Wrapping Things Up (2)
Wrapping Things Up (2)
One knight, a squire, and a squad of ten soldiers.
It took less than a few minutes to crush an opponent of that caliber.
Although the knight could use mana, he wasn't properly trained.
Miguel took him down in just a few exchanges, and our knights finished off the other soldiers in a single coordinated charge.
Neither our soldiers nor I even needed to step in.
After gathering the surviving soldiers to one side and interrogating the battered knight, we heard something quite unexpected.
The knight and soldiers we had beaten weren't deserters, but the territory's actual knights and soldiers.
Everyone was shocked, but fortunately, that didn't change the fact that they were bandits.
It sounded bizarre, but it wasn't wrong.
Though they were official knights and soldiers, they were bandits who plundered the territory's residents and travelers.
Since taxes weren't enough to cover expenses, the lord had disguised some of his knights and soldiers as deserters so they could raise funds through looting.
"If they're official knights, this could be troublesome."
At the knight's words, Miguel furrowed his brow, but I shrugged.
"They're officially deserters. Do you really think Viscount Lansarot would acknowledge them as official knights and soldiers?"
The Viscount was a nobleman who cared deeply about honor.
He was too embarrassed to openly extort travelers and territory residents with his official soldiers, so he had disguised them as deserters.
There was no way such a Viscount would ever acknowledge them as official knights and soldiers.
"Or perhaps it would be better to make sure there are no witnesses left behind."
At my words, the surviving knight and soldiers turned pale.
Seeing a young kid like me commanding a knight order, they seemed to have roughly guessed my standing.
They might not have known whether I was a bastard, but a young brat giving orders to knights had to be at least a Duke's son.
In that case, I would be a noble, and nobles had the authority to summarily execute captured prisoners through their subordinate knights.
That was only possible for proper nobles who possessed territories and knights, of course, but the world always had a way of being flexible.
Just as Manuel had declared he would take responsibility as a noble on the way to the Baron's estate, I, too, could easily cause trouble and use my family as a shield.
If only I weren't a bastard.
If I actually did that, the elders would surely rise up in unison and cast me out.
But these guys had no idea I was a bastard.
As the prisoners trembled, another question occurred to me.
"But is there really a reason to go this far? The civil war hasn't even started yet. If he devastates his own territory to this extent, how does he plan to hold out when the actual fighting begins?"
Since ancient times, the rear had been the most crucial part of war.
They weren't those crazy Mongol bastards who solved everything on horseback; without the territory's support, they wouldn't even be able to maintain their forces until then, let alone fight.
"If they were preparing for a civil war, they wouldn't do this. Unless they plan to abandon the territory, they would never..."
Before I could finish my sentence, I saw the captured knight flinch.
My gaze, along with those of the other knights, turned toward him.
The captured knight pretended to know nothing, but there was no way he was completely clueless.
Still, judging by his expression, he didn't seem likely to talk easily.
I rolled up my sleeves.
I hadn't been able to step forward when I was with Balea, but I, too, had a knack for torture.
I dragged the knight off to one side.
I began the torture out of earshot of the other knights, and before long, Miguel and I were able to extract all sorts of information from him.
There was no point in listening to all that screaming for nothing.
I had the black sword that shattered nerves, and I possessed dozens of torture methods I had learned from dying multiple times.
I drew the story out of the knight piece by piece, and before long, I knew everything he knew.
After that, Miguel seemed to walk on eggshells around me, but he was also a knight fully capable of performing this level of torture.
Besides, walking on eggshells wasn't the issue.
What Miguel and I learned through torture completely defied my expectations.
They weren't gathering military power to prepare for a civil war, nor were they simply plundering the territory.
The lord of this territory, Viscount Lansarot, intended to abandon this land.
And it wasn't for any particularly extraordinary reason, either.
It was simply because the Viscount believed he could no longer fend off the monsters.
"It wasn't like this from the beginning. Though things were tough, we fended off the monsters well, and the soldiers and knights were trained decently, too..."
Perhaps recalling those days, even the dazed knight who was speaking wore a faint smile.
"But the problem started when he began gathering forces at the lord's castle, claiming he was supporting the Second Prince."
The outcome was different from other places, but the beginning was similar.
"We were prepared for public order to deteriorate, but we never expected the monsters to multiply so rapidly. Monsters began pouring out of the eastern forest, which had been left neglected for several years, and now they've settled in part of the territory."
According to the knight, it seemed no one had anticipated things would get this bad.
It wasn't as if this was the first time in hundreds of years that the forest had been left neglected like this.
"With the territory's forces, there's nothing more we can do. From now on, we'll only keep getting pushed back. If things continue like this, a single wave will completely finish the territory."
For now, they were nesting in the forest and one side of the territory, but once their numbers exceeded a certain threshold, they would surely pour out.
In this world, they called that a 'wave'.
The monsters crossing the domain borders—the ones we'd heard about from the soldiers we met earlier—weren't just ordinary monsters left unchecked, either.
There was a reason they were smarter than expected. Those monsters were proper scouts.
After spilling everything he knew, the knight fainted. It seemed I'd given him a bit too much stimulation.
But after Miguel and I shared what we'd learned, no one cared about the fainted knight anymore.
"What should we do?"
Miguel asked me.
This was already beyond what he could decide.
And to be honest, it wasn't something I should decide, either.
We could just turn back right now and report it to the Duke.
But I fell into deep thought.
The Duke's expression when I saw him the day I returned, the situation in this territory, and the current state of the Kingdom.
"There's no way the Duke doesn't know about this, right?"
At my first words, Miguel wore a troubled expression.
When I said that, Miguel realized it, too.
The Duke had found out almost everything I'd done in the capital.
There was no way he wouldn't know when the neighboring territory was in such a mess.
If so, he'd known all along and left it alone. And now, using the wedding as an excuse, he'd sent me to this territory at this specific time.
His own 'bastard son'.
Stripping away all emotion and looking at it objectively, I could see how things had played out.
The Duke must have heard that the neighboring Viscount was planning to cause trouble and run away, leaving behind monsters on the verge of a wave.
If the lord fled without stopping the monsters, the surrounding territories would have to stop the monsters pouring out.
Among them, the Duke, who ruled the largest territory, would have to shoulder most of the burden.
But if a wave were to occur during his heir's wedding, it would certainly be troublesome for the Duke, too.
"He was planning to just leave it alone, but did the wedding and the escape date awkwardly overlap...?"
Or perhaps he'd obtained information that the wave would occur sooner than expected.
Either way, it was a situation that had to be stopped, and that was when I showed up.
A highly capable 'bastard' whom the family had no obligation to take responsibility for.
"In the end, what the Duke wanted from me was to stop the soldiers and knights plundering the residents, thereby preventing the lord from escaping."
Knowing the Duke's personality, there was no way he would stop the monsters himself on behalf of this territory's lord.
And judging by the number of knights and soldiers he'd sent with me, he didn't want anything more than that, either.
Even if things got messy while dealing with those 'deserters', my position as a 'bastard' meant the family wouldn't be dragged into the mess.
They could just frame it as an accident caused by a 'bastard' acting on his own.
He could spin it however he pleased—
No matter how I looked at it, he was using me for his own benefit, but that was just how bastards were treated, and there was nothing I could do about it.
When I shared these thoughts with Miguel, he looked at me seriously and said,
"More than anything, it seems the Duke wants to test you with this matter, Alex."
I'd already told him I wouldn't become the next Duke, so there was no reason for me to be tested.
"But he has never entrusted you with this kind of task before, has he?"
It was simply because he'd learned of my capabilities. There couldn't be any other reason.
But Miguel whispered in my ear again.
"The Duke has never given this kind of task to Young Lord Simon, nor to Manuel."
It sounded like pure wishful thinking, but it still managed to lift my spirits a little, even as they sank into gloom.
All right.
I couldn't just wallow in self-pity at a time like this.
Bastard or not, it was time to handle the task right in front of me.
"Still, it shouldn't be too different from our original plan. We can just go around dealing with the bandits 'disguised as knights and soldiers.' And if we happen to run into monsters along the way, we can just kill them all."
At Miguel's words, the other knights nodded in agreement.
If we followed the Duke's instructions, doing just that didn't seem likely to cause any major issues.
The lord might change his mind and flee anyway, but there was nothing we could do about that with this small number of people.
But I wasn't particularly fond of that approach.
I didn't like just doing as I was told, and hunting down plundering knights and soldiers was a hassle.
"Even if we don't move like that, wouldn't it be fine as long as we achieve the Duke's objective?"
The objective of the Duke who had sent us.
Which was to tie Viscount Lansarot to his territory and force him to fight the monsters.
There was a much better way to keep the Viscount bound to his territory than diligently running around dealing with plundering knights and soldiers.
Since people were watching, they wouldn't have been able to take the plundered food and goods directly to the lord's castle.
At the same time, with monsters running rampant, there was no way they would have stored them scattered across multiple locations.
There was bound to be a separate place where they gathered everything.
If we found that place and destroyed it, the Viscount wouldn't be able to take a single step out of his territory, let alone go to the capital.
And right before our eyes, there were plenty of people who knew where those goods were being gathered.
The knight had completely lost his mind, making him difficult to question, but there were still several living soldiers.
Though the torture was finished, unfortunately, they didn't know where the plundered goods were being gathered.
Still, we were able to find out who they handed the goods over to along the way.
Though some of our knights and soldiers worried that things were getting bigger than expected, they followed my instructions well, like the elite troops they were.
We managed to beat down the soldiers and the knight who served as intermediaries in a village a little farther away.
This knight was in an even worse state than the first one.
He might have had more skill, but there was no way he could fight properly while guzzling alcohol in broad daylight with a woman at his side.
Looking at this territory, I came to realize all too well how quickly knights and soldiers could fall apart without proper military discipline.
Perhaps because he was drunk, there wasn't even a need for severe torture.
Having discovered the fortress where the plundered goods were gathered, we set off running once more.