Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: The King (1)
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A week after the unidentified hero entered and then left, yet strangely, nothing at all happened.
Kim Hyunwoo nodded in satisfaction as he gazed at the information window Loria had pulled up.
Territory Development was now on the cusp of reaching 1,000, and the population had already surpassed 5,000—leagues beyond the sparse handful of residents when he'd first begun rebuilding the territory.
Right on cue, the Residential District had upgraded to Level 3, and the newly constructed buildings were filling out with proper medieval urban homes, shedding any trace of a rural village vibe.
The inn, built in anticipation of the mercenaries' arrival, was packed to the brim despite its premium pricing.
But what caught Kim Hyunwoo's eye most was the secondary wall rising beyond the main one.
The construction near Lartania was now unmistakably taking shape as a proper wall.
And beyond that, the troops had doubled from 200 to 400 soldiers in one go.
...Should I have recruited more?
Kim Hyunwoo pondered as he stared at the window.
But he soon shook his head.
In truth, 400 soldiers wasn't an overwhelming number given Lartania's current state.
After all, the mercenaries flooding in numbered in the thousands.
That said, ramping up recruitment would siphon off laborers in real-time, which had given him pause.
This should be enough. The recruits will prove their worth once they grow anyway.
He settled on that conclusion.
Residents kept pouring in endlessly, but labor was still his biggest bottleneck.
After mulling it over for a while, Kim Hyunwoo thought,
Come to think of it, I heard Mila started properly training the soldiers a few days ago...
He recalled his conversation with Mila, who'd come to establish the mercenary guild, and glanced toward the barracks visible from the Lord's Castle.
Mila, known by the moniker "the Subjugator," had made her living as a mercenary, but she'd often heard she had a knack for teaching others.
Even so, she'd repeatedly turned down Kim Hyunwoo's offers because her experience was limited to training fellow mercenaries.
Compounding that, he'd tasked her with the recruits, which weighed heavily on her.
As a seasoned mercenary who understood the world's harsh realities, she knew exactly what recruits signified.
The lord's elite guard, excluding heroes.
In other words, from the lord's perspective, they were practically his lifeline—and training them felt like a massive responsibility.
Yet she'd accepted despite the burden, thanks to the generous compensation.
Plus, with the mercenary guild set to establish in Lartania and her poised to become branch manager, maintaining a good rapport with the lord made sense.
I still don't get why the lord picked me... but if I'm doing this, I'll do it right.
Honestly, Mila still wondered what had prompted the lord to choose her.
She'd heard from some mercenaries that she was good at instructing, but her public moniker was solely "Subjugator."
At this point, though, what mattered wasn't why he'd chosen her—it was forging these recruits into something exceptional.
Having accepted the offer, she had no intention of half-assing it; she planned to drill them mercilessly.
But that resolve shifted into something more peculiar the moment she laid eyes on her first batch of recruits.
They looked nothing like the recruits she knew.
Typical recruits were talented youths handpicked for potential, yet these ones seemed far too mature, even charitably speaking.
Most faces before her bore the marks of adulthood over youthful innocence.
And when she tested a few basics, suspecting maybe they'd cherry-picked the skilled ones? She realized she was dead wrong.
...They're ridiculously weak.
The soldiers Kim Hyunwoo had selected as recruits were weak.
Not just weak—woefully deficient compared to any recruits she'd seen.
They could swing spears after a fashion, suggesting some training, but everything else scored near zero by her standards.
They could barely handle swords despite being recruits, their base stamina was laughably frail, and as expected, none had mana aptitude—basic drills confirmed even that was absent in most.
Staring at these catastrophe-level weaklings, worse than any territory's recruits she'd encountered, Mila briefly wondered if she'd walked into a trap.
No matter how hard she trained them, their only standout trait seemed to be loyalty to the lord—would that even be enough for growth?
But she wasn't the type to drop a job once started, so she dove in.
Building stamina from scratch, teaching sword basics, striving to awaken their mana sense—the next step for any recruit.
And after a week of such efforts, Mila found her jaw dropping.
Before her, recruits teamed up for mock battles, charging at each other.
"For the lord!!!"
Bare-chested like northern berserkers, swinging swords with feral abandon.
...
But Mila's shock wasn't at their fanaticism.
She'd seen that plenty over the week—every grueling drill met with cries of "For the lord who believed in us!!!"
No, it was their skill level that floored her.
She recalled the recruits from a week ago.
No stamina, couldn't swing a sword, zero mana— a mob of utter duds.
But now?
They'd been locked in fierce combat for over ten minutes, showing no fatigue, fighting like true berserkers.
Krunch! Clang!
Swords they'd barely wielded before now had solid basics, if still clumsy.
...Huh.
A few in the fray were unconsciously channeling the faintest traces of mana, unbeknownst to themselves.
How... why is this happening?
Mila frowned in confusion.
She'd trained them herself, yet their progress was beyond bizarre—utterly impossible.
Put harshly, a week ago they were a ragtag mob.
So she gawked blankly at her handiwork, desperately seeking an explanation.
Then it hit her—their words.
The recruits, igniting their zeal with mentions of the lord during every tough session, their suspiciously fervent loyalty.
...Can loyalty alone propel them this far?
In truth, it stemmed from Mila's own talents synergizing perfectly with the task, but unaware of how specialized her skills were, she could only marvel,
How the hell did Lartania's lord inspire this level of devotion?
She couldn't help but think of Kim Hyunwoo with awe.
And at that very moment.
Time to tackle the 4th floor soon... and I need info on the Blue Forest's Necromancer Commanders.
As Kim Hyunwoo pondered,
"...Huh?"
Stunned by the sudden alert, Kim Hyunwoo blinked and double-checked it.
[The King of the 'Kalan Kingdom' has visited the territory.]
No change.
...The king's here?
He stared in bewilderment.
For the Kalan Kingdom's king to visit a remote territory like this was extraordinarily rare.
Rare? No—according to his knowledge, kings simply didn't visit foreign territories.
Flustered but quick to act, he knew he needed solid diplomacy with Kalan pronto.
After hasty preparations, Kim Hyunwoo received the king in his office.
"Ah, so you're Lartania's lord. A true pleasure."
She greeted him with a radiant smile, grasping his hand warmly, as if genuinely delighted. He blinked in confusion but responded,
"Ah, y-yes. Greetings, first off..."
"No need. You're not even under Kalan, right?"
"Pardon? Still, as a king of a nation, I should at least show some respect—"
As he moved to kneel on one knee,
"Really, truly, no need? Come on, up you get."
Her smile somehow didn't reach her eyes, and Kim Hyunwoo,
"...Ah, yes..."
could only stand back up, utterly perplexed.