The World's Ego

Forces of Tempest

Rimuru POV

It has been a few months since that meeting. Time really flew by and it was already a year since I became a Demon Lord. This year's Tempest Resurrection Festival had been concluded in private and the Empire had yet to make a move. But according to the intelligence gatherings from Souei and Moss, they had noticed that supplies were being delivered to major cities along the borders. It wasn't hard to guess what that would mean... a war is approaching. Thus, the screening of humans and monsters entering Tempest were now strictly enforced. When we had a small period of peace, many things have begun to change. Tempest is also slowly becoming a tourist hot spot and I encouraged this more by letting vouchers be gifted to merchants who made big deals with us or any adventurers who cleared Floor 10. The transportation network to other countries was also going smoothly and the magitrain would soon become a norm for transport of people or cargo. For the operational cycle of the magitrain, Iris would be put in charge of the trial and error process since she was the most familiar with structures of a magitrain and would be able to solve a problem if any occurred immediately.

Now it's just a matter of the Empire... Feiyun has been getting restless lately. She must be really worried about Hua. Or maybe it's an instinct of a Herrscher. After all, if Hua still has her original core, Feiyun might be feeling something from it. I hope Hua is alright... And if she is here, then it would mean that Kevin and Su are also somewhere in this world. I just have a bad feeling about all this...

I had been having daily meetings with Beni to discuss the matters of our forces.

Oh, that's right. If our civilization developed too quickly, the angels would rain down and attack. I wonder where they even come from... The only thing we can do right now is to fortify our defenses. Other than that, the Empire is openly preparing to attack, so we will either strike first or let them initiate their attack first.

I considered the possibilities of their invasion routes. It would be hard to invade by going past the sea since there are great sea creatures living there. Even battleships would have a hard time defending themselves. The Kingdom of Farmenas is there too after all, it would be hard to contain the assault of the sea creatures on the back and from Youm and the others on the front. Then what about Northern Ingracia? Guy was definitely not keeping his subordinates in check so Testarossa's men were in charge of its defense. Meaning, that area is just a playground for Demons now.

So putting all this into consideration, an invasion by sea is highly impossible... Then there's the land invasion.

That would mean that they needed to either cross the Dragon's Nest in the Canaat Mountains or take a route through the Dwarven Kingdom. The former has too high of a risk, so it couldn't be an option. That was why Raphael-san asked me to let Hinata investigate whether a large army could pass through the Dwarven Kingdom. But King Gazel wasn't someone who would permit this so easily, and the Empire would have to face his forces before the Western Nations. Based on its topography, Dwargon was built like a fortress. As long as they protect their entrances, they could stave off even an attack of a large army. They had three entrances, Eastern, Central, and Western. The Western entrance is connected to the Kingdom of Farmenas, so we wouldn't have to worry about that. That means that the army would try to go through the Eastern or Central entrance. The Eastern entrance would be the most dangerous since it shares a border with the Empire.

King Gazel really is impressive, though. He anticipated this and has already concentrated the bulk of his forces in that area to keep an eye on the Empire's movements. That means that only other plausible routes would be through the Great Forest of Jura. There are three routes the Empire could take, but one route is adjacent to the Dwarven Kingdom. If they took that route, we could form a pincer attack with King Gazel. As for the other two... Hm... The Empire would consider Veldora as a threat and maybe use one route as a decoy to lure him away, then they could use the other for the real invasion. I could ask MEI and Iris about this too. These methods of invasion seem much too simple, even to me. It's like the Empire is looking down on us and are very confident. Ah... All this thinking is so tiring...