23 Working As a Merc... Again

The next town after Portsmouth was a small town in a rural region of the Soulisphate kingdom, a town called Hopeville. A relatively flat grassland and an agricultural town were connecting between the Portsmouth and the inner zone of the Soulisphate kingdom. Some soldiers of Lance's may say that this town was one of the green zones, a safe place to be.

"Lance, did you know about the inner struggle of the kingdom?" the merchant who was sitting on the carriage asked me.

Lance nodded at his back, "Honestly sir, I don't know much about it. I'm just a mercenary working for the money and the glory. Why do you ask?" Lance asked politely.

"No, just want to share the kingdom's inner struggle to a young man like you," The old merchant explained to him.

"Sure, sir, you can go ahead," Lance said.

"The Soulisphate kingdom has five major powers. The Harrison family which govern the southern region of the kingdom, the Sharrington family which govern the west region of the kingdom, the Glas and Thompson family on the east, the Barnes family on the northern region and last but not least, the king itself on the central region of the kingdom.

Though the governmental structure is like that, the king still holds the highest order. The other family rank is a duke except for the Glas family, which is a count. Each of the families tried to expand their territories, hardy it ever ended in a small-scale conflict between the nobility.

The recent conflict was a conflict between the Glas and the Sharrington family. The war between them was in Sharrington's favor until suddenly, the whole Sharrington family got assassinated out of nowhere. The Glas family took over the whole east region as its own territory.

The king has always been the middle-man for a small scale conflict, but the scale of this one was so big that the king's interference was too late. The king can't find the assassin, so the Glas family was not guilty; to be exact, there is no evidence. The power struggle has died down lately, though, but still, the next crown has not been decided yet. It could spark something, but I don't know," The merchant rambled to him.

Lance listened to him and asked him a fundamental question about his army view in the citizen, "Sir, How about the green man that suddenly appears in the Portsmouth? Who are they?"

"The green man? Man, I don't want to mess with any of them. That green man that suddenly appears out of nowhere with witchcraft that nobody could ever imagine, I mean who in the right mind can blow up the duke's manor in one strike. That green man can conquer the Portsmouth in less than one day, hell, even the Glas family took about a month to take over the region," The merchant said.

"What do you mean? They seem to be harmless," Lance tried to make a joke.

"Harmless? They have a demon that can summon an explosion farther than your eyes can see. They have dragons as fast as hell. Overall, not a force that you want to mess with," The merchant said.

The road between the town was paved, so the ride was relatively smooth. Well, smooth enough until the tax collector arrived. The tax collector of the Soulisphate kingdom, the soldier, was guarded by two knights in a horse and four mages behind him. They all were wearing the same red uniform as the one that Lance found on the fort back in the day, albeit the rank of the soldier was way lower than that admiral.

"Good evening, from the Portsmouth region? Pay three gold coins in advance," The collector said.

"Holy moly, that's a robbery," Lance said.

"Every merchant and traffic coming to the Portsmouth must pay tax according to the king," The tax collector said as the merchant gave them the coins.

"Duh, ok," Lance said as he whipped the horse again.

'3 gold coins? No wonder why the PCI and the number of traders are way too low, the tax is absurd,' Lance thought to himself. The merchant looked pissed off too.

"That tax collector is a robber," The merchant and Hamid said as the horse got far away from the tax collector.

"I see why commodities from outside the Portsmouth are fucking expensive. The tax is just absurd, without that green man, they won't survive," Hamid said.

After some hours of riding, they finally arrived at the Hopeville. Calling it a town was an overstatement. It was a rural village, in fact. Sure, there was a market and things like a tavern, but it was a rural village with a lack of guard.

"Lance, thanks for the help, eh, oh, here is the reward, split it with Hamid ok. He is a good guy," The merchant said as he gave Lance two gold coins.

"Ok, good luck, old-timer," Lance said as he got out of that carriage and approached Hamid.

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Hamid leaned his back at someone else house wall while smoking. Lance have him all of the gold coins and asked for his payment. Hamid gave him his payment, which was some silver coin, "All of my debts settled then, I will take a journey to the capital. Care to join?" He asked as he walked to a horse rental.

"Nah, see you, Hamid," Lance said as Hamid whipped his horse.

The waved each other hands as Lance grabbed his HT and called for air extraction.

"Requesting airlift on sector Hotel Romeo One," Lance said to his handie talkie.

As soon as he called that, an MH-60M Blackhawk helicopter flew around the Hopeville. However, that was the general's personal helicopter, so the one aboard should be either Melody, Natalya, Lochlan, or Dima. Well, the one aboard was the most Russian face that you could see there; Dima.

Lance shot his Flare gun, and the helicopter landed near him. The passenger opened the door for him, "Where is your uniform soldier?" Dima said as he handed down Lance's personal uniform, an M81 Woodland uniform.

"Thanks, but where should I change?" Lance asked him.

"Well, the public bathroom seems to be a good choice," Dima said as the helicopter blades stopped spinning, and he threw a towel and a bar of soap.

Lance ran to the public bathroom and took a quick breeze of shower. He returned barefooted with the shoes on his hands. Dima gave him his combat boots and socks. He cleaned his foot with the dirty clothes and wore the boots.

"Dima, where are we going to do today?" Lance asked Dima while wearing his straps and his helicopter helmet

"We going to hunt for the best shaslik meat. Otherwise known as the biggest ox that you can find. I took the quest from the guild," Dima said to him as the helicopter blades started to spin again, and the helicopter lifted off from the ground. Lance sat on the door of the helicopter while holding an M240B at his hands.

The helicopter lifted off from the ground as they spoke, and Lance was wondering, 'What kind of hunting quest is this?' A hunting quest that requires an MH-60 should be weird.

"Dima, how many coins we got from this?" Lance asked Dima, who was sitting on the M134 minigun turret.

"How much? Six gold coins and the meat itself. Comrade, we are going to have a shaslik party at Portsmouth," Dima said wildly.

"Six gold coins? How many we have to hunt?" Lance asked.

"50 of them comrade, meat supply for the whole year," Dima replied.

"No shit? Did you bring any backup?" Lance asked him as he waved his feet on the helicopter. He put the M240B on his thigh while the helicopter was being followed from the back.

"Backup? Are that Chinook and the 6x6 transport truck counts?" Dima said as he pointed his hands at the heavy-lift chopper and the two 6x6 heavy trucks on the road.

"Well, then Dima," A group of oxen was surrounding the grassland while eating the grass peacefully, "Happy hunting," Lance choked the handle of the M240B and started to blast the ox right in the head.

"General, it won't be fun without some music, right?" The pilot suddenly said as the speaker of the helicopter started to play "Long tall sally" on the background.

"Oh yeah," Lance said as the 7.62 NATO rained down to the oxen. The view from Lance's point of view was a view of a soldier having fun by slaughtering the annoying oxen from the helicopter with a truly staggering amount of FREEDOM. The soldiers got out of the 6x6 truck and started to stab the ox in the neck with their combat knife and started to butcher them.

From the perspective of the Hopeville village, though, it was different. A bunch of barbaric green men playing loud music god knows how loud it is, slaughtering the pest called ox on their backdoor. The green man's hand was full of blood from the ox.

"Ten ox down, forty more to go," Dima said as he pushed the trigger of the M134 minigun, and 7.62 rounds of freedom rained down from the MH-60 helicopter. The dead remnants of the ox were skinned and put to the truck. The skin is going to be sold in the Portsmouth. The meat is going to be cooked at the public kitchen,

"All of the oxen have been killed," Lance said to Dima, who was having too much fun wasting all of the ammunition inside the helicopter.

"Roger that Comrade, hey pilot. RTB, the privates sometimes don't know how to cook," Dima said as the helicopter turned away from the Hopeville and entered the Portsmouth airspace.