13
Chapter 12
-VB-
Zernez
Terrace stared at the familiar yet unfamiliar man-at-arms, who called himself a survivor.
His father had gone out to subjugate Landwasser for their family, but instead of an army coming back with either the banner of their enemy or … or something to prove that he's done their house well.
Instead, his family's remaining and loyal men-at-arms returned with a tattered banner, bruised, broken, and beggared. Some had fled the Alps entirely, screaming and moaning about the Demon Guard of Fluela. The surviving mercenaries also fled, taking their first installment of pay with them.
As of now, House Waldenburg faced a crisis like none other. Only a hundred men-at-arms had returned, never mind the levies who'd probably all gone home or fled the region entirely or died en masse.
The stories the men - his men now, if their words were true - told him about the battle at Fluela Pass horrified him. A fully fortified valley pass, even if it was merely made out of wood and not stone. More than a hundred garrison standing guard, raining down arrows and rocks to kill and crush.
Though all of their accounts differed a little, they all spoke of a demon, a man who jumped down from over fourteen feet of wall, landed on the ground, and slaughtered their men. Then that man struck deep into the command, beheaded each of the men-at-arms in a single swing, and then beheaded his father. The demon then went on to pursue and strike down over a hundred men himself before he broke off to return to his den.
Beside him, his grandfather stood shaking with his cane in his hands.
"H-How could this happen…? Our scouts…! Our scouts must have betrayed us!" he coughed and moaned before-.
"Father!" Terrace's mother shot forward and caught his ailing grandfather. Some of the men-at-arms, the older ones, also rushed forward to help the man.
Terrace watched helplessly as his grandfather, Ulrich von Waldenburg, let out ragged breaths. His entire body trembled from the shock of the news.
"Get my grandfather to his quarters, now!" he shouted, and those same men-at-arms quickly helped his mother move their former lord.
Terrace watched this all with a grimace and knew that his grandfather Ulrich the Mighty, a man who once slew a dozen knights in a single battle, was not as strong and tough as he had once been. It was up to him, Terrace von Waldenburg, to lead the Waldenburg House and castle to survival.
But how? What survival could they manage when they nearly emptied their treasury, lost two-thirds of their men-at-arms, and lost a greater ratio of levies? He could not see a way out of this, not without spending days if not weeks on finding a solution. Did he have that much time?
"C-Collect the taxes in grain," he hurriedly spoke out. "Except the families of men-at-arms still working for us. We do not hurt the families of those who work for us." The men-at-arms in front of him bowed and hurried away. He let out a sigh of relief as he and his family were left alone.
Well, his son, his wife, and he was left alone in the courtyard.
"How many men do we have, milord?" Adelina asked.
He grimaced. "One hundred fifty-seven."
"... Barely enough to protect our castle. The castle town below…"
"If someone comes to fight us, then we will have to drawback to the castle. That's why I had the men gather grain. In the worst case, the town will be overrun multiple times and we'll be put to siege."
"I see. Should I ask for help from my parents?"
"... I don't think they'll make it in time."
She nodded. "I will send a letter regardless. Better to have help and not need it than not have it and need it, isn't that right?"
"Yes."
"Good." Then she left.
"... this is a disaster for our house, but we will manage, father," Hugo told him.
Terrace looked at his son, and then nodded. "Yes. We will survive. Perhaps not as wealthy as before, but we can at least say that we tried when we had the opportunity."
Hugo nodded. "I shall ready the remaining knights, father. Let no one say that our house did not fulfill its duties, come what may. May God bless you in your endeavors."
"And you too, son."
-VB-
Albula
"Is this true?" Count of Sax-Misox, Joseph von Sax-Misox, grinned.
"Yes, milord!" the mercenary scout in front of him affirmed from where he knelt in front of him. "The Count of Waldenburg has le his men out to strike at Lower Landwasser through the Fluela Pass, but his men have returned without him and in tatters!"
Joseph leaned back into his chair within his command tent.
'This is too good of an opportunity.'
For generations, his branch of the House of Sax had been losing land and power, not only to the church but the uppity peasants who thought they had rights to the land they lived. They forgot that all of the land belonged to the kaiser, and these lands have been granted to Houses like his for their service. More than that, these lands were what he and his family had developed and raised…
But such histories did not prevent the financial collapse of the House of Sax, and his father, Albrecht von Sax-Misox has had to sell many castles and valleys.
But he, Joseph, clawed his way back. Controlling trade where he could, skimming the tax collection, and falsifying the records allowed him to gather wealth his father with his naivety and honesty had lost over the years.
And then the Prince-Bishop of Chur lost and left his lands open to conquest.
It was too good to be true, for such an opportunity to land in his laps.
Already, he had defeated and slain the Baron of Vaz and his heir, effectively taking the Barony of Vaz completely for himself. To hear that his new neighbor, the Count of Waldenburg, has suffered such a loss?
Oh ho ho ho!
He smelled money and glory. To rise above and control all of the land once known as Raetia as his! To have his house, once humiliated by his peers, stomp them out!
"Good…" he smiled. "You deserve a fine reward for this information. Go to the quartermaster and tell him that you are promised fifty silvers."
The mercenary's greedy glints in his eyes spoke well to Joseph.
"Karl."
His right-hand knight stepped up.
"Tell the army that we will march east. Waldenburg will be ours!"
-VB-
Lower Engadine Valley (Susch)
I let out a steady breath.
Twenty-three volunteers and I managed to get through the Fluela Pass without any encounter or trouble and found ourselves in Lower Engadin Valley.
Further down the valley, we saw a sleepy village.
"We should attack them."
I looked to my left and saw Derrick.
"We are not going to attack random villages and villagers, especially not when they are our direct neighbors," I grunted.
"They live under the Count of Waldenburg who just attacked us, Hans! We should be making sure that the count does not have the strength to strike at us again!"
I turned to him, facing him fully, and narrowed my eyes. "If this is the reason why you volunteered, then turn around and go back to my fort. Did I not tell you that as a volunteer, you are going to do exactly as I say and not more? Did you not promise me this?"
He looked away with a grimace. "I did."
"Then do as I act and say. That village probably doesn't even know what is going on. No, we move towards Zernez, and we will not attack anyone first. Is that clear?" I said as I looked around.
All of the volunteers nodded.
"Good. Then let's move. I want to be out of this valley by nightfall and ready to strike Zernez next morning."
We turned right and headed up the valley, leaving the village behind us.
"Hey, Hans."
I glanced and saw that it was Arnold who was talking to me. This family really liked to get my attention.
"What is it?"
"What … exactly are we going to do when we get to Zernez?" he asked cautiously. "We will be taking food that we need for the winter, right?"
"We will," I replied with a nod. "Though you might not know, we actually managed to secure what few supplies the count had with him when he died. It still isn't enough. I suspect that he expected to loot his way across Landwasser to feed his army."
Arnold grimaced. "That's … evil."
"From what I got out of the few prisoners we had, the count probably spent all of his money on the mercenaries. Godo thing he did, because those mercenaries were useless."
As we marched onward, I answered him and the rest of the volunteer company. "When we reach Zernez, we will strike without warning. If the castle is open to us, then we will strike. Any grain or money inside will be fair loot for us to take. If the townsfolk hide and don't bother us in the fighting, then we will leave them alone. Otherwise, we will fight and loot them, too."
I saw them nod.
"Good. I want all of you to prepare as we march and when we make camp. You are now the attackers. We will be taking food that belongs to someone else. Someone else will die because of you." I sucked at this speech thing, okay? "But when you take the food from them, I want you to tell them this: your count tried to kill us, so this is fair. We are merely succeeding where they are failing."
It was a horrible and unfair world, and food was always the most basic commodity unfairness came down to.
"If they hand over supplies and wagons without fighting us, then hopefully, we can leave without anyone dying."
But that was a pipedream.
Chapter 13
-VB-
Swiss Alps, as it would later come to be known as, looked picturesque when I, in a distant past that may be the future, looked it up on Google.
During my less than twenty years of life here, I have seen examples of the picturesque valleys and mountains.
Not a lot of people talked about how cold it could get, though.
Despite being wrapped up in at least two layers, I felt the cold valley winds crawl their way through whatever crooks and crannies they can push themselves through. Worse, I stood at the head of our little raid party, so I faced the wind head-on while the rest of my volunteer raiders lined up behind me like ducklings.
We made good time crossing the valley towards reaching our destination.
I … worried about what was going to happen.
I already made clear orders and instructions on what we were going to do, but I knew better to think that the men would do all that I said. These people were, after all, the denizens of a realm that tried to kill us. If I wasn't there with my fort and my Gamer-given strength, speed, and endurance, they would have been at the receiving end of what we intended to do, only worse.
I continued to move forward as the forest in the valleys began to thin.
"We're getting close," I said out loud.
The volunteers heard me and paused as I did.
"We'll set up camp here tonight," I ordered. There was no paved road here, just a cleared and somewhat used dirt path. If we built our camp away from it, then no one would discover us as long as we didn't have a fire on throughout the night. Besides, no one should be heading through this path.
We headed off the path and quickly set up tents and a single campfire with a pot over it. Our dinner tonight: hardtacks soaked in water. That's it.
(This was one of the many unspoken reasons why I preferred to have not needed to raid, but Kraft and his villagers forced my hand. Who the fuck wants to leave behind warm food and bed for this?)
I paused in eating my tasteless hardtack watery soup when one of the older volunteers sat down next to me and ate his own gruel.
We ate in silence before he finally spoke.
"... So, chief."
I had half a mind to tell him to not call me that because the thought of even more responsibility irked me when I simply wanted to enjoy the world. However, not accepting this title would mean that I would also not have control over what the volunteers did. That was the advantage of being a leader: people did shit that you told them to do, and if they didn't, then you had a reason to correct them.
This was especially true in this day and age. Sure, there were rules and laws that prevented a leader, mayor, chief, lord, count, dukes, and kings from indiscriminately punishing or extorting his people (hello, Magna Carta and Haandfaesting, shouldn't the two of you be in existence by now?), but stealing was punishable by death (not everywhere for every minor infarction of stealing but it was still possible).
Disobeying the lord in a battle had even worse consequences.
"Yes?" I responded mildly instead of the glare I wanted to throw.
"Are you sure about not taking more than what we need? I mean, some of us here aren't married, you know."
… Was this guy?
I saw the gleam in his eyes.
Oh, he was fucking serious.
"Are you a Muslim?"
The sudden question threw him off. "A what?"
"A Muslim. People who call our Lord Jesus Christ a mere prophet and places someone else as above him? The people who enslave Christians like ourselves? Who enslave Christian women to be their sex slaves and concubines against their wishes?"
My voice had risen a little during my demanding rant, and he quickly shook his head.
"Then why do you intend to enslave someone against their will?" I demanded again as I set the bowl down.
"W- I- S-"
I glared at him a little more -.
Ping!
[You have gained a new skill!]
[Intimidation] LvL 1
Instill fear in others.
*Once toggled (passively or manually), stun all within 10-yard radius for (LvL*0.05) seconds every second with [ (TARGET.CHA - YOUR.CHA)*10% ] chance of succeeding.
*At LvL 10, gain access to mana-infused target-assisting spell variant.
Everything just stopped as, one, I stared dumbly at the new skill, and two, at what the skill's secondary function implied.
My first magic spell.
My first magic, period.
I didn't know whether to thank the wannabe-rapist-wife-stealer raider or kiss him.
Actually, he was a wannabe-rapist-wife-stealer raider. I'll merely let his help slide, negated by the fact that he had the gall to ask me the previous question.
"There are such a people who most live far south of us, across the entirety of the Iberian peninsula and beyond the Mediterranean," I sighed as I drew myself back. "Their laws prevent themselves from enslaving each other, so they enslave others, even if their victims are those who worship the same God."
My words hooked at their minds and reeled them in. I spoke of a world none of them knew about. How would they? They were literal peasants who worked the mountainous fields of the Alpine valleys. They didn't get vacations or time off nor did they have education beyond what was strictly necessary for their survival (to be fair, they learned a lot, just not a lot of things beyond the pragmatically practical).
I could go on a tangent about how God's action in the Old Testament, the very first action after creating us humans, was to grant us freedom (Almighty and All-knowing God didn't stop Adam and Eve from eating the Forbidden Fruit) and how slavery itself was a heretical act that went against God himself, but that would be lost on most people. Hell, from what I remember, that simple lack of action was lost on most of the priests and pastors I've met in my past life (especially the younger ones).
No, I was going to make it simple for them.
Were you something not us or us?
"So are you going to go and join the people who enslaves your Christian brothers and sisters?" I asked, and the mood was … hostile. It wasn't just from me, but the others who heard me understood what was going on, and what kind of question had to be asked for me to act up like this.
Arnold seemed like he understood the most.
The balding man gulped.
I should kill him.
… Should I?
…
No.
Death was too final of a sentence. It left no room for improvement. People could get better; the question was whether or not they wanted to.
"I know that … these kinds of events give all of us opportunities to able to do something that we normally can't," I slowly spoke. "But there is a limit to what you should do, and as long as I am the leader, I will enforce that. Is that understood?"
"...Yes, sir," the now meek man replied.
"Good. That means no kidnapping woman to be your wife. Barter her like most of the widowed or single men do if you must-" Because that was the system of the time and era. "-but you don't kidnap and steal people. That is enslavement and I will not allow slavery on my watch." I gripped my broadsword meaningfully.
The rest of the meal was silent, and I stewed in the bad mood with the bad food.
It wasn't until later that I got giddy in my private tent while thinking about the new skill.
-VB-
Joseph von Sax-Misox
He swayed slightly from side to side as his horse ambled forward with his most prized knights around him while his levies and the mercenaries followed behind him.
On his way, he ransacked the villages and towns that belonged to the Counts of Zernez. Bergun fell without fighting back. Ponte didn't expect him and his army, and barely managed a defense at the crack of dawn before they too burned. The Noble House of Planta tried to negotiate, but they were nothing but lesser nobles so he plowed through them and their mob of hastily assembled peasant levies. They didn't even have a knight! That's how poor they were.
And here he was now, at the southern corner of Zernez…
He spotted something.
It drew his eyes and forced him to look.
There, at the northern side of this castle town, was a group of men. They looked like mercenaries. Were they hired by the Waldenbergs?
… He could not let them enter the castle, then.
"Men! Enemies up ahead!"
---
Arnold
He froze when he saw an army show up from the south.
"Oh, that can't be good."
He looked at Hans and saw the man grinning.
Why was he grinning?
They'd just arrived at the town and were deciding whether or not to enter negotiation with the next count or whoever else was reigning until the succession was settled.
Hans looked all for negotiations because he said it would be "less work for more reward," and Arnold agreed. Hans, using his booming voice, had called for a representative and got one in the form of the late count's wife.
But they hadn't even started the negotiations when that army showed up, and Hans, who'd just advocated for less work, looked like he was ready to do more work.
"Hey," Hans spoke up, and Arnold knew from Hans's tone - the same tone Hans used to put him to do grueling work back at the Fluela Fort - that this was not going to be fun for him or the other volunteers. "How about this? You give us two hundred thirty-pound bags of grain and then a hundred gold coins on top of that. If you do, then I'll help you fight them-" he gestured towards the army. "-off. And just so you know exactly who I am: I'm the guy who killed eight knights and then your late husband by myself without even getting a scratch on myself. Oh, of course, this also means that I don't do this to you and your castle," he said while pulling out his greatsword - the one that was longer and nearly wider than Hans, who was a tall man himself - and slammed it into the ground, making the ground tremble under their feet from the weigh of the sword.
And Hans did that with a single hand.
As the countess's shoulders tensed, Arnold felt his shoulders sag.
He knew it! Hans always said he didn't want trouble, but he built a fort, fought battles, and did it all with a smile on his face! Hans was a liar! A goddamn liar! Fuck! He even made threats to Berthold and then does this? Hire them out as mercenaries?
… He'd better share that gold.
"... Very well," the countess said. "I will tell my son."
"Good then." Hans turned to them. "It's Battle of Fluela Pass, take two!" he cackled with words that made no sense but obviously meant something funny. "You lot, escort the lady back to the castle and defend it. I'm going to go and harass these guys from the rear."
Hans took a bow and two quivers of arrows from him, and then, while wearing armor and weapon that had to weigh at least five men, ran - faster than Arnold could ever run - into the sparse forests near the castle town.
"Alright, Countess Waldenberg. Let's go to your castle. I don't want to fight an army out here," he urged her and they all quickly retreated.
---
I grinned as I ran between the trees and shrubs. The army obviously saw me and the others, and probably assumed that I was a messenger or a scout, because they sent five of their cavalrymen after me.
All I could think about was how quickly I was going to level up [Intimidation] so that I can use fucking magic!
The sparse forest, obviously sparse because the locals were cutting down trees for fuel, sped around me as I ran at half my top speed. This was still twice faster than the average top speed of humans, so I wasn't losing much ground to the cavalrymen sent after me.
Instead, I ran uphill and then abruptly turned around with my bow out and an arrow already nocked and drawn.
I saw before me a downhill slope of a forest with fall leaves already thinly layering the ground and shrubs. The horsemen urged their mounts forward, and they had their swords and spears drawn, ready to run me down.
Too bad for them…
I loosed.
The arrow struck the frontmost horse's forehead, and it crumpled forward.
I loosed again and again and again.
Of the four arrows, three found their mark, and three horses died. Two of the three riders managed to get off in time while the third screamed as his horse fell sideways and crushed his leg underneath him.
The fourth and fifth horsemen continued to run at me, but the moment they entered the range of my Intimidation, I grinned behind my helmet and unleashed [Intimidation] as I swung.
Dazed by the sudden foreign feeling, the fourth horse died as I cleaved its neck and its rider. Human and horse blood spewed out momentarily like a fountain, and I used the forward momentum to spin and strike at the fifth rider and horse.
This one got lucky. They had been just outside my striking range, and got away as I missed them by a good foot.
I didn't stop, though. I slammed the sword onto the ground, pulled my bow back out, and loosed an arrow at his back.
I missed the upper back and instead struck where his kidney would be.
Ouch.
Whirling around, I saw the two de-horsed cavalrymen staring at me with horrified realization.
[Intimidation] LvL up!
Huh? But I didn't use it-.
Ohhh… it gained experience if my targets got feared on their own.
'… Normally, I didn't like being cruel, but what would this do?'
I drew another arrow and fired.
Stunned, the nearer of the two riders didn't have the time nor the chance to dodge as the arrow flew true … and pierced through his groin.
He screamed.
The other rider screamed.
Now that I was paying attention to my Gamer, I could feel the EXP gains flowing in. It was here that I had a horrifying realization. Like a WoW player who grinded raid dungeons, I could grind Intimidation by holding people in a dungeon and torturing them.
The thought of it sickened me even as my own mind brought it up.
I drew another arrow as the now only surviving rider fled.
I loosed and struck mostly true. The last rider went down with an arrow through his throat.
I slung the bow around my torso, picked my greatsword back up, and rushed out of the forest.
The commander would be too busy sieging the castle. There was no way he was at the frontline…
So just like I did with the Count of Waldenberg, I would strike at the army's commander.