Chapter 11: Subordinates

“Clang!”

Ophariel frowned, waving her hand to fan away the dust floating in front of her, and stepped back a few paces.

“My lord, what exactly are you doing?”

“Good stuff,” Julian replied, turning his head

with his usual gentle smile while hauling rusty armor out of the underground storage. Considering his current disheveled and dirty appearance, it looked rather comical.

It must be said that the reputation of this so-called “Demon’s Cursed Castle” had brought Julian quite a few conveniences. After the previous owner’s bizarre and dramatic demise, his family members immediately left this castle. To avoid bringing those strange curses upon themselves, his family not only readily abandoned those beautifully decorated furniture but also left behind quite a few sets of armor – for those warriors, they were unwilling to wear cursed armor onto the battlefield. Even if it cost more money, it was still better than dying mysteriously under a curse.
And now, Julian was dragging these sets of armor out of the underground storage room, for some unknown purpose.

They’re all rusted!

Ophariel helplessly looked at the dull and dirty armor, then glanced at Julian, rolling her eyes. She found herself increasingly unable to understand this lord’s thoughts… Holy Grace above, what was he thinking? Since her revival, Ophariel felt that everything this young lord did was completely opposite to her own ideas. He didn’t care about how to obtain wealth to fill the current gaps, nor did he care about how to develop – well, at least his previous strange saying “If you want to get rich, build roads first” made some sense. But now? What was this lord doing, hauling these dirty, almost completely rusted armors out of the storage? Did he plan to use them himself? Considering that this lord always seriously claimed to be a knight, it seemed somewhat possible. But even if he used them himself, wouldn’t one set be enough? Looking now, he had pulled out ten sets of armor from the storage. What was he planning to do? Did he want to try on each set like buying clothes?

“Alright, Kaister,” Julian clapped his hands and looked at the middle-aged woodworker who had followed him out of the storage. Currently, there were only three men in the castle: him, Julian, and old Bomba. The hunchbacked Bomba was good at trimming flowers and grass, but couldn’t be relied on for this kind of heavy physical labor. So Julian had brought Kaister the woodworker to rummage through the storage for half a day, finally gathering thirteen sets of armor.

“Take these things to the hall and arrange them carefully. There are stands there, I believe this shouldn’t be difficult.”

“I understand, my lord,” Kaister nodded slightly to Julian with a cheerful smile, then turned around and dragged the ten sets of armor towards the hall.

“My lord?” Ophariel’s voice, tinged with a hint of dissatisfaction, sounded from behind Julian.

“I think, in our current situation, we should be doing more important things, shouldn’t we? What do you want to do with these broken armors you’ve dug out? If it’s to decorate the castle, that can be done anytime, can’t it?”

Although she knew Julian probably wouldn’t come up with such a trivial idea out of boredom, Ophariel’s mood was still not very good. After all, she considered herself a royal princess with considerable talent, experience, and knowledge. When she was alive, she had done a lot for the royal family and even made outstanding contributions to the development of the entire kingdom. Ophariel wasn’t an arrogant person, but she was proud of these achievements. In fact, after her revival, she was quite confident in helping this lord achieve his wishes. Even in the current situation, she believed that relying on her own strength, she could overcome these difficulties.

But in reality, almost everything Julian did was beyond Ophariel’s expectations. She couldn’t figure out this young lord’s thoughts at all. In fact, until now, Julian hadn’t told her what he wanted to do. Was he learning from those great nobles to occupy a mountain and become a local power? Or was he trying to curry favor with the royal family to become a member of the noble inner circle? To say something treasonous, even if he planned to collude with enemy countries to destroy this country, he should at least take some action, right? But now? They had so many problems to solve, and Julian, apart from taking in four servants and ordering the repair of the road connecting Twilight Town to the outside world, was just fiddling with these broken things back and forth. Although Ophariel agreed with Julian’s strange theory of “haste makes waste,” they couldn’t just keep doing these meaningless things out of boredom, could they? And the town mayor had said that repairing the entire road would take a month. Did Julian plan to do nothing and just stay in the castle fiddling with these broken things for a month? Did he have any other plans? Why didn’t he say anything?

So it was impossible for Ophariel not to be dissatisfied. After all, she was sincerely planning to help Julian and serve him, but this lord didn’t tell her anything. She didn’t know if he didn’t trust her abilities or felt there was no need for her to know. Whichever possibility it was, it made this former princess somewhat unable to accept.

Julian blinked, looking at Ophariel standing not far behind him. He wasn’t an idiot, of course he could hear the dissatisfaction in the princess’s voice. In fact, Julian originally didn’t plan to hide anything from her, but he couldn’t possibly expose his true identity to Ophariel. After all, in his previous life, Julian was quite infamous. Although given the situation at that time, there wasn’t much connection between him and the Kingdom of Wester, he was still a very “famous” figure on the continent. He didn’t want to be honest in this situation. If this princess misunderstood something, it would be troublesome. After all, capable adjutants were not easy to find.

Beautiful and capable ones were even rarer.

“Of course I’m not doing useless work, Miss Ophariel,” Julian shrugged, brushing off the dust on his body.
“In fact, I’m implementing your suggestion.”

“My suggestion?” Hearing this, Ophariel widened her eyes in surprise, unable to think of when she had made any suggestions related to these broken armors.

“That’s right,” Julian nodded with a smile.

“Don’t you remember? You once suggested to me to materialize those Wraith Warriors, to make them my subordinates. And at that time, I also said that if I had enough materials, I would choose to do so.”

“You mean… using those armors can materialize the Wraith Warriors?” Ophariel vaguely understood Julian’s meaning.

“Of course,” Julian nodded.

“I understand what you mean, Miss Ophariel. Please rest assured, I don’t intend to just stay here doing nothing… After summoning these Wraith Warriors, we will be very busy.”

As he spoke, a meaningful smile appeared on his face.

“Trust me, we’ll be very busy.”

Night fell.

When the full moon rose into the night sky, the castle had become quiet. After serving dinner to Julian and Ophariel, Erin left the castle with Marfa to return to their servants’ quarters to rest. Their lives were no different from when they were in the castle before, the only difference being that Julian had set a strange rule that after midnight, no one was allowed to leave their room without something particularly important.

After all, those Wraith Warriors also needed to be let loose. Although under Julian’s supervision, they wouldn’t take the lives of these servants as they did in the past, it would still be troublesome if they were seen. This place already bore the label of “Demon’s Curse,” if another label of “Ghost Paradise” was added, even Julian couldn’t imagine what kind of commotion it would cause.

At this moment, Julian was standing quietly in the center of the great hall, eyes closed in meditation, while Ophariel stood to the side – also being a soul creature, in these few days, she had some mutual communication and understanding with those Wraith Warriors. Although Ophariel appeared human on the surface, her essence was still a soul creature, so it wasn’t strange that she would naturally gravitate towards soul creatures.

And now, Ophariel also wanted to see with her own eyes how Julian would materialize these Wraith Warriors. After all, she was really curious why someone who was neither a cleric nor a mage could repeatedly do such strange things. When materializing Ophariel, Julian had used a method that was… well, not suitable to be spoken aloud, anyway, it made the girl feel very good and comfortable to complete the materialization. But Julian had also told Ophariel that these Wraith Warriors didn’t have the same ability as her, so how exactly he was going to do it was also the focus of Ophariel’s attention.

However, Julian didn’t immediately take action as Ophariel had imagined. Instead, he just stood quietly in the center of the great hall, eyes closed in meditation, then opened his eyes, admiring the sculpture in front of him, and suddenly asked.

“Miss Ophariel, you’ve been to this castle before, right?”

“Yes,” hearing this question, a flash of surprise passed through Ophariel’s eyes, then she lowered her head and responded.

“Then, I want to ask you, at that time, did you see the sapphire on this statue?”

“Huh?” Ophariel heard this and looked up in confusion. She followed Julian’s gaze and quickly saw the statue carved in the center of the wall in the great hall. It was a beautiful young woman, completely naked, wrapped in a tattered cloak, her arms stretched upwards as if trying to hold something – this was a very famous scene from the Holy Scriptures. A thousand years ago, a princess prayed to protect her country. She exchanged her life and soul for powerful strength, and with this strength, the princess pacified the war-torn country, turning it back into a peaceful and warm place. At the moment the war ended, the soul of the girl who had fulfilled her wish left her body and went to the place of infinite convergence… The sculpture before them was depicting the scene of the princess obtaining that great mana power.

“Huh?” Ophariel compared the sculpture before her with the one in her memory and quickly found the problem.

Originally, in the center of the young woman’s hands in the sculpture, there should have been a blue gemstone, but now, it was empty, with no trace of any gemstone.

“Strange, I remember there should have been a sapphire between the statue’s hands…”

“I see, thank you,” hearing Ophariel’s answer, Julian didn’t say anything more. He nodded, then raised his right hand.
With this action, a chill wind appeared in the warm great hall. The torches burning on the walls flickered in unison with this cold wind, along with Julian’s shadow, which also swayed.

It was a very strange thing for this cold wind to appear in an enclosed space. But neither Julian nor Ophariel seemed to mind.

Faintly, a calling sound arose.

Thin, illusory shadows slowly appeared above Julian’s head. They danced and swirled, forming a circle that continuously rotated. These Wraith Warriors had their own way of communication. At this moment, they were listening to Julian’s request and responding to it.

Ophariel stood dumbfounded on the side,watching this eerie scene. Julian didn’t do anything, he just raised his right hand, closed his eyes, as if he had fallen asleep like that, while those Wraith Warriors just circled above his head, doing who knows what. Although Ophariel herself was also a soul being, her good education prevented her from trying to “eavesdrop” out of curiosity.

A moment later, the Wraith Warriors began to stir. Their rotation speed became faster and faster, then several white shadows flew out of the circle, turning into a bright light, disappearing into those steel armor forms beside Julian.
These armors were originally meant to be decorative items, looking like dolls made of piled-up armor. With the Wraith Warriors flashing into them, these hollow steel armors suddenly began to tremble slightly. At this time, Julian’s expression also became increasingly serious.

The power of the Knight of Demise – the power to manipulate souls, although it was Julian’s most powerful trump card, it also consumed a lot of energy. Previously, when shaping Ophariel’s body, due to her vast, almost exaggerated shadow magic reserves, it didn’t take much effort. But these Wraith Warriors were different. Julian had to use his power to fuse them into these armors, bind their forms, and materialize them.

He gently swayed his fingers, slowly performing his movements as if adjusting an instrument. With Julian’s movements, the Wraith Warriors began to leave one by one. There were many of them, but Julian only needed thirteen, and because of this, the Wraith Warriors were engaging in a struggle to compete for these positions. After all, for these Wraith Warriors, once they had a form, they could leave this land and see the outside world. But if they remained in soul form, they could only circle around this castle’s land, unable to leave. Now that they had a chance for freedom, these Wraith Warriors naturally didn’t want to miss it.

What Julian could do was patiently wait for these Wraith Warriors to make their decision, then manipulate and guide their souls to fuse with the armor. After all, his soul manipulation ability also had a limit. If possible, Julian wouldn’t mind giving all these Wraith Warriors forms, but his power was limited, and he really couldn’t do that. Moreover, in the entire storage room, these were all the usable armors left.
A soul breeze blew past.

Those originally lifeless armors began to tremble, then they took their first steps – those originally assembled armor pieces now seemed to have nothing holding them together, moving flexibly and perfectly. Ophariel watched this scene with curiosity and surprise, completely at a loss for words.

The armors that were originally fixed to the wall began to move one by one. They left their original positions, walked behind Julian, and lined up quietly and neatly. Only when the last armor entered the ranks did Julian let out a long sigh of relief. He lowered his right hand while wiping the sweat from his forehead… This was not a simple task for him.

“My lord, this is…”

“These are our subordinates,” Julian said with a smile to the somewhat bewildered Ophariel, then looked at the silent armored soldiers standing behind him.

“That’s it for today… We’ll set out early tomorrow morning. Miss Ophariel, you should go rest early too. After all, from tomorrow on, we’ll be very busy.”

“Busy? What are you going to do, my lord?”

“It’s nothing really,” faced with Ophariel’s question, Julian shrugged and answered casually.

“Just going to kill some bad guys, that’s all.”