Chapter 41: End of the War

[Sophia's POV]

Explosions after explosions littered the patch of trees filled with mines, and severed body parts of the primates that valiantly or foolishly marched towards their enemy came flying from all directions, these maltreated bodies are accompanied by soil that is the only evidence of the invisible explosions as well as the stray water blades that caused the demise of these foolish warriors of the monkey race.

Screams of anger, despair, and regret resonated in the whole battlefield as the once glorious and fearless race of the second layer is now being one-sidedly slaughtered by an enemy they are even yet to see, only their leader who has already been driven mad by their nemesis they once thought as a random nobody has seen their reaper and is now madly sprinting towards her as the monkey rebel leader ignored the landmines that are hitting his body directly as if they are nothing but grass, however, his subordinates also knew that these water-blades from the landmines are not negligible even for their leader.

But what can they do? Nothing, not even their enemy can save them from the fate that they created for themselves, well it's not like the said enemy of theirs have any intentions to, right now the one who is causing all of their misery is just thinking of one thing.

_I'm bored!_

Argh, come on now, how many minutes are these explosions ongoing, and yet the main plot of my plan is yet to come here, well I mean no, I am not bored because of the explosions, if anything I am even ecstatic to see the race who is laughing at me because I am small and refers to me as "nothing special" being bombed without them being able to do anything about it. But, upon receiving and accepting the loyalty of the spider queen, I have been waiting for something to happen that will finally stop my subordinates from going pale in the face the moment they saw my existence, but it is still yet to come.

[You're impatient.]

What!? But it's already nearly one hour since the battle started!

[The battle of Changping lasted for Three Years you know? If you're not prepared to have that long-ass war, then don't plan an invasion in the first place.]

You had your way to my memories huh? I hope you are yet to see that particular memory, but anyway, I guess you are right, might as well wait for the performance of my main subordinates.

Anyway, the moment the fifth or sixth explosion ensued the monkeys started to crumble and abandon their valiant (lol) advance and scatter in all directions that caused more landmines to be activated resulting in their mess, honestly I am kind of shocked by how fast they have fallen apart, I mean they are so prideful to the point of rebelling against their leader who is smart enough to set aside his humungous pride for the sake of his race's greater good and then some landmines made all their ego crumble.

_I can think of two ways to neutralize my landmines and they just gave up on finding a solution._

[You and Eleanor are the only person in this whole forest that can pull off what you thinking, so don't put it like they are stupid if you're just too smart.]

Oh, now that you said it.

We are having that kind of conversation while the monkeys are continuously trying to escape, but because of the landmines, it took another two hours for a single monkey to successfully escape, however, the happiness-filled face of the monkey got filled with shock when an arrow with choke curse got embedded in his face, he choked and gasped for air instead of writhing in pain because of the piercing abilities of the arrow.

Oh, the curse is called airflow restriction, that curse must have been a paradise for masochists. (Author: I was reading Nana to Kauro when I wrote this joke, I'm sorry.)

"He was coming my way..."

Philo grumbled and communicated with Lyra through their natural undead connection, and I can hear it.

"Well, you're too slow."

Lyra said as she pulled an arrow from the quiver at her back, Philo immediately snapped his head in her direction and growled, he was about to argue back but I got enough of them fighting in the middle of a war, so I chimed in.

"You two know that I can hear all of what you are saying if I choose to right? Look up."

The two of them made an "HI!" sound before looking up, then they saw a small human sitting in a lump of soil pointing at their left side, there was a muscular goblin saw one punching monkeys who just escaped from the bombardment of the landmines, the monkeys are pouring in his direction because that part is the first one to have exhausted the spots in which the landmines are planted, but of course, no one still managed to escape because of him.

"Don't fight over kills, soon your respective spots will be exhausted of landmines and will have many monkeys escaping, well that group of monkeys will not be great as the numbers Bernardo is killing because their numbers have completely fallen apart at that point, at least it is still a sizeable amount of EXP."

[They became taller than you.]

Shut up, I'm not talking to you.

Anyway, their eyes seemingly became enlightened and they immediately exclaimed their usual words of praise towards me, but of course, I ignored it as usual and just gave them a "Do your best." thumbs up and connected my eyesight to Kabuto, in their I saw him helping the goblins who are still outnumbered despite their tactical advantage, he is just in the rear and is avoiding any kind of pinning attack type of retaliation of the monkeys, same for Ellie several thorns of earth came protruding out of the ground as she jumped around to cast her magnificent earth spell.

Of course, the spells also had rocks with multiple spikes on them raining down the enemy as well as quagmires and many more, but what is eye-catching is her priest robe drenched with sweat because of continuous movement to avoid being attacked by the monkeys that closed in too much in her range, causing her ample breast, slender waist, and squeezable butt to be outlined properly for me to properly see, Kabuto seems to know what I want to see and fought in a way that faces Eleanor's direction, I am blessed to have such considerate followers...

[You're gross.]

Hey, I am just admiring her! It's not like I have any impure thoughts!

[I can read your mind, remember? You better stop these images in your mind, she's not even your girlfriend yet.]

"Gah...!"

We're just joking around, please don't hurt me like that...

[Well, it's not my fault... Hm?]

What 'hm'?

[Well, look at the mutilated ground under you.]

I immediately looked at what [Guide] directed me to and in the lump of soil that became a small hill because of the explosion, a pure white spider was seen having its back part facing the sky, the spider then will proceed to shoot out a thin string of spider thread, the force in which the spider ejaculates the thread is quite strong, surpassing the tall tress left in the ravaged battlefield, but then my altitude is of course higher than the spider's ejaculation force so the thread just flops into the air, it seems like the spider is trying to climb up into my floating lump of soil.

[It seems like that spider has something to say, so you better lower your altitude.]

Huh? But it's just the spider queen though, I bet it's not something... ok if it's her then it is guaranteed to be important.

I replied as such as I started to descend, seeing me descend the monkey rebel leader who became a bloody mess sprinted even more vigorously, but he once again got caught by an explosion of a water rasengan that is hidden on the ground, causing him to once again flail, halting his advance, I ignored his useless struggle as I finally made myself reachable for the spider.

The spider queen ate most of her children because of the two giant spiders that are currently fighting alongside the goat cavalry, the two of them are also responsible for the death of the youngest of the two rebel leaders, but of course, spiders that can defeat strong opponents such as one of the queen's godchildren will require an exorbitant amount of energy to give birth to and she just gave birth for new S and C (Scouting and communications) spiders because of the mass slaughter of the said type of spiders, so she has to take back all the energy she has invested towards these new spiders, but even then the spiders only gave her fifty percent of the total amount of energy she consumed.

So she was just able to barely give birth to two spiders and have to move some of her spiders that scout the safer parts of the first layer into the battlefield for a good view of the situation. Well, this also made me realize her dedication to becoming a subordinate of mine, so I accepted her by now, though I am annoyed that I did.

"It's inconvenient to not have a spider prepared in your shoulders master."

The spider went and crawled onto my shoulders and said, after which she made a "Phew" sound and then sat on it as if a war is not happening right below us.

"It is, now then, what do you want to report?"

The spider then replied immediately, obviously it was something that she knew I will be delighted about, so it must be...

"Well, I have a se... I mean, a friend that stated his willingness to be one of your loyal servants."

I smiled upon hearing this, so I am right, actually, do you remember when I say that I have another way around the negative effect of the title skill [Fear]? Well, the other way around I thought of is quite simple, there are two kinds of Ruler titles, right? One of which is what I have [Merciless Tyrant] that gave me the said title skill, the other one is called [Magnanimity of the Strong] that gives the [Respect] title skill, and as you have guessed I will use the skill given by the magnanimity title to counterbalance the negative effect of the title skill given by the tyrant title.

I am just finding the perfect opportunity to implement this plan and the hero's test happened I learned the existence of monkeys accidentally because of that mutt that spits fire and viola, I have forged a plot that will lead to me conquering the second layer's designated point and the owner of that point is someone who wants no beef with me and also wants to gamble and place his bet in my name.

[Yes amazing, now ask the monkey to have a trial like the spider.]

I will, don't be hasty.

"How can he prove his loyalty?"

The spider raised its frontal claw and pointed at the berserk rebel leader that is slowly closing into us at the moment and said.

"Well, he offers you to kill his other son."

"Kill?"

"Yes, kill."

"Who?"

"His son"

We went into that nonsense of a conversation as I pondered about it and asked.

"Why? Can't he just make him give up?'

The spider suddenly shook its head as I inch backward because the remaining rebel leader is already too close to us, I am not worried because I am sure that the monkey tribe leader will soon arrive.

"You don't understand your opponent even though you got him berserk did you master? That person has pride bigger than the size of the volcano you are about to own and will never admit that he is wrong, thus the moment he decided to get out of his tribe's restraint, he is already  a lost cause."

As the spider is saying that, the monkey jumped at me very high that his hulk-like figure became visible in front of my line of sight, this gave me a scare for a moment but a fist suddenly landed on the rebel leader's cheeks, causing him to be immediately flung high in an arc, after a while he landed on the ground and bounced off a few times before coughing mouthfuls of blood.

This punch by the rebel's father let the son be freed from the berserk state I put him in, he looked at his battered and full of slash marks body and his father, a smile creeping into his face.

"Ah, father! You punched me to get out of my berserk state, thank you! That bitch over there manipulated all of us and made our race divided! Help me dish out her due punishment!"

The son was ecstatic seeing his father, but his father looked at him coldly as the tribe leader's body suddenly began pulsating as he grew taller in size, after a while he became a giant of about ninety meters, the son was dumbfounded.

"Father? Why are you facing me? You're facing the wrong person!"

He exclaimed but the father just sighed, he seems disappointed.

"No, I don't think I do."

The father said and then raised his enormous hands into the air and slapped it quickly onto the ground with which his son is in, the son was petrified all the while this is happening and only have a little splat sound as a sign of all his existence being crushed was heard.

"You have proven yourself and become my subordinate, state your wish, that's an order."

The monkey leader did not revert to his original size whilst he looked at me, immediately understanding what I have conveyed with my orders

"If My Lady will allow me, I would like to ask my people to give up and follow me once more."

I immediately nodded, all of the fighters became frozen to the ground anyway, so the fires of war got splashed by cold water at this point. Of course, I also received a notification, a notification I so much desired.

Notice [Fulfilling the request of someone weaker than yourself gave you the title: [Magnanimity of the Strong]

[Magnanimity of the Strong: Only a strong one who knows compassion can have this title.

Effects:

+10% Affinity to all elements.

+Title Skill: Monarch: Anyone who pledged their loyalty towards you will have increased stats. They will live according to your will and die if you desire. Cannot be evolved.]

But I can't fully enjoy it because of anger at the thought of a father killing his child just like that, but it immediately subsided as a sobbing sound was heard in the giant monkey leader's direction.

_Well it's fine I guess._