Chapter 350 Planning Assembly I

Evan turned on the magic projector and let it project the images stored in the memory gems he inserted into the air.

"These images as you can see, show what was left of the twelve cities in Graugro after it was decimated by Undead twenty-five years ago.

The necromancer responsible for this is the same one who's aiming to lay waste to this Duchy right now.

Of the 'Ten Fingers' of the 'Demonic Hand', the organization's executives, he is the 'Eighth.

The man who 'Peruses the Doctrine of Death', Death lord Dominik Velak."

"Death lord? Is that what he's called or that's what you're calling him?

And what's this about perusing the 'Doctrine of Death'?"

The Second Sword of the Great Western Empire, Sir Luke Bowthe asked this question on behalf of all those present, with Evan turning to him and replying.

"The 'Death Lord' is his combat class name, while the title 'Doctrine of Death' title is something possessed by everyone who has a relatively high level of proficiency with a certain type of series skill.

You can ask Jenson about it, he has a similar title, just for the Lightning Element instead."

Evan took his hands off the magic projector as he continued speaking.

"The Eighth Finger, Dominik, is not the only major threat to the Duchy.

He comes together with his contractor, an existence named Zacular; the one who is responsible for the 'theft' of the tens of thousands of undead monsters that formerly inhabited Bultom City's Dungeons.

The third major threat is one that is more hell-bent on razing Bultom City to the ground before even thinking about the rest of the Duchy, an undead monster that was formerly in one of Bultom's Dungeons.

His name is Vazgan Theoregrim, and he holds the title 'Dullahan King'.

Seven out of every ten Dullahans you've seen since the undead began their attacks are most likely under his command."

When Evan spoke Vazgan's last name, the expression on the face of Bultom's lord turned strange for a moment, something that didn't escape the young hero's eyes.

"We'd address Vazgan's motive at a later time.

For today, I am going to simply give you a rundown of the information I have on the Eighth Finger and Zacular, as well as the plan to take out the undead that they have hidden all over the Duchy in a simultaneous attack just like the undead had done earlier in the month.

The last topic of discussion, for now, would be the plan to deal with one of the nobles who has unfortunately chosen to side with the Demonic Hand, Count Falos."

And so began Evan's information dump.

He spoke about the little he was allowed to, starting from the Eighth Finger's ability to deploy some sort of domain where anyone who died within instantly turned into an undead.

"You all should have heard about this phenomenon from the survivors of the undead attack on Saunau."

He went on to talk about Zacular's expansive space where he could store undead numbering in the hundreds of thousands, also explaining a certain troublesome concealment ability that the demon possessed.

"Zacular can conceal the huge amount of death aura characteristic of high-level necromancers, as well as the Demonic Energy that he possesses, making it he can be easily mistaken as a normal human being with high levels of proficiency in dark magic.

Thankfully, I know what he looks like and I have an appraisal skill to confirm so it's not gonna be a problem identifying him."

After that, he talked a bit more about them, answering the questions that he could while just letting them hear the weird static noise that obscured his voice when they asked him questions that he could not answer.

He briefly dwelt on the personalities of the Eighth Finger and Zacular, as well as other important aspects of the two men, before ending it with a very ominous-sounding statement.

"I'm gonna say this now, but among the 'Ten Fingers' of the Demonic Hand, the 'Eighth Finger' is actually one of the hardest to defeat.

Although his individual strength makes him rank Eighth, he isn't exactly Eighth in the level of difficulty.

One of the reasons for this is his massive army of hundreds of thousands of undead creatures.

When you think about the sheer number of undead that have been destroyed in the past month, it's more than a hundred thousand already and the guy still has more than that amount stored away in various locations.

And this isn't counting the new undead that came about after he had the people who died in the course of these attacks turned into undead creatures; I'm talking just from his personal stash of undead.

That alone is enough to show you just how much of a pain it would be to deal with this guy, as well as the reason why I pushed for a large number of troops to be sent over."

The young hero leaned back on his chair and yawned loudly, before pulling out a juice pack from his inventory and downing its contents.

"Although we have stronger individual soldier strength, the guy outnumbers us by a large margin so we're gonna have to put in a lot more effort in fighting against him.

I can almost swear we're gonna have an easier time dealing with the Thir-, I mean, 'Sixth' and 'Seventh' fingers."

The latter half of his statement was more of a mutter to himself than a statement to them, but it was impossible for the ears of anyone in the room to miss his words.

"You were about to say 'Third' just now, weren't you?

What about the 'Third', or 'Second', are they harder to deal with than this Necromancer?"

The Grand Magus, Sir Czac spoke up, asking Evan a question that a few of the people who heard his mutter wished to ask, however, the boy's reaction was strange.

He slowly dropped the empty Juice pack in his hands onto the table, before turning in the direction of the Grand Magus and giving him a blank stare before replying.

"If the 'Fourth Finger' was to step foot into this Duchy right now, then all of Cheverton would simply cease to exist within no more than half an hour."

Evan's words brought sombre expressions to the faces of the listeners; however, the boy wasn't done speaking.

"If any of the First three fingers were to come here, then the Great Western Empire in its entirety would simply cease to exist in a shorter time frame than that.

And I'm not talking about just merely destroying the major cities or wiping out the royal capital.

I mean the only thing that'd be left would just be a giant 'Great Western Empire-sized hole' in the continent, one that'd probably go as deep as the planet's mantle and would form a new sea in the Alpha continent after the water from the ocean fills it up."

Seeing the expressions of shock on the faces of all those present, the boy leaned back in his seat before finishing his words.

"Let's not talk about those guys now, okay? Especially the 'Second Finger'. Just thinking about that person gives me goosebumps.

Let's go back to discussing what we can handle with our strengths.

Like launching an attack to wipe out the Eighth Finger's undead stashes hidden across the Duchy."

Evan pulled out nearly a dozen copies of the map he had Faerora mark the day before, sharing them with those present before turning to the Duke and asking.

"How has the mobilization been going?"

"…So far so good.

Since you gave me the locations yesterday, I've already had my soldiers and Knights begin taking action, all while preventing the other nobles from discovering the true details pertaining to the reason for their movements."

"You're not even letting your own people know about the attack?"

Sir Heinr voiced out his question as he looked at the places pointed on the map where the Church's coalition force was supposed to attack.

"We have a few traitors here and there."

Evan spoke up after hearing his words, however, before Heinr could say anything in response, the boy dropped another casual bomb.

"Don't be so smug yet, the churches have their own share of traitors who have sided with the Demonic Hand too."

The boy ignored the stunned expression on the faces of both Heinr and the other paladins standing behind him, turning his gaze to the Second Sword and asking.

"Sir Luke, for this operation, we would be needing two of your elite soldier divisions, along with their commanding officers."

He tilted his head to the side and gazed at the rank insignias on the uniforms of the military men behind him, identifying their ranks as he asked.

"Is that alright with you, Majors?"

"You plan to split the two divisions into four Brigades and have them assist the attacks in four different points?"

"As expected of you Sir Luke, you instantly predicted what I was planning on doing."

Evan perfunctorily flattered the Second Sword as he pulled out a few files from his inventory and marked some things with his pen before passing the files over to Luke who looked them over.

"The men have only just arrived today. Even if they are all master-level existences, they'd need to rest a bit before mobilisation."