The Duchy of Marino is small, surrounded by mountains, and the terrain is largely oval. It is more than 40 kilometers from east to west, and less than 20 kilometers from north to south at its widest point. According to official statistics, the national area is just over 6,000 square kilometers.

Just looking at the area of the fief, let alone being an independent principality, even as a duke is not qualified. The standard dukedom on the Kaos continent starts at least 10,000 square kilometers, and some grand dukes have 3 to 50,000 square kilometers.

Thanks to the silver mines in the nearby mountains, it was considered to make up for the income of a duke back then.

With the completion of silver mining thirty years ago, the veins dried up, and the economy of the Duchy of Marino began to decline.

Due to the deterioration of the finances, the two previous Grand Dukes of the Principality intended to return to the direct jurisdiction of the Empire.

On the map, the Duchy of Marino is sandwiched between the Kingdom of Cervantes and the Barbarossa Empire, surrounded by mountains, and the mountain roads are extremely inaccessible.

It was this kind of chicken ribs that made the emperor of the year relinquish his jurisdiction.

Now that the silver mine is used up and you want to post it back, isn't it a trouble?

Dukes loyal to the Emperor are essentially different from dukes with a high degree of autonomy:

Although this kind of duke usually does not give the emperor a copper plate, but the emperor wants to fight, and the duke is obliged to send troops to help the emperor according to the area of the fief. In the same way, if this kind of duke is attacked by the enemy, it is equivalent to invading the empire itself, and the emperor must help the duke fight back the territory.

Principality...... Although the contract states that the principality is under attack and the empire is obliged to save it, it does not say how to save it or to what extent.

A hundred years ago, the royal family of Barbarossa began to slack off on the request of the Duchy of Marino. Even if something happens to the principality, some knights with titles and no fiefs will be sent to the past.

There is no way, the core of feudalism is territorial separation.

In the early years of the founding of the country, any knight could seal thousands of acres of uninhabited wasteland.

As the territory solidified and time passed, the emperor found himself with no land to seal.

The Devil's Mouth is a black hole that devours money and human life.

Knights who sacrificed their lives for the country, but as long as there are heirs, even if the knight domain is not hereditary, and those heirs do not have the name of knights, the lord is embarrassed to confiscate the territory, at most temporarily take care of it, and take away the harvest of the territory.

As a result, the current Barbarossa Empire's fiefdom for the new knights has been reduced to a bridge (collecting tolls for the knights) and even a mill.

Re-govern the Duchy of Marino, even if the Duchy sends troops out to help fight, when the Duchy's army comes out of the mountains, the daylilies will be cold.

There is no benefit for the empire here, and it has to carry such a big burden. Emperor Barbarossa was not happy at the time and ordered it to remain as it was.

As a result, the Duchy of Marino has become the half-dead and decaying state it is today, with an economy in decline and the land cannot support so many people. Civilians went out to work or become mercenaries.

No one expected that in this late autumn, something would happen to the principality.

……

Time goes back to late at night two days ago.

A herald covered in blood, with two wounds and a green flame on his body, rushed into the castle of Marino, the capital of the principality, with his last breath.

"The Grand Duke's crusading army was ambushed and annihilated! The Grand Duke, the Grand Duke, has died and been transformed into a Death Knight by the abominable Lich on the spot! ”

"What!?"

"The Grand Duke, he brought His Highness, Second Highness, a team of master adventurers, and all the elites!"

For a time, the remaining nobles and officials were in chaos.

Originally, this was supposed to be a relatively simple crusade. The former Grand Duke Albert Marino received news that a village had been slaughtered by a corpse witch, and that more than 500 people in the village had been turned into zombies and scattered to plague the surrounding villages.

Since there happened to be a team of adventurers of about level 5 nearby, after fighting a battle, they were defeated and retreated, so the Grand Duke obtained relatively clear information, and the adventurer reconnaissance team sent later also confirmed this.

In the continent of Kaos, originally the corpse witch and the lich were the same word, because they were both spellcasters who were tempted by the dark power to fall into the darkness and become undead.

Gradually, in order to better distinguish between the two, the Adventurer's Guild discussed and defined the corpse witch as a [low-level undead spellcaster of level 10 or below], and only those above level 11 were considered lichs.

In the past hundred years, there have been few reports of lich haunts in the world, and most of the known corpse witches have been transformed by low-level warlocks who are persecuted.

The low-level corpse witch dish is not small at all. Left unchecked, zombies can turn those who bite people into zombies, and a single corpse witch can easily turn an entire duchy into a realm of the undead.

Archduke Albert's approach did not seem problematic to outsiders.

He mobilized almost all of his mobile forces—more than 150 regular knights, more than 300 knights, and six brigades of 1,200 pikemen and sword and shield men. Plus three teams of adventurers, one of which is a level 12 elite team of masters per capita, and 10 priests who believe in the god of light.

The undead that a corpse witch can directly control are at most a hundred zombies or skeletons, and the rest can only be free-ranged, allowing them to follow their instincts and attack the living.

In order to let his son see the atmosphere of the battlefield, the Grand Duke brought his only two sons to the battlefield.

Everything looks going well, and it's going to be a sledgehammer fight.

The result?

As the enemy changed from a corpse witch to a lich, the situation immediately reversed 180 degrees.

The Grand Duke's headquarters were completely annihilated.

The latest news: the Lich has led tens of thousands of undead armies and has begun to crush the Duchy's capital.

In the Grand Duke's Mansion, there was a scene of chaos everywhere, and even a big official like the palace minister panicked.

At this time, no one even noticed, a beautiful young woman in the center of the hall bowed her head in grief.

In my ears, there is no nutritious abuse and prevarication.

There was cowardice and despair in the air.

The ministers discussed how to flee.

The remaining knights have no master.

Her mother had long since stopped crying.

She was the only one who slowly spread out her palms and looked at the sword cocoon on her palm that had faded to almost unrecognizable.

Had it not happened today, she would have become a true lady, as her father had hoped, and sent to the capital of King Cervantes, three hundred kilometers away, to attend endless dinners and balls.

But today's events have changed her life again.

When her father's and brother's voice and smile echoed in her mind many times, she had courage.

She stood up resolutely, grabbed her beautiful shawl red hair violently, brandished the dagger, and with a "swish", only a neat short hair remained.

In the next blow, she severed the hateful girdle at the right waistline, allowing her waistcoat line to stretch back on.

"Panic what!?" The woman shouted loudly, and there was supreme majesty in her magnetic voice: "The blood of the Marino family has not been severed!" Now that my father and brother have all been killed, and the people need me, I, Sofia Marino, will be appointed as the Grand Duchess! Take charge of all the affairs of the Principality! ”

Her fiery eyes swept across the audience like a tomahawk, and then turned into a sharp sword, piercing the heart of every cowardly person one by one.

In the blink of an eye, the whole hall fell silent.

The palace minister came out and saluted: "If it is the honorable you who are appointed as the female archduke, the minister has no opinion." However, I would like to remind you that it is a lich, not a terrifying existence that our country's remaining combat power can contend with. ”

"Then ask the Barbarossa Empire for help and let them send the Pegasus Brigade over."

"Recently, the war in [Devil's Mouth] has been tight, and the Empire is afraid that there will not be any extra Pegasus troops to send over. Conventional troops were not in time. ”

"Kingdom of Cervantes?"

"I can't make it!"

Just when the atmosphere was at a stalemate, the palace minister said one last proposal hesitantly: "Legend has it that as long as the princess or queen of a country sends a pink envelope to the Grand Master of Tesla, the Grand Master will consider helping ......"

All eyes were on the face of the Archduchess Sophia.

Her face was flushed, and her neck was even bulging, and her full chest kept rising and falling sharply, but finally: "If this is the only option to save the people, I will send the pink envelope in my name." But ......"

At this point, Sophia took a sharp turn of words, drew her long sword from the waist of her guard, and raised it high, her voice suddenly high-pitched: "Before any reinforcements arrive, I will pick up my sword." For my people, the last roar of my life to the goddess of fate! Come with me, if you have a seed! ”

All of a sudden, the entire Grand Duke's Mansion was boiling.

"Oooo

"Women are on the battlefield! If it's a man, follow me! ”

Countless people waved their fists and raised their swords in their hands, and they followed in the footsteps of the new Grand Duchess, and began to pour into the city with a deafening cry.

On the streets, citizens who knew the news also picked up everything that could be used as weapons at hand, and hundreds of rivers flowed into the crowd as if they were flowing into the sea.

……

And just like that, the pressure came to Wren's side.

This pot, pick it up? Or don't pick up?