The Witcher World: The Path to Domination Begins in Velen

Ron sat at the nearly falling wooden table on the second floor, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the surface unconsciously.

The system panel hovered in front of him, its semi-transparent edges gleaming slightly. He stared at it for a long time.

My gaze moved down and stopped at the "Troops" column.

There have been changes.

The troop size is no longer twenty-two, but thirty-seven.

The first of the new names listed below is Miko, the young man who was the first to beg to join his army.

The list that followed was mostly local names from Velen, but these fifteen men were real people, currently being tortured by Karl in the courtyard, groaning in pain.

Ron stared at the number for a while, then he opened the unit tree.

The interface unfolds like an upside-down tree, with branches branching down from top to bottom. The bottom layer consists of new recruits, their icons are gray and white, they have no armor or weapons, and they are as clean as newborn babies.

He remembered what the new recruits looked like in the game: wearing tattered clothes, clutching a wooden stick or pitchfork, trembling as they charged forward on the battlefield, and swarming back when things went wrong.

As you move upwards along the branches, the colors begin to change. The icons of the Imperial infantry take on a pale blue hue, and their humanoid silhouettes are clad in soft armor, wielding iron longswords and kite-shaped shields. Further up are the Imperial skilled infantry, whose armor is thicker, whose shields are wider, and who are equipped with standard javelins.

Upon reaching the rank of senior imperial infantry, they were clad in full, heavy, square-shaped scale armor, and their large shields almost covered half their bodies.

Finally, there are the Imperial Legion infantry, who wear the same heavy armor as the armored cavalry, are equipped with armor-piercing blunt weapons like the Calad's staff and Imperial standard sabers, and are undoubtedly the elite of the elite in any world.

Then the fork appears; turning left leads to the Imperial Double-Edged Spearmen, whose main weapon has been changed to a double-edged spear, making them an indispensable backbone of the battlefield.

Below the cataphract icon are three smaller symbols: warhorse, heavy armor, and weapon. To the right are Imperial Legion soldiers, who do not need horses; their symbols only include armor and weapon.

Ron's gaze lingered on the "Imperial Elite Cataphract" icon for a long time before he looked away.

He switched to the Royal Guard's status bar; the sixteen armored icons were gold, a color that didn't match any of the unit tree's colors. It was a unique color assigned by the system, one he'd never seen before in the game.

Fiona's unit tree is also lit up, but not completely; the level from recruits up to Fiona warriors is lit up with gray-green icons.

Woodland longbow with thick scale armor and a two-handed greatsword, Tier 5 unit. The next Tier 6 unit is the Fiona Champion, whose icon is grayed out, like an unlocked map area.

Nord Royal Guards and Nord Berserkers are also on the list, and the top tier is not yet unlocked, which is expected. He was already pleasantly surprised that noble units in the game could be recruited by common soldiers, so such restrictions are normal.

Then he saw several completely unfamiliar names.

Redanian halberdiers? Temerian heavy axemen?

Ron's hand froze in mid-air before slowly lowering it. He stared at the two names for several seconds, as if to confirm that he wasn't seeing things and that it was a type of unit he had never seen in the game before.

The troop tree is very short; there's no evolutionary chain from recruit to elite. You progress from recruit to level one, level two, level three, and then it ends at level three.

The icon for a Tier 3 Redanian Halberdier is a humanoid figure wearing half-armor, holding a halberd horizontally, with a sharply defined face; a Tier 3 Temerian Heavy Axeman, equipped with a round iron shield and a one-handed battle axe.

The armor looked heavier than Redanian's, with a cotton inner lining and a breastplate over which was a layer of fine chainmail. The stance was lower and the center of gravity was more stable, as if it were ready to charge at any moment.

Local troops

Ron leaned back in his chair, the tenons creaking, and crossed his arms over his chest, circling his thumbs together, staring blankly at the gray icons.

"Level six soldiers need noble sons," he muttered to himself, a hint of mockery in his voice. "Where am I supposed to find nobles for them?"

In Velen, Temeria has fallen, and the nobles have either fled or died. The few remaining prominent figures are all huddled in their mansions in Novigrad, afraid that the war outside will soil their silk robes.

Even if there are a few impoverished nobles hiding in some corner, why would they come to him for refuge? A warlord who occupies an abandoned castle and has about thirty men under his command can't even make a ripple in Velen.

Ron banished these thoughts from his mind. He could deal with the nobles later; there was no point in thinking about it now.

He looked at the troop type tree again, his mind starting to make calculations.

The Imperial Legion infantry line is fully lit up. From recruits to Imperial Legion soldiers, there are five levels, and every step is visible and tangible. No horses or noble status are required; all that's needed is training, equipment, and time.

Fiona's line only goes up to level five, but it's enough. With longbows, scale armor, and two-handed swords, his range, accuracy, and melee ability are many times better than most archers in this world. Level five archers seem too extravagant to deal with Velen's bandits and the monsters in the swamp.

He didn't want to think about the cavalry for the time being; the golden insignia of the sixteen armored cavalrymen of his personal guard shone brightly in the corner, as if reminding him.

This is your lifeblood: cold-forged lamellar armor, Imperial sabers, and Imperial warhorses brought from Calradia. Every piece of these is one less to lose, and every horse that dies is one less to take.

We also need to figure out a way to re-equip the Royal Guard; the plate armor technology in this world is already quite advanced.

Full plate armor offers at least as much protection as lamellar armor, but it costs money, a lot of money, and his current assets don't even cover a fraction of the cost of full plate armor.

Besides, places like Velen are full of swamps, with waterways as dense as a spider web, and bushes that can block your view to within three steps. Heavy cavalry would be sitting ducks in this kind of terrain, their hooves sinking into the mud and unable to be pulled out.

Therefore, the main force should be infantry and double-edged spearmen, with archers as secondary forces, and cavalry should be reserved as a trump card, to be used only when absolutely necessary.

Ron silently calculated in his mind: thirty-five people, plus the forty-odd refugees to be fed, how many days of food would they have left, how many battles would their weapons last, how much armor needed repair, and how much it would cost to repair it.

How long could the bandit leader's spoils and crowns last? The numbers were jumping around in his mind. Just as he was about to sort things out, there was a knock on the door.

It wasn't heavy, but it was urgent. He paused for a moment, then added two more sounds.

Ron raised his hand and swiped in front of him, the system interface disappeared, and outside the window, Karl's training commands and the sound of metal clashing could be heard from afar.

"Come in"

The door was pushed open, and Erwin stood in the doorway, beads of sweat on his forehead and a few strands of hair stuck to his brow.

He was still clutching the wooden board he used as a writing board, but the paper on it had been replaced, with some blackened scorch marks on the edges, as if it had been snatched from the fire.

"Ron," Erwin swallowed, his throat a little dry. He didn't address him as "Your Highness" like the others, nor had Ron asked to. "I've discovered something."

He pushed the wooden board forward, and the blackened paper trembled slightly in the light filtering through the crack in the door.

You need to take a look at this.