When they met again,
Jossk bowed to Lorist in shame. "My lord, I have let you down. I failed the trust you placed in me..."
Lorist laughed heartily. "It's nothing. The situation on the battlefield changes rapidly, and unexpected developments are inevitable. Besides, your constant rushing back and forth was partly because of us. No need for formalities — come, come, let everyone enter the camp first. Have something hot, and we can talk at our leisure."
The main camp was filled with the rich aroma of meat.
Hearing Lorist's words and catching the scent of the meat, the several hundred people Jossk had brought erupted in cheers, punctuated by the simultaneous growling of their stomachs.
Jossk said sheepishly, "My lord, to be honest, we've been out of food for a day. Everyone is starving..."
Settling three to four hundred people was quick — about thirty extra tents were pitched in the camp's northwestern section, and that was all it took. Afterward, Serdkampf had several large pots of thoroughly stewed horse meat chunks and potato-mash porridge delivered, more than enough to fill their stomachs.
Sitting in the main tent, Jossk wolfed down his food, demolishing the dozen round bread rolls and large basin of horse meat Reidi served him. After finishing, Jossk cradled his tea and began recounting his experiences after returning.
Among the forces resisting Count Corbilly, Jossk commanded a considerable force — six to seven hundred men under his direct command, and nearly two thousand including their families. However, Jossk harbored no ambition to establish his own stronghold or install himself as chieftain. Instead, he entrusted all the families to the protection of Funiuling, the largest stronghold in the western mountain region, while he himself eagerly led his men to harass Count Corbilly, making his group the most active among all the resistance forces.
This time, while assisting Funiuling stronghold against Count Corbilly's sweep force, Jossk's men suffered nearly half in casualties. It was this that gave Jossk the idea of marching on the enemy camp to burn their grain supplies and force the sweep force to retreat — and it was through this plan that he had first met Lorist and the others. When they parted, Jossk had been brimming with confidence, believing that persuading the resistance forces to join in a joint raid on the sweep force's camp would be easy, and that the resistance would respond enthusiastically.
But when he returned to the western mountains and gathered the leaders of the various resistance factions to make his pitch, he received not support but rejection and ridicule. Many believed that the sweep force leaving the western mountains was already a great victory — they could return to living peacefully, with no need to provoke the sweep force again. What if the sweep force won and came back? Better to sit and watch the sweep force and Jossk's so-called caravan tear each other apart.
Some even questioned whether Jossk had struck some underhanded deal with the caravan — otherwise, why would he be so eager to rally everyone to attack the sweep force's camp? They had relied on the defensive terrain of the western mountains and still been battered by the sweep force — now they were supposed to attack a heavily fortified enemy camp? Wasn't that just throwing eggs at a rock?
Others still harbored hopes that the caravan and Count Corbilly's sweep force would inflict heavy damage on each other, so they could swoop in and reap the benefits. If Jossk was right about the caravan being large, with several hundred carts, then the supplies must be enormous. If they could slip in and grab a hundred or so carts, that would be a tremendous haul.
Jossk spent three days arguing with those resistance leaders in the western mountains, and the result was utter disappointment. Not a single faction was willing to send troops to help the caravan attack the camp. But misfortunes never come singly — the chieftain of Funiuling stronghold sent for Jossk and bluntly informed him that, due to the heavy losses sustained in fighting the sweep force, Funiuling could no longer sustain the food supply for Jossk's nearly two thousand men and their families. Either Jossk's people joined Funiuling, and everyone starved together until spring when they could scrape by on wild vegetables and hunting, or he should take his people and leave the stronghold to find another way.
Jossk was seething with rage. This was nothing more than Funiuling's attempt to swallow up his forces to compensate for their losses, without any regard for the sacrifices his men had made in helping Funiuling fight the sweep force. Short on food? What nonsense. At the end of the previous year, he had led his men to raid one of Count Corbilly's granaries, and two-thirds of the grain obtained had been delivered straight to Funiuling's stores. Claiming they had no food was a bare-faced lie.
Proud and high-spirited, Jossk disdained to expose the Funiuling chieftain's lie. Without another word, he gathered all his people and departed overnight, then set up camp in a stronghold that had been breached and abandoned by the sweep force. Looking at the weeping women, children, and elderly, and the hundred-odd wounded, Jossk felt as though his head would split. When he thought of those resistance leaders in the western mountains, he ground his teeth in hatred. With a bunch of short-sighted, spineless cowards who only dared bully each other within their own little territories, there was no way they could ever help him achieve his wish of destroying Count Corbilly. They would be content to stay in their strongholds, lording it over others.
So he marched to the military camp, to show Lorist he had fulfilled his promise.
But by the time Jossk arrived with his starving men, the great battle had already ended two days before. Jossk told Lorist he deeply regretted it — if he had known, he wouldn't have wasted days arguing with those resistance leaders in the western mountains. After being rejected, he should have simply brought his people straight here and made it in time for the battle.
Lorist briefly recounted the great battle from the previous night — the coincidence of various factors, combined with a bit of luck, had resulted in a complete victory for the caravan. Next, Lorist offered a suggestion: the caravan would need to resume its journey in a day or two, so Jossk might as well transfer all the families still in the western mountains to this camp. The terrain here was easily defensible, and the surrounding land was open and flat, suitable for clearing fields and farming. As long as they held this camp, Jossk's days would be much easier — he wouldn't need to stay in the western mountains, dependent on others' goodwill. If Jossk was willing, Lorist could send men and carts to assist the transfer, and when the caravan headed north, he would leave behind sufficient weapons, equipment, and supplies for Jossk.
Jossk furrowed his brow and thought for a long time, then shook his head and declined Lorist's kind offer. Instead, what he said startled Lorist greatly: "My lord, I wish to bring my people to join your caravan and follow it northward. But once we reach your family's territory in Northland and they are settled, I intend to return here. I will not rest until I have killed Count Corbilly and his bastards. Only then will I go back to serve you."
Lorist was puzzled by Jossk's thinking, and curious about why he was so consumed by his hatred for Count Corbilly.
Jossk sighed. "My lord, I'm tired. Truly, I am exhausted. You don't know — on the way here, I did a great deal of thinking. I'm not a good leader. I was so consumed by my hatred for Count Corbilly that I neglected the feelings of those under me. They followed me and fought all this time, yet I couldn't even provide for their families. It was only when I led everyone away from Funiuling that I realized how many mistakes I had made. I failed the soldiers who died on the battlefield. I couldn't give their families a stable life. I just couldn't..."
"My lord, offering us this camp — I'm very grateful. But I understand that even if we settle here for a while, it's only a matter of time before the flames of war reach us again. That's why I want to entrust my men and their families to you, so they can follow you to Northland and live in peace and stability. I believe you are a man of your word, and that you will give those who follow you to Northland a life of happiness and tranquility."
Then Jossk told the story of his enmity with Count Corbilly. In Lorist's eyes, it was both a fairy tale and a legend of revenge.
Jossk's father was a Gold-tier knight. Over twenty years ago, answering the Empire's call, he had bidden farewell to his newlywed wife and joined the Krisen Empire's last raid on the Forde Commercial Alliance, falling on the battlefield. Jossk was born posthumously, and not long after his birth, his mother succumbed to melancholy and grief for her husband, falling ill and passing away. Jossk grew up without father or mother, an orphan surviving on the kindness of neighbors, eating one meal when he could, going without the next. It wasn't until he was twelve that Jossk, hunting in the forest, stumbled upon and saved Baron Urmado from a charging wild boar. The grateful baron brought him back to his castle.
Among the landed nobles of this region, Baron Urmado was something of an oddity. First, the baron was a deeply devoted man — he had no bastards, no entanglements with serving girls. Since his wife's death, he had lived solely for his precious daughter. Second, the baron was kind to his subjects, rarely punishing them, laughing off minor offenses, and even distributing food and clothing during holidays. Among the landed nobles of this region, Baron Urmado bore the title of the most merciful lord.
After learning of Jossk's background, the baron adopted him and held him to strict standards, hoping he would become a Gold-tier knight like his father. Jossk worked hard, and under the baron's guidance, achieved the rank of Gold One-Star knight and master archer at the age of twenty-four.
Jossk lived happily in the baron's manor castle for fourteen years. During that time, the baron's precious daughter grew up as well. The two young people, together day after day, fell in love as naturally as could be expected. The baron was delighted, and on the day Jossk became a Gold-tier knight, he announced the engagement of his daughter to Jossk, with the wedding to take place in two years, when she turned twenty.
This should have been a beautiful fairy tale, but on the very day Jossk was to marry his beloved, Count Corbilly sent men to propose marriage to the baron's daughter on behalf of one of his bastards. The baron flew into a rage and drove the envoy away. No sooner had the envoy been dismissed than Count Corbilly's army invaded the baron's domain and surrounded the manor castle, using the baron's dismissal of his envoy as a pretext of disrespect — and on that basis, he declared war.
The manor castle, in the midst of wedding preparations, was no match for Count Corbilly's army, which had been planning this for a long time. The main gate was breached in less than two hours. Jossk, who had been at the front lines of the defense, was besieged by several of Count Corbilly's Gold-tier bastards and gravely wounded. If his men hadn't fought to the death to drag him out of the manor, he would have perished. During the escape, Jossk regained consciousness briefly and witnessed a scene he would never forget as long as he lived: the manor castle where he had spent fourteen years was engulfed in towering flames, black smoke billowing into the sky. And the woman he loved most, dressed in her pure white wedding gown, leapt from the highest point of the manor castle...
Jossk swore vengeance against Count Corbilly and his bastards for the baron and his beloved. He came agonizingly close — he loosed three arrows, killing two of the count's bastards and wounding Count Corbilly in the shoulder — before being chased in every direction by lancers. It was because of this undying hatred that Jossk had been relentlessly harassing Count Corbilly ever since he raised his resistance force.
As Jossk spoke, tears streamed down his face. Suddenly, he dropped to his knees before Lorist. He declared that if Lorist was willing to help him achieve his revenge, he swore to take Lorist as his lord and serve the
Lorist had to exert considerable effort to pull Jossk back to his feet. He said he had always admired Jossk greatly, and if Jossk was willing to serve him, he would be overjoyed. However, he was currently leading a large family caravan northward, shouldering a heavy responsibility, and so he could not make easy promises. But Lorist guaranteed that the caravan's route had not yet been decided and required careful planning — if the opportunity arose to fulfill Jossk's wish, he would not let it pass, for this would not merely be avenging Jossk's beloved and Baron Urmado, but also avenging the Norton Family's former merchant caravans that had been plundered.
After much persuasion, Lorist finally managed to calm Jossk down, and the latter followed Reidi to a nearby tent to rest. After all, going an entire day without food and sleep on the march would exhaust even a Gold-tier knight.
Lorist stroked his chin thoughtfully. He genuinely admired Jossk and very much wanted to bring him under his banner. But doing so would require fulfilling his wish — the annihilation of Count Corbilly's family. Hmm? This seemed to have become a quest: he had accepted the mission, the objective was to destroy Count Corbilly and his family, and the reward was gaining the loyalty of a Gold-tier knight and master archer named Jossk.
Well then, let me see how to complete this quest. Lorist sat down at his desk, spread open the map, and began studying it carefully...