Chapter 114

Mony, who was silent all this time, said immediately:

"We have a lot of building designs here. Tell me what building you need and I will build it immediately."

"It's not a problem of design; it's a problem of the requirements for building these. For example, the hospital building couldn't be built in a beginner village.

These two grandmasters need a place like a hospital with a grandmaster doctor to cure this curse. Also, you needed to upgrade your sewer system to the next level to be able to stop the spread of these curses.

You can't upgrade the sewer system without upgrading the village itself. You also need an established water supply system. That system isn't available in this current stage of the village."

Ibro then said:

"The main issue is to upgrade the village. When we upgrade the village we can solve all these problems. As far I know we have fulfilled all the requirements to upgrade the village to the next stage."

Mamor looked in doubt towards Ibro as he asked:

"Have you conquered 10 monster strongholds, my lord?"

"Sure, we have conquered more than 20 areas in the underground world."

Mamor looked at Hoden who said in a regret tone:

"Underground monsters' areas can't be considered as strongholds at all. What strongholds mean is the surface monsters' castles and forts."

Ibro felt a headache. He returned to square zero again. He said in confusion:

"That meant to upgrade the village we needed to conquer 10 strongholds, but we are locked down right now."

Hoden said in a frustrated tone:

"That treacherous cunning guy is really hard to deal with! He never does anything simply! These three curses complement each other perfectly."

Ibro was really depressed. He felt he was about to touch the moon but he was really buried deep underground.

"Don't you have any solutions?"

Both were silent for a long time before Hoden started speaking:

"We can bid our time and try to raise our soldiers' levels through this period.

We then may risk war and try to fight on all fronts. Tell me, how much are our troops' numbers? How many villagers do we have?"

Mony took the responsibility to answer such questions as she said:

"We have 5250 soldiers and all of them are above level 20 now and freshly recruited 50k soldiers who still haven't reached level5. We also have 585250 villagers right now in our village."

Hoden asked again:

"What about food resources?"

"We have about 95 million food units available right now."

"If we bought another 100 million units then we have nearly 200 million food units. The food consumption of our army is made of small parts which originally 5 food units per day and the bigger freshly recruited army who consume 2 food units per day.

I assume that the smaller 5k level 20 soldiers came from tokens, right?"

Ibro confirmed his guess by nodding his head. He continued:

"That made our army food basic consumption around 130k food units daily. Our villagers will consume around 540k food units daily. The total basic food consumption of our villages is 670k food units daily.

Three days have passed since the start of this curse, so the food consumption now is around 2.7 million units of food daily. According to our total food stock, we can sustain for more than 6 days maximum and we will run out of food units by the middle of our six-day.

I suggest we release most of our villagers and keep the maximum number at 20k villager most. If we do that, we can extend our time to reach 11 days.

If we also disband all the freshly recruited soldiers, then our time will be much longer to reach 13 days."

Ibro interrupted him immediately asking:

"I don't agree with that. I will never abandon my people. If I let them leave, where will they go? How will they live? If I let go of my army, how can I fight then when I need to upgrade my village and break these curses?"

Hoden explained calmly with a realistic vision:

"If you, my lord, didn't agree on this solution, then they will leave the village by themselves when we run out of food. The army is a big issue indeed. But I have a solution.

You can buy as many tokens and other stuff for higher level troops. These soldiers will fight immediately at the battlefield. Although it's not ideal to use these high-level soldiers and without any prior training, this will solve the problem of our army."

Ibro looked at his eyes deeply. He asked like he was trying to confirm what he heard:

"Can you please say again what you just said?"

Hoden looked strangely towards Ibro, but he complied and repeated what he just said word by word:

"If you, my lord, didn't agree on this solution, then they will leave the village by themselves when we run out of food. The army is a big issue indeed. But I have a solution.

You can buy as many tokens and other stuff for higher level troops. These soldiers will fight immediately at the battlefield. Although it's not ideal to use these high-level soldiers and without any prior training, this will solve the problem of our army."

Ibro's eyes began to shine gradually and he kept murmuring to himself repeating Hoden words so many times. It was the first time anyone of them saw him like this.

They kept their silence as they felt how deep Ibro was immersed in his thoughts. After a long period of time, Ibro raised his head and his eyes shone brightly. He said in a decisive tone:

"I won't do that to my subjects who trusted me. My responsibility as their lord is to shoulder all the burdens they suffer from. I will stand out and face this crisis. As Sefiera said, Strength is the cure. I will use strength to cure all these curses once and for all."

He then started to explain his plan to all of them. Once he finished, Mamor said at once:

"My lord, if you maybe, this plan is very risky."

Hoden joined Mamor as he expressed his thoughts:

"I totally agree with Mamor. This is a very risky plan. Our enemy isn't a simple enemy. He will fight us in the worst-case scenario."

Ibro smiled and looked at Mony. This wasn't the first time she dealt with him so she understood how crazy he was. She smiled and said in small words:

"I agree with you, my lord."

The two men looked at her in a strange way that made her look in the other direction. These two men had very strong charisma she couldn't handle.

Ibro looked at these two and said calmly:

"If any of you had another better plan that doesn't contain any risk over my people then I'm glad to hear it."

"But my lord thi…"

"I have made up my mind Hoden. I know you two are very experienced men but here I'm your lord.

I always like to hear thoughts of my aids but when I make a decision I won't change it. We now must discuss how to implement my plan not to try persuading me not to do it."

Both of them felt astonished by Ibro's strong resolve. Although they knew that the plan was very risky, they felt some admiration towards Ibro. A lord that denied to let down his people and refused to sacrifice them for his own benefit was a worthy lord to work for.

"When do you want to start your plan, my lord?"

"We must start it as soon as possible."

He then looked at Mony and said:

"I will give you enough gold coins to buy all the available food units that you can get at any price. We need to amass the largest amount as soon as possible."

"I understand."

Ibro gave her over 1 million gold coins to buy 100 million food units. Although the total price would be a lot lesser than that, he didn't want to waste any time.

He ordered her to buy as many food units as possible with any price whatsoever. Once she left he started formulating his plan with his two geniuses.

"Do you know how many wars we should have to expel that lockdown curse?"

"At least 6 wars on each world."

"We need to conquer 10 surface strongholds so we will wage 10 wars on the surface. For the underground world, we can have 6 main wars there."

"I agree with your arrangement for the surface battles, but the underground battles need adjustment Mamor."

"What do you suggest my lord?"

"Our enemy knew me well. He also is the one who put us in this situation.

He will predict most of our movements. Last time I faced him, I nearly lost because I underestimated him. I faced great trouble as I thought logically and did the most suitable thing. He will predict all our suitable settings. So, we must use the most unlikely situation."

"Which is?"

"Which is all fronts battles. We must send our armies to fight on all the areas out there. Last time I checked, we have nearly 10 to 15 areas that surround us.

We need to know the exact number of these areas so we can determine our armies' numbers."

Mamor said in doubt:

"Won't this weaken our armies and increase our losses?"

"It will indeed, but if you thought we would win this war without big losses then you are mistaken."

Hoden interrupted our brainstorming as he pointed out towards the trickiest issue:

"Our biggest loss will occur if we allow him to fight us in a war of attrition."

"We don't need to worry about that too. When we attack on all fronts, we will achieve victory in many areas without doubt."

"What would happen if he managed to amass a huge monster army on all fronts?"

Ibro thought for a while before saying:

"I have a solution for this. Now we need to send scouts to know the total number of areas at our buffer underground zone."

"that leaves only one problem. If we manage to solve all these then what will we do with all that large army?"