Chapter 450: Millions of Troops at One's Fingertips
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Before Hao Ren arrived in Aerym, he had promised the moon. However, when he was finally before Hilda, he was a little embarrassed to ask her for the favor—he came not for rent, but troops.
Even if everything went well, and the armed escorts were not presented with any danger (very few races from Y'zaks' homeland were capable in air combat, while space wars were rare), it was too much to ask people to risk their lives in a different world. Hao Ren had also seen the situation in Aerym: it was a crucial moment for the elves to rebuild their homes as they were trying to adapt to an unfamiliar planet. During this critical period, how many men could they set aside to run his errand?
Before Hao Ren came, he thought he had a billion tenants. But only then did it dawn on him that the one billion tenants were actually refugees.
When Hilda heard that Hao Ren wanted to borrow her men as his armed escorts, she was not hesitant at all. But, the glow on her body flickered once she learned that Hao Ren was looking for eight million troops. "Who have you offended?"
Hao Ren sighed. "It's not me—it's Wang, the king kong who helped you during your migration operation. The one who hit his head wherever he walked. He has the whole world looking for him. The two next to me are his men. Wang is now packing up his stuff..."
Hao Ren began to tell Hilda about Y'zaks' glorious past; about how the demon picked the wrong branch in the technology tree to begin his interstellar exploration; about his distorted worldview of pursuing the grand unification of various races; about his wayward military strategy to conquer the whole world until he ended up being conquered instead; and about his misadventures as well as requiring help from interstellar allied troops.
Hao Ren did not realize it before he summed up the life of Y'zaks. It only struck him then, that Y'zaks' life was the most abnormal among the bunch of unusual creatures in his family. There was nothing in his life that was not wrong; his look was aesthetically wrong, and while he had a daughter, she was genetically wrong.
Hilda was flabbergasted whereas Vimm, who was by her side had a weird gleam on his face. In all fairness, Y'zaks' problem was possibly not as huge as the one the Aerymian elves faced—after all, the Aerymian elves came from the stars and fell from the stars. The most magnificent part of Y'zaks' life was not in his achievements, but his unwavering ambition and undying spirit—the determination to study and explore space while being caught in a war with the whole world. And that was not something anyone could have thought of doing.
"Now it seems like it's time for Y'zaks to retire." Hao Ren exhaled. "According to his words, he has done what he can, and he has no regrets in life. Now, he wants to seek long-term stability and security for his last remaining people. This is the last thing he would like to do for his people. Of course, officially, your people will act as 'armed escorts' for some important, scientific research cargo. I will register Y'zaks and his people as escorts of scientific research materials as well. Then, there will be no problems crossing over."
"I have a deep impression of that giant." Hilda nodded slightly. "But, little did I expect him to have such an epic past."
Then, she looked up at Hao Ren and said, "How many people do you think you will need to act as the armed escort?"
"To be honest, even Y'zaks himself isn't very sure." Hao Ren forced a smile. "Because, no one knows how strong the Aerymian warships are compared to the Fireball of the Magic World. Judging from the calculated figures in our data, we have verified that your spacecrafts are deemed to be legendary in those places. That's the reason I'm here—I have confidence in your people and I won't let them die in vain. But at the same time, I would like to stress that there is bound to be a certain degree of danger. You would not want to underestimate those 'ancient people'. The power of magic is difficult to quantify and its productivity as well as combative ability cannot be measured in the normal sense of things. They have weapons that can fold space, and they have super gravity as well as electromagnetic storms."
Hilda suddenly laughed. "We are no strangers to magic—according to what you have said, we are already a magical civilization. However, after a certain level of progression, the line between magic and technology becomes blurry."
Hao Ren agreed with her. He nodded and had nothing more to say.
"Vimm"—Hilda turned abruptly to her son—"stop the works in the third spaceport, synchronous orbit delivery station, and also the large-scale exploration project in the Western Continent. Recall everyone."
Hearing that, Hao Ren immediately knew that Her Majesty was making some real sacrifices. His heart churned as he said, "Will it be okay? Those are your major projects!"
"They are, but they can all be stopped." Hilda smiled. "We have yet to complete the exploration and infrastructure projects on the continent; the spaceport facilities will not be needed in the near future. It is just to keep the regular spacecrafts busy, and the exploration of the Western Continent can be halted... The impact will be minimal. That should free up some manpower for you. Meanwhile, you can take half of the spaceships with you—we do not need them now anyway. Those spacecrafts may be categorized as battleships... In fact, we have never fought with anyone in space before. Those weapons loaded on the spacecrafts are only for imaginary enemies. They have mostly been used to destroy malfunctioned or failed coronaries and components in the floating isles."
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Hao Ren nodded repeatedly. "That's more than enough! Such combat capability is enough! How many people can you send, by the way?"
"One million, along with the thousands of spacecrafts, and also small cruise ships. You know, our technology is very limited. We only have a limited number of large spacecrafts and those are intrastellar models."
"That's good enough!" Hao Ren clapped his hands. As he listened to the figures, he was greatly touched—he had wanted eight million troops, but after seeing the situation in Aerym, he could not possibly expect the elven refugees to make up the numbers he required. And to be honest, the armed escorts were not expected to engage in a head-on battle with the enemy. He only requied them to guard the spacecraft wreckage and the Helcrown against the ambush of the Allied Forces and the demonic army!
In fact, Hao Ren had no concept of numbers and could not imagine what it would be like to have a million people assembled—he had not seen anything with more than a thousand people in one place since the end of his school years. He came to Hilda for the troops like a rookie, but thanks to their relationship, she did not mind at all.
"Can they fight?" Hao Ren pretended to be an expert. "Although your spacecrafts are superior technology-wise, those mages are not easy targets... It is best to send the veterans, just to be on the safe side."
"Aside from the elite Royal Guard who are full-time soldiers, the difference between a civilian and a soldier is minimal." Hilda grinned. "During the floating island era, in order to deal with all the unexpected situations, every elf had to undergo training, and they were assigned jobs appropriate to their own field of expertise. So, civilians can also be skillful in a variety of weapons and equipment, including manning warships."
Longer living races were good in that they had hundreds of years in childhood experience. As long as there were no tumors in their heads, they had enough time to complete every field of study—no human would ever dare to emulate the Aerymian elves in terms of schooling.
Talk about 300 years of pure classroom learning—the mere thought of it had Hao Ren losing his hope of living.
"I thank you on behalf of Y'zaks." Hao Ren was sincerely grateful to Hilda. He knew that the possibility of a million people sacrificing their lives for strangers in another world was no joke. These people were not just numbers. However, Hilda shook her head. "You saved the life of one billion elves. Aerymian elves are grateful people. Every elf on this planet would be more than happy to help you in return. But before that, I must first understand the situation of this Helcrown you have mentioned. I do know Y'zaks, but not his people."
Hao Ren pointed to the two elven aides behind him, and finally found some tasks for them. "These two elves are representatives of the civilians. They know the Helcrown inside and out. I guarantee you that they will not lie... Well, Y'zaks guarantees it."
Hao Ren initially wanted to pawn his honor for the two elves, but he changed his mind after looking at Yrse and Aylu—he figured that his own honor would not have much influence in the eyes of the two elves. However, if the reputation of their boss was on the line, it would certainly work. Just by looking at them, Hao Ren already knew that they were Y'zaks' brain-dead, diehard fans. Hao Ren even vindictively suspected that should the demon king order the two elves to change their sexual orientation, they would both obey, no questions asked. Above all, he just could not stand it that the male was already more handsome than his entire family!
Oh yeah, and Aylu was a girl.
The two elves had no clue about the things in Hao Ren's mind. They were immersed in their roles, looking serious as they talked with Hilda. Hao Ren took the opportunity to sneak out to the balcony behind him and enjoy the scenery.
Vimm also went out to join him.
"Mother is learning about the situation in Helcrown," Vimm said with a smile. "It should not be a problem. She will probably start to identify a suitable site for the relocation as soon as you depart."
Hao Ren guffawed as he nodded. Suddenly, he saw a group of workers, who were just returning from work. They were surrounding a person in white robes on the new tarmac path in the city. He asked Vimm curiously, "Who's that?"
"Another spiritual guide"—Vimm smiled—"for the new religion established at the behest of Mother. At the center of the faith is the planet's god of creation."
Hao Ren pondered for a while before saying, "What?"