A Mercenary’s Rebirth Among Nobles

At the meaningful tone of Count Oleg, Viscount Karyan frowned.

“Are you threatening me now?”

“No, on the contrary. I’m telling you not to even think about trying to pin the blame on me. You take responsibility for what you did. I’ll take responsibility for what I did.”

“…I was already planning to do that. What blame and what not? Don’t get so touchy over a mere verbal slip.”

“Ah, then I must have misunderstood.”

Despite the explanation, Count Oleg merely inclined his head slightly with a mocking grimace.

That discourtesy made Karyan bristle for a moment, but he decided to say nothing.

It wasn’t a lie that he had thought that, if he played his cards right, he might be able to dump all the blame on Oleg.

‘Tsk, he really caught on fast.’

Swallowing his irritation, Karyan let out a sigh and spoke.

“Fine, stop going in circles and explain it to me clearly. What exactly did the duke do in your territory?”

“Ugh… explaining it isn’t that simple. At first, everything went according to plan. The duke stayed for three days, then lost a week due to the road being blocked by the landslide, and then another fifteen days because of the destruction of the bridge.”

“Up to that point, everything went just as we planned.”

“That’s right. But after being held up for almost a month, the duke seemed to realize our intentions. That’s when the problems began.”

Oleg, his throat dry, took a sip of tea before continuing.

He spoke of how the plan had not been explained in detail to the knights and how that had caused discontent.

Of how, by chance, one of the duke’s close aides heard those complaints, which led to the duel.

And finally, of how his knight attacked the opponent before the signal to start the fight had even been given.

“After that, when we heard his explanation, he said he had clearly seen the mage finish the ritual and withdraw. It seems they used some kind of magical trick.”

“Do you really believe that? It sounds like the excuse of someone who acted on impulse and then tried to justify himself.”

“My knight wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t a brat ruled by his emotions; he knew how to consider the political implications. Even to me, the circumstances seemed suspicious.”

After the duel, Oleg completely lost the initiative.

The soldiers looked at him with palpable hatred from all directions, and Lucian stopped restraining them, giving them free rein.

The result was an explosive situation if he tried to hold them back even a little longer, he had no idea what kind of disaster might erupt.

“I wanted to hurry and send them out. I thought I had already done my part. But then the duke destroyed the bridge.”

“What? Why would he do something like that if he needed to keep advancing as quickly as possible?”

“What else could it be but retaliation? The moment I received the report, I felt the world spin. The soldiers’ resentment grew day by day, and there was no way out.”

Convinced that it would never end, Oleg tried to resolve it directly with Lucian.

But that move touched the duke’s most sensitive nerve.

Lucian, enraged, declared war on the spot.

Only then did Oleg grasp the magnitude of the disaster and hurriedly kneel to surrender.

“He really declared war?!”

“If it hadn’t been a real war, do you think I would have helped the duke? House Lerum was literally on the brink of annihilation.”

Oleg sighed bitterly.

Even now, he regretted it.

If, when the bridge collapsed again, he had knelt and begged immediately, perhaps they would not have reached this point.

“After that, everything was a nightmare. I had to lavishly entertain five thousand soldiers until the bridge was repaired. I sacrificed all the livestock to supply them with meat and spent every spice I had saved on nothing more than rations for common soldiers. I never treated even the knights who served me for decades like that…!”

Oleg shuddered, as if reliving the horror.

As a result of that incident, House Lerum was left worse off than an ordinary barony.

Recovering its former strength would take, at the very least, more than three generations.

But even that was not enough for Lucian, and he issued an even more terrifying order.

“The duke ordered all the blood from the slaughtered livestock to be collected. He said to keep it fresh, that he would use it later. And then he demanded that I write a letter to you, carefully mixing truths and lies.”

“Don’t tell me…?”

“According to him, it was enough to stimulate people’s imagination a little so he wouldn’t have to negotiate anything.”

The total interruption of news from Oleg and an amount of blood impossible to obtain without a massacre.

Lucian used those two pieces to guide Karyan’s thinking, never saying that he had killed anyone, but leading him to assume it on his own.

The result was that Karyan ended up dancing in the palm of his hand.

Terrified by an army that hadn’t killed a single person, he let them pass immediately.

“L-listen… are you aware of what you did?”

“I am.”

“What do you mean you are?! This is outright betrayal! If things go wrong, it won’t be the duke, but the marquis himself who purges us!”

Spreading the contents of the letter among the other lords had, at its core, been an attempt to share responsibility.

But now it was clear that the matter went far beyond that.

By following Lucian’s orders, both of them could be seen as traitors to the marquis.

The origin of it all was Oleg, but Karyan had fanned the flames by covering it up.

If this truth came to light, perhaps the other lords would be forgiven, but the two of them would not escape the marquis’s wrath.

“T-then let’s send a messenger to the marquis immediately…!”

“It’s too late. We wasted too much time until the bridge was repaired again. Before our messenger arrives, the duke will get there first.”

“Then what do you propose we do?!”

“Cover it up.”

“What?”

“Is there any other option?”

Oleg shrugged at a Karyan who had been left speechless.

“The duke has already gotten what he wanted. At this point, sending a messenger would do the marquis no good. More than that, he would probably get angry, thinking we’re making a fool of him.”

So there was no choice but to conceal it.

Revealing an unforgivable mistake would only bring anger, resentment, and the punishment that followed.

“If you don’t intend to turn yourself in out of remorse, bringing this to light would be foolish. Judge for yourself.”

“…”

Only then did Karyan understand why Oleg had revealed the whole truth.

From the moment he decided not to inform the marquis despite knowing the truth, Karyan became an accomplice.

If he didn’t want to sink along with him, he would have to protect Oleg from the marquis’s wrath when the time came.

“Damn old fox…”

“Let’s continue to get along well from now on. After all, we’ve been neighbors for centuries.”

Oleg let out a laugh as he watched Karyan grit his teeth.

Now that he had secured a solid accomplice, the future of his house no longer seemed so uncertain.

***

While the two viscounts laughed and argued, Lucian’s army sped across the west at full pace.

“From now on it’s a race against time! Don’t give the marquis even a single moment to reorganize! We have to arrive before he realizes our movements!”

Even after leaving Viscount Karyan’s territory behind, they crossed numerous domains, but in none of them did they rest for more than a day.

No matter how luxurious the hospitality was, they always departed the next day and headed without delay toward Marquis Bernhardt.

The speed was so extreme that it was hard to believe they had loitered for so long in Viscount Oleg’s territory.

“Your Majesty! If we keep this pace, by the time we reach the marquis’s territory the soldiers will be exhausted and collapse!”

Hugo, now recovered from his injuries, ran alongside Lucian while voicing his concern.

Lucian, however, dismissed those words at once.

“It doesn’t matter. Keep running!”

“What!? We’re in enemy territory! Shouldn’t we stay prepared to fight at any moment!?”

“What matters is catching the marquis by surprise! Even if the soldiers are exhausted, if we arrive before he prepares, we can crush him with numbers!”

It was a massive army five thousand soldiers and three hundred knights.

Not even Marquis Bernhardt could maintain a permanent force of that size.

In terms of numbers, Lucian held an overwhelming advantage, but the marquis would not want to yield in momentum either.

He would surely try to gather additional troops before Lucian reached his territory.

‘He can make up part of the shortage by conscripting the populace, but he can’t cover everything with levies. Even if he gives them good equipment, recruits immediately show clumsy movements.’

If the assembled army turned out to be a mass of incompetents, it would not intimidate Lucian at all and would instead end up humiliating itself.

The marquis must know this, so he would try to temporarily summon already trained external troops.

But gathering too many external forces in a single territory meant overloading it.

For a short period there would be no problem, but if it dragged on, conflicts would arise everywhere.

For the marquis, the best option was to call in those troops just in time to coincide with Lucian’s arrival.

“The marquis ordered other lords to delay me, but he didn’t set an exact date. He probably said the longer, the better. Even he doesn’t know precisely when I’ll arrive.”

“But the other lords will report our movements to the marquis!”

“Report? Are they going to say we couldn’t do anything and just let him pass?”

“Ah!”

At that remark, Hugo’s eyes widened.

When it came to external information unrelated to oneself, there was no need to hide anything.

But if the report included one’s own results, the story changed.

No one wanted to report a failure, much less an absolute failure in which nothing had been accomplished.

That was why the report would be delayed as much as possible.

‘Of course, they can’t delay it indefinitely. Not reporting at all would break relations with the marquis. Still, if we keep this up, there’s no way the marquis will receive the report in time.’

The board was already set.

Now all that remained was for Lucian to strike before the marquis managed to gather his forces.

Gathering additional troops after having invited a “guest” was, in anyone’s eyes, a sign of ill intent.

To avoid misunderstandings, the marquis would have to receive Lucian using only the forces he already had.

‘With numbers so small that he wouldn’t even be able to stop me if I cut loose.’

Lucian didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to.

The vassals seemed to have understood perfectly.

Felicia, running at his side, nodded as well.

“I also agree with Your Majesty. As long as everything stays within what the marquis can foresee, he’s frighteningly skilled at controlling the situation. But when something unexpected happens, his ability to improvise is frankly terrible. Even if the soldiers get exhausted, it’s better to strike him where he least expects it.”

“And if he abandons any plan and tries to crush us with sheer force? If he attacks us the moment we arrive, we’ll suffer enormous casualties too!”

“Don’t worry.”

Felicia replied to Hugo’s concern with a smile.

“I’m not tired at all.”