Chapter 9 : Chapter 9
Chapter 9: Hyenas in the Rat's Nest and the Ghost of the Smithy
“A Knight's oath must be witnessed by the blood of enemies, not tears of gratitude.”
Caesar's voice spoke calmly.
He extended his hand in a gesture of support, and a gentle yet irresistible force transmitted through. Roland's heavy body rose involuntarily to its feet.
Under Roland's shocked gaze, Caesar casually tossed the empty vial of the priceless Lionheart Elixir and the black iron box into the corner junk pile like discarding a gnawed bone.
This action carried more impact than any grand speech.
Roland straightened his back. His entire being was like a siege greatsword freshly quenched and sharpened, silently radiating a heart-stopping edge.
His turbid eyes had become completely clear, leaving only the purest fanaticism and loyalty. His voice was hoarse yet firm.
“My lord, give the order!”
“A wild horse that has just broken free of its reins always wants to run itself to death on the grasslands with reckless abandon.”
Caesar lifted a corner of the tent flap. Outside, the clamor from beside the campfires and the sour stench of cheap ale surged inward.
Those surviving grizzled veterans were hooking arms around shoulders, using crude jokes and alcohol to numb their fear of tomorrow. Their laughter carried the desperation of living for today with no thought for tomorrow.
“But we don't have time to slowly tame it.”
Caesar dropped the tent flap, cutting off the noise.
“These twenty-odd undisciplined soldiers, plus the three of us, wouldn't even be enough to fill the teeth of the carrion crows in the Wailing Wastes.”
He turned and walked to the crude map drawn in charcoal on animal hide, his index finger tapping heavily on the location of Grayrock Town with a dull thud.
“Still remember our act?”
“I remember, sir.”
Roland spoke in a deep voice.
“A squad of unlucky mercenaries who lost their leader, lost their cargo, and only scraped together a hundred gold coins for travel expenses by selling off equipment.”
“Right, an act.”
The corner of Caesar's lips curved into a cold arc, like the edge of a crescent moon.
“An act that must convince all the jackals and hyenas of Grayrock Town.”
“Since we're performing, we need to make it spectacular enough to make them drool dry and lose their wits.”
He looked at Roland, his violet eyes bottomless in the lamplight.
“Tomorrow at first light, we split into three groups.”
“Three groups?”
Roland was startled.
“First group, Barrett.”
Caesar extended one finger.
“That old dog knows best how to deal with street thugs and hooligans.”
“Give him twenty gold coins and pick ten veterans who can act the best, who gamble the worst, who look most like desperadoes. Have them change into the shabbiest rags and swagger into the city.”
“Where to?”
“The Scimitar Tavern.”
A hint of mockery flashed in Caesar's eyes.
“Didn't Barrett just smash up the place yesterday? Today, we go back to apologize.”
“Have Barrett slap all twenty gold coins on the bar and buy drinks for everyone in the tavern—mercenaries, vagrants, prostitutes… everyone who's breathing! Just that horse-piss ale! Drink until they vomit!”
“Then.”
Caesar's tone shifted, becoming sinister.
“He's to go to the town's largest grain shop and use the remaining twenty gold coins to buy the coarsest black bread and the lowest quality salted jerky.”
“Then rent five or six broken-down wagons and pile these supplies high enough to overflow, parading through the streets!”
“I want everyone to see that we've gone mad, making one last desperate celebration.”
“Only a squad that doesn't know what they'll eat tomorrow would do something like this.”
Roland's breath caught. He understood.
This was to use gold coins and cheap liquor to brand the image of destitution and reckless desperation deeply into everyone's minds.
“When everyone sees us as fat sheep and fools.”
Caesar continued.
“Barrett's real mission begins. The place he's going isn't the mercenary guild, but the Rat's Nest.”
“The Rat's Nest?”
Roland's brow furrowed tightly, his iron-gray hair appearing especially hard in the lamplight.
That was Grayrock Town's festering sore, a shantytown where all the failures and forgotten ones eked out their miserable existence, a place even tax collectors and stray dogs disdained to set foot.
“Right, the Rat's Nest.”
Caesar sneered.
“I don't want those strong, vigorous, prideful elite mercenaries. They're wolves that can't be tamed, and they're expensive.”
“I only want those rats who might starve to death in a ditch tomorrow.”
“Deserters with gambling debts, slaves driven from the mines, hunters whose families died of disease and went bankrupt… the more desperate, the better.”
“Buy their lives at the lowest cost.”
Roland murmured, a chill rising in his heart.
This young lord's methods were far more cold-blooded and efficient than he showed.
“No.”
Caesar corrected him, his voice containing not a shred of pity, only pure rationality.
“It's giving them a chance to start over.”
“Tell them, go develop the wasteland, guaranteed full meals, two copper coins a day.”
“Though it's life-threatening work, at least they can survive.”
“Also tell them my family crest is Valerius, an ancient Knight family.”
“If the development succeeds and they perform well, they'll not only receive land, they might even gain Knight reserve status.”
“For people in the mud, illusory glory is sometimes more useful than bread.”
A tremor ran through Roland's heart as he nodded heavily.
“This is the first group, playing the villain, responsible for muddying the waters.”
Caesar extended his second finger.
“Second group, you, Roland.”
He pulled a heavy coin purse from his chest and tossed it to Roland.
“This contains three hundred gold coins.”
“Change into inconspicuous clothes and go alone, like a steward purchasing supplies for a merchant caravan.”
“Your mission is the key to whether we can establish a foothold.”
Caesar walked to the map, his finger circling several areas of Grayrock Town.
“I need shovels, pickaxes, rope, tents, large quantities of water skins for storage.”
“But most importantly.”
Caesar's tone became especially serious.
“Weapons and armor. I don't want those flashy greatswords. I want regulation shortswords, practical hand axes, hard leather armor that covers the torso, and… at least thirty crossbows with matching bolts!”
“Sir, such a large quantity will definitely attract attention. Grayrock Town's blacksmith guild and city guard aren't blind.”
Roland spoke in a deep voice.
“That's exactly why I need you, a Grand Knight, to go personally.”
Caesar smiled, his expression carrying a fox-like cunning.
“Your strength is enough to handle any prying eyes.”
“This is Grayrock Town. Those smugglers sell anything as long as you can pay.”
“Remember, buy in batches, small amounts, multiple transactions.”
“Have them deliver the goods in batches to Weeping Widow Canyon, thirty miles east of the city.”
“You don't need to bring everything back yourself. You just need to secure the transactions, then quietly leave through the south gate, reach the canyon ahead of schedule, and ensure the exchanges go off without a hitch.”
“What about the third group?”
Roland asked.
“The third group is me.”
Caesar's eyes flickered with the confidence of complete control.
“I'll lead the remaining people and those wagons of black bread out the east gate in grand fashion, drawing all eyes.”
“The new recruits Barrett gathers will also mix into the column and depart together.”
“Troops move after supplies? No, our people and supplies move separately, true and false indistinguishable.”
Caesar summarized.
“I want all the eyes watching us to see a destitute squad leading a mob of rabble and several wagons of junk, miserably leaving Grayrock Town.”
“While our true strength will quietly take shape where they cannot see.”
“Your subordinate… obeys!”
Roland's heart pounded violently.
He knelt on one knee. This time, it was in submission to this meticulous and terrifying intelligence.
The next day, dawn.
Grayrock Town, Scimitar Tavern.
Foul air mixed with the smell of sweat, alcohol, and cheap tobacco, making heads spin.
Hungover mercenaries sprawled across tables while flies held feasts on their greasy hair.
BANG!
The tavern door was kicked open, and sunlight burst in together with one-eyed Barrett.
Behind him followed ten veterans with wretched appearances, each with sunken eye sockets, looking like they'd just crawled from graves.
Barrett planted one foot on the oak table he'd overturned yesterday—hastily nailed back together today—and slammed a heavy coin purse down on the surface with a clang. The crisp sound of colliding gold coins was like a slap across every eardrum. The entire tavern instantly fell deathly silent.
“Yesterday, I was in the wrong! Drank too much, got clumsy!”
Barrett's single eye flashed with savage light, and combined with his reeking of alcohol, he resembled a rutting boar.
“Today, I'm here to apologize! Everyone breathing in this place, drinks are on me! Barkeep, are you dead? Bring me liquor! The cheapest kind! Drink yourselves to death and it's on me!”
The tavern owner was a middle-aged man fat enough to glisten. He poked his head out from behind the bar, squinted his small eyes in calculation, then immediately plastered his face with an obsequious smile.
Soon, news that the unlucky mercenary squad from House Valerius only had thirty or forty gold left for travel expenses yet was still putting on a fat face spread like it had wings throughout every corner of Grayrock Town.
Countless people flooded into the Scimitar Tavern, enjoying the free ale that fell from heaven while looking at Barrett and his subordinates with the eyes one uses for idiots.
When Barrett, reeking of sour liquor, wobbled into the labyrinth of filthy alleys that was the Rat's Nest, he had already become the town's biggest joke.
The light here was perpetually dim, the air floating with the mixed stench of desperation, mold, and excrement.
In the corner, a pile of refugees with empty gazes, like the living dead, huddled together, showing no reaction to Barrett's arrival.
Barrett cleared his throat, spat a thick glob of phlegm on the ground, and bellowed at the pile of living corpses.
“Got work! Going to the wasteland, life-threatening! Two guaranteed full meals a day, all the black bread you can eat! Every day, two copper coins!”
The alley was deathly silent, with only a few derisive snickers.
“Two copper coins? Go to hell! Think we're beggars?”
A burly man covered in scars with a scorpion tattooed on his chest spat. He was the local strongman of this area, named Scorpion.
Barrett sneered and ignored him.
He pulled out a white bread roll he'd pilfered from the tavern and began munching on it methodically.
In this place where even black bread was a luxury, the fragrance of this white bread, mixed with the aroma of the oven, became the most lethal temptation.
Several children's stomachs rumbled traitorously.
“Take it or leave it.”
He chewed the bread, speaking indistinctly.
“Our boss is a noble young master fresh out into the world, stupid with too much money.”
“Though he's broke as a bell now, he says anyone who follows him will eat meat every meal eventually.”
“Also says his family is Valerius, and those who earn merit can get land and even become Knights!”
“Knights? HAHAHAHA!”
Scorpion laughed until he swayed.
“With you poor bastards? Stop blowing smoke! Get out of my territory!”
Barrett glanced at him, then suddenly pulled two gleaming gold coins from the ragged coin purse at his waist, tossing them between his fingertips. The golden light traced captivating arcs in the dim alley.
“The boss's reward for my drinking. Believe it or not, up to you.”
With that, he turned to leave.
At that moment, a young man with the ashen complexion unique to miners with black lung disease stood up first. He picked up an iron rod from the ground to use as a weapon, his voice hoarse as he asked.
“Really… guaranteed full meals?”
“Guaranteed full.”
Barrett didn't turn back.
The young man fell silent for a moment, then quietly followed behind Barrett.
Scorpion's expression darkened.
“Boy, you dare leave with him? You still owe me three copper coins!”
The young man's body stiffened.
Barrett stopped, turned around, walked up to Scorpion, and flicked a gold coin at his face.
“Him, and everyone here willing to follow me—I'm covering their debts. Now, take your men and scram.”
Scorpion caught the gold coin, feeling its cold, heavy touch. Greed and hesitation flashed in his eyes.
He weighed the numbers on both sides and the aura of a desperado emanating from Barrett. Finally, he gritted his teeth and led his men away resentfully.
The power of example is infinite.
With the first, came the second, the third… When Barrett walked out of the Rat's Nest, over a hundred and fifty silent men who looked like walking corpses followed behind him.
Each of them was like a gambler in a high-stakes game, betting the only thing they had left—their worthless lives.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the city, Rusty Axe Alley.
Roland wore inconspicuous linen clothes, moving through the alley thundering with hammering sounds like a ghost.
He found the shop with a rusted axe sign hanging at its door and pushed inside.
A bare-chested, one-eyed old man was sweating profusely before a forge, his muscles knotted, his arms thicker than ordinary men's thighs.
“Don't buy farm tools, get lost.”
One-eyed Herof didn't look up, his voice like red-hot iron plunged into cold water.
Roland said nothing. The aura of Battle Energy belonging to a Grand Knight emanating from his body already spoke for him.
Herof's hammer froze in midair.
He slowly turned his head, that single eye boring into Roland, sizing him up and down.
“What do you want?”
“Thirty crossbows, three thousand bolts. A hundred hand axes, a hundred shortswords. A hundred sets of hard leather armor.”
Roland recited the list.
“Are you insane? Are you planning a rebellion?”
Herof's single eye contracted sharply.
“I don't have that much in stock.”
“Then work through the night to make it. In three days, I want to see the first batch of goods at Weeping Widow Canyon east of the city.”
Roland tossed a handful of gold coins on the ground.
“This is the deposit. After completion, there's double that as final payment.”
Herof looked at the gold coins on the table, then at Roland's calm yet unquestionable face. Finally, he grunted.
“Deal. But if anyone comes investigating…”
“No one will trace it to you.”
Roland turned and departed, leaving behind a solid silhouette.
The subsequent transactions proceeded exceptionally smoothly.
Three days later, Grayrock Town's east gate.
Caesar's development company departed under countless sympathetic or mocking gazes, setting foot on the road eastward.
The column had expanded to nearly two hundred people but looked even more shabby than before.
The newly recruited hyenas wore a motley collection of tattered garments, the weapons in their hands a bizarre assortment of wooden clubs and rusted swords.
They silently left this last bastion of civilization, like a pack of abandoned lost souls walking toward that cursed land called the Wailing Wastes.
No one knew that in the canyon thirty miles ahead of them, a secret convoy loaded with steel and hope was quietly awaiting their sovereign.