Fort Renin  

Crash!

"Those fucking bandits couldn't achieve a simple thing, even with all the help we have provided them!" shouted a middle-aged man, as he sent glass crashing into the wall.

Sending shards of it all over the room.

He took a few seconds to calm down before he turned to the Orc, sitting behind the table. His mood was worse than the middle-aged man, but he kept his emotions contained.

"Merchant lord, we could try again. If we made enough preparations next time, we would succeed," he said to Orc, in a tone filled with desperation.

He is desperate; they are closing in on him and after this attempt, it won't take them long to find out.

He needs to kill them before that happens.

"It is over, at least for a few years. Council had already suspected, what I am doing and have been warned indirectly to stop," said Orc and put down his glass on the table.

"You can't do this! I deserved to be Lord Blackwell and you will help me achieve it or there will be consequences," threatened the middle-aged man.

"Hehe!"

Instead of getting angry, the Orc laughed, which made the middle-aged man even more angry.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could let out a single word, he begins to feel a tightening in his chest, and a moment later, begin to have difficulty in breathing.

"You," the middle-aged man let out, as he collapsed on the floor.

"You were just a puppet. There are many more, like you," said the Orc and got up, before walking toward the hidden door.

He stopped before taking a step and turned back.

"It needs to be perfect; I don't want anything here connected to me," said Orc.

"It will be done," said the man, materializing in the room. He has always been there, invisible, undetected.

The Orc nodded and stepped out, without leaving a single proof of his involvement in the whole affair.

…

An hour later, the soldiers returned, bringing captured bandits and bodies of dead ones, piling them into another big pile.

There are already several piles of bandit bodies.

It is not just bandits who have died; we have also lost people. Though much less than what I had thought.

I was looking at those dead bodies when Blackwell appeared in front of me.

"Adviser, I hope you will accept my heartfelt apologies. My inadequate preparations had put you and your people in danger," he apologized, surprising me.

Nobles are haughty; they wouldn't easily apologize to anyone. Especially those below them in the station.

"It was not your fault, Lord Blackwell. You wouldn't have known. The bandit would attack your forces and assassins would come at their support," I said, with my words coming out sharper than I had intended to.

"I wouldn't have known, but I should have prepared better. It is a lesson I will remember my whole life," he said with a sigh, before turning to my guards.

"Thank you for coming to our rescue. Your help was instrumental in the defeat of the bandits," he thanked.

"We did what we have been ordered to do, my lord," Jon replied. "Still, thank you," he said and left.

He walked into the tents, where they were healing the injured soldiers. A lot of them were being treated by healers and doctors.

It is a good thing; he had brought a sufficient number of those people, or the losses would have been even greater.

"Mr. Silver, you should rest," said Jon, a few minutes later. I nodded and got up, with the snow falling off my body.

It is still heavily snowing, and I don't know if tomorrow will be better, but I hope it does or it will make it even harder to reach Fort Renin.

I took one last look around the hill, before walking into my tent and laying down.

Immediately sleep took me, despite the pain of injuries and uncomfortableness from the armor I was wearing.

It seemed like I had been more tired than I had realized.

Warrior Lv. 14

Warrior Lv. 15

Skill gained: Quick Parry

When I woke up, there were notifications in front of me, in big bold letters.

I had leveled up twice in Warrior Class and even gained a skill. It is my first advancement in months since the last bandit incident in the Nakar Baronies.

The skill I gained is basic, but one I am extremely happy to get. It immediately fills the hole in my weakness.

In the battle, I had focused on dodging. I did minimal countering and parrying because of the force and the skills attached to it.

Now, with parry, I would feel less force, and the power of other attached skills would also lessen.

Most importantly, I will now not have to give up many opportunities to kill the enemies that I could have done by parrying the attacks.

It is really a skill I need. I am really glad I got it.

Once, I reached home. I will resume my training; this battle had once again proved how important it is for me to continue with my training.

It is the reason I am even alive.

I stayed in the bed for a minute more, before getting up and coming out of my tent.

A smile appeared on my face, seeing the cloudless morning without any snowfall.

It felt like a new dawn.

It is eight in the morning. If the bandits hadn't attacked, we would have been on our way to Fort Renin already, but now it will take some time.

I only hope that we will reach there by evening.

"Have you taken a rest?" I asked Jon and Shaun, guarding my tent. "We had a few hours of shuteye," Jon replied.

Hearing that, I felt relieved.

"Mr. Silver, a few messages have come for you," informed Shaun. I was about to ask him the same thing.

I took the letters from him and begin to read them. I have to say, he had terrible handwriting, bad as the doctors.

Once we reach home, I will ask him if he needs a calligraphy teacher.

The letters are from Carla, Ina, and Count Darrow.

Hun!

I read Carla's and Ina's letters, before turning to Count's. I had informed him about the attack last night and he was just following.

He is coming to the Nakar Baronies tomorrow and I am going to meet him there.

There are a lot of preparations needed to be done. The infrastructure needed to be built, not only in baronies but also in mirador holds.

The trade will go through the Mirador hold, and while the warehouses and other things are already built, thanks to our trade with Navr. It won't be enough when Oksall joined in.

Thankfully, the requirements are drafted in the contract. So, the Count won't be able to show much of his miserly attitude there.

A few hours passed, and a group of a few hundred people reached the hill, before starting climbing up.

They are the Blackwell forces. They have left the Amberhold, the moment the news of bandits reached them.

They will be joining us in Fort Renin, while a company of soldiers would leave for the Amberhold, taking the injured soldiers back to the city.

"Let's hope we come across no other obstructions, in the rest of the journey," I said as I sat on my horse.

"There won't be," said the old man beside me.

A minute later, we begin to climb down the hill toward Fort Renin. There is a smile on the faces of people, especially my sister, whose smile is a little too big.

She had definitely leveled up, but I think this is not the only thing making her happy.

"You look awfully happy?" I asked and immediately she controlled her expressions and activated a spell, covering three of us in an invisible field of silence.

"I don't want to seem insensitive, after what we have suffered, but attacking us, the bandits have made things very easy for us and Ignatius," she said softly.

"You are very right about that," I replied. It feels insensitive to admit it, but it is the truth.

"This old man is not understood?" asked Baron Harrods, but right after asking, he seemed to understand what we mean, seeing how his eyes lit up.

"We have effectively dealt with more than a third of bandits in a single night and it will put fear in the hearts of the rest of the bandits,"

"This will help tremendously in trade," she said, and the old man nodded.

The bandits are pests. They make many merchants hesitate. This news is going to make them very happy and more might join the trade.

Hours passed, and we continued our journey toward our destination, coming across many orc tribes who would watch us from a distance.

The life of these people is going to change soon.

It will be interesting to see what these tribes could do with the opportunity that is about to come.

From what my sister and Baron Harrods were able to find out. These orcs have a lot to offer. I could see the cogs of my sister's mind spinning as she looked at them.

She already has a plan, which is not surprising.

She is silver. If she didn't have several plans already, then she wouldn't have been worthy of the surname.

I also have a few of my own, but instead of wealth; they are more focused on power. The wealth will come, as long as I have the power.

"We are near, right?" I asked the old man. "You will be able to see it after we reach the hill," he replied.

I nodded and looked at the map in my hand.

A few minutes later, we were on the hill, and I could see the white stone fort at a distance. It is not far. We should be able to reach it, within an hour.

Seeing the fort, newfound energy seemed to have entered everyone, and we moved toward it fast.

An hour later, we appeared in front of the fort covered in snow.

It is a beautiful fort, bigger than the ones in the Naker baronies. Its condition is better than I had imagined, seeing it had been unoccupied for centuries.

A few people from House Blackwell had occupied it, but all of them left it within a few years.

It will need some work, but that wouldn't be a problem.

Considering it is an Oksall who will be the one financing it and if small hints from Ignatius are to be believed. They have allotted a fairly large budget for it.

"Open the gates," Ignatius ordered, and his men pushed the rusty old gate.

A minute later, the gates of the castle opened wide, and we entered inside the fort.