63 – Poitiers Family – 3
“Huh? But the customer service here is really poor. “I’ve been walking for a long time, but there’s not even a single drink.”
“I will bring tea.”
“The car is nothing special… “Alcohol is good.”
However, Isabel quietly ignored it and ordered the maid to bring tea. Soon, the tea came out and the mercenary leader gulped it down as if it wasn’t even hot.
Tak. The mercenary leader put down his teacup. Then Isabel spoke to the mercenary leader.
“We are in the middle of a strategy meeting. “If Lord Aston has a good plan, please come up with it.”
“Operation? hahahaha!”
Beth Aston laughed loudly for a while and then said:
“The mercenary leader of the Melina mercenary group on the other side was a friend of mine when I was young, but he was just a friend and a friend, but in reality, he had nothing to do with food. No matter how many there are, they can’t defeat me. Cancer! “No way!”
Seeing the mercenary leader pounding his chest while saying that, I now understood why Isabel said she was in trouble.
Even after that, whenever I tried to talk about something productive, it came out like this. Isabel and I had no choice but to hold the strategy meeting.
At that time, I thought it was just my personality. But the incident occurred a few days later.
“Charles Jean Rochepol. “My ancestor is from a long-established noble family, but he has now lost his territory.”
From Noble mtl dot com
Beth Aston spoke to me as I was about to return to the station after finishing the strategy meeting with Isabelle.
‘Suddenly they are investigating my background. Why is this happening all of a sudden?’
He didn’t seem like a very sincere type.
“So what?”
“Very good. He is a role model for young people. Raise a mercenary group to revive the family? “It’s on a different level from someone like me who tries to eat well and live well alone.”
The guy who was a drunkard suddenly spoke like this as if he had changed. Is this what a drunkard really looks like? Is this what it really is? That actually went without saying.
“What is your business?”
“Are you not interested in making money with me?”
“I make money by working as a mercenary.”
“It’s stupid. Do you think you will make money by working hard? “If you pay living expenses to your wife and children, give condolences to the families of those who died, fix broken equipment, and pay salaries to your children, you won’t have much left.”
What on earth is this person trying to say? Until the day before yesterday, even when I was drunk and asked to have a strategy meeting, I just made a fuss and now it’s a business proposal. What on earth are you thinking?
“What on earth do you want to do?”
As he asked that, Beth Aston wrapped her arm around his shoulder.
“Listen. Hard-working mercenaries like you usually don’t last long. Crudian mercenaries? They last a long time because the name of the country supports them. The more sincerely you work, the more you get criticized and criticized for even small things. “Then what should we do in everyday life?”
“We should work harder to avoid getting caught, right?”
“No, my friend. You are immature yet. You just have to work where you can see it and play moderately when you can’t see it. Does it look mean? Does it look mean and mean? That’s reality. “Only those who work like this will last long, and those who work hard will quickly fall away.”
“… I don’t see any points. So what are you trying to offer me?”
He took me to a deserted corner and whispered softly.
“Do you know that in territory battles, soldiers under direct control fight each other, and mercenaries fight against mercenaries?”
I know roughly how a territory battle is conducted. But he pretended not to know and asked.
“Is that so?”
“Because nobles don’t want their soldiers to get hurt. This means putting mercenaries in front of you who wouldn’t mind dying at all, and when there is a match between the mercenaries, you take out the soldiers under your direct control. In short, we are nothing more than meat shields.”
Aston waited for a while, probably hoping I would get angry, but when there was no response, he cleared his throat and continued speaking.
“So, when a battle breaks out, the order will roughly go like this. “Our smallest mercenary group will fight first, then you will fight, and finally the nobles will fight each other.”
“Um… okay.”
“Here’s a suggestion. “A proposal that will allow us to make a lot of money by screwing over the nobles on both sides who use mercenaries as meat shields.”
Ah, I know what you mean. A political diplomacy scholar said: The mercenaries don’t want the war to end. That’s why mercenaries are an untrustworthy group. Perhaps the ‘how to make a lot of money’ that this guy talks about is also a similar story. They’ll say let’s make money by dragging out the war.
But I didn’t show it and asked as if I was curious.
“Are you making a lot of money? Is there such a way? How?”
“They’re just pretending to fight.”
“I’m pretending to fight.”
“I told you last time. The mercenary leader of the opposing Melina mercenary group is a friend from my hometown. Actually, that’s not a lie. “He’s a close friend I’ve had since I was young.”
The situation is going like sh*t. This is the worst news for Isabel.
“So?”
“Even though he and I are in enemy territory, we are secretly exchanging letters. And we both agreed. When a territorial war breaks out, let’s just pretend to fight each other so that no one dies, and then drag out the war and drain money from both employers in the long run. If we do that, eventually all the money owned by the Poitiers family’s eldest daughter and second son will be in our hands. There has been a time in the past when a noble family was completely betrayed in this way. “I made quite a lot of money.”
“… “
Look at this. From Isabel’s point of view, it’s a very bullsh*t proposition. In short, the mercenaries only pretended to fight and did not compete, and the more they did not compete, the more money would be spent on hiring the mercenaries.
I roughly understood the situation, but I asked meaningless questions to give myself as much time as possible to think about it.
“Then what if the nobles on both sides notice and fire each other’s mercenaries?”
“What? Ha ha ha! You can never do it! If you fire us, they’ll threaten to join the other side right away. How can you fire us? From our perspective, it’s a matter of money, but from the nobles’ perspective, it’s a matter of life! The moment you fire a mercenary, that noble dies! “You have no choice but to cry and give us money!”
That’s what I’m thinking about…
“What do you think? Don’t you think you were hired for quite a lot of money? According to us, you can make a lot of money. Mercenaries are said to be able to steal money without almost dying. You’re lucky. From my first outing, I met people like me and made a lot of money. Of course you will join, right?”
He held out his hand to me. Here, it felt like options appeared before my eyes.
[1. Following his suggestion, he robs the Poitiers family of money.]
[2. Go and inform Isabelle de Poitiers right now.]
And after thinking about it for a while, the option I chose was…
“Good. “I will follow your suggestion.”
“hahahahaha! What a wise kid. “Let’s make a lot of money!”
I held hands with him and shook him up and down.
I wasn’t planning on telling Isabel about this either.
But that didn’t mean he was trying to stab Isabelle in the back.
The picture I wanted was further away.
—–
After a few days, people began to leave the castle in earnest. With the armies of both sides gathered, there was no one who was unaware of the clouds of war in the air, and naturally, the people who were coming and going from the castle also disappeared.
War clouds were in the air in the village below the castle. The number of people in the village below the castle has decreased significantly. Those with money evacuated, and those without money had no choice but to stay here, even if it meant risking their lives. The people who remained here now were people who risked death to protect their homes.
And before long, the two armies faced off on the plains around the castle. Isabel de Poitiers and her younger brother stood at the head of the army and shouted.
“According to the inheritance laws of the Arcadian Empire, I, Isabelle de Poitiers, am the rightful heir! “The previous head of the family wrote a document proving it, but why did you rebel against the legitimate succession process?”
“Sister! You are mistaken. Our family dates back 11 generations and has been a nobleman of the Arcadian Empire for only 50 years. After our family was established, we spent nearly 200 years in Swadia. And according to Swadia tradition, women cannot inherit titles and become heads of households! “We just want to abolish bad customs and return to old traditions!”
Isabel and her younger brother argued for a while at a distance where the bows could not reach, and then each other’s archers began to come forward.
“There is no use in talking! Archers, forward!”
“Our archers! From now on!”
The archers of both armies come forward.
As soon as they started shooting arrows, several of each other’s archers began to die one by one.
And Isabelle de Poitiers, who lost the shooting battle due to numerical inferiority, gave up the shooting battle first.
“Brotherhood of Beth, forward!”
Beth Aston came forward leading 200 soldiers. Accordingly, a mercenary group came forward from the enemy army.
Beth Aston and Kuno, the leader of the Melina mercenaries, came forward, opened their helmets, looked at each other’s faces, and exchanged glances. It meant not to fight.
“Charge!”
“Charge!”
And sure enough, when the vanguards of both sides collided. Both sides only made loud fighting sounds by banging on each other’s shields, but did not fight properly.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing…?” ?”
At that moment, the nobles on both sides could not help but be embarrassed. This was because the hired mercenaries did not fight properly and just went forward and back repeatedly.
“These damn bastards… !”
Soon Isabel realized that she had been deceived by the mercenary leader and tried to take up the sword herself. But it was Charles Jean Roche-Paul who raised his hand to block it.
Charles Jean Rochepol’s words blocked Isabelle’s path. Isabel stopped and asked Charles.
“Charles? What is this… “
“I will solve it, so stay here.”
No matter what Isabel does in this situation, the situation will not be resolved. How can we overcome this situation when the mercenaries are determined to take advantage of the nobles?
But Charles Jean Rochepol was in the same position as a mercenary. As such, he had a plan to somehow overcome this situation. In order to use that ploy, he pretended to join hands with Beth Aston from the beginning.