Homesteading in a fantasy world

As days went by, the Western army got closer and closer. Their progress was measured, but it didn't take long for the first conflicts to start. Both armies' scouts began to run into each other, and small-scale fights started to happen.

Rich got involved almost immediately, but he went alone to help, hoping that some of the more heavy hitters of the enemies would also show up. Unfortunately for him, none did.

It only took a day before no scouts from the Western army could be seen. This victory should have allowed the United Freehold Army to place traps and obstacles in the way of the Western army, but none of those worked as they should.

Rich knew why, but he couldn’t say, and he couldn’t even order everyone to stop wasting extra manpower on that, as otherwise, he would be tipping his hand. So time continued to tick by as Rich was forced to watch failed efforts in things he knew wouldn’t help their cause. He did try his best to focus efforts, without being too obvious, on the things that would help achieve the victory they were after.

Over this short period of time, to the horror of the followers of the Aetherhold leader, their leader started to act differently. He didn’t have his bursts of anger anymore, as he had started to control himself properly.

He now understood that he had become way too childish whenever something went wrong, but he comforted himself with the fact that it was normal for someone of his strength and who could see the future.

There was now determination instead of rage in his soul, and that's because he started to think more about the next step and not just the coming fight. He knew there were going to be sacrifices but Rich would be dead or at least gravely wounded after the coming battle.

Then it would just be a cleanup job and conquering the three nations. After that, the hard job starts, but at the end of it, he will be the ruler of this planet and be able to properly prepare for what’s to come.

A smile came to his face on the last eve before the battle. He didn’t mind how the command tent went silent from just his facial expression; in fact, he enjoyed it. I am going to be a person everyone's going to hail as a savior, but before that, I will accept being the villain.

I must thank Rich, and I now understand why he was put in front of me. I needed to grow out of my phase of thinking that nothing could stop us. Similar thoughts continued to go through the head of the leader of Aetherhold as he listened to the battle plan he was already intimately familiar with.

Not too far away, a similar situation was unfolding, except no one was sitting on a gilded throne, contemplating what would happen after the battle. Everyone here was concentrated on achieving their goal so they could continue to fight the next day.

Everyone knew that the only way to achieve total victory was to win against the enemy leadership, and while they would try to do that, the most likely scenario was that the strongest fighters of both armies, after clashing for a while, would not achieve any significant victory against the other.

That also meant that the result of the rest of the army's fight mattered. Once again, there were too many people for one engagement to result in total victory, as the two forces were too evenly matched, and no terrain or other trickery could be leveraged to achieve that victory. Their goal would be to deplete as many of the enemy's soldiers as possible while keeping as much of their fighting strength as possible.

It was almost midnight, yet the discussions would have continued if not for Rich, who spoke out in a commanding voice, "We have done all that we can; now everyone rest. We need you all at full strength for tomorrow."

Of course, not everyone would be able to sleep; people still needed to stay on watch. One of those people was Rich, who had slept the night before so he wouldn't need to sleep this night, allowing even more people to be fully rested. Even he took his own advice and stopped thinking about tomorrow; instead, he focused on the beautiful night and just worked on his energy manipulation.

Even before the sun rose in both army camps, almost everyone was already up and dealing with their duties. The United Freeholds army was way more efficient at this, so when the sun rose, they were already in their designated areas, eating a light breakfast and keeping their bodies lightly exercised so they would not be too stiff when the battle began. All of them were also given an extra waterskin and rations for what was to come afterwards.

From up above, it almost looked like there was no longer any indication, except for the grass indentations, that there had ever been a camp here. In the Western army, however, even after packing up everything, the camp area was still quite noticeable as plenty of trash was around, not to mention a few shields some more distracted soldiers left behind.

For almost everyone in the Western army, this was going to be their first proper battle, so no matter how ready to die for their faith they were, they were still nervous.

It took four hours of marching for the Western army to reach about one kilometre from the United Freeholds army that was already waiting in battle lines. This place was quite perfect for a battlefield; it was incredibly open and could easily fit thousands of soldiers.

In the middle was the road that was actually more of a tripping hazard than the grassland surrounding it. Beyond that, the forest started quite quickly, but there was a section between the two where it was obvious that the forest was quite quickly reclaiming the grassland towards the road.

Rich looked towards the sky, which was mostly blue but there were a few white clouds lazily moving. In the movies and books, the leaders of both sides would meet each other and talk terms or perhaps come to some sort of an agreement.

From the information Rich had read, that was extremely rare for this world. It was simply too dangerous, as there were too many dangers in this world to keep you safe from assassinations when you were this close to the enemy.

Rich was surrounded by their best fighters on the right side of the army, mirroring how the Western army and their leadership were positioned. He could finally lay his eyes upon the person causing all this trouble.

Rich only briefly noted his appearance, but he was a little bit surprised he wasn't wearing his crown or the rich clothes but instead a sleek and easy to move in armour. His eyes quickly changed to see everything else about him as well and the ones around him.

The first thing to jump into his mind was that there were a few mages in that group, and it was finally confirmed that a person could actually have all three sources of power inside one's body. It was hard to see through the holy power as it was so concentrated, but he had gotten quite good at that. Yet, seeing anything specific seemed to be quite hard and time-consuming, so he mainly focused on the leader.

He was totally fine with both armies just staring each other down, as it just gave him more time to learn everything he needed. Soon, he could see threads coming off the leader—thick ones going straight to the people around him, and then a bit thinner ones to all of the soldiers in the army.

There was something more, and Rich continued to strain himself until he saw even more threads. So many of them that it was almost impossible to see individual ones. All of them headed towards the east. Then everyone could see the disgusted face Rich made.

The threads to the people around him and even to the soldiers were bright and clean, something that strengthened both. The other threads, however, were almost pitch black and were twisted in their meaning.

Rich didn’t fully comprehend what that meant, but he knew that it couldn't be good. His disgusted face, however, broke the silence and made many of the enemy soldiers angry. Soon, battle shouts began from both armies. Every sound simultaneously stopped, and then one clear voice was heard above all, "I, the leader of Aetherhold, the voice of God and his messenger H..."

That was all he was able to speak before a dominating and commanding voice drowned his out, "There is no need for you to speak your name. I will make sure no one will remember it, not even your God.”

“You have doomed your people, but unfortunately, my people must pay the blood price for your hubris. You have one final chance to turn around; otherwise, your destiny will be one of death." After Rich's words, there was a long moment of silence before commands were given in the Western army, and they started to march towards the United Freeholds' soldiers.