Chapter 9
I rode toward the rear of the migrants' procession, where I had heard the screams.
When I arrived at the end, I found about six knights and a dozen or so people.
The problem was the condition of those dozen or so people.
Their hands were bound, and they had gags in their mouths.
"You aren't knights of our territory. Where are you knights from!?"
At my words, the knights turned their horses toward me.
Then I saw a lion emblem clearly displayed on their breastplates.
There was only one family that used a lion emblem.
A family aligned with the prince faction east of our territory, ruled by a lord with two fathers like Lü Bu.
It was 『House Ryan』.
They spoke to me with great confidence.
"We are knights of House Ryan. We have come to capture some runaway slaves."
"You came to capture runaway slaves?"
"Mmph! Mmph!! Mmph! Mmph!!"
At their words, the gagged people began making sounds as though they wanted to say something.
Seeing this, Noah asked the knights of House Ryan:
"Are these people really runaway slaves?"
"They are."
At their answer, Noah narrowed their eyes and glared at them.
After glaring at them for a moment, Noah said without hesitation:
"My lord, they are lying."
Everyone there was shocked by Noah's assertion, including me.
No matter that Noah was my vassal and the heir to House White, if those people were not slaves, Noah's actions could be considered an insult to the knights of House Ryan.
"That girl's got some nerve!! Who do you think you are, barging into our conversation!!!"
But there were even crazier bastards.
Were those lunatics insulting Noah, my vassal, right in front of me?
Suddenly remembering a manager from a partner company who had abused his authority in my previous life, I felt my blood pressure shoot up.
"You bastards are the ones who have some nerve! Are you insulting my vassal right in front of me!?"
When I shouted, they seemed to realize only then that they had made a mistake.
I shouted at Rikain, who was beside me to serve as my escort:
"Rikain! Remove their gags!!"
“Yes, my lord!!”
Rikain and the knights removed the gags from the people's mouths.
Although their gags were gone, they continued trembling in fear, and I asked them:
"Are you free citizens? Or are you slaves?"
"We are.... I mean.... It's...."
They wanted to tell me something, but kept glancing nervously toward the knights of House Ryan.
The sight of them reminded me of myself in my previous life, after being bullied by school delinquents and then summoned to school.
Even now, the memory irritated me, so I spoke in front of the knights of House Ryan:
"I swear by the Goddess of Protection, 『Lupia』. I, Calix, lord of Kron, guarantee your safety and security. You may speak honestly. Are you free citizens? Or are you slaves?"
The Goddess Lupia was one who raised a shield before the weakest and protected them.
When I loudly swore before her so that everyone could hear, I saw courage, however slight, begin to appear in their eyes.
Then they shouted:
"We!! We are free citizens!! We want to move to House Kron! Please accept us!! Lord Calix!!"
“Please!! Please!!! Accept us!!“
“I accept you. From this moment on, you are all subjects of House Kron."
At my declaration, they cheered as though they had been freed from hell.
Leaving the rejoicing new subjects behind, I glared at the knights of House Ryan, whose expressions had turned sour.
"Were you trying to kidnap free citizens with the right to relocate and treat them like slaves?"
"They may not be slaves, but they are the property of Baron Hadem, our great lord of House Ryan."
Free citizens were not slaves, but naturally there were vicious lords who ignored that fact.
The current lord of House Ryan, 『Hadem Ryan』, was one of those vicious lords, and the bastards who had been exposed seemed to have no intention of hiding it anymore.
Dumbfounded by the shameless bastards, I asked Hart:
"Hart!!"
"Yes, my lord."
"Does imperial law say that people who aren't slaves may be treated as slaves?"
"I have studied it for decades, but I have never seen such a law."
Hart glared at the knights of House Ryan with the disgust one would show revolting cockroaches and said:
Even Old Man Hart seemed furious that they had tried to kidnap the free citizens who wanted to come to our territory.
"Steward Hart is an expert on imperial law. Do you know imperial law better than he does?"
Though this was a feudal world and imperial law had weakened because the Emperor was ill, the law was still the law.
At my words, the knight of House Ryan finally lost his temper and shouted:
"Are you really going to take this attitude, Lord Calix!?"
"You bastards!!!"
Rikain and the knights tried to draw their swords immediately at the knights' insolence, but I stopped them with a gesture.
Then I continued calmly:
"Once I accepted them into my territory, they became my subjects. If you want them back, make them want to return on their own."
The knights of House Ryan understood my words, and their expressions soured terribly.
In a single sentence, I had indirectly told them, ‘Go back and take care of your own territory, you idiots.’
The knights understood that and said without trying to hide their grim expressions:
"The prince and our lord will remember what happened today."
Honestly, I did not think a prince with a good eye for the grand scheme would care about something like this.
However, the lord of House Ryan did give me some concern.
For all that, he was one of the top-tier lords in the prince's faction in terms of martial prowess, like Lü Bu.
But when I looked at the ordinary people who had fled all the way here with hope, I simply could not stand by and do nothing.
While I was thinking that, they began turning their horses around with humiliation on their faces.
Where did those bastards think they were going?
My calculations were not finished yet.
“Where do you think you're going?"
When I shouted, they turned to look at me.
I pointed at Noah and said:
"Before you leave, apologize to my vassal."
"Apologize? To that bitch?"
“Noah is not a bitch. Noah is my ‘treasurer’ and my ‘vassal.’”
At my words, Noah looked startled, as though Noah had heard something never expected.
And the knight of House Ryan wore a genuinely dumbfounded expression.
“I will apologize for my rudeness to the lord. But I cannot apologize to that bitch for barging into our conversation.”
I had been the same way in my previous life, and I was the same way now.
I could endure being insulted, but I could never tolerate anyone insulting my people or my family, even if it killed me.
Yet those bastards had so casually touched that most sensitive nerve of mine.
“Do you still think I'm trying to end this situation with a reasonable conversation?…Rikain!!!!!”
-Clang! -Clang! -Clang!
When I shouted, Rikain and all the knights drew their swords and surrounded them in an instant.
Humans really are strange animals.
Even when they were at death's door, they did not think they were going to die until a blade was at their throat.
They were no different.
Only now, in this situation, did fear begin to rise on their faces, as though they had finally understood that I might truly kill them.
I said to them quietly:
"I'll say this one last time...."
A knight commander, a dozen or so knights, and dozens of subjects had gathered before long.
Their gazes were so murderous that they seemed ready to turn the knights into minced meat at a single word from me.
"Leave your honor behind, or leave your heads behind."
Perhaps my words frightened them,
perhaps it was the knights' swords,
or perhaps it was the gazes of the surrounding subjects.
One thing was certain: their eyes were filled with fear, and they chose their lives over their honor.
“S-sorry… I apologize, unknown treasurer… I acted rudely. Please forgive me.”
“I accept your apology. Unknown knight, please do not lie again in the future.”
Noah accepted the knight's apology with a cold smile, and the knights of House Ryan fled in a panic amid the free citizens' jeers.
And beginning the next day, a song called ‘The Lord of Kron Who Protected Free Citizens and His Vassal’ began spreading among the minstrels.
What is this, YouTube? Why are updates spreading so quickly?
I was beginning to find the minstrels a little frightening.
* * *
People seeing House Ryan's territory for the first time were surprised by three things.
First, they were surprised by the ‘knights’ and ‘soldiers’ visible everywhere they looked.
Second, they were surprised by the ‘people working like slaves’ visible everywhere they looked.
Finally, they were surprised by the ‘laughter’ that could not be seen anywhere.
The minstrels who saw House Ryan's territory, which was more suited to a military base than a lord's domain,
described it as follows.
‘Innocent subjects had been taken prisoner by a lord obsessed with war.’
A territory that existed solely for the sake of the coming war,
that was House Ryan's territory.
“My lord! We have something to report!!”
The knights who rushed to House Ryan's main castle reported every last detail of what had happened to their lord, 『Hadem Ryan』.
And he listened to the story calmly as he sharpened his ax.
He looked more like a knight—no, a warrior—than a lord.
With bulging muscles, a scarred face, and a smooth, hairless scalp gleaming, he sharpened his ax until it shone more brightly than his own head as he listened to the knights' report.
“So…that brat from Kron acted like that?”
“Yes, Lord Hadem!! It was truly humiliating!!!”
Hadem calmly listened to the news and inspected the condition of his ax.
Then, after confirming that it had been sharpened to his satisfaction, he turned toward the knights who had fled back to him.
“And you suffered that humiliation, then simply ran away and came back?”
“What!? I mean… It was…”
Hadem calmly looked at the fleeing knight and casually swung his ax, which was as large as an adult man.
Whoosh-!
The sight resembled a middle-aged man trying out a new fishing rod.
The knights could not even react to the utterly natural motion.
A short while later, the body and head of the knight at the front, clearly a commander, had been cleanly separated.
Thud-!
“Eek!!”
Hadem rose, calmly wiping the blood from his ax.
Then he approached the knights cowering beside the fallen knight commander and said in a low voice:
“『Valiant Lion』 has no need for 『Frightened Sheep』.”
Hadem entered his room after saying that.
Then the man who appeared to be Hadem's adjutant ordered the remaining knights to dispose of the body before following Hadem into the room.
“What should we do about the brat from Kron, my lord?”
“What do you mean, what should we do? I am not so narrow-minded that I would get angry over a young brat's antics.”
To Hadem, Calix of House Kron was nothing more than a brat.
A young brat who had suddenly become heir after the previous lord's death.
A weak lord who relied on crafty little tricks such as doubling the wages of slave-like laborers and lowering tariffs.
The fact that such a Calix had dared to come on so strongly against him was itself an infuriating situation for Hadem.
“But I am worried.”
“Is something worrying you, my lord?”
Hadem casually drained a glass of spirits poured by his adjutant.
Then he said calmly:
“As I understand it, free citizens who flee tend to become bandits.”
Hadem held out his glass for his adjutant to pour him another drink.
Hadem's adjutant, ‘Lagos,’ filled the glass with spirits according to his lord's wishes.
“It seems a 『bandit gang』 will start appearing in the territory of the brat who accepted too many free citizens… Aren't you worried that bandits will begin appearing in our neighboring territory?”
“…I see. I am worried too, my lord.”
Hadem gave no orders.
But his adjutant Lagos understood all of his intentions.