Chapter 893: Act 69 – The Time Node of the Holy War II
In Vaunte, each year marks the arrival of the end of the year on the Day of Rest, when both commoners and nobles gradually reduce outdoor activities, whether for work or personal outings. It is as if the noise of the entire year subsides in this month, as people begin to hold various celebrations and banquets to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new one. From the northern city of Shibicheng to the southern border of Erluin, in the areas of Xierman and Fir Grove, every household begins to prepare and pray for a calm and prosperous new year.
However, it seems that ever since a trivial conflict occurred at the end of the Sword Year at the border of the Erluin Kingdom and the Cruz Empire, a farce officially began from the southern border of Cruz, breaking the usual tranquility. Starting from Frost Fall Month, it seems people gradually became accustomed to bombshell news coming in one after another from the south. Initially, Erluin forces captured the Empire’s fortress, and an Earl from Erluin attempted to challenge the Empire’s authority. Yet in the subsequent rumors, this Earl became the one holding the moral high ground, suggesting that his actions at the Black Sword Barrier were merely in retaliation against certain arrogant nobles—by this time, the pride of the Cruz had not yet fallen to the point of needing to assert superiority over a small nation; on the contrary, the demeanor of the greater power made the Empire’s citizens value moral righteousness and legitimacy more, leading them emotionally to side with Brendel and unite against the image of the arrogant, stubborn, and haughty imperial nobility. Thus, with each victory Brendel achieved, there was actually a chorus of cheers among the lower classes and even among the lower nobility of the Empire.
“Those noble gentlemen should be taught a lesson to understand,” was a common sentiment among nearly all lower-class citizens of the Empire. This does not imply that the upper echelons of the Empire had lost their support; the pyramid structure wasn’t about to crumble. The prevailing attitude was mostly one of detached amusement, where the reverse coup of the common folk was always a welcome spectacle. Of course, it wouldn’t rule out that a small number of conspirators were itching to act, even plotting a few small rebellions, but these ill-fated souls misjudged the situation, leading to their capture by the Queen, who seized the opportunity to organize several purging actions against dissenters, effectively putting an end to them. In this regard, the supreme ruler of the Empire indeed had to thank Brendel.
Thus, the south of the Empire became unusually lively, while the central regions became markedly more stable.
Regardless, whether willingly or reluctantly, Brendel and his embassy continued to advance northward, with various rumors about this Earl still converging from all directions toward the heart of the Empire.
On the last day of Winter Lute Month, the festival of Slumber Day dedicated to Saint Ausoor—also known as the Resurrection Festival in other regions—after defeating the private armies of imperial nobles that stood in his way, including the renowned Midsummer Knights composed of local gentry youth and the local defense regiment led by Earl Ji’en and Earl Orkans, the size of the embassy grew from an original medium scale of around a hundred to several hundreds of large coachloads. Aside from the embassy’s own carriages, there were also over a dozen large tents in the rear, filled with captured imperial nobles, both young and old, and most of them had names well-known in history. This ‘hostage’ convoy initially consisted of merely a couple of carriages, but with each battle, it often had to add one or two carriages, eventually forming the lengthy convoy it had become now.
As for these imperial nobles, Brendel did not make their situation difficult; he allowed them to retain a semblance of dignity, even permitting them to keep servants and companions—though these servants were only capable of running errands, preparing food and drink for their masters, and solving issues of warmth and daily living. With this, Brendel didn’t even have to worry about their rations as they would manage it themselves. Of course, some hardliners desired to create trouble, clinging to the hope that even starving might deplete Brendel’s embassy’s supplies. His solution was simple; he provided these privileged individuals with basic provisions so that after only a couple of hard loaves, those nobles were soon tearfully seeking help from their servants.
Brendel didn’t worry about these people escaping; a sorcerer provided magical alarms around the convoy, and gargoyles were patrolling the skies—how far could an ordinary person run in these snow-covered wildernesses? Initially, a few tried to escape, and Brendel didn’t even stop them. Within days, those unfortunate souls returned, cold and hungry, like wildlings, voluntarily wanting to resume their status as captives. Brendel intentionally relaxed supervision over these unfortunate individuals within the convoy. Soon, through their accounts, everyone learned of their plight, which had a good deterrent effect.
The climax of the second escape attempt came when the embassy passed close to the relatively prosperous area near Russuff. The successful ‘escape’ of several nobles served as an adrenaline shot for the hundreds of captives in the convoy, leading them to embark on large-scale escape efforts. Every evening, escapees left the convoy in a continuous stream, but almost without exception, they were caught and brought back. The unyielding imperial nobles, not willing to give up, began to contact people outside the convoy through their servants and launched multiple intelligence and tactics battles to rescue their compatriots.
The entire process was filled with noble cleverness and whimsy; for example, passing circuses inviting Brendel, the Earl, for a visit, or a beleaguered noble young lady seeking help from this foreigner, replete with the romanticism of knights. Some of it even left Brendel laughing and crying at the same time. Of course, the results? After Brendel had thoroughly punished several noble knights impersonating robbers, merchants, prostitutes, mercenaries, noble families, or even circus performers, the convoy’s large tents unsurprisingly added another segment.
After a month of back-and-forth, the imperial nobles finally realized that their futile escape plans were utterly unfeasible in Brendel’s eyes. Although the Earl seemed to be only in his twenties, he was as shrewd as those old mercenary captains who had walked the continent for a lifetime; the disguises and tricks used by adventurers and the Nightingales were almost non-existent in his view. Little did they know, while Brendel was teaching these fanciful characters a lesson, he was also stifling laughs—these individuals dared to play such games with him—these were tactics he had mastered in his previous life, and adventurers from the latter half of the world played them far better than these naive nobles could even dream of.
There’s a famous incident from the Second Era where a player, to ambush the Hill King Shalifenger, created a perfectly identical mountain fortress through illusion just under five miles from Alice Anna, and used barrier spells to make the entire Alice Anna disappear from the map. No one would have expected that someone could pull such a big trick right under countless eyes—even the famous NPC Hill King Shalifenger was fooled. If it weren’t for a blunder by that player’s guild, their achievement of slaying Shalifenger might have been completed. This illustrates that the nobles’ tricks, in Brendel’s eyes, were truly tedious.
He had been a captain in the game for about thirty years in his previous life, which was not particularly remarkable among players but was quite significant among NPCs—this experience might even surpass that of old mercenaries like Vurn and Juliette.
Not to mention, he had an even older captain beside him, Nemeses. Although the Lady Knight was reluctant to acknowledge her identity, it did not hinder her from leveraging her experience.
The two often spent nights in the coach studying the tricks of these nobles, resulting in some unfortunate souls being thoroughly outmatched.
Leaving Russuff, the embassy began to gradually exit the territory of Anzeruta. At this point, some small noble families within the long convoy finally couldn’t hold on any longer and began to propose ransoming demands. Brendel was not particularly difficult with these people; after receiving their money, he generously released them, such generosity winning him a reputation among the smaller nobility, and the rumors about the Thrusting Sword Sage and the Mad Earl were not as terrible as they had initially been. Of course, that was just one side of the coin; on the other hand, the nobles released under Miss Oni’s instructions began to play a role. Under their embellishments, Brendel’s identity successfully transformed into a foreigner with different customs, an unwelcome outsider, evolving into the image of a great demon king.
Their descriptions were somewhat understandable; after all, if they didn’t depict Brendel as cunning and adept at manipulation, wouldn’t it make them look utterly incompetent? Losing to a formidable opponent might suggest one’s own weakness, losing to a supremely clever opponent could indicate one’s folly, while losing to a shrewd opponent could point to one’s childishness and innocence. However, if one’s opponent were base and shameless, it could at least elicit the sympathy of the audience—after all, goodness is innocent, isn’t it?
Thus, in their descriptions, the treatment and dignity afforded to the nobles vanished without a trace. The lives of those captured nobles seemed to be worse than hell, clothed scantily and starving—though one would have to question why a dignified Earl from Erluin would rob these individuals of their clothing and rations. Yet, such descriptions conformed to the Empire’s perception of the savage outsiders, successfully rousing the indignation of almost all imperial nobles in Anzeruta.
Of course, this indignation had existed from the start; however, Earl Ji’en and Earl Orkans had yet to figure out how to stand on moral and just grounds for a reason to act against this Erluin embassy. Now, under the “hand-holding” guidance from the Duchess Vieiro, they finally found a reason to wage war, though how absurd and unbelievable it sounded, it would suffice to persuade Her Majesty the Queen.
Thus, before the eyes of the entire Empire, the two Earls began their efforts for vindication.
As initially described, this farce, which started at the Empire’s border, once again played out in the heart of the Empire, indicating that it was clearly in its second season, with the possibility of a third and fourth season remaining uncertain.
At this time, the Erluin embassy finally passed through the last barrier of the Anzeruta mountains. Their present position on the Empire’s map was called the Floating Cloud Hills, a very famous location for the Empire—this was the starting point of the Great Plain from the Sacred War. From here, looking east, it was an endless expanse of grasslands—the southwestern tip of the Four Borders Wilds. To the north lies a narrow corridor called the Evergreen Path, connecting to the famous Blossom Leaf Territory in the north; and to the east, adjacent to the Broken Sword Mountain Range, lay the Lokos Heights, the closest area to the Toquinin Plain, where countless fortresses and barriers block the advances from the Lionmen.
In other words, this place is likely the closest to war for the Empire at this moment, aside from the Four Borders Wilds and the eastern foothills of the Broken Sword Mountains. Since July, it has been on a state of alert, and to this day, there lies no trace of celebration found elsewhere. The roads between towns and marketplaces are sparsely populated, and patrols have begun to appear more frequently.
This area currently serves as a major military station for two battlefronts and stands as one of the most vulnerable links in the Empire. Typically, Brendel would genuinely fear that the two Earls from Anzeruta might find ways to persuade some of the big imperialists from both the northern and southern legions to surround and intercept him. However, at present, the Empire’s soldiers are engaged in life-and-death battles and are clearly unlikely to participate in the petty games among nobles.
At this time, Brendel also managed to contact some imperial nobles leaning towards him through Rainwright’s influence within the Empire—though the nobles he first engaged with were not particularly fervent supporters of the Crown Prince. After all, power bases of military nobles lay mostly in the north, while the south was traditionally the realm of local nobility and the Temple. The nobles Brendel connected with happened to be those emotionally inclined towards the Crown Prince; they shared a common trait of being politically ambivalent and lacked the strength to influence the Empire’s situation—precisely the type that merely sits at the sidelines.
However, these sidelined nobles were currently of significant importance to Brendel. Through them, he finally began to grasp some internal circumstances of the Empire during this time, especially critical was the situation after Veronika and Mangolov returned to the Empire. After the historical shift occurred, while Brendel maintained foresight regarding the local customs and the way nobles conducted affairs, he was quite lost regarding the specific details of the Empire’s trajectory after that explosion and before the Sacred War, a situation he has not encountered since returning to this era.
After interacting with these small families, he gradually learned what had transpired. As Veronika had predicted, upon her return to the Empire, she was stripped of military power. However, the Silver Queen did not punish the Aelrich family but instead allowed Veronika’s brother to succeed as the captain of the legions and inherit the position of head of the Aelrich family. On the surface, she hoped to placate military forces and avoid seriously offending those she would depend on, but Brendel knew there were deeper motives. He understood that Lady Veronika was merely a scapegoat in the whole incident. For those not understanding the truth, this event appeared to be punishment due to Veronika unintentionally bringing trouble onto the royal family. In reality, this was merely a coverup as Her Majesty the Queen was fully aware of her role in it, and her actions towards the Aelrich family had an air of guilt.
What puzzled Brendel was that Veronika was not returned to her domain but was instead placed under house arrest in the imperial capital. This left him somewhat baffled; was this Queen really that hard-hearted, wanting to punish the captain? He thought there was no need for such actions. The Silver Queen must know Veronika’s capabilities and didn’t seem to have a reason to offend her so thoroughly.
However, after receiving this news, Brendel didn’t contemplate deeply until Nemeses reminded him of the possibility of a conspiracy, prompting him to recognize that something was indeed off.
After learning the truth of the entire affair, Nemeses told him, “The Emperor of Cruz is likely to take significant action.”
“What’s going on?” Knowing that his political experiences might not far surpass those of that righteous knight, Aike, in the embassy, he asked directly.
Nemeses glanced at him, her eyes rarely revealing a look of disappointment, resembling the way an older sister would look at him: “Think about who Veronika is; how capable can her brother be? Since you and I both understand this, how could the Silver Queen not realize? By doing so, she leaves the Azure Legion vulnerable. What forces exist in the central regions of the Empire? Without the Azure Legion, the balance of power could easily be disrupted. A mature politician would never take such a risky move, but she has done so, indicating she has ulterior motives. Logically, her actions must be considerable.”
The Lady Knight paused briefly before replying lightly, “We simply lack sufficient information to deduce what she intends to do.”
Brendel felt a slight stir in his heart. He looked at this usually taciturn knight, who had only begun to engage in discussions about tactics against nobles in recent times, and a feeling of familiarity returned as she spoke, reminiscent of how an older sister used to analyze tasks for them. However, back then, Sister Baijia was much gentler.
He pursed his lips, thoughtfully considering Nemeses’s words, increasingly feeling the possibility of their truth.
However, whether the actions of that supreme being were good or bad for them, as Nemeses stated, due to the lack of information, they could not deduce at this moment.
“This matter is getting more and more complicated,” Brendel couldn’t help but mutter to himself, “However, the Queen’s actions will likely not relate to what we need to do next. Our current task remains dealing with those two Earls; only by resolving this can we seize the initiative in the upcoming journey through the Empire.”
The Lady Knight did not comment, and instead, Medisa, who was nearby, replied, “My Lord, I believe focusing on one matter is good, but it would be best to gather information regarding this aspect.”
Brendel nodded this time. In reality, he already had a suitable candidate in mind.
Speaking of which, that person was also the only individual he knew in the Empire.
Coincidentally, they happened to be geographically close at this moment.
