Chapter 67: Act 3 – Freya’s Knights
“Do you mean to say that you have a way to bypass Madara’s attention?”
After a moment of silence, the bar owner spoke up with a tone of obvious distrust.
Freya quickly nodded. However, she froze for a moment when she noticed that the expressions on the faces of those present were filled with disbelief, and a tightness gripped her heart, causing her to instinctively clutch her sword—as if trying to release her tension through her pale knuckles.
“Freya is a militiaman from Buche, and a friend of hers has said that Ridenburg will be breached. No one would believe it before tonight, not even Sue, but the facts are laid before us. I believe Freya’s words hold some truth,” Sue suddenly spoke up from the side.
Everyone was taken aback, and even Freya looked at the girl with tanned skin and braided hair, sending her a grateful glance.
“I… actually have no way to keep you from Madara’s notice,” Freya thought for a moment and candidly addressed the mercenaries—her opening words stunned everyone. “However, I know someone who might have that ability.”
“So you’re not certain either?” someone asked.
Freya nodded.
Immediately, she saw many shrug their shoulders. These mercenaries held no hopes for a young girl; they were merely joking around, after all, Freya herself was not unlikable—one could even say she was quite an attractive girl.
“Wait, everyone! I know, as a stranger, it’s absurd to ask you to trust me here,” she held her sword with both hands at her chest, gradually relaxing her posture as her voice became bright and clear, “so I’m just proposing a possibility—”
She pondered, “It’s like a gamble; I, I…”
After some time, the ponytailed girl still couldn’t find the right words, feeling a bit frustrated—perhaps she shouldn’t have chosen a way to explain that she was not so familiar with just to please these mercenaries.
“Just like you open a bet, and we place our stakes, right? Then it’s life or death, and fortune is in the hands of fate,” a large mercenary laughed. “Good explanation, you’re good—my name is Mano. Just based on what you said, I have to place my bet, right?”
He turned back, and immediately, friendly laughter erupted from the crowd, with someone exclaiming that Mano, the damned gambler, would eventually pay with his life one day.
Freya blushed and nodded quickly, “That’s about it. If you think what I said is still credible, why not take a look? I think once you meet my friend, you’ll be able to make a judgment—at least, I believe in him.”
After she finished speaking, the mercenaries fell silent. One couldn’t deny Freya’s appeal in what she said, further backed by Sue’s earlier words, and they hesitated. Wasn’t it better to follow along and see how things played out?
After all, there was nothing to lose; if it went awry, they could just split apart.
However, for a moment, no one stepped up, and Freya looked at the tension in the room that was gradually cooling and couldn’t help but feel a little anxious.
“I believe in Freya.”
Sue was the first to step forward; she glanced back at her father. Retao couldn’t help but scratch his head. He couldn’t just remain silent after his daughter’s declaration; after all, they said daughters tend to favor outside boys—he just hoped she would bring back a good one.
The bar owner couldn’t help but sigh at the situation, and laughter erupted around.
“Alright,” Retao said, “you all shouldn’t laugh. Since I’m going, it can’t hurt for you all to stay and see. I believe you all will show some respect for my little girl, won’t you?”
“Shameless, Retao.”
“What’s wrong with using Miss Sue as a shield?”
“Unconscionable.”
The mercenaries couldn’t help but shout, but their chatter acknowledged Retao’s stance. Meanwhile, the stout bar owner seemed unashamed, looking quite pleased. In the end, more than twenty people remained, and although these folks were interested in Freya’s proposal, they just couldn’t bring themselves to openly bow to a young girl.
“So, Miss, we’re all here now. What are your demands?” Retao asked, arms crossed, turning back.
Mercenaries are, after all, mercenaries. They understand that nothing comes without a price. They generally view such costs as a transaction, weighing the pros and cons—either joining or backing out—straightforward and not something to be shied away from.
Freya didn’t grasp the mercenaries’ mentality and felt a surge of anxiety: “My request is actually very simple: to escape here alive. Since you chose to stay and trust me, I hope you will… follow my commands and obey orders; otherwise, this agreement will lose its meaning. So I know this sounds a bit presumptuous, but I have to insist—if you find it unacceptable, I won’t force you.”
“Of course, that’s the bare minimum,” the mercenaries responded. They said this, but it didn’t mean they would necessarily follow a dangerous order; still, it was always good to agree to start with.
“And what else can you do?”
“I don’t know, but I can at least fight alongside you. In battle, we will be comrades standing side by side, and I hope… that won’t change even with our agreement,” Freya thought for a moment and replied.
“That’s enough. As long as you can do that, at least we will acknowledge you, little girl!” Mano replied from the side, with two or three others nodding along. Still, some chose to back out. In the end, only seventeen remained: in addition to Retao and Sue, Mano and his three buddies were there, while the rest were lone wolves who felt it better to stick with the group rather than act alone. Thus, in the end, they decided to stay. However, these few were beyond Freya’s expectations, exceeding her hopes entirely.
Because she originally had no expectations whatsoever. Even if only Sue remained, that would have been fortuitous; now, it was fortuitous upon fortuitous.
While their discussion hadn’t reached a conclusion, news of Madara’s army entering the city spread from the west, and the crowds in the streets began to stir. Retao noticed the commotion outside and quickly signaled for everyone to come to the bar to gather provisions; at this time, they should take whatever they could, or else when these people came to their senses, the streets would become chaos.
This indeed reflected the difference between seasoned soldiers and Freya’s militia; the former always thought of logistics first before anything else.
“So what shall we do next, Commander Freya?” the old mercenary Mano asked.
“Don’t call me Commander; I’m no different from you,” Freya said, her face flushed. The previous speech had nearly made her breathless. Even now, she couldn’t fathom how she had the courage to say such things in front of a group of seasoned warriors.
Now that she thought of it, it felt almost like a dream.
But a voice inside her told her she could do it. She could surely find a way to help Brendel, rather than just be a burden by his side. The ponytailed girl took a deep breath to calm herself, staring absentmindedly at the flames rising from the western gate, suddenly remembering something and asking, “Can you ride horses?”
“Of course, how could we not?”
“Then we’re going to steal horses,” Freya replied.
“Steal horses?”
*
“Steal horses?” The girl fiddled with a silver spoon, curious as she asked.
“There’s a mule market in Ridenburg; nobles trade warhorses in the inner district and also sell servants and slaves, which is a well-known fact. In fact, the old minister received this news when he went to the Buche area,” Overwell replied.
“Those audacious scoundrels,” the princess calmly set her teacup down.
“But how does that girl know about it?” she inquired further.
“It’s related to her background. We left her in the mule market in Ridenburg when she was three. She may not remember some events before she turned three, but she should have a vivid impression of that place.”
“Were you really so heartless as to leave a three-year-old girl alone in a strange place?”
“We had no choice. The turmoil back then affected everyone widely; even Everton’s wife was not spared. Moreover, we did have thorough arrangements.”
“Can she ride?”
“How could a member of the Everton family not know how to ride? The person we arranged to adopt her was an elite knight from the Silverwing Legion. However, we still don’t know why they moved from Ridenburg to such a remote place in Buche.”
“Did she succeed?” Although she knew Overwell would affirm it, indicating Freya had succeeded, the princess still couldn’t help but ask.
On the surface, she seemed to be mature, but inside she was still just a girl of fifteen or sixteen.
“Of course, as the old minister mentioned before, the nobles were drawn to that young man. The inner market was defenseless and allowed them to succeed easily, and that group of mercenaries was quite formidable, at least qualifying as ordinary soldiers of first-line legions in the kingdom—”
The girl nodded.
Unlike other legions, the first-line legions of the Erluin Kingdom, such as the Royal Guards, Silverwing Legion, Siphai Eleventh Cavalry, and Analco Flintlock Corps, retained much of their former honor and combat prowess. The combat capabilities of ordinary soldiers within these legions still hovered around the low end of black iron (3-7 Oz), making them incomparable to the second-line legions like the Whitemane Legion and Blackblade Legion, which had surrendered to decay.
As for those standard legions, they were even less impressive; since the Beastman War, their combat strength had hardly differed from that of noble private soldiers.
Thus, Overwell’s description led the half-elf princess to grasp what kind of capabilities the mercenaries accompanying Freya might possess.
She contemplated for a moment before asking, “And then?”
“Then comes the most thrilling part of the story. When Miss Freya leads her knights to unite with that miraculous young man, they will slay their way through Madara’s army,” even though Overwell was usually aloof, mentioning the feats of cutting through an enemy nation’s army stirred some excitement within him, a member of the royalist faction.
“The miraculous young man,” the princess remarked.
Overwell coughed a couple of times, realizing he had misspoken.
However, the girl didn’t mind. She looked at the time and said, “I still have a bit of time, Lord Overwell, so please continue with the next segment.”
“Such an honor.”
