Dominance in the New World: An Overlord Fanfic

The Emperor Part 1

Chapter 52

POV Jircniv

Six luxurious carriages raced over the plains. Not truly luxurious but rather the best we could get our hands on from away from the capital. The damn monster had locked the entire capital inside the birdcage. Fat nobles couldn't get out no matter what this wished to do.

Restoring order in all the Empire was no small task after what had happened. Despite this, I had managed to smooth talk the people into calming down. I had no idea what we were going into but losing my calm would not do any good.

Now, back to the carriage.

Firstly, the wheels of each carriage were magic items called Comfortable Wheels. In addition, the chassis of the carriages had also been treated by a magic item called Lightweight Cargo.

These unbelievably magnificent carriages commanded an eye-popping price, but just as astonishing were the creatures which pulled them. The eight-legged magical beasts looked like horses and were known as Sleipnirs.

Calculating the precise cost of fielding six of these vehicles was an exercise in foolishness.

These vehicles ― far out of reach of the merely wealthy ― were escorted by a group of riders mounted on powerful horses.

There were over twenty of these riders, each clad in chain shirts, armed with longswords at their waists while carrying crossbows and quivers on their backs.

Yet, a woman rode at the head of all these men.

Alone among all these warriors, she wore a suit of heavy full plate armor. She did not carry a cavalry lance, but a spear like the kind an infantryman would use. Her helmet's visor was raised, but the right side of her face was covered by some kind of golden cloth, which made her look quite strange.

Although this band of horsemen were the very picture of mercenary warriors, their disciplined movements and their clipped, precise words were nothing like that of a common sellsword. Their eyes were keen, and they maintained a high level of alertness.

Some might have taken their wariness on wide-open plains to be a form of paranoia or cowardice, but in a world where magic was real and monsters roamed everywhere, even being on guard against everything they could see was not enough to guarantee their safety.

There were giant spiders which could survive for months without eating or drinking while lying in wait for their prey, unclean monsters which resembled banks of fogs that slid through the air, venomous lizards with petrifying gazes that one had to flee at all costs if they were encountered on open ground...

They were all on edge because they were wary of monsters with such deadly powers. However, normal mercenaries did not go to such lengths for alertness.

The thing that set them apart from mere mercenaries were the invisible people in the air. They were a band of riders who were keeping pace with the riders on the ground while under the effects of invisibility magic.

There were creatures called hippogriffs in this world. They were born from the mating of a male griffin and a mare, and these magical beasts had the front half of a griffin and the hind quarters of a horse. Perhaps it was because of their mixed blood, but hippogriffs were easier to rear and train than griffins, and they were very popular as flying mounts.

And then, there were the riders of these beasts to consider.

Flying creatures ―even if they were monsters― commanded an extremely high price if they were put on the market. They were not something that simple sellswords could afford.