingers, watching Northern Territory soldiers load crate after crate of priceless high-purity magic crystals onto transport carts as casually as if they were hauling cabbages from their own backyard.
“Professor, are we clearing out everything? Even dismantling the spare mithril bases?” the captain of the personal guard asked from the side, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Dismantle them.”
Logaris’s tone was flat, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“They’ll only rust if we leave them here. Better to bring them to the front and at least hear them make some noise. Remember, we are carrying out the ‘Three-Clear’ policy—clear it out, take it all, use it all.”
Ten minutes later, the artillery positions at Scream Fortress erupted into an uproar.