"This damn weather, it's barely past June and already so hot—who can stand it going forward..." Carmen complained listlessly, drenched in sweat. The long spear forged from refined iron served as his walking stick, his helmet long since slung behind his back. At this moment, he wished he could strip off the refined iron armor he was wearing as well.
"Haven't the scouts up ahead found water yet? I'm dying of thirst! Carmen, let me have a sip from your water skin..." Belleu drove his spear into the ground beneath a tree and collapsed into the shade. He cut an even more wretched figure than Carmen, gasping for air like a fish washed ashore.
"No way. You kept guzzling it down nonstop—don't forget I poured half the water from my skin into yours, and you drank it all. If the scouts don't find a water source ahead, this little bit I have left won't even be enough for me." Carmen flatly refused.
"Carmen, don't forget we grew up together. I've always had your back when you were in trouble, and I took the hits for you whenever you got into fights. Isn't all those years of friendship worth a few sips of water?" Belleu said indignantly.
"Alright, alright, do you have to bring that up every time? It's annoying. And when's the last time you actually won a fight for me? In the end, we'd both end up getting beaten. I've always thought that if you weren't there, maybe I'd get hit less—people see your big frame and tend to swing harder, and I end up suffering right along with you... Here, two more sips. Open your mouth." Carmen carefully tipped the water skin and poured a couple of mouthfuls into Belleu's mouth.
With those couple of mouthfuls to moisten his throat, Belleu visibly perked up. After lying there a bit longer, he sat up, and together with Carmen, leaned against the tree watching the soldiers of the Free Alliance's armed legion—equipped just like them—laboring their way along the rugged mountain trail, tongues hanging out in exhaustion.
"I always thought we'd don our helmets and armor, charge into enemy formations waving our spears like true heroes—that's supposed to be our mission as soldiers of the Free Alliance. But who could've guessed that all we do is wind through the mountains in circles day after day, with nothing else to show for it? The enemy's already been blasted away by the
"You big oaf, if you want to die, don't drag others down with you. Don't think charging into battle means you'll survive and become a hero—on the battlefield, clueless hotheads like you die the fastest. And why were you two running so fast? I thought something had happened!" The one speaking was a middle-aged man with a full beard covering his face.
"Uncle Good..." Carmen and Belleu quickly stood up. This was Good, the captain of their hundred-man squad. Nearly fifty years old, he was an experienced old mercenary, Silver Two-Star. After the Commerce League abolished the Mercenary Guild, he had retired from the trade. When the Free Alliance reorganized its armed forces this time, a friend had invited him to join the legion, and he had become a centurion.
"Make some room, let me rest a bit too." Uncle Good wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I'm getting old, not cut out for this anymore. Ten years ago, mountain paths like this would've been flat ground for me—I could walk all day and night without breaking a sweat. Now, after just a morning, my legs feel like giving out."
Carmen and Belleu shuffled aside, making space in the middle under the tree for Captain Good.
"Here, Uncle Good, sit here. It's nice and cool, with mountain breezes coming through now and then—very comfortable." Carmen piled on the flattery. "Uncle Good, did you come looking for us on purpose?"
"Of course, who else would I be looking for? You two rascals. When we set out, your parents begged and pleaded with me to keep an eye on you. Who told our families to be neighbors, and for me to watch you two grow from naked little brats into the fine young men you are today?"
Uncle Good pulled out his waterskin and took several deep gulps. Belleu watched from the side, swallowing hard, but he didn't dare ask for a drink—just stared longingly. As soon as Uncle Good finished, he tossed the waterskin to Belleu, whose face lit up with joy. He lifted it and started chugging.
"Now, tell me what's going on with you two. You were walking, then suddenly sped up and left the formation behind—nearly an hour's distance! What were you trying to do? If you don't have a good reason, expect ten lashes each when we get back to camp..." Uncle Good's tone was stern.
"Uncle Good, this morning Belleu forgot to fill his waterskin. It's hot, and he drank all of yesterday's water, then half of mine too, and was still thirsty. So we thought we'd hurry ahead to the water source the scouts marked and refill. But we walked for so long and still haven't seen the marker. We just wanted to get some water..." Carmen explained quickly.
"Idiots! Why didn't you ask me if you were out of water?" Uncle Good didn't hesitate to give both Belleu and Carmen a light thump on the head. "I've walked this mountain path before. There's no water until evening. At our current pace, I'm not sure we'll even reach camp by nightfall. But I came prepared this morning—I filled two large wooden barrels and tied them to the donkeys at the rear. Enough for our whole hundred-man squad. If you'd just told me earlier, you wouldn't have had to scare everyone. I thought you were itching for glory and running off to some adventure..."
"So what do we do now? Should we go back?" Belleu finally set down the waterskin.
"Just rest here," Uncle Good said. "They'll be coming this way anyway. We might even catch a quick nap..."
"Are cannons really that powerful? That castle fortress we camped at just a couple days ago was nearly bombed into rubble..."
Belleu mumbled from beside him: "What I don't get is, if the Norton Family's cannons are so devastating, their own armed forces should be more than enough to take their objective. So why drag our Freedom Alliance Armed Corps along too? We can't do anything anyway—just marching back and forth day after day, what's the point? We'd be better off staying in
Uncle Good laughed: "You dumb kids, this is about giving you a taste of what a real battlefield is like. Getting familiar with actual combat is worth more than all the training in the world. Sure, we've been doing nothing but marching lately—that's because the Norton Family's armed forces have taken on every assault mission themselves. Once they've cleared out the defensive installations and castle fortresses the enemy has set up in the hill country ahead, they'll leave some of the weaker ones for us to handle. That way, you greenhorns can get some practice."
"But I think it's because they look down on us, like they're tossing us scraps," Belleu complained. "What makes them so much better than us anyway? They just happen to have cannons. If it were one-on-one, I guarantee I could take down four or five of them."
Uncle Good smacked Belleu on the head again: "What nonsense are you spouting, you idiot? Sure, you and Carmen are already at three-star
"But Uncle Good, Captain Hask of the First Division said we shouldn't have joined the Norton Family's armed forces to attack the Commercial League. He said our Freedom Alliance was born out of the Commercial League and opposes the feudal system of territorial nobility. We should refuse to stand with the Norton Family, because they represent the absence of freedom, equality, and independence—they embody the brutal and backward feudal lord system. We should ally with the Commercial League and drive the Norton Family's forces out of the Mana Hill Plains and Morant City. That way, the Freedom Alliance would truly have freedom," Carmen said to Uncle Good.
Uncle Good flew into a rage: "Didn't I already tell you to stop listening to that idiot Hask? That guy's got a screw loose. So the Norton Family practices a lord system, and the Commercial League's baron system is somehow different? It's the same feudal rule of the nobility! Have you two forgotten those miserable three years? You were eating rats caught from the sewers every single day!
Use your heads—why do you think when the Commercial League was recruiting soldiers multiple times in Morant City back then, your parents flat-out refused to let you join their armed forces? But once the Freedom Alliance was established last year, your parents let you enlist without hesitation? And even a nearly fifty-year-old man like me was willing to find a position as a centurion in the Freedom Alliance Armed Corps? It's simple. We enlisted to protect our Freedom Alliance—this is our own alliance, the people of Morant City, not that Commercial League run by the big trading houses that treats us like slaves and cannon fodder!
I'm an old mercenary. I've been scraping by in Morant City for over thirty years, and I've seen through it all long ago. Sure, we Morant City folk love to proudly declare ourselves free citizens of Morant City, but to those big trading houses, we're nothing but slaves in a different form—just without a tag on our heads telling us who our lord is. Think back to living under that rationed distribution system for three years. Is that what free people do? What we ate, how much we ate, everything was decided for us, and to get even that little bit of food, we had to work twelve or more hours a day. Oh, how wonderfully free we were. We could always choose not to work—and watch our whole family starve.
Don't listen to that idiot Hask. Think about it properly. Without the Norton Family's armed forces, the two of you would still be down in the sewers catching rats right now. Why should we drive them out? Did they take our food? Did they take our drink? No. Not only have they left us Morant City residents completely untouched, they've distributed grain to us for free, brought in countless goods and merchandise, and even loaned the Freedom Alliance a massive sum. Finally, Morant City has come alive again, restoring the splendor it held twenty years ago as the continent's greatest commercial city.
One should know how to be grateful and also learn tolerance. Even if the Norton Family practices a feudal lord system, they have shown us the people of Morant City a rebirth. Without their liberation, we would still be working ourselves to death as slaves for the Commercial League right now. Why should we resent them? Just because their system is different from ours? The Norton Family hasn't treated our Morant City as their own territory, haven't plundered us, but instead protected us and lifted the Commercial League's threat. For us not to support them and even try to drive them out—is that something a decent person would do?
Only an idiot like Hask would say something like allying with the Commercial League. I dare say that if we did what he suggested, we would surely end up as the most wretched ones. The Commercial League considers our Freedom Alliance as rebels. If they ever returned to Morant City, those of us who served the Freedom Alliance would certainly face confiscation of our homes and imprisonment. The best outcome would be exile to the mines and plantations, to work until we drop dead. And our families would suffer along with us.
Is there anything else he said besides this? At the time you heard him, was anyone else besides the two of you there?"
Seeing Uncle Good looking a bit agitated, Carmen and Bellu both panicked.
"It's not that serious, Uncle Good," Carmen murmured. "It was just the evening before last. Bellu and I were on night duty at the camp gate, along with Kate's patrol squad. Everyone was complaining about the hardships of marching, and then Captain Hask passed by during his patrol. He said all this, and a lot of other things mocking the Norton Family—those jokes about how foolish the lord is and how he gets tricked by his subjects. We just treated it as a bit of amusement and didn't really take it to heart..."
"Uncle Good, you're making too big a fuss out of this. What ulterior motive could Captain Hask have? He's just a straightforward blurt who never thinks before he speaks. Didn't you say that about him long ago?" Bellu also spoke up. "His parents died on the battlefield during the last resistance against the Krisen Empire's invasion. He was raised by his grandparents since childhood, so he's always hated the northern empire. After growing up, he became a Silver Instructor at
Then, when the Commercial League recruited soldiers in the city, he signed up. He fought a bloody two-year war in the Mana Hill Plains against the Kingdom of Andinac and was lucky enough to survive. Then the Norton Family's armed forces took control of Morant City, and he was ordered to join the counterattack. In the end, he ran to the city walls and surrendered to the Norton Family, becoming a prisoner. He was forcibly drafted into the city garrison by the Norton Family's forces and was later reorganized into the legion, serving as a centurion just like you. Everyone knows about his background and knows he hates Northerners—the Norton Family is no exception. Besides, Captain Hask is all talk. If he really had to oppose the Norton Family, he wouldn't have the guts."
Uncle Good sighed. "Forget it, I won't say more. Anyway, don't hang around with Hask anymore. If he keeps going like this, he'll be in trouble soon. Stay away from him so you don't get dragged down with him. The Norton Family's forces and the Grand Duke are not someone he can afford to mock. truthfully, many prominent figures in the Norton Family's upper ranks come from right here in our Morant City. That's why the Norton Family treats us so kindly."
"No way, Uncle Good, you seem to know a lot about the Norton Family? Tell us more," Carmen asked curiously.
"No, I don't know the Norton Family. It's just that I know the Grand Duke Norton—the newly ascended Sword Saint. When I first met him, he was just like you two, a low-rank black-iron three-star mercenary. The Grand Duke was still under twenty then, studying at Dawn Academy. Because a civil war—the War of the Three Kings—broke out in the Krisen Empire up north, he lost contact with his family and had to work as a black-iron mercenary to pay for his tuition. Here, the double-strap backpack you're carrying right now? That was designed by the Grand Duke back then. I was actually his very first customer..."
A large group was approaching from the distance, waving to the three of them. Uncle Good stood up. "Let's go—our group is here. We've rested long enough; it's time we rejoined them. We still need to make it to tonight's campsite, or we'll be sleeping under the stars. When there's time, I'll tell you more about Grand Duke Norton's legendary exploits. Back in the day, they called him '
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