SON OF THE HERO KING

Chapter 556-558: Rangers

Everything started on a sunny day.

In the territory of Lustburg, the beast men had been pushing forward unimpeded. While the news about the few defeats they received worried them, this also increased the morale of the soldiers who continued to win even as Lustburg retreated.

Of course, they understand that they were lucky not to have had to face the truly dangerous one. But even so. Wouldn’t one say that luck is also a skill? This was a truth in this world.

After all denying Luck would mean denying the Blessed.

“Captain, how long before we break the last blockade?”

“They are barely hanging. In a few hours at most, we should be able to break open the castle.”

They nodded. The gate of Lustburg were opening to them in a way. After beating the nobles in the frontiers and pushing forward a little more, they would be able to infiltrate and pillage villages while gathering resources.

The moment this transformed into a guerilla, Lusburg would have a hard time spreading the resources necessary to catch all of them.

“In all history, this may be our greatest victory.”

Lustburg and Wratharis had fought many times in the long history of war. Some wins and some losses existed on either side. But most of the time, the war would simply stop after lasting a few years and start negotiations for captured soldiers, slaves and whatnot.

Lustburg had generally more wins though. It wasn’t for nothing that so many beast men and half-beast men were born and raised there.

“Captain!”

The hearty and joyous discussion in the tent was stopped as someone barged in. The captain was about to remonstrate them but knowing this soldier in particular, he knew that he was not the kind to lose his cool most of the time.

A uneasy feeling started to spread as he stood up and asked,

“What happened?”

“Lustburg received reinforcement!”

“Is it all? Isn’t it obvious? How many did they send? Hundred? Thousand?”

It was impossible for the army of Lustburg to spare more than a thousand or a few thousand at most. They even had Two Dukes present just in case. So this was not going to be too problematic.

At least….This was what he believed until he received the exact number.

“Only 10.”

“Well… Shit.”

The captain finally grasped the gravity of the situation.

“Is it perhaps a group led by a King? Did Lustburg finally go crazy and decide to break the Convention?”

In this world, there was a clear reality, when a small group of people were sent to face an army this group was composed of the elite. The fewer they were the more powerful. To the point where numbers became meaningless.

Nearly all the known Dukes of Lustburg were on the battlefront. The few who were not were either guardians or one of the actual four Duke of the Kingdom.

The captain’s mind started swimming. It didn’t matter if Lustburg broke the convention and got condemned by the world. This wouldn’t bring them back to life if they were annihilated here.

But at the same time, he could not send the retreat order. They would all be treated as deserters if they gave up on fighting without at least ascertaining the power of the enemy.

In the end, he started walking. He was one of the two Duke in place. He was not particularly strong all things considered.

But he could not simply send his soldiers to their deaths.

“My friend, are you ready for what could be a suicide mission?”

The other Duke, a middle-aged woman who was taller than most men and had cute bear ears above her head grunted and nodded with a sad smile.

Dukes in the military enjoyed many advantages. Exempt from taxes, having their own lands, receiving high pay, and being above most laws.

Even Lupus in all his madness did not diminish the right and power of the Dukes. But with all those rights and advantages came an equally high level of responsibility and punishments in case of refusing to uphold one own responsibility were even harsher than on normal soldiers.

This means in moments like this they would always advance first.

After choosing a small team of about 30 or so soldiers who all had fear etched on their faces, they detached themselves from the main groups and started advancing until they finally saw the so-called Reinforcement.

“What is this…?”

As a soldier, he had lived a long life and seen many kinds of weapons and armor but even then, this was the first time he observed something like this.

A full body armor with no gap. A sleek design that seemed to stick to the body without disturbing it. The group of ten seemed to be divided evenly in five colors.

Red/Blue/Yellow/Pink/Green.

They were all wearing faceless helmet that reflected the light.

Sweat started to tickle down the brow of the Captain of Wratharis. Not only did the armor look so foreign from the usual design that they created a dissonance in his perception. But at the same time, he was feeling a very faint oppression coming from them.

This was something he had only felt once in his life when he stood in front of the Dragon Flood queen.

Dragon Might.

Even though this was infinitely weaker than what he felt back then, the pressure was still here.

“What…”

“Under the order of his Magnanimous Highness, Sol Luxuria. Future King of Lustburg. You are thereby given an ultimate.”

A ghostly womanly voice spread through,

“You have 10 hours to leave. Should you not comply. No more pity shall be spared.”

“You…Who are you?”

He should have been angry. Receiving such an order from the enemy was humiliating. But all he could do was think about what kind of people those guys were.

“Are you even humans?”

He wondered if he was being faced with some new races.

Even though he could not see their face, he could not help but feel that one of them was smiling

“Remember our name. Remember this day. We are the new Ranger unit and we will sweep the battlefield. Send those words to your higherup less they say they were not forewarned.”

On this day. A new unit appeared and as ridiculous as they may appear, they were undeniably strong.

This fact was swiftly proven.

***

As ridiculous as their names and costumes might sound, it did not take long for the rangers to start getting their name known throughout the world.

Only 72 hours.

In 72h all the lands that had been occupied were instantly recuperated with minimal loss on the side of the rangers.

The rank of rangers was easy to determine as all the colored units seemed to be the most numerous ones while the black and white units were the strongest and most efficient.

In 72 hours alone, 3 Dukes of Wraharis who refused to submit were executed after being besieged with no way to escape. Meanwhile, when counting the three Great sages as well as the Tiger Lord who were captured, a total of Seven Dukes had been captured.

Wratharis was down more than 10 dukes, which could be considered nothing short of a historical defeat.

The number of Dukes existing in the mortal world was extremely limited, only a little above one hundred or two hundred were officially known. Obviously, the number of Dukes per Kingdom was equally small, and losing 10 Dukes meant that outside of the few ones who were forced to stay close to the capital for the defense or the few who were in retreat, Wratharis had no only a very small number of Dukes that could be used for a fight and this number could be counted on one hand.

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The absence of Dukes soon felt itself as far from stopping at getting back their lands, Lustburg started truly counter attacking in earnest, slowly taking the land that belonged to Wratharis.

A new wind was turning. But the world only had one eye on those new units.

Who were they?

How was Lustburg able to create such units? and more than anything…Could they do the same?

Such a question was repeated in all countries as the higher up started worrying.

If before they had been watching with the idea that this was nothing more than a show they did not have to participate in, now the fact that Lustburg could actually use those on them was worrying.

In the land of dwarves, the group of old men were furiously discussing, as some of them started to claim that this design was very close to what their ancestor, the first dwarf king created.

While many had forgotten this development line, they remembered that the forts were lost on Lustburg territory.

“So. You are proposing we Sue Lusburg for theft and appropriation at the international court?”

The King asked quietly to which many members of the councils started nodding excitedly.

“There is no doubt! Those armors were based on the one created by our King. They belong to the Dwarves! This is an appropriation of our cultural wealth! Lustburg cannot be allowed to keep this technology for themselves.”

The king sighed. This was so stupid but he did not want to argue too much with idiots,

“Those ruins were lost on Lustburg nearly thousand of years ago and we have never tried to retake them. Even then, they belong by the laws to Lustburg, and all wealth found to belong to them by the law.”

“Your majesty! We do not necessarily have to focus only on the law. Lustburg had always been a very heroic country. I believe their prince as the Son of the Hero King would be more than happy to make the name of Luxuria shine as a blazon of Morals and justice by sharing what they obtained with the world.”

Another one complained, “Monopoly is wrong! Such technology cannot belong to only one country. At least they have to sell some to other countries.”

The King was speechless, “We have a monopoly on dwarven steel.”

But the man was not ashamed, “We do not. We sell our weapons at high prices to other Kingdoms. It’s not our fault, only our kingdom has the metal necessary and the knowledge of Runes needed to create them.”

“Then do you not fear they will break our monopoly on weapon trading.”

“Not if we decipher and understand the functioning first before retro engineering. Dwarves are the best when it comes to forging. It’s impossible for humans to surpass us in this domain. The proof is that they would not have created this without us.”

‘My head hurt.’

Being surrounded by greedy bastards all along was tiring. But he could understand their worries. If Lustburg were not forced to share the technology they would slowly lose their own monopoly which would massively affect the economy as more than 60% of the active populations were smiths, one way or another.

In the current situation, they had too much to lose. But here came the problem,

“Let’s say we do everything you say. In the end, what? The international court only punishes war crimes and the usage of Necromancy. Outside of this, they can only give condemnations.”

“If Lustburg refuses we can close all trades with them. Lustburg is surrounded by us, Wratharis, Envilya, and Southern Pride. Wratharis will obviously never trade with them in the current situation. As for the other two countries, they would be more than any to watch from afar and laugh. We have them by the throat it would be a mistake to not use them to our advantage.”

‘Sigh…’

The King sighed as he remembered the discussion he had with a projection of Theresa not long ago.

Things were proceeding exactly as she had prophesied. It was sad to see how predictable dwarves were in her eyes. In this situation, all he had to do was to close his eyes and follow her orders.

He knew very well that doing so may have not always profited him but it definitely never made him lose too much.

“Very well. We will call for the court after the war ends. I will send an application to Slothein.”

He didn’t know why Theresa wanted to have the angels involved in this matter but he would not think too much.

His headaches were terrible enough on their own.

***

[Lustburg]

While many countries were filled with doubt and confusion about the mysterious rangers that appeared during this war, the citizens of Lustburg were cheering.

Up to now, while many pieces of good news had been sent, there was no doubt in their minds that Lustburg was steadily retreating and losing ground.

They had been worried, wondering if the prince was up to the task and if Lustburg had what it takes to become one of the hegemons once again.

Now, though, those doubts were slowly being put to rest. While they still did not know how strong their prince was, at the very least, he shouldn't be much weaker than Lilin Luxuria and Setsuna Ira, right?

At the same time, while happiness was blooming, a small seed of doubt was being planted.

Since the new Rangers are so powerful, why did they not act sooner? Why did they wait until some of Wratharis' forces were much deeper in Lustburg?

It did not need to be said, but many soldiers died during this war, and this number was still climbing.

Many wanted to ask, "Why?"

Slowly, more and more insidious news was disseminated.

There was also the fact that despite being a Duke, the Prince had yet to truly fight on the battlefield.

The fact that this war was, in fact, caused by the prince himself to bring Setsuna to the throne.

He was sacrificing the soldiers of his country to please his future wife.

All of this was done with the goal of vilifying Sol as much as possible and discrediting him in the eyes of the population.

—

While this was going on, in the Depths of the Tower of Babel, Sol was discussing with Khali about a very important issue.

“Rangers? Seriously? You couldn’t find a better name? Why even change the name to Mecha. Mecha Units or Mecha soldiers sound good and simple, I think.”

Khali made herself quite small in the seat. She had chosen this name in a moment of pure madness, and she knew that it was pretty stupid.

But she couldn't give up now, could she?

She hesitated a moment before speaking,

“Look. Those things are power armor, right?”

Sol could already see that Khali was about to bring some mighty bullshit.

“Yes.”

“And Rangers are a special commando unit, right?”

Sol hesitated before sighing, defeated, “Yes. So you took Power and Ranger together. This is what you are going to say?”

“Hehehe…”

Khali gave a sheepish laugh at the glare Sol was throwing at her. She knew this name was pretty tacky, but she could not let the occasion slip from her hands.

This kind of thing might never happen again, after all, and it was definitely very funny.

“Look, don’t be mad. Whatever their name might be, the most important thing is…They work, right?”

Sol shook his head and smoothed his creased brow. In the end, Khali was one of the three creators, so even if she wanted to give a weird name to the special power armor, then it didn’t matter.

In the end, only other reincarnated people like him would even understand the joke.

“Honestly, space marine would have been a better term, at least for the Black and White superior version.”

While the lower versions were human-sized armor, the more powerful ones were closer to small Mecha or very bulky power armor.

“Meh… Not as funny.”

“Whatever, do as you like. As you said, their names don’t really matter as long as they are working. A little too well, I must say. I guess I did well in heeding Clara’s warning.”

Sol gazed at the paperwork that was different from the usual ones he received. After all, this time those were documents and letters with the sigils of different Kingdoms.

“Threats, negotiation, small inquiries, proposals, etc. I have been receiving more than ten letters every day since the mecha —”

“The Rangers.”

“....Sigh~ Since the rangers made their grand entrance on the battlefield. I think the dwarves are already prepared to sue me for theft of important historical knowledge.”

“Heh… How ridiculous. I thought the dwarves would be silent since our fight at their border between me, Freya, and Medea.”

Sol gave a soft smile, remembering a time that seemed so far away when in reality it was still extremely close, all things considered.

Back then, the fight between the three witches ended up wiping out a few mountains in the surroundings.

Though said mountains were immediately recovered by Ambrosia. Back then the Dwarves were indeed angry, and this ended up with some minor sanctions when it came to Dwarven steel importation.

Internationally speaking, Lustburg was really in a geographically bad position. They were surrounded by land, so no products from the sea. They did not have the rare beasts present in the Demon kingdom that were necessary for the contract of talented humans.

They did not have special mines like the dwarves nor special woods like the elves.

Their technology was not as developed as Slothein, and their understanding of biology was not as developed as Chimera.

Jack of all trades and master of none, this made them too dependent on foreign help.

‘Well, this won't be the case anymore.’

Thanks to the witches, he had direct access to the Astral realm market.

Feeling his head heating up because of everything he had to think about, Sol shook his head and continued the conversation thread.

“They were. But they are dwarves. In a way, the most attuned to their sins. Greed is their motto, and they would die for it if necessary.”

“How stupid.”

“This stupidity is helping me in this situation. Though of course, this is also thanks to Theresa fanning the flame from behind.”

Khali nodded. She had come to know Theresa closely, and she respected the diminutive woman.

She might be the weakest, but Khali knew that not even witches specialized in metallurgy could beat her.

This was proven recently during an internal contest, and Theresa literally steamrolled the competition.

“By the way, I have been hearing pretty bad things about you. It seems like your reputation is in the gutter.”

Even though she was asking, Khali treaded carefully. She did not want to upset him, after all.

“Oh, those…”

Sol looked up and chuckled,

“I am the one spreading the bad rumors.”

Khali looked at Sol, eyes filled with incomprehension.

“Are you a closed masochist?”

Sol had to fight the urge to smack down the impish Crimson Witch.