Dominic blinked and looked around the battlefield, a fog slowly lifting from his mind.

There were no more Dagos soldiers, and the portal had closed, leaving him nothing to fight.

He was covered in blood, the fingers of one hand were burning from the heat given off by his mana revolver, and the fingers of the other were raw from throwing rough surfaced mortars.

The number of bodies said that it must have been a glorious battle, but his only memories of it were vague.

His claws were out, and he could feel his fangs extended. Not a good sign, but nobody was standing near him, so he could hope that nobody noticed he went a little feral during the battle.

That was the exact opposite of the truth. Everyone had noticed that he went a bit feral during the battle. He had even killed the soldiers who tried to surrender if they couldn’t get to another Cygnia unit fast enough.

"Feeling better?" Alexis asked, as Dominic straightened his clothes and tried to retract his fangs.

"Much, thank you." He replied with a slight lisp as his fangs slowly returned to normal size.

"A hundred riflemen nearly wasn’t enough today. We’re going to have to work on equipping the forces stationed at Wistover, in case Dagos attacks us directly." Alexis informed him.

Dominic sighed. "You have a point. I see a lot of bullet holes in the dead, but not nearly as many as I would expect. We had to send too many men into close combat, when it would be safer to fight from a distance."

"It’s a never-ending cycle. Just wait until you’ve been at it for a decade and soldiers start to retire, so you have to keep training new ones to replace them every year." Colonel Wilkes joked.

Dominic smirked at him. "At least I won’t have to make them new rifles, I can just give them the ones that the retirees don’t need anymore."

The Colonel smiled behind his visor. That also wasn’t true. A decade of hard use was about all that even the best rifles could hope for. So, most of the weapons would be decommissioned along with the soldiers using them.

Whether they got to keep them or not was a different matter, but after that long in service, even a full rebuild might not be enough to save the weapons.

Not if they kept up the pace they were firing them at these days.

"Do we have any prisoners who can give us information on the False Prince’s actions?" Dominic asked as he surveyed the damage.

"Indeed, Your Grace. The officers managed to save a few of them from your wrath, and they seem most eager to answer questions about the situation within Dagos." One of the Royal Guards replied.

"Well, that is quite kindly of them. Were they informed that we’re not adverse to them resisting?"

The Royal Guard laughed, while many of the surrounding officers shook their heads in dismay.

"Yes, My Lord. They are well aware. I believe that your enthusiasm for them to resist might have been a significant factor in their decision not to."

Dominic shrugged, and Alexis smacked him on the back of the head. "They’re already cooperating, you don’t need to terrify them any more than they already are.

But we need to get back to town so that we can relay this information to the appropriate people. If Kaizon is sending troops to open portals on our territory, we are going to have to start taking aggressive action to stop him."

The portals back to town were still open, and Dominic led the way, allowing the troops to take care of battlefield cleanup, evidence collection and the distribution of monster cores.

He knew that very few of those would belong to him this time, as he had been targeting Dagos soldiers, while most of the army was fighting a Goblin horde and their Hobgoblin leaders.

He wasn’t short on money, there was no need to be greedy.

The Generals assigned to the military units waiting around Wistover all rushed to see him the moment that Dominic exited the portal, so he motioned for them to wait while the rest arrived.

"I will tell you all that I know, but I showed up late as well." Dominic began.

"What we know is that the hunting team led by Princess Alexis encountered a group of monsters using wounded refugees as bait. The team engaged, and multiple mages revealed themselves from the refugee position.

Those mages opened portals to bring through a horde of Goblins and Hobgoblins.

That was when the flare was sent up, and when I arrived.

After some time, the situation began to turn in our favour, but new portals were opened, revealing more Goblins, as well as a detachment of Dagos army soldiers working in league with the monsters.

Those soldiers identified themselves as loyal to Prince Kaizon, who claims the throne of Dagos.

Prisoners were taken after our victory, but interrogation is ongoing.

I don’t know of any casualties among the higher ranks, but medical treatment and casualty counts are ongoing." He finished once the Generals were present.

"So, the Dagos Army dared to send soldiers here? Despite the treaties?" One of the Generals asked.

"I don’t believe that they were Dagos Army regulars. It seems more likely that they were rebels, part of the group seeking to overthrow the rightful King.

But the interrogations are ongoing."

The officers nodded in understanding. Dominic wasn’t going to make a positive statement until they were absolutely certain of the situation, and that it wasn’t some sort of setup to try to turn them against one side or the other.

Many forces had an interest in seeing Dagos either become stable again or collapse entirely, and none of them wanted to be the scapegoat that made it possible.

"What is delaying the rest of the team?" One of the Generals asked.

"Battlefield cleanup, of course. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Goblin Cores to collect, and possible refugees to treat, before they start to return.

We can’t be asking them to leave empty-handed, after all."

The Cores would naturally belong to military command, as they were obtained during a miliary deployment. But with three nations worth of soldiers, it didn’t take long to realize that could be an issue all by itself.