Chapter 392 — The "Great Army"

"That only proves your generosity, my lord," said a baron with a smile, his tone respectful and admiring. "You have not only stepped forward to uphold the laws and traditions of Ansu, but generously look after every man in this land."

The others around him chimed in one after another, and amid the nobles' conversation a commotion suddenly broke out nearby.

Count Horsman looked up and saw a crowd of soldiers in chainmail or half-armor scuffling noisily beside the tents, it seemed over who had the right to draw water first; but they had not scuffled long before a knight in shining armor strode out and, in a few quick moves, struck all the brawlers to the ground.

"See, dutiful knights keeping order—this is precisely the noble's duty and the meaning of nobility," Horsman said with satisfaction, watching the scene, and could not help sighing. "I truly cannot imagine how chaotic this place would be without such a force to keep order... and so all the less can I imagine what our ancient hero means to do, after stripping the knights of their privileges and destroying the nobles' role in keeping order."

"Only the gods know what he means to do, but he himself must surely have tasted the consequences by now," said Viscount Carol, shaking his head with a sigh. "The insulted knights and mages wrecked his 'alchemy factory' and blew up his warehouses. He broke the order, and now order has vanished from his lands—one can only say he has reaped what he sowed."

Viscount Carol's face bore genuine regret and sorrow—of course he felt regret, for since last winter, selling potions to the Holy Spirit Plain and levying heavy taxes on the Cecil merchants who entered the city had been an important source of his income; now that the Cecil domain's alchemy factory was destroyed and the potion supply had sharply fallen, how could he not feel regret and sorrow?

What infuriated Viscount Carol even more was that when he had been forced to seek out the alchemists already in his domain, hoping to use traditional alchemical potions to temporarily ease the shortage, he had been unable to find a single alchemist...

Had it not been for this blow, the neutral-minded Viscount Carol would not have so quickly thrown in his lot entirely with Count Horsman and offered up the broad plains at the edge of his domain for the great army to encamp upon.

"I wonder how things stand with Count Peibo," a viscount in the party said suddenly. "That Andrew Leslie is very close to Cecil, and he has not answered your summons this time either—perhaps he will ignore the letter you wrote him."

"I wrote him in my own hand, telling him to stay in his castle and not block Count Peibo's road—that is already the greatest courtesy and forbearance," Karlov Horsman gave a soft snort. "If he deliberately ignores it, it makes no difference. Count Peibo has brought twenty thousand men; it will not take him two days to take that little Tansang Town. Even if that sickly Leslie went running to Cecil for reinforcements, it would be too late to put out the fire in his castle... so as long as his brain has not been utterly ruined by potions, he will know what to do."

Hearing this clear and orderly analysis, the followers around him voiced their agreement one after another.

Count Horsman, meanwhile, raised his head and looked toward a messenger galloping toward him from the distance.

He smiled: "It seems we have received a reply from the 'ancient hero.'"

When he saw that what the messenger handed him was a rather familiar lacquered tube, Count Horsman could not help raising an eyebrow; and when he saw that the letter within the tube was the very parchment scroll he had written with his own hand, his bewilderment was joined by a touch of anger at being made a fool of.

That anger reached its peak when he unrolled the parchment fully and saw the single word at the end of the letter—and then it turned into a burst of laughter.

Someone nearby was quite baffled: "My lord, does the letter contain words of rebuttal?"

Count Horsman stopped laughing and gave a soft snort; the parchment scroll in his hand burst into flame out of thin air and was soon burned to ashes: "No. It says 'war.'"

(Good heavens, spending my hoarded drafts hurts so much.)