The Wise New Count
With the first light of dawn, the dwarves gleefully began pushing their siege engines forward. Dwarves had always been engineers at the cutting edge of their era.
As the latest-model trebuchets displayed their massive grandeur, the dwarves let out whoops of joy.
"Crazy dwarf bastards..."
"What on earth did they build?"
Yet watching them stack the thing up, Johan felt nothing but weariness.
So that's why they'd been ordering all those rocks hauled in.
"Are you certain we don't need siege towers?"
"Yes. Trust us, Your Excellency."
McCalde answered with firm conviction. A siege tower — a moving structure rolled up against the walls to deliver an assault — was a formidable weapon in any siege, but there was no need for one this time.
The dwarves had already finished their calculations.
"We can bring those walls down well enough. No towers necessary."
"I see. I'm counting on you."
"Yes. The World Destroyer and The Dragon That Tears the Mountains will be especially active today."
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"Those two trebuchets. We put particularly new technology into them, you see..."
I asked for nothing and bought myself a headache.
Johan grumbled inwardly. The dwarves' naming sense was terrible, but he couldn't say so — the names had been passed down from their ancestors.
Setting that aside, listening patiently to the workings of siege technology he had zero interest in was pure agony. Still, Johan gritted his teeth and responded with enthusiasm.
"I see. Hurling stones with the principle of the counterweight and lever — truly remarkable."
"Ah! You understand this machine perfectly!"
Damn.
His offhand remark deeply moved the dwarves. Employers who pressured and harassed them were a dime a dozen, but ones who took genuine interest were rare indeed.
"There's something I'd like to build next, actually..."
The approach of the trebuchets was visible to everyone inside the castle as well.
"Trebuchets!"
"What have you people been doing all this time while those were being built?!"
The dwarves had cleverly used the terrain's blind spots to conceal their work. Even so, some intelligence should have filtered in from outside — and there had been no report whatsoever.
The trebuchets were frightening enough, but the situation around them was worse. It felt as though everyone else had switched sides without a word.
"Shouldn't we attempt negotiations once more?"
"His Excellency refuses. What would you have us do?"
Count Zilid was currently holed up in the inner keep, paralyzed by the shock of the battle. Thanks to that, only his other vassals were left wringing their hands.
This was the time to seek another lord's aid, or summon the family's sons serving far away and offer them up as hostages, or else scrape the treasury down to the bare floor to scrape together a settlement payment. Instead, the man had shut himself in a back room with his lovers, fussing over them...
Zilid was not the only one in shock. The other nobles trembled with fear too.
The battle on the open plain had been one thing — but this was after they had insulted their opponent. If negotiations failed and the gates came down, they might all die.
"At the very least, let us buy time. If we can stop them, we may yet get a chance to destroy them."
The nobles nodded. Destroying the trebuchets would take time, after all.
Another delegation set out. This time, however, they never even laid eyes on Johan's face.
"...Count Yeats refuses an audience!"
"What?"
CRASH!
The wall answered in his stead. It was the sound of an enormous boulder slamming into the ramparts. At the earth-shaking impact, the people inside the castle went mad with terror.
"Stay calm! Do not panic!"
The count's vassals, who had entered the castle alongside him, urged on the soldiers they had brought and struggled to keep morale up. In the meantime, the household knights exchanged glances.
The vassals held lands from the count, and their families would pay their ransoms. But the household stewards who had merely served under the count had neither lands nor families to speak for them. Most were lesser nobles of humble birth.
If the walls fell, they stood a very good chance of dying.
"We will fetch His Excellency ourselves!"
Several of the household knights headed toward the inner keep with soldiers in tow. The nobles were too rattled to pay them any mind.
"The wall is down! Advance!"
Johan nodded. The mercenaries, morale at a boil, began their approach. The defenders who had been waiting atop the walls were so thoroughly cowed by the flying boulders that they couldn't even poke their heads out.
Having seized the base of the walls with superior numbers, the mercenaries poured out bolts at anything that moved and poured through the breach.
"Hold the wall! Don't let them over the— hk!"
The knight mid-shout went pale and dropped his weapon. A familiar face had appeared among the mercenaries. It was Johan, bearing the Giant Slayer.
True, the wall had collapsed — but the breach was narrow enough that it could have been held. Johan's arrival shattered that premise entirely.
Every swing of his hammer opened a void in the line, and soldiers crumpled into it. Even the knights who tried to stand against him were driven back by the sheer violence of his assault.
"His Excellency fights with us!"
"Charge forward!"
The mercenaries' morale climbed higher than it possibly could. Nothing earned a soldier's respect like an employer who fought shoulder to shoulder with him — and all the more so when that employer was a knight among knights.
After more than a full day of fighting, the flag of House Yeats flew over the walls.
"Your Excellency! We've caught the count — he was trying to flee."
Johan looked at the Zilid household retainers with a weary expression. He had fought all day, and was soaked in blood and sweat. His voice came out rough as gravel.
"Then why is he dead?"
"He... resisted violently, so..."
The retainers stammered and bowed. Count Zilid was there before him.
As a corpse.
You filthy dogs...
Instead of answering, Johan covered his face with one hand. He had planned to keep the count alive and squeeze every last use out of him!
The retainers had apparently intended to curry favor by capturing Zilid and presenting him to Johan. The drunken count had flailed about swinging his sword, the desperate retainers had fought back...
The result was splattered blood and an escalated scuffle.
When Johan said nothing, the retainers grew visibly anxious. They ventured carefully.
"Your Excellency. We have captured the count and delivered him to you. By custom, a reward would be..."
"Custom? Reward? Very well. Here is your reward for capturing your own lord — and killing him."
At Johan's words, the mercenaries perked up and stepped forward. They seized the retainers by both arms and dragged them out. sensing the atmosphere turning ugly, the men cried out in panic.
"Your Excellency! We surrendered! This is not how you treat men who have surrendered!"
"Surrenders offered after the assault began are not accepted. Execute them. How many dead do we have?"
At Johan's question, the mercenary captains answered with sour expressions.
"The count, of course, and his consorts as well... A number of his vassals seem to have fallen too."
"The rumors are going to be ugly as sin."
Johan clicked his tongue. At this point, a certain amount of blood might be unavoidable.
And after he had gone to all the trouble of throwing a banquet to butter up this duchy's nobles...
The ones who hear the news and were ready to come over will fly into a fury instead.
"Clean up the castle. Stop the looting and locate their assets. Seize the scribes, chamberlains, and servants and make them cough up everything that's been hidden..."
"What shall we do with the captured nobles?"
"Imprison them for now. I'll decide once I've seen how things stand."
Under normal circumstances he would have spared the count and wrung the vassal families absolutely dry — milking them for secrets first, then ransoms, every last drop...
Now everything had grown complicated.
Do I have to show mercy now?
But events unfolded rather differently from Johan's expectations. The backlash was smaller than he'd anticipated.
The families who had attended the banquet sent envoys to congratulate him on his victory and declared their intent to become his new vassals.
"Your rights shall remain as they are."
"Your Excellency! Can we truly allow their impure faith to be practiced as before?"
"Nothing to be done. The Republic's envoys pressed the matter hard. Force conversions, and a great many merchants will flee across the sea and plunge everything into chaos. From the Republic's standpoint, trade would become far too costly."
Of course, it wasn't actually the Republic's demand. Truthfully, if the merchants fled en masse, the one who would bleed the most wasn't them — it was Johan.
But it wasn't a complete lie either. The Order's priests could only grind their teeth and redirect their resentment toward the Republic.
"I will make donations on your behalf to the new Unified Church temple that is to be built, so try not to hate the Republic's people too much."
"...Yes. Understood."
Having soothed the Order, Johan quietly asked the visitors.
"How are the other families reacting?"
"They rejoice in Your Excellency's victory."
"Spare me the honeyed words and tell me the truth."
At Johan's words, the envoy flushed and spoke up.
"There are some who voice complaints, but you may ignore them. They know nothing, and they are few."
"The count is dead and there aren't many?"
"No, Your Excellency. It wasn't your doing to begin with, and did you not execute his treacherous vassals in his stead? No one brings that matter up at all."
"!"
Johan was astonished.
The goodwill he had bought at the banquet had produced an effect he hadn't even dared hope for. The nobles who had been weighing a switch to his side defended the count's death without hesitation.
The captured ones, watching everyone's mood, agreed with the sentiment as well. Thanks to that, the rumors did not spread as badly as Johan had feared.
What — at this rate, I might not even need to watch my step?
"The new count seems a far wiser man than the rumors made out."
The nobles held as hostages nodded along. On the battlefield he had seemed like a crazed demon, but cooling their heads and piecing together the stories, a somewhat different picture emerged.
From the warm reception of visiting families, down to seeing the old count given a proper funeral.
This was not a man who intended to crush everything by force, loot, and leave — they could feel a genuine intent to govern properly.
The moment they realized their counterpart was not an inhuman demon they couldn't reason with, their composure returned. Nothing is more terrifying than an opponent you cannot read.
"Then his treating us this well instead of executing us — it's for our cooperation, I take it?"
"Must be. Our families hold considerable influence in this duchy. If we cooperate, others will flock to follow."
"Then let's stop chattering here and go make our request. We offer our loyalty — release us. Even the count would find that tempting."
"How much ransom should we offer? Half?"
"What are you saying... isn't the whole point not to pay?"
"No, paying not a single coin feels a bit..."
"Pay a little if you must, but you negotiate hard. The count strikes me as a man who sees far ahead — he'll know what matters. For a new oath of loyalty, a ransom is pocket change."
The nobles summoned a servant and requested an audience. They went before Johan and made their case with great enthusiasm. Having heard them out, Johan nodded and replied.
"Spare me the nonsense and have your ransoms ready within the term. Anyone who fails to pay loses his head — all of you."
"...!"
Even alternating carrot and whip like this, it took a full half year to stabilize the duchy.
In truth, even that was blisteringly fast. It was a feat that would have been utterly impossible without Johan.
All the while, Johan patiently crushed rebellions, soothed the families, and cultivated new bases of support.
— You know the Alihim family? I'm very close with them. See those orc scribes over there? They work under me. Don't mind the vacant look in their eyes. They were born that way.
The wealthy orcs of the duchy were bewildered by the new count's friendly overtures — and delighted. They had never imagined that an invader from across the sea would extend them any goodwill.
"An envoy has arrived from Jilsina, Your Excellency."
Jilsina, the port city closest to the peninsula within the duchy. A city that had purchased its autonomy from the former count.
Johan clicked his tongue.
"I imagine they've come to complain?"
"So I'd guess."
That city had nothing to fear. Its coffers were deep, and it kept a sizable company of mercenaries at hand. Better yet, it maintained connections with the Emperor across the sea.
Accordingly, even Johan couldn't issue commands to it lightly. In fact, despite his new accession, he had made no demands of Jilsina whatsoever. He hadn't even asked for the usual congratulatory gift.
If they ask for a tax cut, or minting rights, or a trade monopoly...
Even Johan, patient as he was, felt close to exploding.
...Please, do not test my patience.
But the moment the envoys finished their greetings, they fell to their knees weeping and pleaded.
"Help us, Your Excellency!"
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