Chapter 254 - Episode 247: The Pride of the Southern Nobles ②
"Tch, the Adleon continent is an unbelievable place. It's only the first half of December, and it's already this cold?"
Somewhere in the southeastern part of the Kingdom of Roadberg. Glantz, an officer of the Republic of Betumia's army, was riding at the head of his unit, grumbling as he proceeded.
Compared to the Republic of Betumia, where the climate was relatively easy to live in even during winter, the southern part of the Adleon continent, located further north, was cold.
The basic tactical unit was a centuria of one hundred men. Glantz, who led a fifty-man unit—half of a centuria—had been tasked with bringing the villages of southern Roadberg under their control.
The Republic of Betumia aimed for complete dominance over the Kingdom of Roadberg, but while the ruling class of royalty and nobility were fair game, they could not kill every single commoner. Those who resisted were killed, and those who displayed defiant attitudes were sometimes executed as a warning, but the basic policy was to enslave them.
Therefore, many such small-scale units were organized and sent to the farming villages scattered across the south of the kingdom.
Upon arriving at a village, the unit's job was to kill the members of the village head's family—who were often former retainers of the nobility or, in some cases, relatives—and declare the village's annexation by the Republic of Betumia to the remaining residents.
The remaining people would become serfs for the new settlers arriving from Betumia. The soldiers explained to the residents that as long as they were obedient, their treatment would not be bad, and in some cases, they would win them over by promising the provision of food. In this way, the Republic of Betumia's army attempted to expand and stabilize its domain.
However, this was only done for villages of a certain size that offered profit under their control. Poor, small villages were ruthlessly trampled, and the captured residents were transported to Laden. Glantz had heard that those taken prisoner in this manner were carried back to the home country and sold as slaves.
Furthermore, to maintain the morale of the troops, the raping of women in the raided villages was tacitly permitted. On the surface, meaningless violence and rape were forbidden, but these were residents of villages they were destroying anyway. No one would find out if the soldiers did as they pleased, and every unit was doing the same thing.
However, this was the story of the south. It seemed that the people of the north, where mines were plentiful, were given better treatment as common laborers, and mine engineers were held in high regard, but such things were currently irrelevant to a low-ranking officer like Glantz.
It was a dull mission, but there was no helping it when ordered, and it was far safer than being stationed on the front lines and engaging the forces of the Kingdom of Roadberg. With that thought, Glantz continued along the unknown roads of an unknown country today as well.
"Huh? ...All units, halt. Move to the side of the road."
Because he was mounted, Glantz had a better view than his subordinates. He spotted another Betumia army unit approaching from beyond the road, which dipped into a gentle hill, and gave the order. The soldiers under his command moved to the side of the road as told, their movements somewhat sluggish.
The unit coming from the front was a small detachment—half of a fifty-man unit—and they were leading about thirty enslaved citizens of the kingdom, bound by ropes. According to the rules, when encountering another small unit on the highway and the other party was leading slaves, the unburdened party was to give way.
"Greetings. We'll be passing through."
"Yeah. Good work... you've got a big haul of male slaves."
Spoken to by the commander who seemed to be leading the other small unit, Glantz responded. He then asked about their achievement as a bit of small talk. The slaves they were leading were all well-built men.
"The population of the village we hit was a bit too many for us to lead alone, so we killed all the girls who had low value as labor. Ah, of course, we enjoyed the women plenty before killing them... yeah, it was a perk of the job."
"I see. That's good for you... which village are you bringing them from?"
"From a farming village deep in the forest road, after turning left partway down this road."
"What? That should be the village we're about to attack..."
As Glantz spoke with a puzzled look, the opposing commander also frowned.
"What. That's strange. We only received our orders yesterday... ah, come to think of it."
The commander looked as if he had remembered something—and in the next instant, he suddenly drew his sword and sliced Glantz's head clean off.
With a calm expression, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, the opposing commander killed their captain. Glantz's fifty soldiers froze in astonishment.
"...! F-form the line—"
Glantz's second-in-command was the first to grasp the situation and tried to shout an order, but by then, the soldiers from the unit leading the slaves had already leaped upon them.
Furthermore, the slaves, who were supposed to be bound with their hands behind their backs, suddenly leaped forward with their hands in front. Ropes were indeed wrapped around their wrists, but those ropes were not tied to anything.
The soldiers slashed with swords, and the slaves knocked their opponents over with body slams, then seized their weapons to deliver the finishing blow. Their movements were not those of captured peasants, but clearly those of trained military personnel.
In less than a minute, the twenty or so soldiers and thirty or so slaves had slaughtered the entire fifty-man unit.
"Come to think of it, we were people of the Kingdom of Roadberg, not Betumia. Kuhahaha!"
The commander of the victorious side—Viscount Queul of the Kingdom of Roadberg, who had been posing as such—laughed flippantly while kicking the severed head of the Betumian officer.
"Your Excellency Queul, there are no dead on our side. Only a few lightly wounded."
"I see, I see. Well done, everyone. Those who played the slaves, if there's a corpse with a build similar to yours, strip any usable armor."
Donning armor stripped from the corpses of Betumian soldiers to impersonate the Republic of Betumia's army, and having those who lacked armor pose as slaves, they would approach small units, slaughter them in a surprise attack, and seize even more armor.
Having successfully executed such a tactic, Viscount Queul gave words of appreciation to his subordinates with a vulgar smile.
Due to his flippant speech and behavior, Viscount Queul's reputation in social circles was not very good. Or rather, it was bad. In particular, he was seen as having a bad habit of speaking out of turn.
Even at a royal banquet two years ago, he had lightly teased Viscount Arqvist of the Northwestern faction, who was being hailed as a hero of the nation, only to be repelled by a painful retaliation from the Viscount's wife, making a pathetic spectacle of himself.
Despite this, Viscount Queul was exceptionally strong on the battlefield. He particularly excelled in guerrilla warfare, using unorthodox strategies to deal blows to the enemy. Because he preferred cunning tactics, he was sometimes looked upon with a frown, but since he produced results, his evaluation as a strategist was high. He had even received the evaluation from the leader, Marquis Bittenfeld, that "if he just kept his mouth shut and stood on the battlefield, he would be a capable man."
"Kufufufu, those Betumians are careless. They completely believe that the south of the kingdom is their domain. There's no way we southern nobles would give up that easily."
He was well aware that he excelled in guerrilla warfare rather than siege warfare. Therefore, Viscount Queul left the defense of the provincial capital to his younger brother and eldest son, while he led an elite force to engage in such disruptions.
"Your Excellency, we have finished seizing the enemy soldiers' armor, food, and other supplies. About half of the armor is still usable. The other half is too heavily stained with blood and wounds to be used to deceive the enemy."
"If half are usable, that's a great achievement. Next, we might let some nearby peasants play the role of slaves and do the same thing on a larger scale."
"But Your Excellency, if we do it too overtly, won't the enemy eventually learn our methods?"
To the adjutant who asked this, Viscount Queul responded with a snort.
"Hmph, that would be convenient in its own way. If the Republic of Betumia's army learns that enemies disguised as friendly forces are roaming around, it will surely make their movements difficult. If that happens, it'll be even easier to buy time. Even if this method is discovered, there are plenty of other ways to deceive the enemy."
According to the last messenger from the center of the kingdom, His Majesty the King was gathering the northern nobles to launch a counterattack as soon as winter ended. Their role was to buy time until then.
Stirring up chaos in the middle of enemy territory was his specialty. He would run wild even more. Thinking this, Viscount Queul wore a fearless smile.