Chapter 21 - Chapter 21: Chapter 20: What, you’re not convinced? (2/2)
Of course, Irene was very aware that the low-level Knight Bequest was a token of compensation from Baron Hovern.
After all, on that fateful night, the Fischer family was in the gravest danger, and two guards even met their unfortunate demise.
When everyone else had left, only Baron Hovern and the town chief remained in the banquet hall.
Not a trace of a smile could be found on Baron Hovern’s face; he sat in his chair silently for a long time, the town chief standing beside him with bowed head, not daring to make a single move.
“Over fifty people dead, you really have some nerve. If you weren’t a distant relative of mine, I would have sent you to Nasir’s prison today.”
The expression on Baron Hovern’s face was extremely cold and grim, as the town chief took a deep breath, internally dismissing the threat.
He was friends with the largest sea merchant on the East Coast, responsible for helping to dump goods, and the money he supplied every year accounted for one-third of Baron Hovern’s expenditures.
If he really killed me, wouldn’t that be akin to cutting off one of Baron Hovern’s own legs?
He could never let me simply die like this, but he still wanted to take advantage of the situation to seize half of my property, which was even more despicable than those jungle natives.
The town chief’s face twitched slightly, but he still bowed respectfully and said,
“Lord Baron, I will never dare again, I am truly grateful for your rescue! From now on, I will serve the Hovern family with even greater loyalty!”
—-
Three months later, as spring arrived, Baron Hovern’s uncle, the East Coast Governor, finally sent for a regiment of Cyart Kingdom’s infantry.
The gradual development of alchemy, technology, and group spells created an army that could threaten Extraordinary Exponents, changing the previous warfare pattern dominated by small-scale battles of Extraordinary Exponents.
In recent years, the Cyart Kingdom, taking a leaf out of the Lorne Empire’s book on military reform, established a national unified standing army, dividing the troops into two parts: the standing army and the reserve army.
The infantry regiment had a total of 1,200 men, equipped with flintlocks, and had two field training days per week, each time providing seven rounds of gunpowder and live ammunition.
Accompanying the army in combat were fifteen Extraordinary Exponents, five spellcasters, and ten knights. Leading the forces were Baron Hovern himself and a Tempest Priest accompanying the army, the only two Level 2 “Transmutation” tier Extraordinary Exponents.
The bloody suppression lasted about three months, the jungle natives who could only steal a living were continuously slaughtered, and the battle situation was almost completely one-sided.
It wasn’t until the jungle natives organized a very terrifying ambush by sacrificing their own flesh and blood.
The sudden emergence of that mysterious being, the so-called Lord of Bloody Cult by the natives, marked the appearance of the Mighty Bloody Demon, whose fearsome power instantly claimed the lives of over three hundred soldiers, with the rest suffering from the Curse and dying off gradually.
The governor was extremely enraged and convinced the East Coast’s Tempest Bishop to personally go, only to quickly find that the natives had collectively migrated north, leaving no trace of enemies in the jungle.
The north was the territory of the neighboring Rhea, with which the Cyart people had a thirty-year peace treaty, making it improper to pursue and exterminate the fleeing natives.
This disproportionate war ultimately ended with the complete escape of the surviving jungle natives.
—-
One sunny noon in Nasir Town,
Irene and her servants, having finished shopping in the market for festival necessities, were about to return to the carriage when she suddenly heard crying; soon after, she noticed a group of bound jungle natives not far away, mostly women and children.
They were spoils of this war, soon to be shipped to Fein City under the escort of Cyart soldiers, their fates hereafter unknown.
A jungle girl around her age was kneeling on the ground, crying, as a soldier lashed her bare back fiercely with a whip while the surrounding townspeople cheered on.
Deep in Irene’s heart surfaced an instinctive discomfort.
She suddenly remembered the smiling face of the girl who brought eggs—if the Fischer family had not obtained the great power of the Lord of the Lost, then they would have been the ones to die that night.
Just like Byrne said, what mattered most to her were only the gods and her family; any excess pity could at best extend to acquaintances with emotional ties, not enemies.
She simply could not afford anymore sympathy, because that would eventually bring misfortune upon the Fischer family.
“Is something wrong, Miss Irene?” the coachman inquired.
“Nothing, let’s go back.”