Chapter 4:

Blake was excited.

As the Knight Commander of House Sutton, he was in charge of all military matters within the fief, but ever since he had taken over from his predecessor almost a year ago, he had done nothing but drill his troops all day long.

Due to the previous Viscount's injury and his subsequent passiveness, the territory had not seen war for over a decade, with its military forces mostly being used to escort convoys or guard walls. This caused Blake to tear his hair out every day, wondering why he had accepted becoming Knight Commander in the first place.

However, to the newly promoted Knight Commander, this also meant that he almost never had the chance to fight in a full-scale battle outside of driving off barbarians who had encroached on the fief.

As a hot-headed, promising young Knight who had jumped at the offer to head to the city of Pragos to train with the Knight Order, he had itched for the chance to prove his worth in battle, and he had finally received the chance.

From the way his Liege had silenced the two elderly men, and the way his eyes had lit up at the mention of war, Blake felt like his chance had finally come.

Filled with vigour, before Vincent even asked,the passionate Knight, barely three years older than his liege, had already launched into a flurry of words, beginning to describe the troops the House possessed as if he had practised it a thousand times.

With him, a Low-Gold rank Venerable, at the head, the House forces had 5 other formally trained Knights, who had earned their titles through a grueling 3-year course from the Knights order and 2 years of apprenticeships by senior Knights, graduating from their training having sworn the Knights Oath.

Two of the knights, Knight Helix, a Medium-Silver rank who had been guarding the Greendale Wall at the time of Vincent's appointment, and Knight Oxford, a High-Silver rank Adept, led the Garrison.

Charged with protecting key installations such as the Greendale Wall and the two Towns, the Garrison consisted of 75 men. With 25 men on guard at each key installation, they were usually armed with shortbows or a pike and buckler, and wore mostly leather armour.

Due to the fact that they mostly saw no combat and usually policed the towns where there were no powerful spiritforce users, the members of the Garrison mostly lacked spiritforce, or were at the Low-Copper level, with their squad captains usually at the High-Copper to Low-Iron rank. As such, they did not possess much combat power.

The other Knights, Knight Sharon, a Medium-Silver rank Adept, Knight Oz, a High-Silver Adept that had come from a foreign land, pledging his loyalty to House Sutton, and Knight Gene, another High-Silver Rank adept, led the active forces of the House.

Consisting of 150 men, this force was named after the House symbol itself. Calling themselves Phoenix Legion, they consisted of 70 sword-and-shield infantry, 45 archers armed with longbows, and 15 mounted Calvary, with an additional 20 support staff to manage logistics and the supply chain. Equipped with armour ranging from plate mail for archers, to plate armour for cavalry, they frequently beat back warbands of barbarians who crossed the Whitesun River.

In addition to the Viscounts personal guard force of 20 men led by himself, Blake was in command of 245 troops in total, which was rather large in proportion to the 6,000 citizens living in the fief, including those living in ranches and farms along the countryside.

Looking at his Knight Commander passionately pointing out troop allocations and distributions, Vincent couldn’t help but give a wry smile, feeling like the youthful Knight Commander sounded just like a young boy fascinated by the allure of battle, drunk on legends of Knights and heros.

Gesturing at the Commander to slow down, which in turn also caused the rain of spittle drowning the other men to stop, he asked about the amount of gold that the maintenance of the army took from the taxes collected, keeping in mind the possibility of expanding his forces in order to earn gold through war.

“Milord, out of the 1,000 gold we earn from taxes from the towns, 400 goes to military upkeep while around 600 goes to maintenance of the various structures around the fief and the retainers salaries.”

Feeling confident in his bookkeeping, Niel listed out a bunch of figures from memory, only to be met by an abnormal response.

“Ehh? That's ass!”

“Milord?”

Unintentionally, Vincent had once again let the mannerisms of his past life emerge.

Clearing his throat in embarrassment, he elaborated.

“Doesn't 1,000 Gold seem a bit low for a fief with 2 towns? While Whitesun primarily focuses on fishing and farming, which may not contribute a lot of Gold as most of the crops are consumed and not sold, Greendale should be netting us more than what it is currently.”

“From what I saw on my way back from Arthia, the market, inns and taverns are earning a substantial amount from the merchant convoys coming in. With the 14% tax rate, we should be receiving well over 1,000 gold a year from them alone.”

“From my perspective, it seems like something is going on with those merchants.

Saying this, Vincent's eyes narrowed, sensing an opportunity arising.

“Milord, I..”

Seeing Niels' confused and bewildered expression and Vincent's predatory gaze, Halcyon quickly stepped in, fearing that Vincent would wrongly put the blame on the butler.

“Vis, maybe Niels made an oversight. I believe that we can correct this immediately by sending a messenger to…”

Cutting him off, Vincent licked his lips and interrupted.

“Who said we're gonna tell them?”

“Milord, but… but the taxes?”

Giving his advisers a devious grin, leaned back in his seat.

“Knight Commander Blake has suggested that we go to war.”

“I concur. Since its inception, warfare, raiding and pillaging have been some of the fastest ways to procure riches.”

“However, before we can do that, we need funds and a justifiable cause to attack one of the nobles around us and take their Gold to jumpstart our development.”

“While we have yet to decide who to plunder or find a justifiable cause to do so, don’t you think that these merchants, with their wealth, could provide some much needed money to fund our efforts?”

“Sir, there is no proof that the merchants have done anything untoward! You are proposing that we march in and appropriate their property!”

“Niel, the Viscounts right.”

“Sir Halcyon, you can't possibly be advocating this act of violence and allow innocent merchants to suffer.”

Face solemn, Halcyon pulled out another scroll from his robes, unfurling it before their eyes.

“They're not innocent.”

“Here is empirical proof of tax evasion by the merchants.”

Stunned silence filled the room. Even Vincent had been shocked by Halcyon's words.

Damn! I was planning to encounter resistance from both elders, but who would’ve thought that Halcyon not only put up no resistance, he's even helping me along. This really makes me want to shower him in hugs and kisses. Wait, NO!

“The previous viscount had also noticed the disparity in our taxes, ordering me to quietly investigate the matter, but fell ill before I could gather decisive evidence.

Receiving the scroll from the administrator, Viscents felt his jaw drop.

Listed on the scroll was a breakdown of the finances of the various merchants in Greendale Town, with the disparity between what they owed and what they paid summed up on the bottom of the beastskin parchment.

Reading the circled figure, Vincent's eyes flared with unmistakable greed.

“Uncle, are you sure?”

“I’ve triple checked every figure on that list. I can swear to the Old Gods that the number is accurate”

“Milord, what's the matter?”

Passing the parchment to Blake, Vincent watched as the Knight Commander's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“Milord, this… this is enough for us to sustain a campaign for months, even after re-equipping all our men!”

Indeed, it was an astronomical figure. Over the years, starting from the year Vincent's father had returned home over a decade ago, the merchants of Greendale had amassed a sum of over 850,000 Gryphon Gold coins, not counting the various precious items the merchants had laying around.

When he laid eyes on the figure, Niel immediately prostrated himself on the ground, breaking out in tears as he apologised repeatedly.

Feeling pity at the sorry state the normally dignified and composed butler was in, Vincent was at a loss for words.

I haven't even said a word to berate you and yet you're already like this…

At a loss for words, Vincent hurriedly urged Niel to rise, feeling embarrassed that an elderly man had knelt before him.

Once Niel had composed himself and Vincent had assured him enough that he would not be executed, the meeting continued, albeit with a slight air of awkwardness.

After much deliberation and back and forth between Knight Commander Blake and the Elders, with the occasional interjection from Vincent, the details of the ‘assault' had been decided.

The date had been set two weeks later, during the summer of the Year 0614. The Phoenix Legion, followed by Vincent's personal guard, would march on Greendale Town, swooping in and methodically searching every merchant's holdings.

A simple operation, Vincent was confident in his ability to take the town by storm. With trained troops and Knights, overcoming a few merchants should pose no problem.

Like taking candy from a baby.

Head in the clouds, Vincent dismissed his advisers, thinking of the possible innovations he could use to revolutionise his land after receiving the Gold stored away by the merchants.

Heh. They’ll never see it coming.