Chapter 152: Druid
“This… isn’t as scary as I imagined.” Anse touched his chin, not exactly disappointed, but not particularly surprised either.
He actually knew that in this world, there were almost no weapon equipment that could make one invincible right out of the gate, not even the legendary divine artifacts.
How much effect a magical item could have mainly depended on its user.
But to be fair, 「Aegis of Euryale」 was absolutely the most powerful magical item he had ever come into contact with.
Not only did it grant immunity to petrification, but it also provided poison resistance, making it extremely effective against specific creatures.
The strongest was still 「Petrification Emblem」, which ignored all kinds of protections and could only be resisted with constitution, with a very high saving throw difficulty—even a 16th-level warrior with 20 constitution had only a 50% chance of succeeding on the saving throw.
If the enemy was caught off guard or in poor condition, they would most likely fail to resist the petrification effect and be at his mercy.
The only drawback was that the distance was too close.
The most useless were the three spells attached to the shield, which relied on the magic net—with the current situation, the probability of successfully casting them was less than 20%.
He had given his original goodberry staff to Finn, who used it every day, but even after frequently depleting its charges, he still hadn’t succeeded once.
Although this was an incomplete version of a legendary item, it still became Anse’s first trump card against powerful enemies.
Moreover, the legendary shield had one characteristic: it was extremely tough and very hard to damage, making it perfect for self-defense.
Anse set down the shield, took off the vibrant king butterfly cloak, folded it carefully, and placed it aside.
This item had saved his life, and its flight ability was very useful, but now that he had faster fly spells and various life-saving items, he really didn’t need it much anymore.
He found a set of arm bracers from his previous loot, put them on, then slung 「Aegis of Euryale」 on his back and fastened it securely to prevent it from being stolen.
The longsword could go into the dragonhide pouch, but the shield was best kept at hand for dealing with sudden situations.
The only issue was that the aesthetic was a bit odd, and since his strength wasn’t high, wearing armor on top would be too heavy and seriously affect his agility—besides, he didn’t need armor anyway.
Anse went downstairs and called Finn over, then teleported back to the federation with him and Greyhawk.
Kalenno and Quentin had already returned and were discussing heatedly; when they saw him come out with the shield on his back, they didn’t ask any questions.
Legendary items didn’t have overly flashy magical auras, so as long as Anse didn’t say anything, people who didn’t know wouldn’t associate this shield with legendary.
“Finn, stay here and have Greyhawk help me keep an eye on that group…” Anse pulled Finn aside and explained the situation with Salberg’s group clearly.
“I’ll take a look.” Finn’s eyebrows twitched nonstop; he liked this feeling of being needed.
Life in Hollewen made him very uncomfortable—Brat was busy nonstop, while he had nothing to do and felt somewhat at a loss.
Salberg’s group was extremely numerous and hadn’t been gone long, making them easy to find; Greyhawk quickly located them.
“They’ve split up, into four or five groups…” Finn reported the situation to Anse.
“Infighting?” Anse wasn’t surprised; Salberg had lost all face, and his prestige wasn’t enough to keep those claw city-states nobles.
“Did you see that bearded man barbarian and the tiefling warrior?” he asked urgently.
“No tiefling. That bearded man is with Salberg, who’s wearing a black-and-gold robe—they have the most people, sixty or seventy…”
“Huh?” Anse’s expression was subtle, “Looks like that group really is mercenaries.”
He had Finn keep watching, planning to scout the situation thoroughly before acting, and he had a feeling that this Salberg absolutely wouldn’t stay quiet and would definitely stir up trouble.
“President, all done?” Quentin came over proactively after seeing them finish talking.
“Something up?”
“Little Harold just sent someone to notify that the supplies you wanted are ready, all in the federation’s warehouse.” With that, Quentin handed him a key.
“Little Harold?” Anse immediately realized—this was the Dulag tax official, also the second son of Jacqueline Castle’s old butler.
The other party had likely been instructed not to come find him directly, just sending the key to let him transfer the supplies alone.
“Where’s the warehouse?” He weighed the key in his hand.
“I’ll have a guard take you.” Quentin, not knowing the details, chose to avoid involvement.
The warehouse was just south of the federation headquarters, next to an alley, with the guard team’s training base right beside it.
The guards all knew Anse, but they didn’t open the door for him since they were only responsible for standing watch.
Anse opened the door alone and entered; inside were piles of all sorts of supplies, in quantities two to three times what was on the supply list.
Grain, vegetables, dried fruit, alcohol, seasoning, various furniture, all kinds of tools… and a batch of small animals and fish and shrimp fry, all alive, looking like they’d just arrived.
Two thousand gold coins was a huge sum; converted to ordinary supplies, the volume was enormous—if handed to one person to procure separately, they’d probably be exhausted to death and still not get everything.
For example, those furniture and tools—many were rush jobs; without status and connections, even extra money might not get them made.
‘This is the benefit of being the boss—just a flick of the lips and someone handles everything perfectly.’ Anse sighed, took out the scepter of sanctuary, and activated the paradise seal to notify Brat.
Then, he marked the supplies and sent them one by one into Hollewen, busying himself for over half an hour before clearing the warehouse.
He left the rest to Brat, who would naturally handle the supplies properly.
‘I hope when I get back tonight, the black tower isn’t empty anymore.’
Back at the federation, he unslung the shield, sat at his desk, and began sorting out tomorrow’s meeting arrangements.
He had once considered directly copying some management models from his previous life, but later gave up—their social environments and levels of civilization were completely different, and blindly tinkering could make things worse.
In the end, he just planned to separate military and political affairs, with him personally controlling the military power.
City administration to Graham and Governor Rein, security issues to Quentin and Magistrate Pardo.
Split the guard team in two, assign 50 guards who knew some law to Pardo, recruit more personnel to form a 100-man guard team specifically for city security.
The other guards would form an independent army, the Dulag Defense Army, under Giant Tail’s command, with a total establishment of 350.
Their pay would differ: guard team weekly salary 8.5 silver coins, Defense Army weekly salary raised to 1.5 gold coins, with combat and casualty pensions increased accordingly.
This pay level wasn’t actually high; with skyrocketing prices, everything was expensive—this amount could only sustain normal living, and asking people to risk their lives for it was a bit stingy.
No choice, Dulag’s finances were average, and adding this was already the limit.
Still, compared to noble private soldiers whose pay couldn’t even be issued fully and on time, this was very attractive. Recruiting should be extremely easy, with plenty of refugees willing to join.
As he pondered, he heard the sound of birds flapping their wings nearby.
Flap flap…
He turned his head toward the window; on the sunlit windowsill, a yellowish-green sparrow was peering at him through the glass, its eyes reflecting a faint glow, lively and unusually intelligent at first glance.
Like a person.
Anse immediately perceived something wrong, narrowed his eyes, and activated the true sight ring; as mana surged, a circle of spiritual light surrounded his eyes, and his vision changed instantly.
The bird at the window turned into a shadowy figure, replaced by a skinny shadow figure with gemstone-like green eyes that stood out.
‘Druid!’
Tap, tap—the sparrow pecked the window hard twice with its beak, as if greeting him.
