This level of strength is far beyond that of high-level fighters!
After realizing the gap between the two sides, the weak one felt only despair.
The man with a broken leg was soon forced into a corner. Rita lifted his chin with her sickle and looked at his face carefully. The maid's sweet smile made the man shudder.
"Speaking of which, we've been bored lately, and you guys took the initiative to come to our doorstep to help us pass the time. So as a thank you, I'll give you a good treat. You're welcome!"
As Rita spoke, the knife in her hand flashed. The man on the ground shuddered violently, and then his eyes slowly began to unfocus. His strengthless body tilted and his head rolled down. The blood plasma spurted from the broken neck, drawing a huge fan on the wall of the dungeon, but not a drop fell on Rita.
Rita turned around and went back to the door of the cell where the prisoners were being held. Without even looking at the frightened guy in the cage, she gracefully sat back in her chair, picked up the novel she had not finished and continued reading.
It took Rita less than half a minute to deal with these intruders. Her movements were clean and neat. The quick decision was also to relieve the owner of some unnecessary burden.
If these combat-type summons want to exert their full strength, they have to consume the magic power obtained from Dick. The stronger the combat power, the more magic power they consume.
Half an hour later, Tia came to Dick's study excitedly with the good news.
Dick gave her full command of tonight's operation without intervening. In return for this trust and respect, Tia also gave a nearly perfect answer. They uprooted the enemy's entire intelligence network and even basically figured out the true identity of the big boss behind the scenes.
However, Dick smiled after seeing the other party's name, looked up and gave instructions to Tia.
"For this operation, we will say that we have wiped out the remnants of the bandits. Those who are caught alive and have the Soul Lamp Mark on their bodies will be publicly executed, and the rest will be sent to forced labor. The sentence will start from... ten years."
"Shouldn't we take this opportunity to call the other side to task?"
"The other side won't admit it. There's no point in arguing about this kind of thing. What we need to do is to show our attitude through practical actions. Of course, necessary courtesy and reciprocity are also necessary."
"Ok, I see."
Tia pondered for a moment, and soon came up with an idea in her mind, so she quickly excused herself from the study and went back to plan her "return gift" to the other party.
Dick took another look at the briefing, then silently set fire to burn the report to ashes, muttering to himself.
"Now is not the time to turn against others."
065. Retreat
Inside the secret room, Count Hoffmann's face was gloomy and dark. The soul lamps that filled an entire wall in front of him went out one after another in just half an hour, and in the end only one was still lit.
But this is the only light that is still on, and it is exactly the one that should be turned off!
After a long silence, Hoffman instructed Yitzhak in a tone that was obviously forced to remain calm.
"Let those who are still alive over there... withdraw."
Hearing the count's order, Isaac secretly breathed a sigh of relief, feeling fortunate that this lord had not lost his mind because of the tragic defeat. He nodded in agreement and left the secret room.
Count Hoffmann, who was left alone in the secret room, fell into a terrible silence again...
In the following days, bad news came one after another like snowflakes.
First, Dick uprooted Count Hoffman's intelligence network in Lagoge in the name of "clearing out the escaped bandits." It is said that some spies were afraid of death and wanted to find a way out after being caught, but the arresting personnel pretended to be deaf.
Afterwards, the civil war situation in Barony Luka changed. The Baroness's side, which had been forced to passively defend, suddenly found thirty sets of plate armor and a large number of weapons sufficient to arm three hundred militiamen from the grove, and even fifteen fully equipped "wild war horses".
This amount of equipment is nothing to those wealthy nobles, but in a civil war in a small barony, it is enough to turn the tide of the battle in an instant.
Without waiting for the Earl's territory to react, the civil war in Baron Luka's territory was decided within a day. After the Baroness's army upgraded their equipment, they launched a counterattack and killed the Baron's troops. Baron Luka himself accidentally fell while escaping and hit his head on a large rock on the side of the road and died.
At this point, the civil war in the barony was declared over, and the baron's private army laid down their arms and surrendered, swearing allegiance to the "future baron" in the baroness's belly.
It is worth mentioning that the baron's uncle, who was rumored to have had an affair with the baroness, did not proclaim himself a baron or become a "regent" after his success as many people speculated. Instead, he dismissed his militia and left the barony to travel the continent.
His voluntary departure dispelled many rumors that were originally rife.
The civil war in the barony was quickly settled, and the news reached Count Hoffmann's territory, where the Count was meeting with his retainers.
Some retainers were filled with righteous indignation and threatened to intervene with force. After all, the Hoffmann family had always supported Baron Luka. They could easily send troops to occupy the barony in the name of "revenge for the baron", take over the entire territory in one day, and then support a new obedient baron.
However, some more stable retainers disagreed with sending troops, because the Baroness was obviously supported by other forces. Moreover, after the beginning of spring, the orc tribes in the northern wasteland would most likely go south to plunder, so it was not appropriate to divide the troops in other directions at this time.
Looking at the quarreling retainers, Count Hoffman waved his hand, indicating that he would not take direct action against Barony Luka for the time being, but would report the matter to the Senate and hand it over to the bigwigs in the imperial capital to handle.
After hearing the Earl's words, the retainers looked at each other and stopped talking.
In the empire, the relationship between lords was not always harmonious and friendly. It was common for lords to send spies to their neighbors' homes to gather intelligence, carry out assassinations, and even go to war.
The imperial royal family set up a Senate specifically for this purpose to mediate conflicts among the nobles, but this institution was basically in name only.
They were too lazy to care about the conflicts between the petty nobles.
They have no ability to manage the conflicts between the great nobles!
The nobles often ridiculed the Senate for this, saying that if the Senate was useful, then what was the use of private armies?
However, Count Hoffmann handed the matter over to the Senate for decision, not because he wanted to give up. He knew very well who was supporting the Baroness, and he had only lost the first round.
At the same time, on the other side, Dick was in the office reading the thank-you letter from the Baroness, thanking him for the "birthday gift" he gave to the future Baron in advance. The child liked it very much!
To express her gratitude, the Baroness agreed to the cooperation plan proposed by Dick to jointly develop the sulfur mines in the barony.
After reading the thank-you letter, Dick nodded with satisfaction.
Time flies and it is June. Without the ice, snow and bandits, Laguge is thriving.
Seeing that the territory was on the right track and everything was running in an orderly manner, Dick temporarily handed over the power of governor to the female devil queen Ruby Eye, and he prepared to "seclude" himself for a period of time to improve his magical skills.
Dick's talent in magic was unquestionable, otherwise he wouldn't have reached the level of a high-level magician at the age of 18. But no matter how talented he was, he still had to practice hard. However, he had been the governor for nearly eight months, and his busy official duties forced him to put his magic practice aside for the time being, so his improvement in strength also stagnated.
It was not until some problems were exposed during their anti-spy crackdown that Dick began to pay attention to his personal cultivation again.
Indeed! Among the two-dimensional beautiful girls summoned by Dick, there are many capable ones, such as Rita, Belfast, Black and White Altria, and Lukoa (clone), all of whom have the combat power or destructive power equivalent to the Saint level.
However, as visitors from other worlds and servants summoned by Dick, they cannot recover the magic power they consume in battle on their own and can only be replenished from Dick, which is equivalent to everyone sharing one "blue bar".
As the team continued to grow, Dick gradually became "overwhelmed". The girls under him had to be careful in fighting and were unable to exert their full strength.
This problem is not very obvious when playing against a weak opponent, and can be avoided by a quick victory. However, once they encounter an evenly matched opponent in the future, they will be forced into a protracted battle, which will be a fatal flaw!
So after realizing the problem, Dick suddenly had the motivation to improve himself.
However, it is not easy to break through from the high level to the saint level. Many people are trapped by this hurdle and find it difficult to cross it in their entire lives. Only by climbing over this dangerous peak can one truly become a saint.
There are two main conditions for breaking through to the Saint level.
The first is physical training to expand the spiritual veins throughout the body.
The second is the spiritual realm, where the soul is integrated with the world.
Dick has already met the first condition because of the blessing of the God of Winter. The second condition requires deep meditation and using mental power to comprehend the laws of this world.
This is a very mysterious realm that tests the magician's understanding, but also requires opportunity.
Like Dick's mentor, Grandol, he became a high-level magician at the age of 25, and then stopped at the high level for 30 years. When he thought he was hopeless, one day when he was doing a magic experiment, a momentary mistake caused an extremely tragic explosion, which blew Grandol dozens of meters away and fell into the lake near the laboratory and almost drowned. However, it was a blessing in disguise. He was seriously injured and unconscious in the hospital bed for a month. When he opened his eyes again, he was already a saint.
In order to break through from the saint level to the demigod level, Uncle Behemoth practiced directly on the sleeping place of Ajax, the god of winter, hoping to find "inspiration" from the real gods.
Referring to the experience of these predecessors, Dick planned to go into seclusion for a month to further concentrate his mental strength, while at the same time utilizing his fully opened spiritual veins to try to increase his total amount of magic power.
After arranging everything, Dick entered the secret room for retreat.
When the girls under his command saw that Dick had locked himself up, they couldn't help feeling a little empty at the thought that they wouldn't be able to see him, feel his warmth or smell for the next whole month.
"It's so weird. We've only been apart for a minute, but I'm already feeling lonely!"
"Are you lonely? I'm embarrassed to expose you."
Everyone sighed for a moment, and finally dispersed. Laguge didn't keep idle people, and Dick assigned different tasks to them before the retreat, so there was no shortage of things to do.
Natasha and Shizuka Marikawa returned to the clinic together. The clinic is currently under expansion. Several surrounding buildings have been acquired by the Governor's Office and a wall has been built around them. It will become a formal hospital after upgrading and renovation.
However, there are still only two real doctors in the hospital.
So while they were treating patients and saving lives on a daily basis, they also each selected two smarter and more capable nurses from the training group to be their students.
Natasha's two students were named Eve and Jasmine. Eve was the daughter of a small merchant in the town. Her mother had been a pharmacist, so she could read and write and had some knowledge of herbal medicine learned at home. Jasmine was the first patient with cold last winter. After being cured, she took the initiative to become Natasha's apprentice.
The two girls were of similar age, both under thirteen years old. After Natasha accepted them as her apprentices, she treated them almost like her daughters. The girls also admired Dr. Natasha very much, thinking that her medical skills were superb, and she was so gentle and beautiful, and she was the perfect idol they admired and longed to become.
"Teacher, you're back!"
"Did you have any patients while I was back at the castle for a meeting?"
"Have."
"No."
"Ok?"
Hearing the two students giving completely opposite answers, Natasha looked at them in surprise, and saw Eve who said "no" with an obviously embarrassed face, while Jasmine had a silly expression as if she realized belatedly that she had said the wrong thing.
Natasha looked at the two of them and asked in a still gentle tone.
"What's going on? Don't lie to the teacher."
"That, that..."
"Teacher, I'm sorry. It was my fiancé who came to see me. I saw that he had a cut on his hand, so I bandaged it a little with some iodine and gauze."
"Is that so? Then no...wait a minute! Fiancé?"
When Natasha heard Eve say that she was bandaging someone's wound, she didn't think there was anything wrong at first, but she soon realized that her disciple, who was still half a year away from her thirteenth birthday, actually had a fiancé!
066. "Preaching"
Natasha knew that the locals got married very early. In the clinic these days, she would see young pregnant women aged 15 or 16 every now and then. But from a doctor's perspective, she did not advocate for girls to get married and have children when they were still developing physically and mentally.
Therefore, after learning that Eve, who was only twelve years old, actually had a fiancé, Natasha, out of concern, pulled her and Jasmine in front of her, and gave them scientific knowledge about physical health in an earnest manner, and emphasized the various disadvantages of early marriage and early childbearing, and advised the two little ones not to taste the forbidden fruit too early.
But after listening to it with a look of confusion on her face, Eve asked a very heart-wrenching question.
"Teacher, are you married?"
Natasha: "..."
As a single woman over 40 years old, Natasha has devoted her youth to the medical profession. She is busy saving lives and leading the "Underground Fire" in the lower town of Beloberg, and has no time to take care of her emotional life.
It was not until the core crisis of her hometown was resolved that Natasha was finally able to unload some of the burden on her shoulders, and then in the blink of an eye she was summoned to another world by Dick.
So when Eve asked her teacher innocently without any malice whether she was married, Natasha was just awkwardly there, and remained silent for a long time before speaking bitterly.
"Teacher... is still single."
"Then does the teacher have someone he likes? You are so beautiful, you must have a lot of suitors!"
"Eve, it's working time now, so let's stop chatting."
Even though she knew Eve meant no harm, Natasha still felt overwhelmed by the series of gossip questions and could only change the subject abruptly.
Especially when the other party asked her if she had someone she liked, Natasha subconsciously thought of someone in her mind.
In the evening, Natasha returned to her room after dinner, took a shower and prepared to go to bed early. Shizuka Marikawa, who shared the same bed with her, had some work to do at the clinic and would not be back until a little later.
When passing by her roommate's bed, Natasha noticed a silk pillow on the bed sheet. Out of curiosity, she picked it up, and saw Dick on it, with his nightgown half-undone and sleepy eyes.
Natasha was so frightened that her pupils trembled. For a moment, she didn't know what expression to make.
Natasha knew about the super-friendly relationship between Dick and Shizuka Marikawa, and she had even seen them doing good things more than once. Although the two of them played very colorfully, it was consensual, and Natasha didn't say much, so she simply pretended nothing happened.
However, given Marikawa Shizuka's innocent personality and her love for sleeping naked, Natasha still feels a little uncomfortable whenever she accidentally catches a glimpse of the pink slap marks on her plump breasts and buttocks.
Looking at the lifelike portrait of the beautiful boy on the pillow, Natasha was dazed for a moment. She couldn't help but imagine in her mind what her reaction would be if she opened her eyes early in the morning and saw Dick lying in her bed in this posture?
But soon Natasha was frightened by the scene in her mind. After she came to her senses and was about to put down the pillow, Shizuka Marikawa came in at this moment. When she pushed the door open, she saw Natasha holding the new pillow she had bought today, with a very subtle expression on her face.
"Miss Natasha, you..."
"I, I just took a look, I didn't do anything!"
Natasha, who was always calm and composed, now had a blush on her face and was rarely seen in a panic.
Shizuka Marikawa was slightly stunned, then said with a very happy smile on her face.
"Ms. Natasha, if you like it, I'll give it to you. I have others, so please don't hesitate."
