Building a Kingdom and Conquering the World - Chapter 3

Situation
Henry sat on a simple padded wooden throne, slowly massaging his temples. It had been a few hours since he woke up with the memories of the body’s original owner, which led him to understand the situation at hand.

The previous owner of this body was called Henry von Stahl, a young king who assumed the throne of Stahl, a cold nation in the northern part of the Alur Continent. This country was devoid of riches and bordered a huge forest, inhabited by barbarians and wild animals and beasts, like Orcs.

The scarce resources and the cold climate forced the people to a survival mode, rationing their food all years round and hunting normal animals as soon as the winter was over. From the perspective of someone from contemporary Earth, it was a precarious lifestyle that reeked poverty and death.

“Barbarians…”- Henry murmured in disbelief – “How can I deal with them?”

Those of Stahl called them barbarians, not only because they lived inside the dangerous Frozen Forest or because they didn’t know how to speak the Common Language, but because they showed no mercy when they attacked the villages bordering the forest, killing women and children alike, using only stone weapons and displaying a fearless attitude towards death. Hundreds of thousands of Stahl’s people had died at their hands.

Although foolish enough to charge into a rain of arrows, the Barbarians had never attacked the capital of Stahl, Eisenburg. However, this time marked their first try on surrounding the city where the throne of Stahl had been placed for the last hundreds of years. This event could only be attributed to the death of the previous king, a great warrior and strategist, and the betrayal of the royal families, who left the kingdom with their riches and armies, leaving the capital undefended. It was a great mystery why the nobles decided to abandon their own lands and throw themselves into uncertainty, leaving everything in the hands of a young and reckless young king.

The old owner of the body felt eager to prove himself. He wanted to shine and become a great warrior in his subjects’ eyes. He didn’t want to live in his father’s shadow and deeply desired to honor his name, not letting the walls of his capital to fall under his reign. The young king, who was in his early twenties, even under Luther’s protests, led his army into a direct confrontation against the barbarians, who felt no fear or fatigue.

The ending of such decision was a complete massacre.

Stahl’s malnourished and demoralized soldiers couldn’t stand a frontal confrontation against the towering barbarians, who charged at them without fear of death, like a frenzied herd of buffalos. Stahl’s army fell like leaves to the ground, staining the white snow red. The scene was so cruel that it plunged the young king into despair and fury. He dashed recklessly toward the barbarians but was struck on the head, which allowed Henry’s soul to take control of the body.

“This dumb fucker!”- Henry screamed and facepalmed himself – “This incompetent wasn’t able to wait for a couple of days until the barbarians ran out of food. It was a battle of time, not of strength. The walls were there to protect him.”

The unnecessary deaths of the soldiers could only be credited to this dumb and egocentric king who didn’t listen to Luther, a much more experienced general who had been fighting the Barbarians for years. The young king only wanted to prove himself.

“What can I do about this situation?” – Henry asked himself, letting his head comfortably rest against the throne – “Winter is still not here, which means they can take their time on the siege, even collect resources from the forest to keep us here…if they are smart that is.”

Henry was a professional player of strategy games, which demanded a lot of research on war tactics and strategic planning. Because of that, he considered himself an expert, even though he had never participated in any kind of war, he wasn’t in the dark about the best strategies or the theory on how to lead an army.

“According to Luther, we have enough food for three weeks.”- Henry thought in dismay, while looking at the badly done wooden ceiling, which had been patched up with a wood – “I need to turn the situation around. Time is not our friend!”

Henry closed his eyes and pondered the whole situation. There were about two thousand soldiers able to fight against almost four thousand barbarians with time on their hands. It was the worst outcome.

Furthermore, there was a variable that could influence the whole fight, no, the whole world as he knew it, Mana. It was a mysterious energy that, when used in the right way, could destroy a whole army with a snap of fingers.

“This thing called Mana… I need to understand it in order to make the most assertive responses.” – Henry said, opening his eyes and decisively getting to his feet – “Let’s go to the training field, Luther should be there.”

From the memories of the original Henry, he knew that the Stahl family had a way to effectively utilize mana. He had to try it out.