# 76
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“You’re sure the enemy has 500 troops, right? I told you that in a siege, the defenders must have three times as many. If you called for fewer than that just to save money, we won’t fight. That happens sometimes… wait?”
The man covered in gray dust, who had been swaggering and haggling the whole time, suddenly narrowed his eyes and stared into the distance. Then, he suddenly furrowed his brow and got angry.
“Ack, seriously!! Didn't you say it was a siege?!! It looks like knights are coming out of the castle gates!!”
“…….”
Edward came out in place of the silent Marquis.
Are you not confident in hand-to-hand combat?
“…….”
“You said you were confident in war, but I guess you’ve only been doing sieges all this time?”
The mercenary leader bared his yellow teeth at Edward's remark.
“What? I’m pointing out the difference in the agreement!”
Five hundred gold bars.
“…….”
I will give it to you as a reward for the victory.
Only then did the mercenary leader's expression gradually relax. He let out a small chuckle and leaped onto his horse.
You should have told me in advance.
And, narrowing his eyes, he surveyed the fortress walls.
“They can barely see, and you aren't even lighting the fires? Light the torches. Tell the riders to come forward, and have the archers stand by.”
As soon as his order was given, the mercenaries moved, and the Marquis took a position and stood.
As torches rose from the mercenary camp, the grasslands shrouded in darkness were revealed, and they came into view. The knights who had served the Duke and returned alive stood in a long line like a wall.
Not long after, the expressions on the faces of the experienced mercenaries began to harden subtly.
“…It’s unpleasantly quiet.”
It was only after hearing a low murmur from somewhere that the Marquis realized the meadow was shrouded in silence, and he also realized that this silence was very strange.
The only sounds were the snorting of horses and the stomping of their hooves on the ground. There were no shouts to overcome fear, nor speeches to boost morale, which are typically found in war.
They rode black warhorses and were armed with black armor and helmets. Blending into the darkness, their forms could not even be clearly seen from a distance.
The Marquis moistened his parched lips with his tongue and turned around. Beneath hundreds of torches, he saw mercenaries smeared with the scars of war. Upon seeing them, his anxiety seemed to subside in an instant.
“Go ahead and kill him!”
As the Marquis urged the mercenary captain, he, who had been watching the knights assimilated by the darkness with a serious expression, spoke.
Five hundred gold bars won't be enough.
"what?!"
Please give me 700 as a reward for the victory.
“You thief!”
“…….”
“Ah, alright!! I’ll give it to you, so hurry… hurry!!!”
Even after hearing that he understood, the mercenary captain's expression did not brighten much. He rubbed his damp hands and gave an order to his subordinate.
Level 1 and 2 forward deployment.
As soon as his order was given, the positions of those deployed were instantly mixed up and organized, like rivers and seas mingling. Mercenaries who were clearly seasoned at a glance were placed in the front rows.
The mercenary captain scanned them roughly with his eyes and shouted angrily.
“Victory reward: 200 gold coins, death reward: 70 gold coins. Wound compensation: double the base amount!!”
Then, as if in response, whistling sounds were heard from all around.
“Whizz—that’s hot!”
“However, if you lose, there is nothing. You know that, don’t you.”
The mercenaries' eyes grew increasingly heated.
“If you lose, there’s no guarantee you’ll die or get hurt. So win at all costs. Win to claim everything, understand?!”
"yes!!!"
With a thunderous reply, the mercenaries charged toward the darkness without hesitation. That was their way of fighting.
The moment they rushed toward the castle with a loud noise, the silence that had covered the meadow was broken, and the war began.
Ares declared in a low voice.
From now on, the Marquisate of Rinco is not a vassal of Richmond.
Then, he issued a monotonous command.
“Crimson, Sirius. Disrupt it.”
Crimson and Sirius also responded quietly to their master's monotonous command. As the two silently drew their swords, their platoon simultaneously drew their long blades as if by prearranged agreement, and advanced toward the noisily approaching mercenary unit.
The black warhorse that had served alongside its master at the Wall of Death never got agitated, even when seeing the enemy charging at it while beating drums and shouting curses. This was because it was nothing compared to the enemies they had had to overcome their fear to charge at until now.
The knights on warhorses were not excited either.
I returned alive from that foul-smelling land, shrouded in thick fog, where unquenchable fires lurked everywhere, and dead trees concealed themselves like obstacles. For a full ten years, I fought against the invisible. Therefore, an enemy visible so clearly in the vast plains, in the clarity free of a single wisp of fog,
It doesn't even look like a fight.
Sirius, who was leading the pack, muttered fiercely and swung his greatsword.
The warhorses tempered by death raised their forelegs as if unaware of death to crush their opponents, while the knights swung their swords with precision to kill their adversaries with a single blow. Not a single person used their strength in vain.
“Cough—”
“Aaaargh!!”
On the battlefield where a storm of blood had begun to blow, only one-sided screams soon began to echo. It took an instant for Crimson and Sirius's platoons to shatter the enemy's battle lines.
"uh……."
As the aides surrounding the mercenary leader rolled their eyes in bewilderment, Ares seized the momentum and issued the next order.
"Zeon, Ruben. Take care of them."
The chilling clang of metal echoed in unison, and some of the knights advanced forward as if they had been waiting for this moment. As they were deployed, a one-sided massacre that could no longer be called a war began.
By the time the mercenary leader had a bad feeling, the situation had already spiraled out of control.
The numbers that had outnumbered the knights were meaningless from the start. Where the knights in black armor passed, only the corpses of the dead piled up like mountains.
Without a trace of excitement, they swung their swords calmly and precisely, like beings with the sole purpose of delivering death to their enemy. That strange calmness and silence struck the seasoned mercenaries as the ultimate terror.
“I, I am an envoy…….”
As fear spread like an epidemic, the first and second-class mercenaries turned into a disorganized rabble in an instant. When some mercenaries deserted, the lower-ranking mercenaries watching from behind became agitated.
“Desertion means death!! Do not waver, do not waver!!”
The middle managers tried to appease the mercenaries by shouting, but complaints erupted.
“There was no mention of hand-to-hand combat with men like that!! We clearly came here because we were told it was a siege!!”
“Right!! This is a breach of contract!!”
Overwhelmed by a sense of crisis, the Marquis Rinko and his wife pushed past the mercenaries and stepped forward. The mercenary captain stood there motionless, biting his lip.
“Hey, hey! You need to send in more mercenaries! What are you doing, huh?!”
“…….”
“Are you all planning to die here?! Hurry up, what are you doing not deploying them!!!”
The Marquise, who had been screaming, gasped at the menacing gaze of the man turning to look at her. The mercenary captain glared at the couple with bloodshot eyes as if to kill them, then gritted his teeth.
“…You were the one who broke the contract first.”
"what?"
The mercenary leader felt like he would turn back time just a few tens of minutes if only he could.
Not just anyone could become a first or second-class mercenary. Outstanding physical ability was a given, and one needed at least five years of combat experience to qualify. Yet, those very men were being brutally slaughtered right before my eyes. Had we been outnumbered amidst this bloody struggle, I would have already deployed the next unit.
The mercenary captain turned his head toward Edward, not the Marquis.
“You said there were 500 troops of the caliber of a first-class mercenary. What’s going on?!!”
Edward stared at the mercenaries being slaughtered with a somber gaze, then asked in a cold tone.
Even if we deploy more troops, wouldn't there be no chance of victory?
The mercenary captain answered by spitting. Then, as he mounted his horse, the Marquis urgently grabbed him.
“Why are you turning away? There are still plenty of troops, aren’t there? Huh?!”
"Didn't I speak properly with my son? We made a contract that if we are defeated here, I will give you half of the victory rewards if you escort you safely to Marquis Rinko's castle."
Marquis Rinko hurriedly turned to look at Edward. The mercenary captain urged them on.
“I cannot deploy any more troops. What are you going to do?”
He was asked what he would do, but now that the owner of the troops had decided not to continue this war any longer, Marquis Rinko had no choice.
“Right, if I go to my territory, I have troops and can gather reinforcements.”
The mercenary captain called out to someone with a hurried hand, and soon mercenaries equal in number to the nobles of the Marquis's faction approached.
"Take them one by one."
“Are there no female mercenaries?!”
As the Marquise shouted at the burly mercenary approaching her, the mercenary captain let out a sarcastic laugh in disbelief.
“How could such a thing exist? If you don’t like it, madam, please stay here.”
“Just get in. What are you going to do about it!”
As the Marquis, who had mounted the mercenary's horse faster than anyone else, urged him on, the Marquise also mounted the mercenary's horse as if she had no choice.
As soon as she mounted her horse, the mercenary captain began to gallop without looking back. He could hear the groans of the dying mercenaries behind him, but they were bound together by money anyway. He chose to flee without hesitation.