Ataraxia Abyss
Chapter 39: Desert conflict

Regal was currently sitting in a meadow, and with a calm breeze that blew past his now gray hair,he could feel his body being reborn and becoming stronger than before shortly after he returned from hell. Gram too, the sword began to look like a new sword when it was just an old sword, Regal looked at the sword as he said.

"Your name now is Balmung..."

"Groan!!!" "Yeah!!!" While he was relaxing, the troops marched and attacked a fortress standing by the river. Right now Regal is helping a Count from Wimbledon to gain a reputation by attacking the enemy fortress.

But as they tried to break down the gate of the fortress, the Counts began to be showered with arrows and hot oil from the top of the wall. Their commander was obviously upset to see his troops die without being able to attack the fortress, their commander named Paul finally came to Regal and asked him. "Oi Mercenary! Why don't you do your job?!"

Hearing that Regal answered. "Not when the Count contracted me, did you say Knights couldn't be compared to a lowly Mercenary like me?" Paul was upset and replied while holding back his emotions. "You better forget what I said and quickly help the Knights!!" Regal sighed and put Adamas on.

He ran across the Knights who mentally fell and ran back to the back, arrows and magic started flying towards him, but Regal was able to fend it off using Balmung. Until finally Regal was close enough to the gate and swung his sword from top to bottom. In an instant the gate and the place where the archers and magicians stood were shattered in a single swing.

Regal killed everyone in an instant, leaving only the infantry waiting inside,Regal who saw it instantly called out to Garm from behind his back and the two of them together destroyed the 200 infantrymen waiting inside the gate.

The Knights who had regained their fighting spirit finally came back to attack, but when they entered, they could find nothing but a pile of corpses from their enemies. And when they were confused, Regal killed the leader of the fort. Paul who had just entered finally saw all the events, and he saw Regal who walked up to him while covered in blood, Regal then patted him on the shoulder and walked past him saying.

"Your work is done, knight sir..."

———

In the evening they set up camp in the fort. The pay of Regal's work was half the spoils and the women who were prisoners of war. That was enough for a few months. The women used to look interested in Regal's blonde hair, but the white hair like ash did not seem less attractive to women...

After sleeping with many women in his tent, Regal now came out and packed his things back. He went to Paul and said to him.

"My business is done, I'll go..." Hearing that Paul clearly smiled seeing Regal who had the most praise now left, now that he could be the center of attention again and that made him smile. "Well! Be careful!"

Regal leaves even though he can tell how disgusted Paul's face is that he hides behind his friendly smile. Regal finally opens a letter and rides a horse to go somewhere.

———

"Here you go, huh? This place is pretty good for a desert kingdom." Regal entered the gate of a kingdom, it was the Kingdom of Dartania. A great kingdom that stood firm in the middle of this barren desert. Given that this kingdom was able to survive in the middle of a desert full of bandits and Basilisk made Regal amazed. Among the 5 kingdoms in the Agatha Borderline, it was this kingdom that was able to build the capital closest to the river.

Regal entered their capital, where he could see the residents gathered while drinking a drink called cold coffee. He thinks it makes sense, because even though they live fairly close to the river, they still live in the desert. And after tasting the cold coffee drink, Regal went to the Dartania palace to meet his contractor.

Upon entering, he could see the knights using armor and weaponry that Regal did not know about. What is Adamantium? The orichalcum? No. gabe... The metal they were wearing was different from what Regal knew. Regal finally stopped theorizing after the guards opened the door to the throne room, where Regal could see a grandfather sitting on the throne, he looked old and not wearing a crown,but a turban covered his head, but Regal knew he was the King of Dartania.

"Thank you for accepting my contract, King of Warriors. And welcome to Dartania..." Regal tried to duck, but it looked like the guards had signaled not to do so, and replied to the King as he stood up.

"It is my honor, Your Excellency Sayid Pasha." As he lowered his head, he could see the person beside the King smiling at him. Regal could see that the person was a trained Warrior, but he did not care about it and kept his head down.

"As I said in the letter, we had a problem when our informant saw officials from Kars, Jace, and Ze'ev conducting a secret meeting. And after the meeting ended, we got information that the three kingdoms were gathering their troops and they looked like they were heading towards our neighbor Maryam.

Maryam decided to make an alliance, but despite us, the forces gathered by the three kingdoms were speculated to be more than 120,000 people,therefore we started recruiting mercenaries in the Agatha Borderline as well as mercenaries outside this plain."

Regal can see the soldiers here, they all look strong and their equipment is also above average, but still the number is an important factor in the war.

"How many troops do you have?" Sayid answered the question with worry. "When combined with Maryam and the mercenaries, we can only gather 70,000 people." Hearing this Regal finally realized that this was a war that could not be won with ordinary strength and strategy.

If only there were trees here then they could do guerrilla, but in a place where there are only dozens of oases of course it is not a strategy that can be done. But Regal remembered something important, and asked Sayid.

"Has the Kingdom of Dartania and Maryam fought one of the three kingdoms?" Sayid answered. "Don't one kingdom, our two kingdoms have fought many individual wars."

Hearing that answer, Regal smiled as if he was thinking of something evil...

...***...