Heroes of Might and Magic: Grand Consul

Chapter 252 Intermediate Confusion and Disguise
The highest tower in the trading city of Konaston, where a small council of seven prominent merchants is convened, is currently holding its meeting.

"Levin has led his army south, bypassing the Highlands City, and is leading a large force to attack Cloud City."

"The commander is Orlando, an elven dragon knight. He is skilled in defensive techniques and is also a master of air element. If he breaks through and enters the city, Cloud Mist City may not be able to hold out."

"Joesildur's forces have crossed Cloud City and are very likely to continue south to the trading city. We need to be prepared."

Upon hearing this, the businessmen exchanged glances and revealed calm smiles.

"Everyone thinks our trading city is defenseless, but how could that be? Money talks. The city has ample reserves of magic scrolls and alchemical fire. Even if a hundred thousand people besiege the city, they can ensure that Isildur never returns!"

"Hahahahahaha!"

The trading city has the resources to act so arrogantly; they have several heroes skilled in ballistics who can launch magic scrolls to bombard enemies at crucial moments.

Ordinary people fight wars with people, but they fight wars with money. That's the source of a trading city's confidence.

Moreover, each merchant has a deeply entrenched power base behind them. If they were truly besieged, the nobles would not stand idly by, given their vast resources.

"Although Isildur will not attack the trading cities, they are very likely to seize the resource-rich areas in the heartland. Should we stop them?"

"A few resource sites are nothing more than feeding the dogs. Let Congress order the surrounding lords to intercept Isildor, just make sure they don't get the minerals too easily."

"After the timber tax was increased, several noble families were very hostile, especially Kuraki. Not only did they not submit any extra timber, they even stopped submitting their original resources. Their reason was that Isildur's army was in the heart of the country, making transportation difficult, and they would pay after the war was over."

Upon hearing this reason, the wealthy merchants angrily denounced it, arguing that the plains were adjacent to river valleys and could be easily transported by waterway, and that such an excuse was utterly base and childish.

"Congress originally planned to send some inspectors over, but that plan fell through because of Isildur's invasion."

This time everyone fell silent. They could use underhanded tactics to coerce the lesser nobles into handing over their timber. But they didn't have many good options for dealing with the military leaders at the front.

Congress had been counting on them to resist Isildur, and now that the Walled Army had entered the heartland, it was even less likely that they would turn against them over such a small amount of resources and frontline troops.

Originally, the idea was to use patriotism to bind the nobles, but the other party completely acted like a rogue. This may affect Kuraki's reputation, but that's a matter for later. At least there's no way to deal with it now.

"How's the matter with the cursed crystal? Have you found out who the specific buyer is? Has the shipping company made any concessions?"

“Raymond is very tough. It seems that the buyer behind him is not in a hurry for this shipment. He seems to be determined to fight us to the end.”

"Hold on to the bitter end. With him? Then forget about doing business. We can completely eliminate a competitor, become the exclusive supplier of Tier 2 resources, and raise prices."

The city, a major trading hub, is so wealthy and powerful that it doesn't care about the temporary disruption of a trade route. Besides, it can hurt its competitors, so why not?

"Have the resources requested by the Speaker been prepared?"

"It was all arranged long ago, and it's waiting to be shipped over from the Land of Emeralds."

Major transactions were completed in the midst of conversations among these business tycoons. Although there were occasional minor setbacks, they remained calm and composed.

To put it bluntly, war is about resources, and a kingdom cannot function without trading cities. They represent not just individuals, but the combined interests of the most powerful nobles and the upper echelons, which is why they act with such impunity.

Some merchants even held more extreme views, believing that even if the kingdom were to fall, the city of trade could still continue to exist, and that they were the true shadow kings.

……

On the summit of Graystone City, Sumu and Ivan surveyed the plains in the heart of the land, where the army was gradually shifting westward.

While the Northern Territory isn't exactly free of conflict, there's no need to be overly tense for the time being. Graystone City is just an ordinary level 2 town with relatively weak defenses, so Su Mu has transferred Ivan here to garrison it using his advanced defensive skills.

"I've brought the Gale Griffin and the Fearless Swordsman. Your task is to defend the city and ignore all other orders."

Congress issued several orders for Kuraki to send troops to defend and save the resource area. Sumu ignored them completely, sending out some mercenaries who were no match for the enemy's forces and had to withdraw.

But now an additional order has been issued, stating that troops must be deployed, or else serious consequences will be imposed.

Since that's the case, Su Mu is prepared to use one enemy to devour another. You want me to send troops? Fine, let Ouling lead the attack, drive Isidore's forces westward, deeper into the heartland, and see how much defense the trading city has.

Of course, more importantly, it is necessary to establish a bridgehead as a barrier for Graystone City.

The experience gained from the previous Northern Wars is that the wider the buffer zone, the better it is for the defense of the castle.

Even if there's a fierce battle in the heartland, causing the earth to crack and the sky to shatter, it's still in another region and won't harm production on the plains.

Moreover, Cloud City is very suitable for air elemental troops to fight. The main general of this attack is Ouling. He plans to launch an attack on the flank after the kingdom's legion is deployed, and launch a surprise attack on the dragon knights with the joint army.

Although Leven had an army of 10 men of varying ranks and types, and dared to penetrate deep into enemy territory, this was the best opportunity to annihilate the enemy.

Although Su Mu suspected that Levin had other schemes, it wasn't Su Mu's style to let such a good opportunity pass by. Even if he couldn't take down the enemy's central army, he could still tear off a piece of flesh from the enemy.

Unable to acquire cursed crystals for the time being, Su Mu launched a large-scale recruitment drive, accumulating over 800 troops after two weeks of effort.

At this point, the castle's growth rate begins to take off. With the characteristics of advanced civil engineering, one Cangmu Castle is almost equivalent to two county cities, and the speed of troop recruitment is extremely fast.

Actually, time is on his side. As long as he accumulates more troops, his military strength will become even stronger.

However, each city has a troop limit. Extraordinary cities are like large containers of magical power, and troops are like solutions. The higher the level of the troops, the larger the volume they occupy, and one day it will be full.

If you want to continue expanding your power, you either need to upgrade your main city or rule more cities.

Kuraki doesn't even have cavalry yet, so he hasn't reached a bottleneck. However, being able to occupy more territory is always beneficial for development.

Instead of deploying all the new troops to the western front, he increased the defenses of Bear Fortress, temporarily assigning Wayne and Maggie to guard it. He hadn't forgotten that the ancient ruins still harbored a formidable enemy, though the enemy was temporarily lying low; having astute bandits guard it was the best course of action.

After several battles and this northward expedition to provide aid, Wayne has also been promoted.

[A lone hero, venturing into the lion's den, Wayne has gained a deeper understanding of disguise, +1 Spell Power, and has mastered Intermediate Confusion Disguise.]

[Intermediate Concealment/Camouflage: Your troops are extremely well-hidden and mysterious, making it difficult for the enemy to ascertain their exact numbers and characteristics. They are also unable to detect the hero's attributes or treasures, and gain special magical abilities to disguise themselves.]

[Disguise (Intermediate Confusion/Camouflage Bonus): Temporarily transforms units into another unit type, concealing their movements and deceiving the enemy. When the camouflage is broken and an attack is launched, it deals 150% damage. The chance of being deceived is slightly reduced when encountering heroes with high spell power or those who possess Eagle Eye or scouting abilities.]

Skills like disguise become increasingly difficult to upgrade as you progress, and the improvement effects seem rather lackluster.

That's not actually the case. Disguise is a binary choice: either you succeed or you get caught. Therefore, even a small improvement is enough to be considered a success, as long as it's slightly better than the opponent's detection skills.

Moreover, once the disguise is upgraded to a high level, it can even be so realistic that it can be mistaken for the real thing, thus gaining a slight application of the rules of deception. This means that one can use a certain skill of the disguised unit and produce an effect, which is extremely powerful.

Therefore, Su Mu still hopes that Wayne can make further progress and improve, so that Kuraki's strength will become even greater.

Now, it's time for their lord to demonstrate his strength and fight for some benefits for everyone.

(End of this chapter)