Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

Chapter 143 - Slavian Problem

"Okay, the night is coming. Let's set a camp here," Layn announced when the sun neared the line of the horizon. 

Time was the only factor for setting up camp on the insanely vast steppe, given how the landscape was exactly the same for miles in every direction. 

"Sure," Sitra nodded her head before sending a look to the two other men she decided to bring along. "What are you doing? Chop, chop, it's not a fucking holiday for you two!" she screamed at her subordinates while jumping off the horse herself. 

"There is no need to be so strict with them," Layn sighed, both annoyed and amused by the strict behavior of the girl. Even though he never directly belonged to the military, he had his own fair share of time spent in the military camps. As such, it wasn't the first nor the second time for him to encounter this kind of attitude. 

"Sir Layn, I'm eternally grateful for your help and sacrifice on the battlefield..." Sitra looked away for a moment before making up her mind and looking Layn directly in the eyes, "but I would really appreciate if you didn't tell me how I should treat my underlings," she insisted, clearly unhappy with Layn's interference. 

"Okay, okay," Layn raised his hands in the gesture of defeat, yet he was unable to take down the smile from his face. "There is no need to think too much about it. It was just a suggestion," he excused himself before taking one of the sacks off the saddle off his horse. 

The stuff that everyone took with themselves was the greatest proof that Castor's people were more than used to traveling through this kind of terrain. Without any wood to use as the erecting pole of the tent, they used a clever trick of the set of interlocking wooden pieces that one could combine into a long pole. 

Turning the bag and its content into a temporary lodging only took Layn a few minutes. Yet, he still fell short of how quickly the remaining trio managed to do it. 

'That's the difference of experience,' he thought before dropping the idea of comparing how well each of them managed to set their tents when compared to his own work. "You guys would really be of great use back at my place," Layn muttered instead.

"Your place?" Sitra pricked her ears before asking. "You mean that camp we are heading off to check?" she specified her inquiry. 

"Yeah," Layn nodded before putting a sour smile on his face. "I only have a few people there, so the work is going insanely slowly. To top it all off, we are not really used to living in a place like this," Layn revealed without reservation, acknowledging the limits to his own knowledge on the go. 

"Well, aren't you worried that if that place is really free from the Overlord's influence, you will be swarmed by my people?" Sitra asked a rational question before turning her lips into a wry smile. "You know, Castor's idea is to migrate the entire population of our country there," she added before looking away, clearly troubled by those words. 

"To be fair, no, I'm not," Layn shook his arms. "This place is one, a big, empty shithole. From all I saw, there isn't even a single tree to speak anywhere near, so it won't be that easy to settle in the first place," he explained as he sat down and started to pull out the grass with his bare hands. 

"Do you really think a lack of wood would stop us?" Sitra grinned before laughing out loud. "I don't really think you understand the situation my people are in." It wasn't her face alone, but the entire aura of the girl changed.

"That's true. And it won't change," Layn looked up at the girl's eyes, stopping his hands from gathering the fuel for the fire, "unless you tell me more."

"This is a long story," Sitra averted her eyes, clearly troubled by request. 

"We have all the time in the world," Layn countered, unwilling to let go of this lead. 

'I know for sure that some of their people came to the world of mine,' he thought, turning his attention back to gathering the grass. 'And I won't give up on this topic unless I figure out how they did it.' 

For Layn, Slavians were just a myth. That is, until a few days ago where he actually met them. What's more, their ability to use magic he didn't know off was proof that they really had the means to do the incredible stuff the myths attributed to them. 

There was the problem of the timeline, of course. Without any idea how far he moved to the past with that Gran Arcana of his, Layn could only pick at the straws, hoping that a random guess of his would somehow stick and make sense. 

But the fact that something was unlikely to happen didn't mean it wasn't worth trying.

"You see, my country was both blessed and cursed at the same time," Sitra finally defeated her own reservations and started to speak. Knowing perfectly well that this wasn't going to be a short anecdote, she sat down by her tent and pulled out her dagger.

Then, she drew what looked like a greatly uneven circle. 

"This is how my country looks like. But while the shape doesn't matter much, there is one thing that the entire place lacks," she said before looking up and gazing straight into Layn's eyes. "It's a massive, fertile plain."

For a moment, neither of the two said a word. During this moment, only the sound of the two other soldiers doing something on their own could be heard. 

"Is this the blessing and curse that you mentioned before?" Layn asked to clarify.

"Yes. A blessing because we are one of the few nations that never lacked any food. Thanks to how fertile our lands are, we made an insane profit by selling that food out to the rest of the world," Sitra explained. While she was speaking, a small smile appeared on her lips, as if she enjoyed talked about the great days of her country's past. 

"But as a curse, your lands lack any natural borders," Layn guessed out the rest of the story. Once his words left his mouth, he looked up at the girl to seek confirmation of his idea. 

"Exactly," Sitra's smile soured as she pointed out her knife to the left side of the picture carved out in the ground. "To the west, we have Germanian lands. While we used to have friendly relations in the past, ever since they managed to unite their scattered princedoms, their ambitions of expansion put us at odds. They are also the ones you indiscriminately slaughtered," Sitra explained before taking a glance at Layn's face. 

Yet, for the archmage, there was absolutely no problem talking about the massacres of his doing. He experienced bloodshed as soon as he left the academy. To a degree, joining the hero's party was the point that marked the end of his warmongering adventures, splattered with more blood than most of the soldiers across the world could imagine. 

As such, he grew insensitive to any remarks of his bloody exploits long ago. 

"Wait," Layn suddenly interrupted the girl. "The great steppe we are on right now is to the south, right?" he asked as he pointed his finger at the bottom part of the girl's picture. 

"Yeah, what about it?" Sitra quickly responded, proving that it wasn't the kind of knowledge she would feel uncomfortable with sharing. 

"If those guys are to the west and we are in the south, then how come they attacked us in the steppe?" Layn asked, genuinely puzzled by the apparent lapse in the logic. "Wouldn't it be easier for them to just attack your border directly?" he explained his question in order for it to be more precise. 

"You are both right and wrong," Sitra smiled, clearly happy that such a question was posed. "But I believe you should be able to answer it yourself. Tell me, when you saw the first clash between Castor's unit and the Germanian's cavalry, did anything struck you?" 

'No, no arrow or bullet made it anywhere close to me,' Layn answered in his thoughts, but he kept his lips pursed. The way in which Sitra asked the question, it was obvious she didn't mean any sort of projectiles. 

"Well, as a unit, they were quite effective? Organized better than I would expect from just a random group of horsemen," Layn spoke up after a long period of analyzing his memories. 

"Better than a random... No, nevermind," Sitra initially had to swallow a lot of air to say her words the way she did. Still, she deflated before her voice could turn into an exasperated shout. "You see, our cavalry is considered to be the best in the world, no questions asked," Sitra proudly announced before her expression soured for the nth time in the day. "And while we can still pounce on anyone that will as much as attempt to invade near our logistical centers. But when it comes to this barren steppe..." she allowed her sentence to hang in the air.

"You simply don't have the men or resources to keep a serious military presence to the south, right?" Layn finished Sitra's explanations for her before shaking his head. "But doesn't that mean you won't be able to protect your new border even if you migrate to the south?"