Transmigrated as a Ghost

With his newly gained information that the Marauders were not actually a band of criminals but soldiers from another continent, Marcus needed some time to carefully contemplate his next move.

‘This is bigger than I was expecting. To think they would be doing covert sabotage in the kingdom, lured in by are already weakened state from the recent demon attack and the appearance of the Doomsday worm. I really do not want to fight in another war if I can help it.’

Wanting to nip this problem in the bud Marcus pulled out his sending stone and directly contacted Deputy King Kalt

He knew that Borealia was already having plenty of trouble from what had happened recently and was sure they would want to know about this plot as soon as possible.

“Marcus, what is it this time?” Kalt said with a sigh.

It seemed that Marcus had only ever called with bad news enough times that at this point the leadership of the kingdom was dreading to hear from him.

“Sorry, but it as you except. I have uncovered something detrimental to the kingdom.”

Quickly Marcus explained to Kalt what he knew about the situation and for how long it had been going on.

“This is just great. We did not need this right now.” Kalt said with an exhausted tone.

For around a minute Marcus did not hear anything else from the other side, but when he did it was not the voice he had been expecting.

“Marcus, Kalt told me there was an emergency that I need to here about. Would you mind catching me up quickly?” The king said.

Apparently, he had called Kalt int eh middle of his daily meeting together with the king, and now he was going to be explaining to both of them what was going on.

“So that is the gist of it I got out of one of their soldiers. Is there anything you want me to do about this situation?”

A few moments of silence passed after Marcus asked this, before Kalt and the king gave him their instructions.

“Marcus, we would once again be very grateful if you could deal with this issue. I am sure you know that after all that has happened that the kingdom is very shaken up and another large incident could cause uncontrollable turmoil. If you can deal with this as quietly as possible, that would be for the best.” The king said.

“Sure, I was already planning on wiping them out when I thought they were just common criminals, so it does not change what I was going to do. Though I guess I should ask first if you want me to try capturing some of them instead of just killing them all?”

“Yes, if you can do it safely that could be an immense help. But do not go out of your way to do so. If you have to kill them all that is perfectly fine. And once again, on the behalf of all of Borealia, I thank you.”

With his correspondence with the king and the deputy king now over, Marcus put away his sending stone and called back Roxene and Inten who he was letting hunt around the area.

‘Time to get to work.’ Marcus thought once his two beast companions were back in his storage.

Now that he did not have to worry about any onlookers watching, he quickly went into his ghost form an easily flew through the area of the dungeon he was in.

Within just around thirty minutes he blasted through four areas to arrive at the one where the Marauders had set up their main base.

It was an extreme biome of large pillars of stone that jutted up towards the ceiling with shriveled grassland running in between them.

All in all, this was definitely what would be considered a dangerous area for any normal person to come through, as sightlines on the ground were not great with all of the pillars being fairly close together.

‘There are quite a few beasts and monsters that are adept at stealth in this area with plenty that can climb and fly using the pillars to ambush anything moving on the ground below.’ Marcus observed.

Though there was one species of beast he found that showed no signs of caring about staying hidden.

It was a massive warthog with thick shining silver armor plating all over its tank sized body.

From the air Marcus had seen a couple of them roaming the area, with one being level thirty-six and the other being level thirty-nine.

Certainly, they were no threat to him, but the average person could easily be skewered by their large tusks or trampled underfoot.

‘I can see why they had trouble getting rid of them if they set up in this area. Even the shortest route has you going through two other areas. And once here and exhausted you would have to navigate this unforgiving terrain and assault a place that gives them the complete advantage.’

Going through the area Marcus searched from above for the Marauder’s base and found it soon enough.

It was actually carved into six pillars grouped very closely together and were connected by bridges made from earth magic.

The way they had set it up was also more like a military fortress than what a normal bandit’s base would be like, making it even more difficult to assault.

‘I doubt that anyone who cannot fly would even have a chance of successfully attacking this place. It is up over three hundred feet in the air with the only way up to climb a sheer cliff or try and use one of the lifts they have installed. Though it would be a miracle to make it up before they simply cut the line.’

Going around Marcus analyzed the defenses of the Marauder’s base and found that they had regular sentries patrolling the area and a lookout atop each of the pillars giving them a pretty good view of the entire area.

Along with that he even found that they had some military grade mana cannons that were positioned near openings in the base and were ready to be used at any moment.

Still, even with all this security they had one flaw, and that was anyone who could fly and turn invisible.

Of course, the number of individuals that could do that were quite limited, but unfortunately for them, Marcus excelled at both of these aspects and went even further by being intangible as well.

‘Now where do I start? I have already scouted the outer area of the base, but if I am unlucky their higher ups or leaders might notice me. I could also just try to raze the area to the ground, but I would like to capture a few of them, and it is possible some of the stronger ones could survive and indiscriminate bombardment.’

Going over his options for a bit Marcus decided that his safest course of action would be to possess one of the patrolling guards and use their body to scout out the entire base.

This way on the very slight chance one of them could detect him even in his ghost form, he would still be fine.