The Villainess That Was Once A VRMMO player-Chapter 72.1

The Siege of the Daemon City (1)

The rebel Flare Mercury Prata was captured by the First Order, the Court Mages, and volunteer collaborators.

In capturing Flare, 20% of the Royal Capital was burned down in the battle between Flare and a volunteer collaborator: the Beloved Child of the Spirits, Alice. The First and Second Knights suffered more than 200 casualties; nearly 300 soldiers were killed or wounded, and dozens of civilians were killed or wounded, leaving thousands of citizens homeless.

Of the 50 members of the Third Order who cooperated with Flare, 32, including the Knight Captain, were beheaded or killed on the spot; dozens of nobles and soldiers who were followers of Flare were also killed, a dozen nobles were captured, and the rest fled.

Flare, the main culprit, could not be killed on the spot, and the court magicians placed her under strict Spirit seal and imprisoned her in a special dungeon for serious criminals.

The damage caused by this incident exceeded 50,000 large gold coins, but the Duke of Prata refused to pay for the damage, claiming that they had cut ties with Flare before the incident, and the royal family also refused to pay for the damage because the King lost his assets before that, and they lost over a thousand knights and soldiers in the case with a hypothetical Demon Lord a few months ago. The reconstruction of the city was put on hold, and a large number of refugees were created.

The royal family couldn’t afford to compensate the noble families who had offered their houses in exchange for the capture of Flare, so they agreed to cut the next tax from those noble families in half. However, this made the royal family’s cash flow even more difficult, so they issued a decree to pay more taxes to noble families other than the Royal Capital. The nobles other than those living in the Royal Capital were mysteriously taxed.

Noble domains other than the Royal Capital experienced a mysterious reduction in crops by half due to a decrease in spirits.

The tax rate had risen to compensate for the King’s assets, and now the commoners of the territories, who not only had to pay more taxes but also had to accept refugees from the Royal Capital, became highly distrustful and dissatisfied towards the Royal Family and the nobles.

The same distrust was felt by the lower-class nobles who had been in contact with the commoners, and they began to informally contact Camille, the king’s brother, to see if there was any way to get a better deal before the next payment of taxes.

This was not lost on senior nobles such as the Prime Minister, the Marquis de Cadeau, and the Duke of Prata.

However, cutting them all off would further reduce tax revenues.

Since the situation had grown to this level, public execution of Flare, the main culprit, was not enough to resolve the people’s discontent. So, after repeated consultations, they advised the King to divert the discontent elsewhere, and a few days later, a decree was issued in the King’s name.

[The destruction of the Royal Capital is a conspiracy of the Daemons. Many innocent knights and soldiers lost their lives protecting the people, and many citizens lost their homes and families in this matter as well.]

The daemons were sneaky, targeting crops and wells, and trying to create discord among the humans, who ruled this great world. Humans will not be defeated by the daemons.

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We will march on the Daemons’ stronghold to defeat the Daemons’ leader!

The force consisted of approximately 3,000 knights and soldiers recruited from the noble families of the Royal Capital, mainly from the First Order. 𝒃𝙚𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍．𝙘𝒐𝙢

Although there were still some forces left in the local noble families, they could not be used because of their distrust, and this was almost all the remaining forces of the Royal Capital, which already had a minimum of protection.

This was the same level of strength as the previous invasion of the Demon Forest, and last time they were defeated by a single Demon Lord with that force, but this time they had countermeasures [against the Demon Lord] in place.

To restore the royal family’s trust, a member of the royal family with Spirit as a guardian was to accompany them as a “countermeasure” against the Demon Lord.