The Conspiracy
But that laugh didn't last long.
There was one problem with learning Wind Runner.
He couldn't just learn Wind Runner by itself.
The wind magic book was arranged more systematically than expected.
Start with Storm Chip to learn the basic control of wind.
Then develop it into a vortex with Storm Wall.
Next, transform and condense that vortex in Slicer.
And use the control you've mastered here to employ Wind Runner.
To learn Wind Runner, he had to master other magic spells first.
Learning even one magic spell took quite a long time.
If he started now, would he be able to master them all to the point of fully utilizing them?
He didn't know.
Still, there was no other choice but to try.
There was no point in just worrying and delaying; there was no other way.
It would be best to master them as much as possible and think of ways to utilize them in real combat depending on the situation.
Joseph checked out the window.
It was just as winter was starting, and cold winds were blowing outside.
He knew that the air in that strong wind was filled with a lot of wind mana.
"Derik, Auk, Jiren!"
Joseph immediately called out to his private soldiers.
The ones who had finished shield training and were resting came running in a hurry.
"Have you called, Master?"
"Yeah. I need to meditate outside the village for a while."
"?"
The soldiers looked puzzled at his words.
Outside, a fierce gale was blowing.
The cold wind of winter wasn't normal. It was so cold that even standing still would make your cheeks sting.
Moreover, it was almost time for the sun to set.
It would be much colder than now, so why meditate?
"I plan to go out every day for a while, so prepare thoroughly."
But Joseph didn't explain the specific reason to them.
Even if he did, they probably wouldn't understand.
Instead, the soldiers watching with wry smiles passed on the information.
They had been out in the rain and wind for hours following Joseph when he tried to get wind mana in Kutna village before.
Hearing that explanation, the soldiers started gathering firewood with gloomy faces.
'Let's go.'
Joseph left the house without a word.
As the day darkened, the wind grew even colder and stronger.
Soon, the surrounding area opened up, and he found the spot where the wind blew the strongest.
"Fire."
Fwoosh—
Joseph created three bonfires around him.
Around him were the bonfires, and outside, the soldiers sat in a circle around him.
Joseph immediately closed his eyes and sank his consciousness.
"......"
The soldiers watching quietly also let out a small sigh and sat around him.
'Just like mages, they're all crazy.'
In their minds, a glimpse of the suffering ahead flashed.
As dawn broke, Ogier started conscription.
Originally, he hadn't planned to do additional conscription.
But since he had to stay here longer and find the hidden mage, it was unavoidable.
Of course, it was winter now, and the farmers who had to save food were tightening their belts.
Doing conscription here was tantamount to sucking the marrow out of the village.
The conscripts were the residents here, and the ones doing the conscription were their families.
Naturally, the atmosphere among the conscripts worsened when they heard that their families would be used as hostages to death.
In fact, some even resisted.
"I'll give you compensation for the conscription."
In the beginning, Ogier tried to appease them by giving silver coins, but it didn't work easily.
In such rural villages, barter was the center rather than currency.
Even if you got silver coins, if there was no food to survive the winter, it was useless.
Moreover, the peddler who visited a while ago wasn't selling goods but buying.
In winter, food and supplies were more important than money.
The conscripts, being residents of the village, knew that fact naturally.
"Just take it...?"
Among them, there was even one who thought of using the weapon given to him to cut the noble's throat.
Fortunately, this was caught by reports from other soldiers, and it remained as an unpunished incident.
Ogier had the ones plotting rebellion hung in front of his carriage.
"You idiots don't understand the situation! Do you not know that I am here because of you! If you don't deal with the monsters in Malešov, then it's you who will die next!"
Ogier, enraged that they had tried to kill him, shouted with fury.
After that, the village became quiet again, but the ominous atmosphere didn't ease easily.
The soldiers had never actually faced a monster.
To them, the monster was an image of a vicious beast.
If anything, they thought of it as a starving bear.
Dealing with a bear was definitely dangerous, but was it worth conscripting and drafting for that?
Eventually, before long, Ogier used another method.
He used the refugees from Malešov who had come here.
"Y-yes, it's true!"
The refugees came forward and explained the situation in Malešov in a heart-wrenching way.
"Is that Mark?"
"That's Jimmy!"
Moreover, there was someone among the conscripts who knew the refugees.
Although the distance was a bit far, they had been in contact normally.
The difference in persuasiveness between someone explaining without knowing the face and someone who knew.
"Ric? Did Ric die too?"
"Probably everyone except us..."
"......"
Only then did the remaining residents start to accept the seriousness of the situation.
Soon, their atmosphere became chaotic in another direction.
If what the refugees said was true, the next meal of the monster would be themselves, their wives, children, and parents.
That fact seemed to stimulate people's psychology.
Ogier continued with momentum.
"This isn't a simple extermination. If you give up, then it's just death. Your family's and your own safety is in your hands!"
"Uwaaaaa!"
The conscripts with raised morale shouted in unison.
Joseph, looking at such Ogier, inwardly admired him.
He had properly bent the residents to his will, more than one could imagine as a naive rural knight in the past.
The one who grew was not just Joseph.
While Ogier was managing the conscripts, Joseph entered training with his private soldiers.
More precisely, it was training where the soldiers surrounded and protected Joseph.
Originally, Joseph hadn't thought of such training.
Originally, the private soldiers were supposed to be deployed with the conscripts.
But since the plan had changed, this was necessary.
'The one who dies the moment the wall breaks is me.'
Joseph, like the soldiers, had never properly fought alongside someone.
With ogres or northern monsters, it was more like using them as meat shields rather than fighting together.
"Raise the shield straight!"
"The monster is tenacious. Even if split in half, it can aim for the ankles!"
Refn and the soldiers were scolding the soldiers and swinging clubs from all sides.
They brought down the shields to deliver impact or hit the ankles that couldn't be blocked with shields.
"Hik!"
"Ack!"
They blocked or pushed away the flying clubs with gritted teeth.
Occasionally, when one fell, he immediately crawled on the ground to retreat, and another filled the gap.
When the fallen one got up, they repeated forming the formation again.
Whoosh—
While the soldiers were swinging clubs to knock them away several times.
Joseph swung his staff.
Then a mana orb smaller than usual floated up.
Since it was training, the power was reduced to the minimum.
"Return."
Whenever the soldiers' posture broke, Joseph deployed Return to fill the gap.
The club swung by one soldier hit a white wall and bounced back as is.
Although the power was reduced, the soldier who swung the club grimaced because of the pain from the counter-reaction.
Thud!
"Ack!"
And when a gap appeared for the soldiers, he directly inserted the mana orb.
Although the power was reduced similarly, one soldier fell backward and hit his butt.
"See? Even if two fall, I can block one time. Don't hesitate and stand up immediately."
"Yes!"
Upon his words, the soldiers answered vigorously and formed the wall again.
The training continued until the sun set.
A group of people were watching Doran Village from outside the village.
One of the men pointed to the line of carriages lined up at the outskirts of the village.
"The mage seems to be staying in that house."
"Hah."
At that, the leader of the group, Manir, who was looking at the carriage, let out a scoff in disbelief.
"He seems to have earned quite a bit."
Heading south, Manir had been collecting rumors about the mage continuously.
From the subjugation of the northern monster, to subjugating bandits.
In some village, they even said they caught an entire bandit gang and killed them.
The more he heard the rumors, the more irritated Manir became.
He had crawled down while hiding his knight's honor, but the mage who picked up an artifact was happily playing the hero.
He wanted to charge at him and feed him his sword right away.
'But...'
Manir's gaze turned back to the carriage, specifically to the noble's flag hanging there.
'I've never seen this emblem before.'
A shield and a fish drawn on a blue flag. It wasn't the Valois count's flag, but it was clearly a noble emblem.
After further investigation, he found that guy.
There was one commander with a long scar on his face.
'He teamed up with a knight.'
It could be a noble given by Count Valois, or perhaps he paid with the money he earned.
Either way, if the owner of that flag was a knight, challenging him was like suicide.
Honestly, he couldn't guarantee victory if he fought the mage head-on now.
Not to mention, he wasn't the one with the crazy artifact that allowed infinite magic use.
The magic was threatening enough, regardless of whether he liked the mage or not.
But a knight was protecting the mage?
It wasn't just Manir, but even his own soldiers would likely lose if they all rushed in.
Having a knight was different from just a few soldiers guarding in front.
He himself was a knight, but knights wielded power on a different level from ordinary soldiers.
Challenging to kill the mage through that meant having to do a siege war alone.
'A sly bastard. Why is he with a knight? Who is that guy exactly.'
He was a guy he hadn't seen on the battlefield...
Manir's mind became complicated.
Crunch—
Soon, Manir ground his teeth.
There was no other way anyway. He had to retrieve the mana recovery artifact no matter what.
Failing a mission was not an option.
"Zaif, Deven."
Manir thought for a moment, then called two soldiers.
"What happened to the one we sent disguised as a peddler last time? Have you still not figured out why those guys are camped here?"
"No. We got results. Those guys are planning to subjugate monsters in Malešov."
"Malešov's monsters?"
His brows furrowed at the village name he had heard somewhere.