Chapter 24
Chapter 24
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Departing Volpart
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The day after negotiations concluded with the nobles from Volpart Territory, Sion and his group promptly left the village.
“Will Volpart Territory be able to win?”
Piot, who had been lost in thought ever since they left the village and kept stealing glances at Sion, finally spoke up. Sion gladly answered his curious great-grandson.
“Probably.”
“Could you explain why? I heard their forces are evenly matched.”
“It was Ervin, right? That knight got captured.”
“Is one knight that important? Besides, that guy…….”
Piot muttered in disbelief, recalling the knight Ervin who had charged recklessly into a trap and ignominiously fallen from his horse.
“When we signed the contract with Zanstrick before, that knight came as Lord Jetman’s proxy. That means Ervin was handling all the major and minor affairs for Jetman Territory in this conflict. He’s probably the overall field commander.”
“Oh, I see. But I heard they have several other knights…….”
“A forest where the wolf has vanished is left with only the foxes that cowered under it all this time. What do you think will happen?”
“Ah……!”
“With a decisive battle for the territory’s fate right around the corner? The foxes will want to shine even more. If they rack up merits, they might fill the wolf’s vacancy.”
“Their troop command won’t function properly.”
“Exactly. In contrast, Volpart seems to have a renowned general from his wife’s family leading reinforcements. Similar troop numbers, but one side lacks a focal point while the other has a commander worth trusting and following? The outcome is obvious.”
“I see.”
Piot nodded as if he finally understood, his expression brightening a bit.
“Still, it’s a relief there were no deaths or even serious injuries. Though it feels obvious since the enemy was so pathetic.”
Sion’s voice suddenly sharpened.
“If you think like that, you’ll get in big trouble someday.”
“Uh… S-sorry.”
Piot bowed his head at the abruptly changed atmosphere.
“This time, we got extremely lucky. They were exhausted from chasing us nonstop, and the hastily gathered troops lacked cohesion. Plus, you…….”
“Yes.”
Sion scolded his great-grandson with a grandfatherly heart as Piot instinctively straightened his back.
“No matter that the enemy was few in number and panicked in the mud, making them easy to handle, you didn’t check your surroundings at all during the fight. Everyone’s vision narrows from excitement in battle. But you need to develop the habit of glancing left and right whenever there’s an opening. Experience can fix it, but remember that nine times out of ten, you die before gaining it.”
“Understood. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Good.”
Only then did Sion smile warmly.
In truth, if not for Sion, Piot would have been seriously hurt in that last battle.
Though he intended to raise him strong, he wasn’t a psychopathic grandfather who’d let his great-grandson get injured right in front of him.
But he couldn’t protect him forever.
Sion hoped his great-grandson, who resembled his youngest daughter so much, would one day stand tall on his own.
That thought of his youngest daughter suddenly crossed his mind, bringing a wry smile to Sion’s face.
‘Sion, oh Sion. You shouldn’t have treated Maria like that…….’
Strictly speaking, he was disappointed in his youngest daughter Maria for choosing her own fate, yet he was applying a different standard to her grandson and pinning his hopes on him.
‘You’ll never grow up, Sion.’
Thinking of Maria made a corner of his heart ache with wistful bitterness.
Noticing the change in Sion’s expression, Piot began peeking at him again. Sion steadied his resolve.
‘Bloodline can never be erased or ignored. To let the children fully choose their own fates…… I was arrogant.’
He had the power to guide the dukedom and his descendants toward better paths.
At the very least, he could stop them from going astray.
But he had stood by and watched.
-Now live your own life.
His wife had been truly wise.
He had been foolish and misinterpreted her dying words.
As ‘Sion,’ caring for his children and grandchildren and leading them right was part of life.
It was a proper duty and responsibility, yet for decades he had averted his eyes from it—practically defying her will.
‘Late, but…….’
“I’ll do my best.”
“Pardon?”
Piot looked up sharply at the low but resolute voice filled with firm determination.
“Nothing. Anyway, sparring starts today. You confident?”
“Of course.”
For now, seasoned decurions from Stellman or the Zanstrick mercenaries would be his opponents, but having witnessed their skills in the previous battle, Piot brimmed with enthusiasm.
“Good. It won’t be boring on the way. I’ll spar with you too when I can.”
The old monster couldn’t be happier with his ambition-driven great-grandson.
“Yes? Oh, yes. Thank you…….”
However, Piot, who had only properly seen Sion’s skills when he stomped on the fallen knight Ervin, reacted a bit awkwardly.
‘His strategy is one thing, but as a knight, I’m not sure about his skills…… Well, I’ll just go easy on him.’
The great-grandson merely smiled back at the old monster’s smile (laden with multiple meanings), who had spent nearly a century battling countless knights, sword saints, and assassins of all kinds.
* * *
Clatter, clatter.
Inside a baggage wagon moving neither slow nor fast, a hooded man muttered to himself.
“Why am I in this mess……? I was just about to become the top administrator, so why? Sent to the field now… and to some southern backwater…….”
The man, muttering in a gloomy voice, lifted his head to gaze at the sky outside the wagon.
“This is demotion, right? No, it might not be since I’m going to someone the scout reports directly to…… But that bastard’s attached to him? What do I even say?”
Staring blankly at the sky covered in dark gray clouds as gloomy as his mood, the man nonstop grumbled. He was Jens, the intelligence aggregator from the Intelligence Guild headquarters.
Due to one moment of misjudgment, he had been demoted from a Grade 1 intelligence aggregator—guaranteed promotion to top executive—to field work. He was now utterly devoid of motivation.
He, who had rocketed from Grade 2 to Grade 1 thanks to his skills (and the guild master being family), sent to the field now?
And to the distant Sion Dukedom, practically half-foreign territory, to aggregate intel from that ferret-like bitch he’d never even considered his peer, whom he’d been requesting transfers away from for years?
Call it cooperation and oversight? It was essentially assisting her.
“Damn the Whale and all that crap. What the hell kind of person ruins my life like this?”
He hated everything. The person codenamed Whale. That ferret bitch Jenna, who’d been cluelessly requesting transfers for years.
And the guild master, who hadn’t protected him despite it being a single mistake and just demoted him outright.
But he couldn’t defy the guild or the guild master.
“Goddamn it. Fine, then…….”
Drip. Drip……
Just then, raindrops began to fall one by one.
‘Intel gets aggregated and reported at the aggregator’s discretion anyway? So occasionally, due to field errors, intel doesn’t come up properly, and I can’t aggregate it—that could happen.’
Of course, he’d properly aggregate and relay important matters.
But for minor things, couldn’t he skip a few under the excuse of field mistakes?
Or leak them slightly to that ‘special client’ who needed them?
‘And if that special client subtly vouches for my value to the guild?’
There were very few special clients with influence inside the Intelligence Guild.
If just anyone had sway, the guild’s importance would plummet, so the guild master and top executives like the Council of Eight had always maintained a certain distance from clients.
But some special clients were different.
They were figures who influenced entire nations.
The guild couldn’t exist without some collusion with them.
And among those special clients, the most powerful one, where even a casual offhand mention of Jens would have huge effect, was none other than…
“The royal family…….”
Jens’s eyes gleamed coldly amid the intensifying rain as he thought of the ruling house of Obla Kingdom, currently embroiled in succession disputes.
* * *
After the prisoner exchange with Volpart Territory, Sion and his group’s journey proceeded smoothly.
Smooth by this world’s standards, that is. By Sion’s standards, who had lived in 21st-century South Korea—a nation at the world’s top in public safety—it was still a road rife with absurdity and barbarism.
‘How much time has passed, yet nothing changes.’
With three baggage wagons and over fifty people, Sion leisurely crushed an attack from deranged bandits who wouldn’t know shit from soy paste without tasting it first. He wiped the blood from his sword and surveyed the surroundings.
Judging by the over fifty attackers, this was a rare large-scale criminal band.
“Milord! Shouldn’t we pursue them?”
Piot asked if they should chase the fleeing bandits, who had suffered over half casualties within five minutes of starting the attack. Sion shook his head.
“We can interrogate the wounded. They don’t know the terrain well anyway, and their base is obviously in some mountain trap-filled hideout. No need to chase.”
“Yes. Then I’ll clean up the battlefield!”
Nearly a month since leaving home.
In that short time, Piot had changed quite a bit.
Gone was the boy whose vision narrowed in excitement, swinging his sword wildly without checking surroundings. Now he fought well in tandem with the mercenaries.
After several battles, he now mingled freely with the mostly commoner mercenaries, sharing food, sleep, and fights.
Importantly, no one told him to; he did it himself.
“These guys have decent gear. The last bunch only had junk not worth scrap.”
“Looks like a big enough group for bounties, young master.”
“I told you to drop that young master crap, Misca.”
“What else do you call the young master? You’re the lord’s son.”
“I’m the youngest, so I won’t inherit. Best case, a territory knight. You could do it too if you tried.”
“What, a knight in a backwater with under a hundred households? Nah, pass.”
“Pass, huh. This haul good?”
“Obviously. Heh heh.”
Misca, young as he was, loved his quirky speech, and Piot loved it too.
“Anyway, young master. Spar today too?”
“If you promise not to spit while cheating.”
“Argh! In real fights, who cares about fair play? It’s all improvisation training to extend your lifespan, young master. And make it ‘elegantly vile’ while you’re at it.”
“Improvisation, not ‘popularity eloquence.’ Doesn’t the elegantly vile Misca know that?”
Sion felt pleased watching Piot bond so casually with Misca, the only peer in the Zanstrick mercenaries.
When they first joined the mercenaries, the two youths barely spoke. But fighting back-to-back by day and dueling with wooden swords by night, they had become friends beyond status.
‘People change in a month, so why does this world stay the same……?’
After nearly a month of travel, Sion was almost at his destination.
And this world hadn’t changed much since he left for the Dragon Wastelands.
Precisely, not even since he faked his death, left the dukedom, and wandered the world.
“Is it the same in places we haven’t passed?”
“Huh?”
Jenna, scribbling something from the driver’s seat, startled and looked up.
“Are other regions as messed up as this?”
Sion nodded toward the ex-bandit turned POWs hauling the corpses of their former industry colleagues. Jenna nodded.
“Yes, probably similar. Especially last year, poor harvests across the central region led to more starvation deaths. I heard territory disputes have increased compared to a few years ago.”
“That damn territory disputes.”
Sion clicked his tongue.
Obla Kingdom had a ton of territories. Not just many—tons.
Including those in other countries? Sion was sure it numbered in the hundreds.
Anyway, Obla Kingdom alone had about twice Korea’s land area by his estimate, half of it not direct royal territory but lords’ domains.
Territories ranged from province-sized to township-sized, most around city/county scale.
He knew there were nearly a hundred such territories. Maybe more.
And over half of those hundred-plus had no vassal ties to county-level grand lords with province-sized domains.
‘They’re the root of all problems.’
Far from royal law (physics), lords ruled their domains with absolute power.
A lord like his maternal grandson Baron Kilburn, protecting his people and ruling wisely?
Easier to find a loan shark considerate of debtors, a politician fulfilling 100% of promises, or a Joseon tiger letting lone travelers pass unscathed.
Plus, these lords fought each other constantly. Some ended in negotiated settlements, but plenty went to total annihilation wars.
Sion had already witnessed three serious territory wars on this trip.
And judging by the aftermath…
“August Territory looks like it’s in bad shape too?”
“Yes. Here’s the report.”
August Territory—Sion’s destination and one neighboring Sion Dukedom—was ruled by Baron August, who had married two of Sion’s grandsons. It seemed on the brink of chaos.
(To be continued)
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