Chapter 281: ???????????? ???????????????? (2)

Chapter 281: Far East (2)

“Ah. Are they slaves?”

The scribes wondered if they were slaves. It had been a long-standing custom to sell those convicted of serious crimes into slavery.

There did seem to be quite a large number of them, but it wasn’t that unusual to see this many slaves gathered at times. Perhaps they had caught some rogues or pirates somewhere.

“No, they’re not slaves, but rather mercenaries convicted of crimes. . . oh well, you might as well think of them as slaves. They’ll be doing similar work anyway.”

Johan permitted them to think of the men as slaves, as explaining further was tiresome to him. In any case, the work would be comparable.

The mercenary captains who had schemed to undermine the Castellan of Vipen out of resentment for not hiring them were captured without chance of escape. They had severely underestimated Johan from the start.

He was the sort of man who could overlook even an assassin targeting him if it didn’t profit him to engage. No one so easily swayed by the impulse to seize a silver mine would rashly take the bait.

Instead of harsh interrogations, Johan elicited confessions from the mercenary captains with only a few questions and some persuasion.

━Wasn’t it Matter who suggested this?

━No!! It was him who suggested it, Your Excellency!!

━Wasn’t it Grezhe who urged this?

━No!! Matter was the one who urged it, Your Excellency!!

━I see, you all jointly took the initiative.

━. . . . . .

Faced with the choice between the gallows or being sold into slavery, none of the mercenary captains dared defiance. They desperately pleaded for the chance to loyally serve with their lives if given the opportunity to volunteer their services.

And so they ended up dragged south like this.

“God from above! We didn’t expect to be hauled off to these beastly southerners’ lair!”

“Watch your mouth, you fool. Can you still see this place as part of the Empire?”

Most of the Empire mercenaries had spent their whole lives in the Empire, so the much more southern peninsula was overwhelmingly unfamiliar.

Moreover, they weren’t brought here for any happy reasons. . .

One captain of a squad of ten, a bit smarter than the rest, cautioned the other mercenaries about their situation which he grasped well.

“Damn it all! Can’t we even complain a little? Don’t you feel dissatisfied too, Captain?”

“Swallow your complaints, idiot. This place isn’t like the Empire. Don’t be surprised if a passing noble has you strung up then and there.”

It might sound somewhat odd to say a noble couldn’t arbitrarily hang people in the Empire, but it wasn’t inaccurate.

Of course, judging by status alone, even the lowliest noble was incomparably more honorable than a mere mercenary. But that didn’t mean nobles could freely take mercenaries’ heads at will.

Laws and conventions in the Empire, as insignificant as they might look, weren’t so easily dismissed by nobles either.

Punishing a mercenary without cause could stir discontent among other mercenaries, offer a later pretext against the noble, and bring about other annoying troubles. Unjustified action was ill-advised.

However, this was not Imperial land, and the native mercenaries were unlikely to band together over wronged outsiders.

Let alone the fact that their commander, the Count, hardly cherished them so dearly either. They would have to be several times more cautious in their conduct here.

“For goodness sake, watch your mouth properly! If you cause trouble, I’m more likely to get a whipping right alongside you!”

“Y-Yes, I understand!”

“. . .Well, at least the weather here isn’t too bad.”

The mercenaries tried hard to look on the bright side to forget they were dragged here against their will. If they overlooked that fact, the fief had quite a few advantages after all.

The climate and scenery weren’t poor, and the exceptionally prosperous port meant they could obtain all kinds of desirable things. Mercenaries lived to squander their hard-earned money on their days off, after all.

“This way! Come this way!”

“Hm?”

“We’re going to cut into this hill and turn it into flat land.”

“F*ck. . .”

Swearing and cursing, the mercenaries picked up their shovels and mattocks. They couldn’t help wishing they were already out on expedition instead. At least they could look forward to war spoils seized from the enemy!

????????????????????????

Like most absent parents, Johan felt a sense of guilt toward Amien.

Iselia, on the other hand, felt no such thing. After all, parent-child relationships in noble families were much drier and colder.

In the first place, it was rare for feudal lords to teach their children directly. If they were knights, they would be sent to another lord’s court, and if they aspired to be theologians or officials, they would be sent to university.

It was no different in their childhood. They were taught and cared for by nannies or tutors, and their parents paid them no heed. In most cases, nobles were too busy to take care of their children one by one.

“Let’s cherish the friends you already have. How is Ardolata doing?”

“Yes. Now, she knows how to summon animals.”

“. . .What? Really?”

Ardolata was the third child of the viscount, whom she had brought as an attendant and made a friend of Amien. She had heard that she had talent in magic, but he could already summon animals.

‘Is she using magic?’

Come to think of it, hunters also knew how to summon animals with their wisdom and experience.

━Growl.

Karamaf, who was behind him, tilted his head as if he felt Johan’s gaze. Johan stroked his fur once and nodded.

“It’s a good thing to have talent. Were there any outstanding young knights among those here?”

“The knights are a bit. . .”

Amien trailed off because Iselia was there, but Johan could more than guess what she was trying to say. Johan nodded.

“I understand.”

“!”

Amien was even more surprised when her adoptive father, a knight among knights, said that.

“It’s not strange to find it difficult to deal with them, is it?”

“Yes. It’s quite possible.”

Johan asked Amien a few more questions about her well-being, listened to her, and cheered her on before coming out.

When he saw Iselia deep in thought beside him, Johan asked her curiously.

“What’s wrong?”

“. . .My dear. Did you think that too? No, right?”

????????????????????????

As soon as he returned to the court, he received greetings from the knights who were training and the merchants at the harbor, and then Johan began to prepare in earnest.

He called in the mercenary captains he knew, hired more mercenaries to prepare for the expedition, prepared to mobilize the slave soldiers he had been raising in his fiefdom, and heard about the situation in the east from the merchants. . .

“Surprisingly. . . it’s going well?”

Johan was honestly surprised by some of the news. It was surprising that the expeditionary forces, which had gathered suddenly and had few knights, were advancing steadily eastward.

And the most surprising thing was the situation in Serderdits’ fiefdom, where a serf rebellion had taken place in the south. As if they were still not satisfied with the rebellion, a group of rogues and mercenaries had set off for the east again, and they were the most enthusiastic of the expeditionary forces that had set out so far.

“It seems that the situation in the east is not as good as we thought. I guess it’s because we have to keep an eye on Vynashchtym and we can’t chase after them one by one.”

“It’s not easy to chase and catch a group of rogues who wander around like a group of bandits without a base.”

The merchants smiled awkwardly at Johan’s expression. No matter how composed of rogues and wandering mercenaries they were, they couldn’t openly ridicule them once they had the goal of going on an expedition to the east.

But the count before them was saying it so calmly and indifferently. . .

“Haven’t there been any pirates around here lately? I heard that they’ve appeared a few times.”

This area was originally a good place for pirates to swarm. There were many merchant ships coming and going, and it was a good location for pirates to hit and run.

After Johan subjugated the hundred kingdoms and swept through the area several times, their numbers had decreased, but rogue groups were like mold, and they were bound to reappear after some time.

“Of course, they haven’t been seen recently.”

“?”

“Your Excellency, you are leading your army here. What crazy pirate would dare to hang around? No one would do that unless they were crazy.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

The news would have spread quickly, so any pirate with a sense of self-preservation wouldn’t come near for a while. The problem was not looting, but the fact that their base could be burned down first as an example.

“Your Excellency. I heard that a ship from the order is coming to the harbor.”

“From the order?”

Johan prepared to go and meet them himself. It wasn’t necessary, but people tended to be impressed by such trivial things. It was a good deal to move a few steps and hear some praise.

However, as Johan was about to go down the hill to the harbor, he narrowed his eyes. There was not only the order’s ship, but also other ships behind it. It seemed as if they were chasing the order’s ship.

“. . .What are those crazy b*stards doing?”

“I-I’m sorry. The people at the harbor will take care of it soon!”