Before Sergeant Shin Youngjun entered the Gate.
Ariella thought to herself.
"Is there any need for me to follow him inside?"
They said he was going to learn a new technique.
At a glance, it seemed like something that would take a long time.
The power she felt beyond the Veil was strong, but weaker than the iron monstrosity’s Vein.
It was not that she disliked wasting time.
She had decided to become Shin Youngjun’s vassal for the grace he would grant her—in other words, for the food.
If she could eat delicious blood at every meal while doing nothing, it even felt like a net gain.
However.
"If I use that time well, I might be able to aim for the next title."
Recently, she had been promoted from Viscountess to Baron.
She had grown in more ways than her master, Shin Youngjun, knew.
Her thirst for ascent had always overflowed.
Once she achieved a rise in rank, it was not easy to forget that thrill.
Above all.
"If I work at least a little, won’t he make sure I get snacks and such?"
So she made a proposal to her master.
She asked him to permit her a brief span of free action.
What she said to persuade him was simple.
"Since my promotion to Baron, there have been a few changes."
"...Such as?"
"The number of entities I can take as vassals has increased, and the range of races I can turn into vassals seems to have widened a little. Among the monsters we’ve met recently, for example—"
When she laid out her plan, Shin Youngjun was greatly surprised and granted it.
"Those green-skinned pigs, for instance?"
And so, the war between the Karstein bloodline and the Green Manes was decided.
****
Harzan, a high-tier warrior charged with managing the tribe, had been furious since morning.
"Grrrk... Over ten warriors vanished last night!"
The cause of his anger was nothing else.
"Idiots! They wandered out of their patrol sectors again and got lost, I bet!"
Warriors of the Green Manes grow very quickly.
But accordingly, aside from a few, many are mentally less mature than their bodies.
In battle, their numbers are explosive.
Yet in daily life, they are a race that is abysmally ill-managed.
"Aren’t you going to investigate, Harzan?"
"Grk! It’s obvious it was an accident because those fools disobeyed orders. Investigate what!"
"The probability is high, but isn’t it strange that ten warriors would vanish in a single night? Until now, three at once was the most we’d seen."
"What’s strange is their brains! Why should I care about wretches who are probably already in some monster’s belly!"
"...Hm."
Harzan seemed to believe those warriors had been hunting alone and were taken by a monster.
Monsters kept being loosed into the world, and there were a great many.
Even though the Green Manes had become the local hegemon, they had not been able to purge every monster within their territory.
It was also true that accidents from that were occurring by the day.
"Yet it’s odd. Didn’t Harzan rage about this just two days ago as well? Even young warriors wouldn’t cause the same mess again in a mere two days."
However, Hakahjin, the seasoned shaman, felt something off.
"Just in case, I should investigate..."
Ordinarily, matters like this would be resolved through shamans’ prophecies.
But there existed an entity in this world now that obstructed the shamans’ prophecies.
"Only a short while ago we had managed to clear away that fog..."
With the cooperation of many shamans, they had succeeded in removing that interference.
But in the large-scale invasion war fought not long ago, their tribe suffered a devastating defeat.
If only they had merely lost, it would have been fortunate.
The problem was that many shamans lost their lives.
Their prophecies were once again trapped inside the fog.
Thanks to that, the Green Manes had fallen into a state where they could not even properly grasp what was happening within their own lands.
"It can’t be helped. I’ll have to use my own feet."
Hakahjin retraced the patrol routes of the vanished warriors.
Even if they had arbitrarily deviated from the routes, if he tracked their traces, he should at least find remains.
With that thought, Hakahjin began his investigation.
After several hours had passed, Hakahjin sensed something strange in the air.
"I feel an ill omen... Don’t tell me!"
Cold sweat broke out as he approached the place.
The green-skinned shaman hastily placed his hand to the ground.
"Spirits!"
Because this was a world entirely different from their homeland, sorcery did not work well on the alien-feeling soil.
"Share this land’s memory with me!"
The earth spirits bound to him by contract somehow read the land’s memory and carried it to him.
****
A young Green Manes warrior patrolling the area screamed in pain.
A baleful being had latched on to him.
He thrashed to shake it off by any means.
"Fufu... You fear death, do you."
"Grrk, gak..."
"Don’t worry, child. This is not death. If anything, you could call it a gift."
The one gripping his nape seemed dainty to the point of frailty compared to the warrior.
Yet the strength issuing from that small body overwhelmingly dominated the warrior’s.
In the end, the warrior’s resistance failed completely.
Bringing her face to his nape, the small woman murmured,
"This is your second life, bestowed by me..."
****
"Huff, huff..."
That was the land’s memory the spirit conveyed to Hakahjin.
After examining it, Hakahjin muttered, drenched in cold sweat.
"Monstrously powerful demonic mana... beyond all reason."
He had not even been there in person.
Even so, he clearly felt that baleful magic.
Though Hakahjin was a veteran shaman, he could not make sense of this situation.
"The invasion in this world should have only just begun. How can a thing of that level be roaming the surface?"
In truth, his question was a fair one.
The Nobles of the Night are a race that commands an army near to infinite.
Even if she was of a bloodline’s dregs, Ariella, one of them, was still a very powerful being.
Ordinarily, she should have slept a hundred more days at least.
However, there were facts Hakahjin could not know.
First, some unknown malice, to overwhelm human arms, had forcibly unsealed her.
Second, because of that, a powerful geas had been etched into her mind, and she was forced to guard a bunker.
Third, to amass the power to break free from that geas, she sent her forces outward—only to be hunted down by a native species’ warband, and by the cook leading that band, the geas that bound her was also undone.
When Ariella had been trapped in the bunker, much of her native ability was restricted.
Increasing her dominion had become absurdly difficult and complicated.
Her army had been so small and feeble that the name “Nobles of the Night” felt wasted.
But now nothing confined her any longer.
An out-of-spec being who should have been sealed for hundreds more days.
A race thought to have no match for its armies save the sun itself.
The Nobles of the Night had begun to stride freely across the world.
Hakahjin sensed it in his bones.
"If we don’t respond quickly, a great crisis will come to the tribe."
The one saving grace was that only a single day had passed since the events in the land’s memory.
Hakahjin spun on his heel.
First he had to inform the high-tier warrior who oversaw the local settlements, Harzan.
After that, he would find the Great Warrior and the High Shaman, and at the tribal level, discuss how to prepare against this great evil.
"Your steps are very quick."
"...!"
"You seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere?"
At the voice from behind him, Hakahjin broke into a cold sweat.
His gaze lifted to the sky.
Coming out here and reading the land’s memory through the spirits had taken far too long.
"The moon..."
The moon hung in the sky.
Night had come.
"I know you’re busy, but how about a brief chat with me."
The mistress of the night had come for him.
"Spirits!"
"Mm? Is it awkward to talk one-on-one? Fufu. How cute."
"Subdue that fiend!"
The earth spirits responded to Hakahjin’s plea and revealed themselves.
However, the spirits could not even touch Ariella’s skin.
"GRAAAAHHH!!!"
"Kultar! Even Tagujin!"
Figures emerged from the darkness like mist and swung weapons at the spirits.
They were, to Hakahjin’s horror, his own kin—warriors of the Green Manes.
What differed from the past was one thing.
Their homeland, those green eyes that recalled the blue prairie, were now burning red in the dark.
"A-ah... Impossible."
"No need to be too jealous."
Damp breath grazed his nape.
Shaking, Hakahjin shut his eyes.
"You will soon be with us as well."
His trembling did not last long.
Moments later:
"Glory to our Lady..."
The shaman whose voice the spirits heeded, respected by the tribe, who had bowed to none save the tribe’s leaders and the great ancestors, knelt before a woman from another world.
****
"I see. So that’s how your language works. Fittingly shabby in structure for pigs with faces {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} like yours. I can scarcely produce the sounds."
"It is truly shameful."
"It can’t be helped. One cannot demand a high tongue from savages like you."
The knowledge dissolved in the shaman’s blood seeped into Ariella’s mind.
It was the moment she grasped the Green Manes’ language perfectly.
"So. It’s certain you didn’t find me through prophecy, is it?"
"Yes. There is a being that veils our sight. Clearing that fog is unbearably arduous..."
"Phew. I thought I’d already been found out. Good thing that’s not the case."
Ariella let out a sigh of relief.
"As my master said."
Ariella truly pressed a hand to her chest and breathed easier.
It had only been a short time since she began her work to increase her forces.
If her existence had already been exposed, even she would have had to withdraw.
"Then. Tell me what you know."
"What information do you mean...?"
"Tsk. I thought you sharper than other beasts, but your lack of tact is about the same. Places where one might find a target wandering alone. Spots where I could hide a little without trouble. Places you must not approach because dangerous strong ones gather there. Or perhaps a weak point of your people. Anything. Do you know something?"
The Green Manes orcs are born with high pride.
By nature, they are a race that heeds no manner of threat.
Even Sergeant Shin Youngjun’s cooking, for all its power, would have found it near impossible to bend them in perfect submission.
"...There are a few things."
"Hm. Moderately acceptable information."
"It is an honor..."
For Hakahjin, now a vassal, not even the will to resist remained.
Regardless of his original disposition, absolute obedience.
This was one reason the Nobles of the Night were deemed so dangerous.
"The settlements nearby are overseen by the high-tier warrior, Harzan..."
"I see. Any weaknesses worth noting?"
"Every night he leads a small group of warriors to hunt monsters... I tried to dissuade him from doing anything dangerous, but as befits a warrior who worships battle, he seems unwilling to stop."
Ariella found a small emotion in Hakahjin’s words.
"So he ignored your counsel."
"...Yes."
"Was the reason truly that he worships battle?"
"...Likely not."
Then the emotion buried deep in the shaman’s heart surfaced.
"Those wretches are stupid from birth! Brains stuffed with muscle—‘we worship battle’ is the excuse they trot out to hide their dullness. Fools who cannot comprehend the wise man’s counsel!"
"Seems you’ve stored up quite a bit."
"So it was with the last battle. Shamans urged retreat, yet the warrior Harabal forced the fight, and catastrophe followed! Is that not an intellect lower than worms? It was never like this when the Great Chieftain yet lived."
Witnessing that ugly emotion, Ariella smiled in delight.
"As you say. Utterly foolish creatures. In that case, what should become of the warrior who ignored the counsel of one so clever?"
"After a horrid ordeal, he should realize I was right."
"Fufu... A fine answer."
At her gesture, the Green Manes warriors turned vassals arrayed themselves behind Hakahjin.
"The one who ignored your counsel will pay the proper price. I’ll lend you these children."
"You mean...?"
"If you’re as clever as you claim, you can make that warrior regret it enough, can’t you?"
"Ah! Of course!"
Overwhelmed by his lady’s grace, the shaman bowed with theatrical fervor.
And that night, among Ariella’s vassals, there was a warrior of considerable strength.
It did not take long for all the settlements he oversaw to fall.
