The Hammer No Dwarf Wanted

Ahir's thirdborn looked away in flustered embarrassment. Married nobles rarely got along with one another, and the East was no exception. Political necessity came first, so most couples went through the wedding ceremony for appearances' sake and then lived their own separate lives.

And yet, watching this, it seemed Johan genuinely cherished Izellia. A vampire's standards of beauty were much like the elves'. That a knight with nothing left to envy — a man like Johan — would behave this way was honestly rather fascinating.

'His Lordship's tastes run... peculiar. Ah. Is it his faith?'

Johan's piety was famous even among the heathens across the peninsula — natural enough, given the miracles he had shown them. If he was faithful to his wife only because the Church commanded fidelity between spouses, that at least made sense.

"Hm. Izellia. You're not asking me to let go. Do you like it that much?"

"N-no, I..."

Johan smiled slyly and tightened the arm around her. Izellia started to protest, then stopped.

"...You granted what I wanted, so I wished to grant what you wanted."

"Well, listen to you. And you'd truly do it?"

Izellia nodded. Johan brought his lips to her long ear and whispered. The words, entirely unexpected, flushed her face crimson all over again.

"My lord..."

"Ah. Forgive me. I'd quite forgotten you were there. Yes — an envoy has arrived. I should go see to it."

'So it wasn't his faith after all.'

The Mulcre family's envoy offered his courtesies with impeccable manners. Chests brimming with Eastern gold coins, along with rare ornaments handed down since the days of the Ancient Empire, were presented as recompense for the blood of the Mulcre line.

"Good heavens. They'd put up all this for the family's secondborn?"

"......"

Hearing Stefan mutter to himself, Johan felt a flicker of pity. Not every family's siblings tried to kill one another, it seemed.

Ahir, though only the secondborn of his house, possessed outstanding martial ability. He had served at the side of his brother, head of the Mulcre family, winning merit after merit and proving his loyalty beyond doubt. For a wealthy house that trusted its own brother, paying such a ransom was only natural.

"As you instructed, my lord, we have also brought the merchants with us... but are you quite certain about this?"

"It's of no consequence."

At this strange sight — a heathen envoy fretting over Johan's relationship with the Church — Stefan stared in open wonder.

But considering the debt of honor the Mulcre family had just incurred, the concern came naturally enough.

"The republics trade with you, and so do the petty kingdoms of the peninsula. There's no reason I alone shouldn't."

Johan was starving for gold. Thousands of mercenaries were sending him their fanatical devotion, but they were not free; come the new year, Johan would have to pay their wages. Add to that his elite heavy infantry — his personal guard — and the slave soldiers he was now raising besides.

However frugally Johan himself lived, this much could not be helped. To maintain that weight class, he had to keep earning. And in this era, the best businesses were war and...

'My thinking keeps drifting toward how I can just squeeze it back out of them later. Careful.'

...taxes.

But taxes came in a thousand varieties. Squeezing the serfs directly brought in precious little and raised rebellion besides. Johan had no intention of being that kind of fool.

'Well, I can simply collect something other than direct taxes.'

Customs duties, tolls, salt taxes, alcohol taxes — indirect taxes pinched far less, since the payer felt the bite less keenly, and they were deliciously lucrative besides.

Johan would never understand, in this life or any other, lords who refused to let foreigners into their lands out of sheer distaste and thereby left this kind of money on the table.

Invite them in droves, invigorate trade, and rake in the taxes!

The problem was the Church's visible resistance...

Johan had already distributed charity to the surrounding temples while simultaneously taking over the administrative duties priests were compelled to handle and handing them off to his scribes.

Nominally, this was meant to help the priests devote themselves to matters of faith. In practice, it planted administrative power firmly in Johan's hands. He couldn't exactly borrow the priests' help every time he needed a headcount of his people or went to collect his due.

Dirty motives aside, Johan's conduct — joined with his reputation — enjoyed absolute support. So absolute that if Johan molested a priest in the middle of a temple, the faithful would find a way to believe him.

"There were also strong demands from the republics... The Church will understand."

He had the republics as a final shield. If he told the Church that 'the republics' demands were simply too great to refuse,' the Church would turn its arrows on the republics instead of on Johan.

'Since when did the republics make demands like that?'

Stefan had spent his stay mingling with the fief's lesser nobles and merchants — and some of them hailed from the republics. That the republics had made any such demand was news to him entirely.

"If you take the nearest sea route, it's a matter of hours to reach the Zikillid County."

Thanks to its position, the city of Gilsina was a prosperous crossroads where every power under heaven paused to resupply. From the tip of the peninsula, the crossing took mere hours.

A free city of sorts — one that had paid an enormous fortune to the Count of Zikillid to buy its autonomy!

But a city that owed fealty to the Count of Zikillid it remained, whatever else it was. It was the best crossing point anywhere on the coast, which meant war was inevitable.

"The problem is..."

"The Emperor's fief."

The imperial fief, wedged into the far southwestern corner of the peninsula. Sailing past a viscount's territory left sitting at your back, just to go and cross, felt like inviting a knife between the shoulder blades.

"Just so. Better, wouldn't you say, to embark directly from Zaleno, land near Zikillid Castle, and go straight for the Count's head?"

Zaleno was one of the cities Johan had newly acquired.

If Culia was the hub of eastern sea trade, Zaleno was the hub of the west. A prosperous port city, and one where even the republics' fleets often anchored.

No need to chew through the distant cities first — land, and strike the head directly!

Ahir's plan pleased Johan, but a few questions remained to be settled.

"And if the Count's vassals come swarming?"

"Even all together they'd be nothing beside your army, my lord — and half of them won't come at all. The city of Gilsina itself, after all, has seen what you..."

"You mean there are men who'd change sides if I guaranteed their privileges?"

Johan grinned wickedly. Ahir nodded. Cities had always bent like reeds before profit.

"That suits me fine. But I'll need guides who know these waters and this coastline..."

"I had them found when I sent word to the family. Captains will lead the way at the front."

Truly the vampire of decades rolled on battlefields — there was not a single gap in Ahir's planning. The moment he had resolved to help Johan, he had committed to helping thoroughly.

Johan asked one final thing.

"One last question."

"Ask anything."

"No matter who I ask, no matter how deeply I dig, the Count of Zikillid's forces number no more than a few hundred at best — and that's being generous."

A few hundred, mind — not well-armed heavy infantry or knights, but men ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠scraped together however they came.

Johan, by contrast, commanded well over a thousand heavy infantry alone, to say nothing of the fairly elite mercenaries under his banner.

"That is my understanding as well."

"Then what in the world was the Count relying on when he did this? That one thing I cannot understand."

"......"

At the sharp question, Ahir found himself speechless.

The truth was, he didn't understand ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it either.

What could the man possibly be relying on? Even if every vassal rushed to his side with their levies, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it would hardly be enough...

Once business was roughly concluded, Ahir complimented Johan's command of the Eastern tongue. It had improved beyond recognition — thanks to Ahir's own children teaching him personally.

"In the Empire, that much would earn you recognition as a noble."

Even in the East's Asman Empire, accent mattered. Nobility had an accent all its own.

Ahir marveled at how quickly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Johan had absorbed it. A remarkable knight, certainly — but languages were another field entirely.

'So Lady Suettelg really did know what she was talking about.'

Even Suettelg could not pinpoint exactly what blessing the goddess had granted. Johan could only feel it in his gut.

Focus on his eyes, and his vision sharpened; focus on a wound, and it closed quickly; focus on a tongue, and the language came easily...

An unidentifiable vitality coursing through his veins, lending him its aid. If he had to put a name to it, it would be a Blessing of Vitality.

'No harm in having it, but I'd still like to know which god it comes from.'

"I've picked up a few Eastern curses. I'd hoped to use them on you, my lord."

"What? What insolent wretch taught you such things?"

Ahir was flabbergasted. Unless his own children had lost their minds, surely no one would have taught the Count such profanity.

"My greetings, Count Yeats! I heard tell from the head of the Valpa clan. To be granted the chance to repay a debt like this — a true honor!"

Bolranreunt, the dwarven blacksmith summoned by the Church, arrived at the fief together with his apprentices.

"You heard it from the head of the Valpa clan? Now I'm embarrassed."

"Think nothing of it, my lord. The debt owed to the Valpa clan shall be repaid in shares, by dwarves all."

Blunt and dutiful, Bolranreunt had the face of a craftsman through and through. Johan took a liking to the dwarf at first sight.

"Take a look at this sword."

"By the forge... a blade of this quality, snapped. That cyclops bastard's strength must be beyond all reckoning."

"Hm."

Johan nodded. To be fair, the cyclops had been holding Dusk when it broke — it could arguably share in the blame.

"A silver blade, broken by a monster. What a creature. Oi! Come here and look at this! Proof that his lordship felled a wicked monster!"

The apprentices crowded in and marveled. They'd heard the cyclops's strength was monstrous, but to snap a silver blade? That was a first.

"...Ahem. Can you mend it?"

"It won't be what it was, but I can melt it down and forge it anew."

"I'll leave it to you."

Bolranreunt's words were humble, but laced with confidence. Johan then showed him the Giant Slayer he had newly acquired. The dwarf marveled — then looked faintly embarrassed.

"What is it? Something wrong with the weapon?"

"Ah — no, my lord. It's nothing."

"Bolranreunt. I respect your craft as a master of it. As I built my skill at arms before God, you built yours at the forge. How could I dismiss lightly the words of such a man? Don't hide it. Tell me."

At Johan's words, Bolranreunt was so moved that tears welled in his old eyes. Nobles did not usually behave this way.

Nobles, as a rule, asked things like 'when will it be finished,' 'are you skimming my materials,' or 'the noble standing next to me has a bigger sword — why can't you manage this much?'

"...The truth is, this weapon is sound as sound can be. Our ancestors were far greater craftsmen than we — they forged weapons even of meteoric iron. So this weapon will not fail you. But..."

"But?"

"This weapon, you see... to dwarven eyes such as mine... it was made, and once it was made, it turned out to be a weapon no one could use... so I suspect it was simply cast aside..."

A weapon forged to kill giants — which, once finished, proved so blunt and so heavy that no dwarf could wield it. That was precisely what the Giant Slayer was.

"...How did you know?"

"Weapons meant as gifts bear the name of the house they're meant for. When none of that is present... it usually means... a flaw... it's... a custom of the craft..."

Johan was at a loss for words. The weapon was, unexpectedly, a brute of ignorant design.

"And yet, my lord — can you truly wield it?"

Bolranreunt forgot his careful manners entirely and stared at Johan in open wonder. It was a craftsman's curiosity, and he was helpless before it.