Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

The barbarians at the camp naturally responded with armed force when Zach suddenly appeared without their scouts alerting them. They didn't lower their guard even when Zach and his maids raised their hands and said they only wanted to talk.

It was only when Zach and his maids were bound to posts in the center of the camp that the barbarians relaxed slightly and stopped pointing drawn bows and sharp swords at them.

Of course, if Zach and his maids wanted to, breaking out of the ropes would not be an issue. But since they weren't there to cause trouble, they just let it be as the barbarians watched them from a distance while waiting to hear from their scouts.

It was first when the scouts returned alive and reported that there was not so much as a hint of enemy troops nearby that a few of the barbarians walked up to Zach without a weapon in hand.

"What do you want?" A man with thinning dark hair and a goatee asked as he stopped four steps away from Zach. He shot strange glances at the five maids by his side.

Zach held back a sigh. He had repeated himself several times when he let himself be brought into the camp.

"My name is Zacharia Evandiel. I have come to talk with your chiefs."

"..."

The barbarian who had taken it upon himself to question Zach found himself at a loss. But then his eyes widened, and he grabbed the blade at his hip.

"Did you say Evandiel?" He questioned warily.

"That's right." Zach nodded.

"Why have you come here?" The man drew his scimitar and asked.

Zach sighed.

"...To talk with your chiefs," he answered.

"We won't surrender just because of you." The man tried to sound confident, but there was no denying the effect the Evandiel name had on the barbarians. The Evandiels had repelled the barbarians and kept them and their raids in check for centuries, after all. The Evandiels were living horror stories just to keep naughty children in bed at night and obedient during the day.@@novelbin@@

For one of them to have personally entered their camp, they could only imagine what terrors would befall them. They were not equipped to deal with the Evandiels coming their way.

While the man and the other nearby barbarians were thinking about what to do without revealing any weakness, Zach was also deep in thought.

This was not the reaction Zach had expected.

Hadn't his family given the barbarians entry to the Empire? Hadn't his family turned traitor and joined the barbarians? Why did it seem like the barbarians were still prepared to fight the Evandiels?

Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire

Zach looked at the worried eyes of the man in front of him.

"How did you get into the Empire?" Zach asked.

"That has nothing to do with you."

"How?!" Zach demanded.

If the barbarians didn't know that his family had suddenly disappeared from their post, and the Empire didn't know where they had gone, something unrelated to either side had to have happened.

It could also be that the lesser tribes weren't aware since there was no need to tell them, but Zach didn't think the rumors of the Evandiels turning traitor wouldn't spread like wildfire even if they tried to keep it secret. Even the rats in the Empire knew about the Evandiels giving up their post, after all.

"...The stars paved the way," the man answered with a frown. The post had moved when Zach took a step forward to demand an answer.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Zach questioned.

"That the stars paved the way. Fate led us here. We were just following the Arlecch's words—Hey! I'm the one asking questions here!"

"No, you're not," a young woman interrupted from behind the barbarian with thinning hair. She had a bow slung across her back, and by the looks of it, she had just returned from a hunt. Her leather vest was slightly bloody, and her boots were dirty like she had just run through the forest.

Zach could see hints of a tattoo poking out from under her short sleeve.

"Zacharia Evandiel, was it?" She asked.

Zach nodded.

"The youngest," she said.

Zach nodded again, a little surprised that she knew about him.

"What are you doing here, Zacharia Evandiel?" She asked.

"I came to talk. In peace."

"That doesn't sound very Evandiel-like," she responded, her eyes narrowing skeptically.

"I'm often told I'm not much like the rest of my family."

"Hmm." The woman unslung her bow and handed it to a nearby young barbarian who took it and ran away, scared to be so close to Zach.

"What do you wish to talk about, Zacharia Evandiel?"

Zach didn't need to ask to know that this woman was either in charge or close to being in charge. She didn't look like a tribal chief, but Zach knew he shouldn't judge based on appearances.

He cut to the chase.

"This war. It needs to end."

The woman frowned. She had not expected that to be what Zach wanted to talk about.

"I see why people say you are not like your family. I do not think any other Evandiel would have said such a thing."

"Well, they aren't here right now."

"That's true. Since you asked so nicely, I will ask everyone to put down their weapons and return home. Does that work?"

"..."

"Is that what you expected me to say?" The woman snorted disdainfully.

"You're naive, Youngest Evandiel. The Sesha won't back down at the request of a young boy."

Zach had expected it, but it wouldn't be easy to end this war.

He shook his head.

"It's not my request. It's the request of all the ones who have already fallen. It is the request of those who will fall. This war…It has only meaningless death." Zach couldn't help but think of all the ones who had died on both sides already. And there were no signs of the war ending any time soon.

The heartwrenching cries of sadness he heard from one of the big tents as he was dragged through the camp had only cemented the tragedy of war.

Ugor…Was a power-hungry madman who waged war on the surface for revenge. But there was no denying that the Underworld had been impoverished and needed the surface's resources for his people to survive. In a way, it had been a war for survival.

It wouldn't happened if Ugor negotiated with the surface or sought peaceful methods of resolving his people's problems. All the suffering that had come from that was due to Ugor.

But this war didn't have Ugor at the helm.

There was no power-hungry madman forcing the barbarians to throw their lives away.

There had to be another reason the barbarians were forcing this invasion, and there had to be a solution other than war.