Chapter 146: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Shrade was furious, but no matter how loud he shouted, nobody in the great tent took him seriously. What a joke—marching troops to besiege Nadgas City and clashing blades with the Second Prince would be outright treason. It was common knowledge that the Andinak royal family was the legitimate successor of the former Krisen imperial family, which meant the Andinak royal family represented by the Second Prince was the Norton Family's liege lord. Unless Shrade was prepared to renounce his status as a Norton Family Knight and lead everyone off to become bandits, there was simply no way he could mobilize troops.

"Terman, draft an official letter to the Second Prince demanding the return of our family soldiers. Otherwise, once word gets out, the Andinak royal family won't look good either," Bodfeng said to Terman.

"Very well. I'll write it right away." Terman stood up and left the great tent.

"Come now, this isn't worth getting worked up over. I suspect this was all Adema and Wamp acting on their own initiative—the Second Prince probably knows nothing about it. Because if this gets out, the Andinak royal family will lose more face than we will," Bodfeng told Shrade.

Bodfeng was right. As the liege lord, the Second Prince had every right to issue commands to the Norton Family. Borrowing troops, requesting supplies—all of that was negotiable. Even his current recruitment of those old Dawn Academy alumni was perfectly acceptable, because those alumni were not Norton Family Knights. They had merely accepted Lorist's invitation to travel north with the convoy; whether they would become Norton Family Knights would only be decided once they reached their destination. So the Second Prince recruiting them was entirely above board, and these alumni leaving the convoy for better prospects was only natural.

However, the two squadrons of soldiers who had been taken away were Norton Family armed forces. If the Second Prince refused to return them, he would have to be out of his mind. On the Galentea Continent, rebellion was the greatest taboo among nobles. A subordinate lord rebelling against his liege lord—no matter how justified—would be denounced by all and automatically shunned by every noble house. Once you failed, your family would never recover.

Take the Pegasus Family, for example. A century ago, they had allied with seven other noble houses and gone to war against Krisen IV over a crescent-shaped magic stone, but nobody branded them as rebels. The descendant of the Filim Family, Baron Charwold, even flew the Pegasus banner and proclaimed he was restoring his family, earning widespread praise. The reason was simple: the Filim Family were not rebels. Their war against Krisen IV arose solely because they refused to surrender the magic stone to the Krisen imperial family, and Krisen IV, humiliated and enraged, had sent troops to seize it by force. They were merely defending themselves. Even after their defeat, Krisen IV never declared those noble families to be rebels. In the eyes of all nobles, the Crescent Moon War was simply Krisen IV using his superior strength to bully a few unfortunate houses.

When the liege lord held the upper hand, the subordinate lords had to swallow their pride and play along. But when a subordinate lord's strength exceeded that of his liege lord, he could just as easily defy or ignore the liege lord's commands. The reasoning was simple: as long as the subordinate lord believed the liege lord's command harmed his family's interests, he was entitled to disregard it. This was every noble's sacred right, and there was nothing the liege lord could do about it. What Shrade was shouting about—marching troops and declaring war—now that was true rebellion.

By the same token, a liege lord absorbing a subordinate lord's troops, resources, or wealth without consent was also a grave offense—one that would earn the scorn of all subordinate lords and could even drive them away. Right now, the Northern convoy was stronger than the Second Prince's forces. If this matter caused a falling out and the Norton Family turned to the Eldest Prince or the Second Prince, abandoning the Third Prince, then the Second Prince would regret it endlessly.

Turning an ally into a mortal enemy took a truly special kind of stupidity. Besides, the Second Prince was not short on soldiers. He could recruit tens of thousands from the refugees at a moment's notice, as long as he could feed them. Nor was he lacking equipment—the Royal Guard Corps still had tens of thousands of sets of weapons and armor sitting in warehouses. Starting a conflict with the Norton Family over two squadrons of soldiers was, from the Second Prince's perspective, a losing proposition.

Terman lifted the tent flap and stepped back inside. "The Second Prince has arrived," he announced.

Shrade was still seething. "Tell him to get lost. I don't want to see him."

Whether he wanted to or not, he would have to. Though Shrade was the Northern convoy's steward appointed by Lorist, he remained a Norton Family Knight at the end of the day. The Second Prince was the Norton Family's liege lord. Unless Lorist was present, no one had the authority to bar the Second Prince from the great tent—especially with Norton Krisha acting as his attendant.

The Second Prince had come to apologize and return the two squadrons of soldiers. The more Shrade looked at him, the more irritated he became. He believed that the convoy's current dilemma was largely the Second Prince's doing. And Fatty had always prided himself on his quick wits—yet here he was, being played like a puppet by this seemingly harmless, affable Second Prince, only catching on to what had happened after the fact every single time.

Bodfeng lodged a formal protest with the Second Prince: the convoy was in a dire situation, yet the Second Prince was still poaching from it. Although the old alumni he had recruited were not Norton Family Knights, they held important positions in the convoy and had been entrusted with significant responsibilities. Their departure left behind a mess that gave the convoy's managers a terrible headache. Bodfeng did not oppose the Second Prince recruiting talent, but at the very least he should let them see the job through—bring the convoy to the Norton Family's territory in Northland first, and then they could come serve the Second Prince.

If they chose to join him, he would accept Bodfeng's suggestion and wait until the convoy reached its destination before letting those who wished to come report for duty.

Bodfeng was also frustrated. At present, only a handful of people in the convoy had been accepted as Norton Family Knights by Lorist: himself, Shrade, Eel, who was recuperating in the neighboring tent, Terman, and Yuri, who was out leading a patrol. His former colleagues from the White Lion Corps—the Gold-rank Rod Wells, the Silver Three-star Mons Malek who was managing refugee affairs, the Gold mercenary Zeno Farea commanding a garrison battalion, the Gold swordsman Injelik who had taken over convoy operations from the wounded Eel, Dolres of the war chariot unit, Lenmord of the alchemist squad, and the rest of the old Dawn Academy alumni—these were all the backbone of the Northern convoy. But they were not yet Norton Family Knights, and being poached by the Second Prince was an unavoidable reality.

For ambitious old alumni, the title of Royal Knight was far more attractive than that of Family Knight. The Andinak Kingdom had been swept clean by the convoy's armed forces under Shrade's command, and everything needed rebuilding. With the western border facing the sea and the other three directions surrounded by hostile neighbors—all compounded by the Forde Commercial Alliance's deliberate suppression and trade blockade—the kingdom's situation was dire. But fortune favored the bold. Joining the Second Prince now meant ample opportunity to earn merit. Once granted a fiefdom for their valor, they would stand on equal footing with Lorist, becoming members of the nobility themselves—above the common folk for all eternity.

Fortunately, those who had defected to the Second Prince so far were mostly unremarkable among the alumni. Adema and Wamp, for instance, were merely squadron commanders. Some of the more outstanding alumni had already risen to battalion commander—a result of Shrade having expanded the convoy so aggressively. Nearly twenty thousand Family Knights, over five thousand carriages, more than sixty thousand convoy personnel, and another hundred thousand refugees trailing behind—they had all been forced to grow rapidly to fill their new positions and adapt to the changing circumstances.

The Second Prince had come with another purpose as well: to find out when the convoy would set out for the north.

Without a moment's hesitation, Shrade spoke frankly. The convoy was stuck here and unable to proceed to Northland, because the Maderas Duchy had deployed the Iron Guard Corps to seal the border, not allowing a single person or horse through. It was very likely the convoy would have to spend the winter in the Andinak Kingdom and figure out come spring whether to find a detour or come up with another plan. Therefore, Shrade hoped the Second Prince could help gather winter clothing and provisions to assist the convoy in getting nearly a hundred thousand refugees through the cold winter.

The Second Prince shook his head and was equally blunt: the Andinak Kingdom could not bear the burden of a hundred thousand refugees. The spoils from the convoy's sweep through two provinces had been split half-and-half with him, but recruiting soldiers and settling refugees had already consumed nearly everything. As for the spoils from Welbasia Province, Shrade had not given the Second Prince a share—all of it had gone to resettling refugees. So if they wanted to survive, the convoy had only one option: attack the Maderas Duchy and gather provisions and supplies from there.

The Second Prince said that if there truly was no other way, they would have to carve out a path by force. They could incite the refugees to attack the Lichtenana Fortress up ahead. A hundred thousand refugees—even if they couldn't take the fortress—would be enough to wear down the Iron Guard Corps defending it, perhaps even inflict devastating casualties. Then the convoy could launch a full assault and should be able to capture the Lichtenana Fortress with relative ease. The gates of the Maderas Duchy would swing open, and the convoy could proceed to Northland unimpeded.

Everyone in the great tent felt their scalps go numb. The Second Prince made it sound simple, but the thought of driving a hundred thousand refugees to storm a fortress defended by the Iron Guard Corps—renowned as the finest defensive force in the world—involuntarily conjured images of mountains of corpses and rivers of blood. How many refugee bodies would it take to fill that bottomless pit? Even Shrade, who was called a demon, couldn't help but feel a chill spread through his entire body.

"No. We can't do this." Bodfeng was the first to object. "Take the Eldest Prince of the Saeldis Kingdom—he was known for his cruelty and brutality, but even he only conscripted the able-bodied among the refugees as cannon fodder for siege warfare. Driving the elderly, the young, and women to storm a fortress—if word ever got out, the Norton Family's infamy would spread across the entire Galentea Continent. Not only would we become a disgrace among the nobility, but we would be despised by every commoner. Two hundred years of accumulated family reputation would be completely destroyed."

The Second Prince spread his hands. "I have no other solution either. Either we wait here and die, or we take the Lichtenana Fortress. I've thought it over, and this is the only idea I've come up with. If you're unwilling to use the refugees, then I can commit a corps of ten thousand soldiers to support your convoy in an armed assault on the fortress held by the Iron Guard Corps. But I don't favor the outcome. The Iron Guard Corps is famous for its defense. Back when they had only eight thousand men, they held off my father's sixty thousand troops for a full six months. Now the Maderas Grand Duke has expanded them into a twenty-eight-thousand-strong corps, and they have the Lichtenana Fortress. My ten thousand soldiers combined with your Northern convoy's nearly twenty thousand Family Knights would not be able to take the fortress..."

This was the truth. If the convoy remained stuck here and could not head north, the vast number of convoy personnel and refugees would exhaust all provisions within three to four months at most, and the convoy would collapse. If they tried to detour, they would have to pass through the Second Prince's territory in the Iblia Kingdom—burdened by a hundred thousand refugees trailing behind, the convoy would become the Second Prince's prey, making the future even more unpredictable. Moreover, the Iblia Kingdom had been ravaged by prolonged warfare and further drained by the Second Prince's exploitation; there would be no way to obtain provisions there. An additional three months of travel with no supplies, while guarding against interception by the Second Prince's forces—this was a dead end. Taking a detour was essentially not an option.

Without using the Second Prince's plan of driving refugees to storm the fortress, even with the Second Prince's support of ten thousand soldiers, nobody had confidence in their ability to take the Lichtenana Fortress defended by the Iron Guard Corps.

The great tent fell into a heavy silence...

The tent flap flew open, and Yuri rushed in, his face beaming. "Look who's here!"

Behind him came Reidi and Jim. The moment Shrade laid eyes on Reidi, he was overjoyed. "Re-Reidi? You're here? Where's the Lord?"

"The Lord missed you all terribly. He sent me to deliver several letters and check on your progress. Oh, this is Jim—a Silver-rank mercenary the Lord personally promoted. Come, Jim, let me introduce you..." Reidi pulled Jim along and began introducing him to everyone in the tent. But when they reached the Second Prince and Krisha, Reidi froze—he had no idea who these two were.

Terman quickly introduced the Second Prince and Krisha to Reidi and Jim. Upon learning that these were the Second Prince of the Andinak Kingdom and Lorist's older cousin Krisha, Reidi and Jim hastily bowed in respect.

"Reidi, and you too, Jim—plenty of time for pleasantries later. The Maderas Duchy's border is sealed, isn't it? How did you get here?" Shrade asked impatiently.

"Oh, that was all thanks to Jim. We heard the Maderas Duchy had sealed its borders because of some fellow they call Demon Shrade, blocking all passage. But Jim knows an old fisherman by Egret Lake who ferried the seven of us across in his little boat," Reidi answered with a grin.

Shrade's face flushed slightly—he hadn't realized his infamy had spread that far. "Seven of you came?"

"Right. The other five are Family Guards, all former mercenaries. We posed as a mercenary company and had a smooth journey. Just after crossing the lake, we ran into one of Lord Yuri's scout cavalry patrols, and they brought us here," Reidi replied.

"Reidi, how is the Lord doing? How are things back in the Family's territory?" Bodfeng asked.

"The Lord is doing well. As for the Family's territory—that's quite a story. We went back with the Lord, and it was quite the adventure. Let me tell you..."

...