I Regressed to My Ruined Family Chapter 280

＃After returning, the family was ruined (281)

After the sparring between the two brothers ended.

Ethan found Sylvia. She was awarded the title of count and had an office entirely in her name in Naejung. I knocked on the door and went inside.

“Are you here, Your Excellency the Duke?”

“It’s been a while, Count Delphine.”

It was a castle he received when he was awarded the title of Count Delphine. Sylvia shook her head at those words.

“When you two are together, you can call me by my first name like you did when you first met. “That sounds a lot more comfortable to me.”

“is it. “I understand, Sylvia.”

“The reason you came… is probably because of the church, right?”

“okay.”

“As you said last time, we dug as deep as we could into their backs. “This is the result of a synthesis of research data.”

I looked at the documents Sylvia handed me. The document contained detailed information about the power of each kingdom and its relationship with the religious order. The six kingdoms had one thing in common.

Archbishops are dispatched to each kingdom.

The six archbishops were very active within the kingdom, interacting with the king and expanding their influence to high-ranking nobles. This was possible because countries like Heidern did not reject religious denominations.

If you look at it up to this point, it seems like all six kingdoms are very closely connected to the church.

‘I guess not.’

Not even twenty years have passed since I began actively promoting church activities.

Moreover, with Anna’s power, it was nearly impossible to rule over all the kings of the six kingdoms.

First of all, physical distance is a problem. I didn’t have a deep understanding of puppetry, but there was at least something I noticed after encountering it a few times. In order to control a puppet, you must be physically close.

One of the bishops I met in the elf village. Clearly, this guy was trying to control people using magical threads and words.

It was definitely a member of Anna’s family.

This meant that Anna’s abilities were not much different from his. Of course, a ruler-level entity will be given at least one special power, but the general flow itself will be similar.

Magic thread and words. If humans were controlled in two ways, there were bound to be physical limitations.

‘To make all six kings his subjects…’

No matter how small it may be, the control had to be so extensive that it covered more than two-thirds of the Western Continent. Otherwise, you can carry the kings in a subspace pocket and take them out when convenient and move them around. However, if that were the case, there would have already been chaos in each kingdom.

‘That’s not something that can be done to the level of a transcendental person.’

Even if he were absolute, he couldn’t spread that level of dominance. If that were possible, the world would already be full of fanatics singing their religious hymns all day long.

In the end, according to Ethan’s judgment, the number of kingdoms Anna can rule is.

‘At most, two at the most?’

This is also done by taking the nearby kingdoms as a set. Even if you think highly of Anna’s abilities and expand the scope of her control to the maximum, it would be difficult for her to exert any power beyond controlling the kings of two nearby kingdoms.

‘Who is ruling?’

If Anna could figure out who the king was controlling, it wouldn’t be that difficult to break his control. Whether it is a thread of magic or a word. In the end, all you have to do is use your special abilities and loosen that control…

‘Because it will be possible with a blank sword.’

Knife sword.

It was a sword strike that cut even the abstract concept of space. So, there was nothing Anna couldn’t cut with her strength. In fact, what was really important was the existence of a cult leader who treated the ruler named Anna like his own subordinate.

Even if Anna’s control was cut off, the matter was not resolved as long as the religious leader remained. Rather, it will be the gun that announces the beginning of war. Because you don’t want to lose control of the kingdom you’ve worked so hard to build.

I continued reading the document. In the document that Sylvia handed over, small pieces of information were put together one by one, forming a series of streams.

It was written in great detail, starting with how the six kings moved, and even detailing how the high-ranking nobles who assisted the kings were deeply connected to the church.

Crucially, even phrases that had not been written in the past had been added in large numbers. For example, it was information such as which places the religious leaders visited the most.

“Have you also investigated the inside of the church?”

“There’s no law that says we can’t let intelligence agents infiltrate.”

“According to the investigation, the most suspicious kingdom is Limedell?”

“yes. This is a country where the king’s movements are particularly strange. “There were too many suspicious aspects to just dismiss it as old age.”

“Hmm.”

Bjorn, King of the Kingdom of Limedell.

Ethan had met him directly before. This was because the place where the continental swordsmanship competition was held was the Kingdom of Limedell.

How did he act then?

I remembered. He asked for the Eight Rings back, and since a high-ranking noble family of his country was involved in the matter, Bjorn took a particularly low attitude and immediately returned the Eight Rings. That seemed quite strange even to Ethan. I don’t know if Limedel and Heidern were allies.

Since ancient times, the two kingdoms have been in a relationship where it would not be strange to call them enemies, as they could not eat each other. The head of such a state had bowed his head to the nobleman of Heidern, who could be called his enemy.

Why did they do that?

Have I become so weak that my wrinkles are bubbling and I am unable to properly discern between interests and interests?

Unless it is.

Could it be that there was some involvement from the church in that matter?

If it wasn’t possible, it wasn’t. The reason was simple. Just as he was paying attention to the sect leader during the continental swordsmanship competition, the sect leader was constantly paying attention to himself. Even if it was called the Eight Rings, it was just a complex of useless things unless you were a descendant of Ardan.

‘Give it back…’

If you judged that he was trying to increase this side’s power, Bjorn’s actions did not make sense. If he were Anna’s puppet, he would have had no choice but to accept her demands without even making a sound.

“I see, he’s definitely a suspicious person.”

Ethan nodded. In addition to Bjorn, all kinds of high-ranking nobles were wagging their tails at the church like fed-up dogs. A huge amount of money was being paid every month to the church where the archbishop was located, and sometimes high-ranking nobles would voluntarily distribute food to the people.

And not in honor of my own name, but in praise of the grace of the Naraxus Church.

One thing was certain.

The Kingdom of Limedel, located right in front of Heidern. In fact, this place is no different from the denominational playground.

‘Then there will be at most two candidates.’

Heidern was naturally excluded. If high-ranking nobles, including King Delprion, were being influenced by Anna’s dominance, there was no way they would not have noticed.

This was especially true in the current situation, where he had continued to develop his skills rather than having just become a transcendent like when he visited the Kingdom of Limedell.

At least for now, he had the skills to overwhelmingly defeat Anna. So I couldn’t have known without knowing. Therefore, Heidern was immediately excluded from the candidate group.

Considering that Anna’s control extends to kingdoms located close to Limedell, which country can be considered as the next candidate?

‘Deacon and Celsus.’

Deacon was a country more commonly referred to as a desert kingdom, and Celsus was a country renowned for producing shield knights who focused on defense.

‘Which of the two would it be?’

In Sylvia’s report, both were recorded as showing favorable movements toward the church. I thought it would be difficult to figure out where the real secret was if I didn’t check it for myself.

To confirm for yourself, you must first visit the country and have an audience with the king. The problem was that it was difficult to visit each country without any justification. If I were not careful, I could have made the religious leader feel uncomfortable.

‘Well, fortunately…’

There was one cause.

Ethan opened the map and looked at the Deacon Kingdom. Pelkan, the capital of the Deacon Kingdom, was located in the middle of the great desert. On the road leading northwest from Pelkan, bordering the snow country of Crotel, there was an area where a tyrant was located.

‘Elfernrys Mountains.’

This alpine region, located between a desert and a glacier, was notorious as a place where it was difficult to find life even if you looked for it with your eyes closed.

The reason was simple.

This was because on half of the two days, the desert sandstorm covered the entire mountain range, and on the other day, the cold of the glaciers covered the entire mountain range.

How can living things maintain their lives in an area where the temperature changes completely every day, not even in a year or even a half year at the most?

In addition, this area, full of difficult alpine mountains, was a place that would take more than a month for the average person to completely cross.

Therefore, even though it was an area where two borders faced each other, there were almost no defensive troops. Of course, since the two countries were close friends with a long-standing warm friendship, they did not deploy defensive troops based on pure faith.

The fact that the two countries have opposite climates is no different from the fact that each has fatal weaknesses in cold and heat.

In such a situation, lead a large army and cross a mountain range where the climate changes for a month?

Just passing the Great Mountain Range would result in at least half of the troops dying. It’s like falling to the ground with your hands and feet cut off even before the war begins. Not deploying border guards was tantamount to an implicit agreement made because both parties knew this very well.

The disaster was located in an area that was virtually devoid of life.

‘It was the same for tyrants and shadows.’

Even though he wanted to dominate humans more powerfully than anyone else, what was the result in the end? All three have taken root in an area with very few people. That’s probably what I was thinking. The war has been lost, and we cannot invade human society right now.

But he probably didn’t want to live in harmony with humans. So, they would have made their home in an area with very few people.

On the contrary, the religious leaders who used appeasement had already reached deep into human society.

When the wind blows strong, you open your clothes, but on the contrary, when the warm sunlight beats down, you take them off one by one. The religious leader must have known this principle.

Ethan said while looking at Sylvia.

“I am planning to leave my seat. “The period is about two months.”

“Where are you going?”

“Elfernrys Mountains. “This is where one of the rulers is located.”

Disaster hunting.

The next destination has been decided.