"Lord, why did it take so long this time?"

After settling all the displaced people who arrived later, Vlavich asked Duke with a frown.

In fact, as soon as he saw his lord's servants coming from outside, the elderly Minister of the Interior felt a little unusual.

Moreover, the displaced people who came behind clearly showed signs of burning and smoking, and some of them even had colors on them, which made him think of the worst in his heart.

"Something happened in the end. Duke dismounted from his horse and handed the reins to the guards, "We ended up clashing with Viscount Stern's gang. ”

Really!

Vlavich secretly said in his heart, the guess in his heart had been confirmed, and he couldn't help but ask worriedly: "How about the casualties on our side?"

"There should be no casualties, right? Viscount Stern didn't fall lightly. ”

"Ahh

"Definitely. Pulling Vlavic directly into the castle hall, Duke spread his hands helplessly and said: "I estimate that we are going to prepare for war, and we must do some mobilization and preparation early tomorrow morning." ”

"It's just that Viscount Stern has an estimated 2,000 soldiers under his command and is well-equipped, so we estimate that we will suffer some losses. ”

For such speculation, in fact, Vlavic raised his estimate a little bit in order not to provoke Duke, according to the current territory and military composition of the Dukedom in the North, it seems that there is not much chance of victory in front of the enemy, and it is almost certain that he will suffer a big loss.

"Hmm...... We don't think about that for now, and we may not be able to win. ”

Duke couldn't argue with Vlavich at this time, because he didn't participate in the rescue of Agnes in the Dark Mountains with him, he didn't see the power of the magic rifle after it became large, and he couldn't imagine how powerless the traditional warriors were in the face of this kind of age-spanning weapon, so he didn't say much.

And last time it was just a defense organized against the attack of Warcraft, and it was the first time to really try against a well-trained human army, and Duke couldn't talk too much, anyway, everything was prepared according to the worst plan, and it would never go wrong.

"Then it seems that the big construction activities that we were scheduled to carry out in the winter and the series of plans that followed will not be able to continue. ”

Vlavic soon brought up another fatal problem, such a war posture would inevitably affect the development of the territory, and a turning point that Duke saw as a rare development opportunity was about to pass away.

Moreover, the displaced people who were originally used as labor are likely to be consumed in this war, and it can be said that Duke's plan has basically gone bankrupt.

"There's no way around it. Duke smiled bitterly, and didn't know what kind of expression to use to face it, he was just planning to make a wave of labor, but in the end he came back directly, "There will always be opportunities, let's get through this time first."

"That's true, I'll discuss with Joseph tomorrow about the allocation of resources and personnel in wartime, please be sure to pay attention to your opponent, and please discuss it with Lenia more, she is an expert in this area......"

"Okay, okay......" Vlavich soon fell into the old man's nagging mode again, telling Duke everything in detail what to pay attention to when preparing for war in the future, which made Duke feel a little annoyed and a little warm, and could only promise to reassure him.

"How's the resettlement of the homeless?"

To distract Vlavic, Duke hurriedly asked an important question that was currently on top of his mind.

"I have arranged for the first batch of old and weak women and children who came down the mountain to the best conservatory, and the heating is turned on to the fullest, and all the daily necessities are also selected according to the best standards, so please don't worry about this. ”

Sure enough, when it came to the question of the homeless, Vlavic's attention turned all his attention to that aspect, and he answered Duke's question with little thought.

"As for the third group of displaced people who came after you, I found that many of them had some small wounds on their bodies, so I asked the doctor to help them deal with them first. ”

"How's the registration going?"

This is also a point of concern for Duke, who has been reforming the registration form in order to find out the actual number of his subjects and other details.

It was too difficult to recount the previous ones, so Duke decided to start with these homeless people who were almost all out of their homes, and then spread it to the entire territory.

"All of them have been registered according to your instructions, and they are much faster than before. ”

In the past, the registration required all the clerks to write it by hand, and both the appearance and other records were written in a blur, and there was almost no difference between everyone's booklets, but now the registration process after Duke has been sorted out and reformed is finally better, and Vlavich is also very fond of this.

"Okay, then you go down first......"

Now that he had all the information he wanted to know, Duke planned to let the old man go back to rest first, after all, there was still work to keep everyone busy tomorrow.

But just as he could speak, he soon caught a glimpse of his guards leading in from the outside, a knight dressed in splendid silver plate armor and wearing a beautiful pointed helmet adorned with white feathers.

He first asked the strange knight to stand behind the door, and then came in and reported: "Lord, there is a messenger from the imperial capital. ”

"The messenger of the imperial capital?"

Confused, Duke suddenly reacted that the dress of the knight outside was one of the daily clothes of the world-famous griffin knight, and due to the lack of sight and fatigue, he didn't realize what the other party's identity was until now.

"Let him come in and meet me. ”

As Duke's words fell, the griffon knight, who had been waiting outside, took out a white gold-rimmed envelope with a scarlet mark from the leather bag behind his back.

What is particularly striking is that the blood-red mark seems to be alive and twists with the light around it, and finally turns into a dragon pattern that spits flames.

Duke took the envelope and looked at the sigil and chuckled in his heart, this mark usually represents the letter sent by the royal family to the lords asking for allegiance after the official war between the two countries.

Receiving this letter meant that the empire had entered a state of war on all fronts, and every noble lord belonging to the empire had to swear unconditional allegiance to the emperor until the end of the war.

The Empire is at war?

Duke, who was not very mentally prepared, opened the envelope with some trepidation, a little afraid to see at a glance the request that he need to send troops.

However, he soon found that the letter contained a lot of beautiful words, which could be summed up in one sentence: from now on, the whole empire will be enforced to be peaceful, the lords shall not attack each other during the war, and the disobedient party will be deprived of all privileged lands and will be spurned and attacked by all nobles.

And such a good thing?

After going back and forth to confirm the contents of the letter a few times, Duke burst out laughing despite the fact that there were people around him......