A week has passed since the burial ceremony.
After seeing the sadness on the faces of his citizens, Blanc couldn't bring himself to start a major celebration as a sign of respect to those who lost their loved ones.
However, he also had no choice but to celebrate the victory as a sign of respect to the soldiers who lived after a hard-fought battle.
There was also another reason why Blanc decided to go through with this minor celebration, and that reason was that the new batch of 20,000 recruits had graduated.
Those who were trained from other cities, towns, and villages, arrived a few days ago to take part in the celebration.
Although they were still inexperienced, they had no choice but to join the war.
Thus, he decided to hold a minor celebration designed for the soldiers and everything was kept private inside the huge, upgraded training ground inside the city.
On top of an enormous table were lots of meat, vegetables, bread, rice, barrels of liquor, and many other celebratory foods and drinks.
He didn't spare any money and ordered the royal chefs to make sure that there could only be too much food and not the other way around.
Since the war isn't over, they have to leave the capital again after reorganizing the army and replenishing their supplies.
Blanc knew that he shouldn't give King Samara too much time to recuperate either because if he did, King Samara might be able to prepare countermeasures.
He was sure that Samara Kingdom's military was in tatters right now and he had to strike them down before their military could recover.
But for now, Blanc focused on celebrating with his men. He was quite mentally drained and he had to find a way to release his mental stress one way or another so he went all out drinking with his men until he was drunk.
After seeing that Blanc was blackout drunk, Helena warmly smiled. She knew the mental burden that Blanc had to bear after such huge losses.
She also knew that this was the first time Blanc had to bear a burden as huge as this so she wholeheartedly supported his decision to release his stress this way.
They still had a few days of preparation before they left to attack the Samara Kingdom anyway.
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Inside Samara Kingdom's castle, a disheveled figure sat on the throne, panic and despair evident on the person's face.
The person was naturally King Samara who finally learned about the disastrous defeat that his men had suffered in the Battle of Fort Shadowsong.
Never in his wildest dreams did he expect that they would lose this badly. Only three thousand men managed to escape and most of his Swordmasters were either killed or captured.
To make matters worse, he sent another message to the Kairuku Kingdom to request reinforcements but King Kairuku was infuriated upon hearing about the disastrous defeat they suffered at the hands of the Rougenfortians.
Although they were indeed a Tier 4 Kingdom, they still had limited soldiers and the 10,000 elites he sent were a sizable part of his army. King Kairuku even sent three Swordmasters to help in the attack but all of them fell in battle.
Due to this, he cursed King Samara in his heart for being incompetent before finally deciding to cut ties with him. He would never entrust the lives of his men again in the hands of an incompetent ruler.
After realizing that they were now on their own, King Samara despaired. As of now, he still hasn't thought of a solution on how to deal with the incoming attack of the Rougenfort Kingdom.
He sent messengers to other kingdoms asking for help but there were still no replies so he could do nothing but wait anxiously as he fortified the defenses of his capital city.
…
Meanwhile, in the Rougenfort Kingdom, Blanc and his men were finally done with their preparations, the 20,000 new soldiers had been fully equipped with iron armor and weapons and their stocks of potions and food had been replenished.
In addition to this, the logistics officers of his army have sorted out the supply chain of food for the coming weeks and they've estimated that they could last in enemy territory for a whole month starting from the day they start to attack the Samara Kingdom.
Lastly, Leif's enchanted weapon was luckily crafted just in time before they left the Resonance City.
With these arrangements, Blanc was fully prepared to conquer the Samara Kingdom.
The citizens warmly sent the Rougenfort Kingdom Army off with prayers as they marched towards the Samara Kingdom to end the war.
After three weeks of marching, the army arrived at Fort Shadowsong where they were surprised by an envoy from the Samara Kingdom.
Alexander, who was stationed to temporarily defend Fort Shadowsong while they replenished the supplies, reported to him that the envoy from the Samara Kingdom had arrived a few days ago to negotiate with them.
Blanc scoffed and narrowed his eyes into slits after hearing Alexander's report.
"Hah! These bastards dared to send an envoy to negotiate after their disastrous defeat? Do they think I'm stupid?"
He muttered to himself as he headed towards the great hall where the envoy was waiting.
Upon entering the great hall, he saw that the Samara Kingdom's envoy was trying his best to look as calm as possible but how could his subtle uneasy gestures escape Blanc's eyes?
He inwardly smiled after seeing the state of this inexperienced envoy. By sending a "wet behind the ears" envoy such as this guy, all the Samara Kingdom did was basically confirm that they had no solid plans to defend against their attack.
After engaging in negotiations with experienced envoys from Terravalle Kingdom and King Terravalle IX himself, there's no way that he couldn't gain the upper hand against this envoy from Samara Kingdom.
Not to mention, they were the ones who were winning this war so unless this envoy was the greatest envoy in the entire world, there was no way for the Samara Kingdom to get an advantage in the upcoming negotiation between two kingdoms.
However, Blanc wanted to hear what this envoy would say so he chose a seat, sat down, and faced the envoy for a meeting.
"Now then, Samara's envoy, tell me, what does your king want to negotiate about now that things have already reached this point?"
Blanc said as he coldly looked at the Samara Kingdom's envoy as if none of the envoy's words could convince him.