Swordmeister of Rome

Long ago, long before even anyone could remember...

The human race had been getting weaker by the days because of the lessening of the commoners, but the nobles, or the representation of the might of the humans, still stood strong.

The Lorvall family insisted that they must preserve the commoner group to ensure the survival of the human race, but the insolent nobles did not care to heed the warning.

<What are they so worried about?>

<There is no race that is stronger than us humans.>

<They are getting scared because they will surpass the limit now.>

The ones in the forbidden lands were scary, but it didn't matter as long as they avoided going there in the first place. The only other race that might pose a threat was eradicated by a joint noble force.

Therefore, no nobles cared to listen to the Lorvall family's warning, nor did they care about the Alphas either. Even if an Alpha appeared, a monster at the basic level of a Baron was not much of a threat by itself. That was when the accident happened.

The Alpha born from two monster races of the eastern continent was the culprit.

A race that lived at the eastern end of the peninsula, beasts called <Murakans>.

Another race that also lived in the east, at the southern coast peninsula were the parasitic <Swarms>.

These two races almost had no Alphas in their ranks and they were pushed out to the eastern corner by the other races. However, they had two distinct traits.

<Murakan> Beasts that ate everything. They were just called beasts because they had the ability to morph. They absorbed the shape and power of the prey they consumed. The traits made them seem strong, but the nobles made this comment: "Pointless."

Even if they consumed and changed with the shape and power, it wasn't any good if they could not become nobles. If they were strong, they were merely considered as pets. There were some nobles who captured Murakans and kept them as pets. They fed them whatever the nobles wanted them to morph into.

And <Swarm>, these shared similar traits to the Murakan, but they were different. They were very small, silvery insects that crawled the land with a group of thousands, or millions, like a silvery slime. The group consumed everything in its path and anything that was attacked reached a slime-like state as everything would be covered by millions of those insects.

Their way of becoming powerful was also simple. They used the host that they consumed to live inside them. They absorbed the knowledge and power of the prey they consumed and sent it to their queen. This made the host become one with the swarm, sharing all the knowledge that the swarm had. But made this comment: "Still just dirty mud."

They could not consume or invade the bodies of nobles and even the race that the Swarms took as a host did not become strong enough. They were not even considered as pets.

That was when Alphas were born from these races.

Both Alphas did one thing.

<Eat me.>

Murakans jumped in and ate their own kind, while Swarms took the Alpha as their queen. That was when the change began. After that, the race that consumed the Alpha became another Alpha. This happened to both the Murakans and Swarms.

After becoming an Alpha, the Murkans had other Murakans to eat them. This continued on and on until all Murakans became Alphas.

It was even faster for the Swarms because as soon as Alpha became their queen, it shared its knowledge and secrets of becoming an Alpha, paving the way for the rest to easily become Alphas.

This allowed Murakan and Swarm reach a Rotan level race at an incredible rate and they began advancing out around the continent. Murakans to the west, and Swarms to the south.

The humans were in their way.

All nobles, including up to Marquis rank, panicked. Their individual power did not match that of Duke or Marquis, but there were too many of them. The reason why nobles could not win against higher-ranking nobles was because these nobles did not think of joining forces to fight against a greater power. Moreover, there was no reason to.

But there were just too many Swarms and Murakans. This was also reason why Apental was a forbidden place. The monsters in there were also Rotan level monsters, but their number was just too much.

As humans started getting consumed, Swarms and Murakans began increasing in size even faster.

And when almost the entire continent was being consumed, the Lorvall family stepped out.

<What did I tell you guys?>

The Duke showed off his might without hesitation and began pushing back at the Murakans and Swarms. The other nobles were shocked to witness the sheer power of the one who had hit the limit.

Nonetheless, it was still a hard fight. The Duke and other nobles barely pushed back the Murakans and Swarms into their peninsula and Duke transferred them into his home via the entrance and sealed them in.

That was when he added another suggestion to the suggestion he had been offering for a long time.

<Learn this and spread it among all of us.>

<What is this?>

<It's a magic that will make us strong. Akrata>.

The rest was history. Nobles that realized Alpha and a race with certain traits could be a real threat. Thus, they began using Akrata and Ciculus Trees to increase their power.

When they figured there was potential danger around their surroundings, they wiped it out. They wanted to wipe out Narijas too, but that would make commoners stop offering to transfer their Akra.

Nobles wanted to have commoners as slaves, but after watching Duke's power, they dared not oppose the law set by them. But they then realized it was better this way because commoners trained harder to try to become nobles, and it made them able to send more Akra.

"I see."

"Yes. The Graans don't have such dangerous traits, so that's why they were left alone. But to see the number of Alphas increase in that short amount of time…"

Their race was not like Swarm and had no way to increase the number of Alphas like that. It only had been a month since their routine scouting. If Raul was correct, these were not Narijas anymore. They were now Rotans.

"Dammit… what is up with them?" Raul spat.

"We must send a message to the other estates."

This problem was not something to be handled by Viscount's estate alone. They needed to send warnings to other nearby estates and join forces to crush them.

"Kagera. How many twins do we have?"

"We have all the twins to send messages to the three Viscount estates and two Baron estates."

"Tell them to send the message."

"Understood."

Twins born here were born with <Communication> magic. This magic allowed twins to share their thoughts no matter how far they were. This allowed nobles to keep the twins to use them as messengers. It meant that they were separating the twins, but the nobles did not care about such things.

"Other Barons, go with Baron Raul to check their position and see which way they are heading."

"Huh…? Me?"

Baron Raul seemed to be shocked that he'd been asked to do that.

"Yes, you. It's your land and you don't have a Ciculus there."

Locke spoke as he glared at Raul. There was no way to refuse.

'Dammit. This is why I don't want to deal with the higher ranks.'

Raul was dragged out. As the other Barons walked out, Locke looked and Stiel and Sian and spoke. If they were leaving, there was no way to stop them as Stiel was a Count.

"You should leave if you will. This is our duty. If you travel to a Count's estate, you might find information about Duke Conrad there. I would use the twins to ask, but I don't have any twins that have a connection with Levadan."

Sian nodded.

"Okay. Uh, then…"

"Yes?"

"Do you have a map?"

Locke seemed to be confused and asked Sian.

"What do you mean? Aren't you a noble? You trace the direction of Ciculus by Akra."

"…?"

"Oh… wait. You do not have Akra."

Locke then realized what was the issue and laughed.

"Do all nobles find their way by using Akra?"

"Yes. We sense the Akra Resonance coming from Ciculus to find our ways. It's not possible for commoners to do that though."

"Then the map…"

"Why would there be one if you don't need it?"

"…"

"If you are to go to Levadan Estate, you must go to Viscount Cokul's Ciculus and find Levadan's Ciculus afterward. I can't help you at the moment though. How are you going to go?"

They were at the brink of being attacked, so it wasn't possible to ask him to be their guide. Sian scratched his head at the complicated situation.