Chapter 3: The Envoy's Visit
The knights, who had been laughing and chatting away, froze in place. Their faces looked as if some calamity had descended upon them.
"Hic!"
Including Harlin, the vice knight captain who always started hiccuping at the sight of me, most of the knights held their breath like they'd seen a ghost.
"What's wrong? Too shocked to move?"
Thud!
They immediately dropped to their knees and slammed their foreheads to the ground. How were these guys knights when their knees bent so easily, and why were they always banging their heads like that?
"I was already feeling suffocated, and now you're betraying me too?"
"B-b-betrayal? We're knights who swore loyalty to you, my lord! We've never even thought of betraying you!"
Rommel stammered, trembling as if he might piss his pants.
But the train had already left the station—and it wasn't coming back. Oh, right, no trains here.
"You've pissed me off today."
"Ugh~ Please! I'll just hang myself!"
"You have to march to war with me—what the hell is that supposed to mean? If you're gonna die, do it on the battlefield!"
Whoosh!
I launched myself forward. Since things had come to this, I'd give them a little "education" under the guise of training.
"Guek-!"
"Gwaaak!"
Pig-squealing screams echoed all the way to the lord's castle garden. Sharel, who had been leisurely strolling there, rushed up to the castle walls.
In front of the fountain, her brother—the empire's infamous problem child, Baron Auron Blaine—was beating the knights like dogs.
"Ah, seriously!"
At this rate, the knights would die. Her brother, bearer of God's Herculean Strength and titled a hero knight, had a temper that could see him tearing the knights apart like he would enemies.
Sharel was in her early twenties. She'd nearly married several times, but each time her brother showed up and killed the groom, leaving her unmarried to this day. Sure, she'd achieved the monumental feat of rising from commoner to noble, but no noble house wanted ties with the Blaine family.
If Sharel married? One tiny mistake by her husband, and the entire house might vanish from the map.
She already had plenty of grievances against her brother, and now he was trying to kill the few knights who could revive the territory, all because they'd had a bit to drink.
Sharel bolted out of the castle and galloped toward the fountain on horseback.
"Oppa!"
"Huh?"
His fists were stained red with blood, and the knights' faces were so swollen they were unrecognizable, but they were still alive.
"Please stop already!"
"My dear sister, these guys were boozing it up while bandits were raiding us. So, mind your own business and stay put?"
"You're insane, for real! Can't you see? The knight captain's nose is broken!"
"The temple can fix that easy!"
"Shut up! Stop hitting them!"
"Ah, your nagging is annoying. Aren't you ever getting married?"
"M-married?"
Sharel's eyes flashed with fury.
"……."
This must be what it felt like to have your soul beaten out of you. Come to think of it, I'd forgotten just how trash the protagonist's personality was in the past and let "marriage" slip to Sharel.
All her suitors had been torn apart by the protagonist. Some had their limbs ripped off in front of her, others beheaded in one stroke or tossed off cliffs. At this point, he wasn't just a protagonist—he was a straight-up murderer.
I endured nearly thirty minutes of lecturing while the knights knelt waiting.
"Fine."
I raised my hand to stop her. In the novel, he was depicted as utterly terrified of his little sister, and with no other family in this world, it made sense. But hearing it in person? Terrifying didn't cover it. An hour of nagging? No human could endure that.
"Did you get all that?"
"Yeah, let the knights go."
"Hmph! You better."
I felt drained. Sharel stood there with arms crossed, watching to make sure I didn't resort to violence.
"Hey, you lot."
"Yes, sir!"
The knights dropped to their knees again. Their knees were so light it made you question if they were real knights, but desperation for survival, I suppose.
No matter how much his sister nagged, if the protagonist truly snapped, he'd kill without regard. Of course, living like that would make survival impossible for a war hero like him, but chalk it up to novel plot holes.
"You can do better from now on, right?"
"Of course! We'll grind our bones to dust for the territory's prosperity!"
These lazy bastards sure could talk when their mouths were alive. Especially Rommel, the knight captain—his silver tongue was top-tier. Probably honed from sheer survival instinct.
"Tch, that's enough for today."
In the end, one slip about telling Sharel to get married backfired, leaving me thrashed and retreating to the villa. I could swear I heard "hurray" from the knights.
Clatter clatter.
A carriage and a hundred escort soldiers appeared in Blaine Barony. Baron Magnus, the envoy, and Viscount Retail, the imperial bureaucrat, felt their hearts pounding like cattle headed to slaughter.
Tears welled in Magnus's big eyes.
"F-fuck! Is this hell?"
"S-seems like it. Eek!"
At the territory entrance, severed heads were impaled on spikes. Easily a thousand necks, the stench of blood thick in the air. Farther off, corpses piled like towers, with these words scrawled on one side.
Thieves can't cross Lethe's River even in death.
The blood-scrawled message looked like the gates of hell itself. If hell had a bottom, it'd be like this.
Rumor had it Baron Auron could slaughter everyone in the imperial palace if he set his mind to it. Just a year ago, the massacre at Espado Kingdom's palace was known throughout the empire. How does one man storm the royal palace, ripping apart royal guards, knight orders, central nobles' private troops, and every royal's soldiers?
He used weapons sometimes, but rumors said he preferred beating or tearing them apart barehanded.
No one came here as envoy. Normally, a viscount or higher, but a baron and a vice viscount? That was the problem.
Recently, noble faction gaining from territorial wars, emperor faction lost a political battle and tossed these two as "tribute."
Even merchants avoided Blaine Barony. Locals endured here out of necessity, they said. How oppressed must they be, crawling through hell for the lord to spawn such rumors?
Thud thud thud!
A group of horse and riders approached from afar. All in black armor—called Dark Knights, but to them, they looked like hell knights and skeleton horses.
Among them, an unarmored youth rode with a bored expression. Strikingly handsome, slender build—like a noble's son. But that black hair and eyes were unmistakably seared into memory.
"Gasp! Baron Auron!"
Auron gave a slight nod.
"You the envoys?"
"Y-yes!"
Same baron title, but Magnus and Auron carried different weight. War hero versus landless noble—how could they compare? Meaning, Auron could snap their necks with no knights to defend them.
Central army soldiers? No way they'd risk their lives. Even the emperor had tossed them here to die.
Magnus's heart raced like it might burst.
"Whatever, follow or don't."
"Huh?"
Oddly, Baron Auron turned his horse without fuss. No thought of his rudeness lingered in their minds. Survival was what mattered.
One slip, and they'd be torn apart—but they lived.
"What're you dawdling for? I'm busy. Be grateful I came out to greet envoys."
"Yes! Thank you!"
"Let's go."
Thud thud thud!
Auron led the knights away. Magnus and Retail clutched their reins, legs wobbling.
"Are we... really alive?"
"He doesn't seem intent on killing us, at least."
They sighed in relief—a glimpse of how vile the rumors about Auron were.
The room thrummed with tension. I finally showed up at the lord's castle after ages.
The territory's few retainers sat facing the envoys. Normally, envoys took the head seat, but they wouldn't dream of it.
A chuckle escaped me. They'd sent people disposable as dirt.
"So, what's this about?"
"W-well!"
"If His Majesty sent envoys, it must be important."
"Th-the titans in the north show signs of invasion! Before full war breaks out, His Majesty requests your presence in the capital to appoint you as commander of the subjugation army!"
"The capital? I have to go there?"
"Ugh, it's the law..."
Kill them here? No. Even for view count, offing envoys would make me an imperial criminal. Disguise as bandits? Same issue. Felt cliché anyway.
Follow the script for now? Felt ominous. If time dragged, view count drops to zero—death.
"Gotta hold off on killing."
"Gasp! Thank you!"
"Huh? Did I say that out loud?"
"Saving our lives— we're grateful!"
They shut up. My decision was made.
Until yesterday, in the novel's intro envoy scene, I'd planned outright refusal. But now, no choice.
Defying imperial order might be annoying, but with wealth, I could've settled quietly. Can't continue the story that way. No material to "serialize" my life.
"Those titan bastards in the north acting up again. Time to wipe them out for good."