Chapter 218: The Occupier They Begged to Stay
We seized all the spoils from the Saxon and Scottish mercenaries. They had packed light, grabbing only compact, high-value items for an easy escape, but the haul turned out to be worth more than expected.
The Essenbach dragoons claimed the largest share and proudly walked away with half the spoils. They were the ones who fought, so I honored the agreement and let them take half. The rest was split evenly among everyone else.
About 20 gold coins’ worth, was it?
They’d scraped together more than I thought.
[Gale Knight V Quest Complete]
[5,000 points, 5 gold coins awarded]
[Training 200% Boost Scroll (one week) awarded]
Quest complete. Every quest so far had been a nightmare, so I wished more easy ones like this would pop up. I still had several unresolved quests lingering.
The Prosperity quest, in particular, was a dead end.
My Prosperity had been at 220, but the Battle of Feuzen knocked it down to 120. I had no idea when I’d ever hit 500. Prosperity was supposed to rise naturally as long as there were no wars or natural disasters.
Feuzen just kept getting dragged into incidents. Or was it a side effect of me running around too much? Anyway, I decided to rest in Leben until the rain stopped.
The Saxon and Scottish mercenaries were driven out.
The Essenbach dragoons had won the negotiations.
Leaving those bastards alone meant they might raid other villages like common bandits, but between losing their spoils and being unable to pay their ransoms, we’d stripped them of all their arms and equipment, so they wouldn’t pose much of a threat.
You could say the Essenbach dragoons squeezed them dry, ruthlessly citing every clause in every treaty they could think of. If those mercenaries hadn’t committed war crimes, we wouldn’t have taken everything from them, but they’d crossed the line.
At last, peace returned to Leben.
Then a representative of the survivors requested an audience.
"Thank you for saving our village, my lord!"
"Why would you thank an enemy army? Leben should be under occupation right now."
"Even so, you took pity on our village and returned the food that had been plundered, did you not?"
All we’d done was dump the bulky cargo, but technically, yes, we did return it. Still, being too generous to the people of an occupied territory could breed resentment among my own troops, so I’d made it look like we were just discarding what we didn’t need.
I’d barely managed to stop the greedy ones from hoarding even that, or the survivors of Leben would have starved to death. I persuaded them by saying we could grab more spoils in Ladwig anyway.
Since I’d banned all war crimes, the cavalrymen were resting quietly in Leben’s intact houses. The townspeople were probably huddled in barns and stables, shivering, waiting for us to leave.
It was only because we’d let them have the spoils that they were following my orders at all.
A few cavalrymen had tried to assault women and got torn apart by Fiel, though.
"From what I understand, Leben was being used as a supply base for the detachment."
"Ah, yes. It was serving as a supply base."
"Can you tell me the details? As much as you know."
The village representative hesitated, debating whether to explain, but when I fixed him with a steady gaze, he let out a sigh and began spilling everything about the movement routes of the detachment led by the Count of Basel.
Thankfully, this young representative didn’t make things difficult and told me the truth. The detachment attacking the east had its supply base in Leben, and the one attacking the north had its base in Ladwig.
"Problems started when the lord of Birsfelden left to attack Feuzen."
"The Saxon and Scottish mercenaries guarding the supply base turned on you?"
"At first, they were cooperative. But then the mercenaries stationed further east in Moltheim came back. The manager didn’t think anything of it and opened the gates for them, and then..."
"Your home turned into a living hell. You should never trust a band of mercenaries."
"Hah, that’s a lesson learned the hard way."
Out of roughly 300 people, about 100 were killed. The damage was devastating, bordering on total annihilation, and Leben was in dire shape. Without anyone to keep the mercenaries in check, they’d turned into demons.
Damn them. They’d never do mercenary work in Beren again. I intended to report every atrocity the Saxon and Scottish mercenaries committed. I wondered how Pensler, the cavalry commander and former Saxon mercenary himself, would react.
"Um, my lord, how long will you be staying in the village?"
"Why? Want me gone right now?"
"N-no! That’s not it at all! If you leave, there’s no telling what will happen to our village! Please, I beg you, protect this village you’ve occupied until the very end!"
Begging the occupying army for protection. The desperation in his voice was so raw it caught even me off guard. People in occupied territory never welcome their occupiers. Cracking down on war crimes must have earned their trust.
"I’m sorry, but once the rain stops, we’re heading for Ladwig."
"I... I see. Most of the people who could fight are dead, so I don’t know how we’d defend ourselves."
"Why not send someone to Baschurten Castle and request aid?"
"Even if we did, the Count’s brother wouldn’t send any troops."
So he’d rather ask the merciful commander of the occupying force for protection? This was a valuable insight in its own way. Their deep distrust of Baschurten meant the ruling family had lost the people’s confidence.
Maybe when Baschurten’s territory got carved up, Leben, being the closest, might fall to me. Hmm, should I leave a small force behind as an investment for the future? But I quickly dismissed the idea.
I couldn’t afford to split my forces. I didn’t have enough reliable troops to spare, and the Gale Knights numbered only 22 in total. I had my own problems to worry about and turned down the young representative’s request.
"We’ve got weapons we can’t carry with us. When we leave, we’ll dump them here. Arm yourselves and you should be able to defend the village. That’s all the kindness I can offer."
"Thank you! Thank you so much! Ah, the Gale Knight’s reputation is everything they say it is!"
The young representative seemed overjoyed. And that night, he secretly sent a woman to me. Apparently the prettiest woman in the village had been lucky enough to survive, but of course I sent her back.
My pregnant wife Hilda was waiting for me to come home, longing for me every single day. How dare he sneak a woman into my quarters? He probably meant it as a gesture of gratitude, but it backfired. He got an earful from me.
After the rain stopped, we advanced north.
We avoided the muddy areas as much as possible. For cavalry, mud is more terrifying than any trap. If we had to fight on ground like this, the smartest move would be to turn tail and run as fast as we could.
The people of Leben seemed deeply moved by the Gale Knights’ dedication and chivalrous conduct. The other cavalrymen could only look on with envy, but the Gale Knights actively helped with rebuilding Leben.
That earned them a reputation as oddballs among the cavalrymen, but it was a masterful way to win hearts and minds in occupied territory. It wasn’t something I’d planned at all; I’d simply let them do as they pleased, and this was the result.
They say every soldier is a diplomat in occupied territory, and the improvement in how people perceived me was beyond anything I’d expected. It was clearly a positive outcome, but I couldn’t be sure how things would unfold.
We pressed on, avoiding the mud and braving the colder weather of the north. Predictably, there wasn’t even a scouting party, let alone any forces blocking our path. In Euz, there had been constant tension, and yet here...
At this point, shouldn’t Baschurten’s brother, acting on the Count’s behalf, be mobilizing troops to restore order? Days had passed, and this total lack of response was bewildering.
He was far more incompetent than I’d imagined.
There was no doubt the two brothers had jointly accelerated Baschurten’s downfall.
What a contrast to the Altringen royal family, honestly.
Over there, they were tearing Beren apart fighting each other for power.
"Damn, this place... we’re too late."
Fiel couldn’t hide his anguish at the sight of Ladwig reduced to ashes. Leben had been mid-attack when we arrived, so we’d managed to save it somehow, but Ladwig wasn’t as lucky.
If the rain hadn’t held us up, maybe we could have saved it, but there was no reason to take unnecessary risks. This was enemy territory, after all. The surviving residents were huddled together in rags.
There wasn’t a trace of life left in the village.
Those vicious bastards. Did they really have to go this far?
It was rare for mercenaries to destroy a village so thoroughly that it couldn’t recover. Mercenaries never knew who might hire them next, so they usually tried to keep things within reason.
Yesterday’s enemy could be tomorrow’s client. The fact that they’d acted without any thought for the consequences proved they had no intention of doing mercenary work around here for a while.
The problem was, even if I wanted to hunt them down, the rain had washed away all their tracks. On top of that, the Searcher Scouter couldn’t track targets without prior information about them.
In the end, I didn’t have time to punish the mercenaries who’d fled to God knows where, and I had no choice but to leave the ruined Ladwig behind. The most I could do was give them half of our portable rations. That was the only mercy I could offer.
