Chapter 250: Military Parade (Part 2 of 2)

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

Before the first rays of sunlight streaked across the sky, pitch-black dark elves appeared before the humans, as if they were messengers of the night.

When everyone present noticed that the group that had appeared next consisted of dark elves, their expressions were filled with shock and surprise. After all, in most situations, their species were the representation of evil. Perhaps it were only the demons and devils from the Chaos Abyss who had a worse reputation. Even the undead were better received than they were.

The ones in front of the audience, however, were doubtlessly an abnormality among dark elves. They were dark elf knights clad in golden heavy armor, and this was the first time they had revealed themselves on the surface of the mortal plane. Orderly and unhurriedly, they proceeded forward. Other dark elves were known to be skilled at using daggers and poisons, but these wielded glorious sacred swords and sturdy tower shields. Most importantly, they wore crosses, which were enveloped in Holy Light. Even the knights themselves were surrounded by Holy Light, which caused the human Holy Knights witnessing this spectacle to be the most astonished of all.

“Dark elves are capable of becoming Holy Knights?”

“How is this possible!? How can the evil dark elves possibly receive the blessing of Holy Light!?”

“Because your God of Holy Light is an idiot.”

Of course, I didn’t say my line of thought aloud, as that would definitely brand me as a heretic. However, I didn’t have any intentions of hiding the fact that I was filled with negative intentions, and I sarcastically made fun of them.

“Heh heh, I have a friend who’s a dark elf Legend-ranked Holy Knight. Not only that, she has the possibility of reaching Saint rank. Sigh. A pity that she’s not here right now.”

Some of the Holy Knights were filled with disbelief, while some nodded with shocked expressions. I didn’t make any attempt to conceal my insulting laughter, which earned me an angry glare from Aivla. Ever since she had gone back with Estrada and learned that Holy Knight Rolo’s real identity was me, she became hostile and unfriendly. It would seem that I had accidentally made her feel greatly pissed off at me.

The emblem of the dark elf Town Security Knights was a tightly clenched golden fist, which represented the spirit of teamwork and cooperation. Stuck above the fist was also a blunt sword, which represented the usage of violence only to a necessary degree—yep—it definitely didn’t represent anything else, especially not my personal complaints against a certain Riot Games company, which had a fist as its emblem… Irelia was so cute, so why did they always nerf her? They should have been focusing on Teemo who was always polluting the environment with his explosive mushrooms instead. [1] 1

Cough, I should stop getting sidetracked with topics from my original world. Let’s return to the main topic at hand.

Unlike formal knight orders, which had actual combat as their main tasks, the Town Security Knights’ most important tasks were doubtlessly smaller-scale battles like suppressing riots, bandit groups, and wild beasts. In order to make it more convenient for them to separate and battle in different locations, they were all mainly separated into small teams.

Each small team’s captain and vice-captain were dark elf knights that came from the Underground. It was still the classical method of veterans leading the novices. While the members were of a large variety, but most of them were still knight type job classes that had tough skin and high endurance, or they were youngsters that had decided to become knights.

The reason for that? Indeed, thief job classes were agile and dexterous, while warrior job classes were much more flexible. Mages were even more adaptable and seemed to be quite appropriate for working within a city like this, but when you looked at the overall reputations of these three main and common job classes, none of them were that good.

Everyone knew that thieves would get up to no good and only work for money, while the warriors had the image of being barbaric and violent to the point of only talking with their fists; this was apparent to everyone. The mage job class was also seen by everyone as connected to evil and untrustworthy. While mages could easily obtain respect and fear, they definitely couldn’t obtain trust; they had far worse of a reputation than Holy Knights, Knights of Justice, or even just regular knights.

Holy Knights needed to obey the teachings of the Holy Light, Knights of Justice needed to follow the law, and normal knights needed to follow the knightly code of chivalry and swear loyalty to their lord and king; reputation and honor were more important to them than their lives. In order to obtain the people’s trust and internally obtain the newcomers’ trust of the Town Security Knights themselves, almost all the small teams’ leaders were of knight job classes.

To use a certain person’s quote, “Although tin cans mostly have empty air for brains, but they can all survive based on their handsome faces…” Yep, that was a certain quote said by someone when he was still a Holy Knight, but he had ended up getting beaten up by all his comrades. Fine, I’ll be honest; apart from someone like me, a grand master at shooting oneself in the foot, who else could have said something so ridiculous?

The future Town Security Knights spent most of their time performing tasks within the city, and they had special intelligence, logistics, and magic support squads of their own. Whether or not their work would be a success here depended more than anything on whether they would be able to create a trustworthy and fair impression of themselves, which was why choosing these knights that had “tin cans for brains” was the best choice. It had already been proven back in Sulfur Mountain City.

Each small team consisted of ten to twelve members, and would be led by an elite dark elf knight. They had top-level equipment, and any criminal would get a headache just looking at them. The Town Security Knights were planned to number 14,000 in the end, which would be more than sufficient to deal with the protection of multiple cities at once.

As for why I had to begin the military parade so early before the sun even rose? It was also out of consideration for these dark elves, who weren’t suited for appearing under the sunlight. For the time being, they would also have to mainly work during the night, but when their specialized equipment was completed, they would be able to move about normally during the day as well.

What was their specialized equipment? Momo here was wearing the prototype.

The main reason the dark elves feared the sunlight was that their pupils and skin couldn’t bear the sunlight. It wasn’t as bad for their skin, although they would begin to suffer from severe sunburn if they stayed out in the sun for too long, but their weak pupils couldn’t tolerate any sunlight at all… actually, this wasn’t something unresolvable.

They would wear black dwarven anti-wind glasses with dark green tree resin lenses. They would have water element top-level hydra skin crafted into cool jackets, leather gloves, and black collars. They would wear high-heeled boots and long socks on their long, beautiful legs, plus purple eyeshadow and lipstick, which would give them a rebellious sense of beauty that seemed out of this world…

As for whether or not I copied elements from a certain special job from my previous world, a dominatrix—cough—cough—at the very least, I wasn’t crazy enough to give them leather whips. Of course, some dark elves with special interests already had this type of item on their own, such as a certain crazy dog named Momo, who was currently—and happily—giving a whipping performance that caused various exclamations from the citizens… let us just ignore those perverts who had voluntarily came up for whippings.

With such top-level water element equipment provided to them, and when you add on the fact that they would put on Olive’s specially made sunscreen lotion for the skin that they revealed, they would basically be entirely protected from the sunlight so that they wouldn’t have to imitate other dark elves on the surface—they wouldn’t have to wear pitch-black capes and only dare to move about at night.

With such equipment, their anti-sunlight resistance rose greatly. Some dark elves had already volunteered to experiment for me, and, with the help of this water equipment and sunscreen lotion, they were able to normally move about under the sunlight for approximately five hours. As their bodies gradually got used to the sunlight, even increasing the time to eight hours under the sun per day was acceptable. When a gray elf like Momo put on this equipment, she was practically able to ignore any negative effects the sunlight would have on her.

To be honest, based on the Underground dark elves’ level of magic, finding a way to deal with the sunlight wasn’t something impossible to begin with. However, under their society where Lorci had controlled everything, anyone that researched this topic was basically declaring their intentions to go against Lorci.

“What? You’re researching a method to deal with the sunlight? You intend to betray Lorci and escape to the aboveground world?”

Now that Lorci was dead, I figured that the dark elves would eventually come up with new ways to deal with the sun on their own.

Of course, even now, these equipment sets for them weren’t cheap. The dwarves’ protective glasses originally used gemstone lenses which still let in too much sunlight for the dark elves, so I recommended Amelia’s specially-produced tree resin lenses which were a big success, but it still wasn’t easy to mass produce them.

Although there was already a mother tree, I had to wait until Amelia’s magical tree grew into a forest before I would be able to have the tree resin lenses mass produced. And even though I had plenty of hydra skin on my hands, it was still rather precious, and using it only to block the sun seemed like a waste.

Hydra skin which was impenetrable by ordinary weapons and had defense equal to or surpassing that of steel armor, but I didn’t have any top-level smiths that were able to make use of such a high-quality material. In order to avoid wasting any hydra skin, I only had very small and simple modifications done to them, without even having them enchanted with any spells or runes.

Although the defense value was only the hydra skin’s natural defense value alone, that was already significant. The magic resistance properties of hydra skin added with the fact that the dark elves already had a talent for magic resistance helped them completely ignore any magic spells that were below Gold-rank. This made them into true mage killers.

I nodded in satisfaction as I watched them pass by. Not only were they the future Town Security and the backup knights for our main forces, but they were also specialized anti-mage troops. Of course, if it was necessary, I would have them truly act the part as mage killers.

And after this “Riot Company” squad finished walking past us, the next group was rather unexpected.

The one at the forefront was a certain tall and strong tauren who was smiling in an honest and direct fashion as he continuously waved to people on both sides of the road. Xueti’s name was quite famous, after all.

However, due to some special reasons and some rather extreme quotes of his, such as “Why does a good man have to cover up?” or “What’s wrong with a man being perverted?” he obtained the extreme disgust of a large majority of females as well as the support of a large majority of males. Of course, there were also some females who were into extreme things that supported him.

After this highest priest walked past us while enjoying both cheers and boos, the well-equipped Church of Law members showed up behind him in all their might.

This was a group of black-robed judges, but they were also Law Incanters, Judgementors, and Knights of Justice. They weren’t many, nor was their procession very orderly. However, the pride of the strong was as bright as daylight in the eyes of those that recognized their power.

“How is it possible that they have so many Gold ranks?”

“Gold ranks? Take a closer look, there are actually so many Legends among them.”

“…The rumors about the Underground were actually true? Legends are everywhere, liches are like dogs, and randomly tossing a brick can kill two SemiGod Liches?”

I viciously glared at the fool who had compared liches to dogs and even intended to kill SemiGod Liches with bricks, before returning my focus to the procession.

I was quite satisfied with their appearance. These old guys from the Church of Law were, at the very weakest, of the Gold rank, and all of them were those who could be judges. They were the true power of the Church of Law, accumulated over the past hundred years.

236 Gold ranks, 46 Legend ranks, and 4 Saint ranks. This was combat strength that was more than sufficient to rule over the Underground, and this military parade was a way to let everyone witness the true power of the Church of Law. It was also precisely because of their existence that Diffindor could be termed “Infallible.”

Just thinking about it, if Diffindor really was attacked, I could activate “Great Judgement” here. Just what would happen after all the Law job classes were raised one rank? There would be 236 Legend ranks, 46 Saint ranks, and 4 Myth ranks… While this may still be insufficient to slay a God, killing off an army of over 100,000 would be an effortless task.

As an independent organization belonging to the Church of Law rather than the military, they originally shouldn’t have appeared in East Mist’s military parade, but due to our unique organizational structure and relationship, it was time to have them come out and scare some people.

Of course, compared to other True Gods’ churches that had SemiGod members as their aces, the Church of Law would still seem weaker, but even the power that they now displayed would be enough to have the other churches reassess this new church’s power and potential. After all, the Law God ascended to Godhood just a little less than two years ago, but this system of Law had already matured to such an extent.

The Town Security and these strong members of the Church of Law were all part of the Law system that I had created to begin with, and what I imagined was that the Church of Law would eventually spread to become the national church of the entire Mist Alliance. Each city would construct their own courts, helping spread the seeds of its existence.

A judge that was able to control the situation would be the leader, with roughly ten or so assistants or acolytes as the core members helping out. The small teams of Town Security that finished their training would be the executors of the Law. When all the public courts that also served simultaneously as Churches of Law opened up and became operational, each city would begin changing, and the number of Law job classes would continue increasing…

“Hmph! In my blueprint for the future, there are no such things as foolish antiquated nobles and a feudal system.”

They were the greatest treasure that I had accumulated over the years, and the most important part of whether my plan would succeed. After all, individual strength was limited. Without their assistance, I wouldn’t be able to realize my goal.

If the Town Security and Church of Law members represented the current changes ongoing in this country, the next group to appear probably represented the potential future that still needed hard work and effort to reach.

“Look! It’s the battle flag of the Silver Cross! My nephew’s joined them as well.”

“…It’s the Silver Cross! That combat squadron which obtained accolades in the war against the beastmen.”

When talking about popularity, this newly rising combat squadron, which had most of its members consisting of locals, was actually the most popular, especially after they racked up achievements during the war against the beastmen. They also became a hot topic in all the streets and alleyways.

“They’re our children, and our heroes.”

When the combat flag of the Silver Cross could be seen in the distance, the visitors from the Holy Church finally showed some smiles. The Silver Cross typically was related to the Holy Light, so it seemed that there was finally something acceptable to them. After all, judging by how the citizens were so excited, it seemed that the Silver Cross had an excellent reputation.

But soon, the Holy Church members’ smiles froze on their faces. The undead knights Fanderk and Lani were the commander and sub-commander of this combat squadron, so of course they walked at the forefront. The Holy Church members were soon able to see up close what was really on the Silver Cross’s combat flag—a sword which represented physical might overlapped with a staff representing magical power, which was something completely separate from a real cross that could be used to pray to the Holy Light.

The Four Elemental Swordcasters, who used the power of the elements, also greatly ticked off some of the Holy Church members. After all, in the eyes of some extremists of the believers of the Holy Light, even elemental powers needed to be cleansed. However, they couldn’t do anything about it, since nobody had made a rule saying that silver crosses were the intellectual property of the Holy Church.

Meanwhile, the other guests weren’t thinking so much about all this at all. The newly-created single soldier mecha walking at the forefront attracted all their attention.

“This is the single soldier combat mecha Sith #0. It has a completely metallic outer shell and obsidian protective covering. Its highest speed is 30 kilometers per hour, so it can easily keep up with a knights’ procession. Its armor thickness and utility can be modified based on the desired cost of production, and if magical metals are used in its construction, it’s also simple to make it immune to Silver-ranked attacks and below.”

Seeing how everyone’s attention was fully on me, I paused for a moment before tossing out a megaton bomb with my next words.

“Although its defense is excellent, wearing it won’t affect the casting of spells at all. This is doubtlessly the best equipment for any archmage in the future. Although controlling this mecha requires the ability to control the elements, we also sell Secret Silver Spirit Swords to control these mechas that even an ordinary person can use. Only this magical sword is required to control it… Which means to say, even a ruler with no magical or physical prowess whatsoever can instantly possess, at the minimum, Silver-ranked combat strength through this mecha. They will also be able to obtain a Secret Silver Spirit Sword, which will give them the ability to somewhat control the elements.”

As I waved in indication, the warrior in the mecha opened up part of the outer shell. The elemental power around him could be ignored, while that Secret Silver Spirit Sword that was also red and black was obviously the core part of the mecha. This phenomenon seemed to break all common sense and caused a commotion from all the spectators.

Secret Silver Spirit Sword? It was actually a magical sword modified through magical engineering. Originally, I named it the “Silver Sword,” but since everyone strongly objected to it, I could only helplessly add two more words to its name.

As for the so-called “Secret Silver?” Well, gold watches, gold pens, and gold teeth might not necessarily be made of real gold, and a gold-colored canister of milk powder would definitely not have any gold inside at all. A silver computer or car wouldn’t have real silver either, and if someone had silver in their brain, that meant it was time to sue a merchant for metallic poisoning. That was just how merchants’ advertising worked; everybody understood how it was.

“How much? How many mechas do you have? We Rhodes Kingdom will buy them all!”

“You dare to try stealing them from us, San Antonio? Give them all to us! We’ll trade high-quality gold for them.”

“…So what if we steal them?!! You think you’re the only ones with money? Our Kasolan has plenty of money, too! Why don’t you try declaring war against us? As long as you can defeat all fifteen of our countries, we’ll surrender them to you.”

Even if none of them truly saw the military potential in these mechas, just the idea of allowing ordinary people to possess Silver-ranked combat strength was a temptation that no human ruler would be able to resist. Judging from how these emissaries seemed as if they were about to start fighting over the mechas, perhaps they had all received direct orders from their rulers that they would be forced to carry out.

It would seem that leaking information on the mechas I was planning to sell beforehand was the correct decision. In fact, even the Holy Church was tempted and sent out their professional negotiator.

“May the Holy Light watch over you. We can feel that Your Highness still has the faint power of Holy Light, so it’s fortunate that the mundane and busy affairs of the world haven’t obstructed your search for the path of Holy Light. May the justice of knights forever watch over you.”

Alright, it looked like even the Holy Church was playing this game. If it was someone else, they probably wouldn’t understand these words, but this type of thing was a daily occurrence for me in the past. This was what he really meant:

“Hey, brat, we’re all members of the Holy Light, so don’t jack up the prices too much. Otherwise, if you do, be careful that our big boss the God of Holy Light will have a reckoning with you.”

“Even so, I’ve already begun following the path of Law. I hope that the Holy Light will watch over you as well, even in the darkest and blackest of nights, so that it can illuminate the path before you. (Translation: You pauper! My boss is now Wumianzhe, so if you don’t have money, get out of here, and go back to where you came from.)”

“Ah, my young brother who follows both the path of Holy Light and the path of Law… (Translation: You fool! Your magnanimous stinginess and bravery in shooting yourself in the foot like this have caused me to be scared into receiving a message from the God of Holy Light…)”

Alright, it was nostalgic to meet someone who understood these code words, and I actually got interested in the process, as we kept speaking in code and began negotiating.

While I was having fun chatting with this Holy Knight negotiator in code, everyone else had utterly confused expressions—even my teacher, who had the nickname of the “Strongest Holy Knight.” After all, Estrada had zero experience with the ceremonial speech required for diplomacy, and in their eyes, we kept respectfully talking to each other endlessly in circles with no meaningful content whatsoever. In truth, we had been negotiating for over ten rounds back and forth already.

By now, the “Sith #0” was far off into the distance, and no price was set for its sale yet, but I had already reached my goal. This was only a display, and how could I sell it so easily… I still needed time to add in the missing parts and make it really working! You over there, hurry up and pick up and reinstall its left arm that fell off! It’ll be really bad if someone sees that!

“There are only two Sith mechas in total, and the other one is still currently under construction. In one month’s time, both of them will be auctioned, while the next batch will have to wait until at least one year later. If someone buys both of them at once during the auction, we’ll even throw in the method for how to create the Secret Silver Spirit Swords. We accept gold, and God Equipment is fine as well for payment.”

The additional throw-in was far more valuable than the mechas itself, but in order to successfully purchase both mechas at an auction, the amount to be paid would have to at the very least be more than twice the upper limits of what other countries were willing to pay. This method of selling was filled with obvious greed, but it also gave everyone plenty of time to obtain permission from their rulers and prepare as much funds as possible. Judging by how all the emissaries had grim and hostile expressions towards each other, they would probably be unable to come to a secret agreement regarding the price amongst themselves, and I would profit greatly this time.

As for why I was willing to give away the method to create the Secret Silver Spirit Swords? Actually, spreading magical engineering technology was one of my important strategic goals to begin with. In the future that I could foresee, all the human kingdoms would have to stand united, and I couldn’t have them being too much of a burden.

Anyways, it would likely spread sooner or later; spreading this technology to the entire world earlier would be even better if I could profit at the same time.

Not only that, but our ability to perform research was limited in personnel and resources. Compared to guarding the treasure trove and starving to death, it was better to sell this off and obtain seeds that could be harvested in the future and improve the overall strength of humans.

As for whether or not I left backdoors and Trojan Horses that were capable of stealing the other side’s technology as well… This question was a pointless one, as in that original world of mine, weren’t there always backdoors and additional add-ons in all the top-level applications and software?

Of course, in order to not make them so tempted that they would attempt to try taking my mechas by force rather than purchasing them, the next one up would be the most expensive product for sale of all. It would be the trump card to suppress anyone with such thoughts.

“Mizar, it’s time for your appearance.”

Note:

1. League of Legends reference!

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