Chapter 66: Chapter 66

After the battle ended, Shan’s army entered the city of Zerkan and first confiscated all weapons and armor from the surrendered enemies.

The knights and heavily armed soldiers were all taken captive, while those who were no longer combatants were disbanded.

After that, they began looting the city in earnest.

Had the city accepted the initial offer of surrender, Shan’s army would have taken only the strategic supplies as previously stated, but since they had fought and lost, it was time to claim the rights of the victor.

If they did not set an example here, other cities would surely think it was fine to hold out for a while before surrendering.

“You can’t take that! It’s our family heirloom…”

“Honey, just let them have it. We need to stay alive first.”

Running out barefoot, a woman who was clutching a jewelry box being taken by a soldier shed tears at her husband’s restraint and went back inside her house.

Thanks to advance orders, arson and indiscriminate slaughter did not occur, though those who resisted excessively sometimes lost their lives.

The loot obtained in this manner was stacked neatly onto the carts brought into the city.

It did not take very long for the mansions of the wealthy (including merchants, artisans, and bureaucrats in the city) to be turned into a complete mess.

What served as the grand finale of this plundering were the lord’s mansion and the various annexes inside the inner castle.

No matter how rural, a noble was still a noble.

Starting from ordinary gold and silver treasures to one or two low-grade sacred relics or magical implements, and even historic antiques, a considerable number of valuable items turned up.

As a bonus, regarding the targeted Mana Stones, in addition to the two on the outer and inner castle gates, they were able to obtain five more that had been prepared as spares.

While those assigned to looting thoroughly scraped up items, several soldiers clicked their tongues as they cleared away the corpses scattered across the inner castle.

“So, you’re saying just three people wiped out this entire number and captured the lord’s family?”

“Climbing down that insanely high cliff with their bare hands, no less.”

“They’re really not human.”

“If it were me, I couldn’t do it even if they promised to give me an entire kingdom upon success.”

Since the operation, which had been kept secret in preparation for potential information leaks, had now become known, the soldiers also came to understand why the fight had ended after they merely shouted uselessly outside.

Even from their ignorant perspective, this was so ridiculous it was borderline absurd.

Ending the battle by climbing down a cliff where a single misstep meant being crushed to death, slaughtering dozens of enemy soldiers, and kidnapping the lord’s family?

To compare it to chess, the amusement of nobles, it was like moving ten spaces forward and then turning sideways to take the king while everyone else moved in straight lines and diagonals.

Calling something like this a war was almost laughable.

“Thanks to this, Sir Shan’s reputation will spread even wider in the future.”

“The Cliff Climber, the Night Raider… the titles to call him by are piling up.”

“Night Raider sounds a bit dishonorable, though…”

While several knights chatted, Shan sat on a chair placed in a corner of the inner castle, relieving his accumulated fatigue.

Roden wiped down Shan’s blood-stained armor beside him and spoke.

“Great work, Sir Shan.”

“Any casualties?”

“Naturally, not a single one. If any casualties occur during the looting, I will report further.”

“Alright. Please take care of the mercenaries and Court Count Tenon too.”

The mercenaries, including Ravana who was injured in combat, as well as the Society President rescued from the dungeon and Ravana’s daughter Kiri, were being tended to by a military priest in a fairly well-maintained annex.

Since they had been chosen from reasonably skilled priests in Palles, they should be able to recover their health quickly under ordinary circumstances.

Roden, who replied affirmatively to Shan’s order, looked back at the whispering soldiers around them and murmured in a low voice.

“Anyway, even though I thought it might work, you really pulled it off far more cleanly than imagined. With an achievement like this, it would be worthy of receiving a title of nobility.”

“Is it that big of a deal?”

“Of course. What kind of insane knight in the world captures a city of over ten thousand people all by himself?”

“Vico and Tavera helped too. The others supported from the outside as well.”

“Ordinarily, squires accompanying a knight in such an endeavor is considered standard. And if shouting outside is called help, everyone will laugh.”

In the past, hunting the cockatrice alone had only evidence remaining, and hunting the leader of the ogre pack had been done alongside an army of thousands.

Winning the jousting tournament was certainly impressive, but that was merely something someone did every year.

However, infiltrating a city alone, slaughtering dozens of enemies, and escorting the lord’s family out was truly an achievement in the realm of myth.

Moreover, this was clearly witnessed by residents as well as over hundreds of soldiers and knights.

It was something that would remain a legend in this region (and perhaps across all of Pendia) for a long time.

Even among knights who earned titles through merit, those who accomplished such a feat were beyond rare: it was safe to say there were none.

“At least the new lord who comes to possess this city in the future will surely tell everyone to always guard the cliff by the inner castle. They won’t want to suffer the same fate. No, maybe they will move the inner castle altogether.”

“I don’t understand why they built it like that in the first place. If it were me, I would have been too scared to build a city so close to a cliff.”

That was because the city of Zerkan itself had originally been built to mine the iron ore beneath that rock wall.

Additionally, thanks to building it right up against the cliff, they had been able to save a considerable amount of materials and labor in constructing castle walls.

Rather than explaining all of this in complex, tedious detail, Roden simply gave a bitter smile and let it pass.

In any case, this boy, who was his friend, had truly accomplished something no one else could do.

Failing to understand that others could not do what he himself could do was a minor flaw that could easily be forgiven.

*

After spending the night at the lord’s mansion, Shan heard that Ravana had awoken and headed to the annex to meet her.

As he entered the building, which had become desolate after being thoroughly looted, he saw the rabbit-eared woman Ravana lying on a bed with bandages wrapped all around her body, and her daughter sitting right beside her.

Upon seeing Shan and Roden enter the room, Kiri immediately stood up and prostrated herself in a deep bow.

“Please forgive my mom!”

“Kiri…”

“Mom attacking Sir Shan was because of me! If she hadn’t gotten excited seeing me…”

“Stop.”

Shan stopped the girl’s frantic shouting, picked her up, and sat her in a chair.

Then, sitting in the chair on the opposite side, he looked at Ravana, who groaned in pain while trying to sit up, and asked.

“I heard the general situation. You took the Berserker’s Elixir, right?”

“Yes. Even though I had lost my reason, I was extremely rude to my benefactor.”

The Slaughter Rabbit, Ravana, politely bowed her head and apologized.

Unlike last night when she had gone wild with her eyes rolled back, her gloomy, intimidated expression and drooping rabbit ears looked pitiful.

Shan also knew the detailed circumstances to some extent after hearing them from her companions last night.

While facing off with the army outside the walls, soldiers had burst out of the inner castle, claiming that some devilish knight had broken in and was committing a slaughter, asking for help, was it?

And when Ravana grew serious and demanded to know what happened to her daughter, the response she received was…

‘I don’t know! That monster bastard probably killed everyone! Damn it, hurry up and reinforce us! The guys outside aren’t the problem right now!’

While acting as an unwanted guard dog because of her kidnapped daughter, hearing the kidnappers babble such things left her with no reason to defend this place any longer.

A clash broke out between Ravana, who felt compelled to charge into the inner castle immediately to check her daughter’s safety, and the knight commanding the wall defense, sparking a fight between the two forces; to overcome the overwhelming numerical disadvantage, Ravana had used the Berserker’s Elixir.

“The Berserker’s Elixir… its effect was even more impressive than what I had heard.”

Moving around fine without her physical capabilities being damaged in the slightest, even while heavily injured by attacks flying from all directions, was nothing short of miraculous.

On top of that, despite repeatedly infusing her attacks against Shan with an amount of Fighting Spirit that would make it natural for her to collapse from exhaustion at any moment, she remained fine.

“Yes. Fortunately, my constitution suits it well, so I enjoy a great effect with relatively few side effects. In fact, even then I was controlling my reason to some degree, but…”

Seeing her daughter looking filthy from being locked up in a cold, dark dungeon, along with the face of the lord who was the culprit, she said she instantly snapped.

After that, she said she only regained her senses after waking up here.

“For now, I won’t press charges over your attack on me. I understand well enough that it wasn’t intentional.”

At Shan’s words, the mother and daughter let out a sigh of relief.

Then Roden, who was beside him, cleared his throat lightly to draw attention before asking a question.

“First, there are a few things I would like to ask. How did you end up traveling with Court Count Tenon?”

“Court… Count Tenon?”

Unexpectedly, Ravana appeared not to know who that even was.

Kiri, who was beside her, quickly chimed in.

“He means the mage grandfather!”

“So when he said he was a high-ranking person in the Magic Society, it wasn’t a lie…”

Muttering softly, Ravana shared how she had met Court Count Tenon.

On her way back after finishing the war in Libert, she said they happened to hit it off by chance in a tavern in a small western city.

As they gathered to drink and chat, he nonchalantly joined their table and started talking to them.

“He did say he was quite a respected person in the Magic Society. He said we would receive a great reward if we brought him to Princess Cheryn.”

As he even showed a few simple magic spells, Ravana permitted the old man to accompany them without much hesitation.

Since they were heading to seek refuge with Cheryn anyway, their interests aligned.

Although he seemed a bit out of his mind and was bothersome to bring along due to his weak body from old age, he often played with Kiri during the journey, so he was fairly helpful.

“That man is an extremely important person to Princess Cheryn, so we will protect him from now on. Naturally, I will report to the princess that you brought him here.”

“Thank you.”

Even as she bowed her head, a trace of suspicion lurked in Ravana’s eyes.

It was because she wondered if Shan might secretly bury their merit and claim it as his own.

In fact, having lived as a mercenary for over twenty years, she had seen knights act in such a manner dozens of times.

Just a few months ago in the Libert civil war, it had been the same…

“And I’m just asking, but do you have any interest in becoming Princess Cheryn’s knight?”

“…Pardon?”

“Because I want to recommend you to the princess. Escorting Court Count Tenon here is achievement enough, and your skill goes without saying since I witnessed it firsthand.”

Shan, who knew well that Cheryn was starved for competent warriors, made the offer without hesitation.

Her skill had been verified when he clashed with her personally last night, so there was no room for doubt.

As for the taboo of taking an Altoan as a knight, Shan himself had long crossed that boundary when he received his knighthood.

Receiving the offer, Ravana spoke with a bewildered expression.

“Well, if you recommend me, it would be an honor, but…”

Becoming a knight had originally been her long-held dream.

Even her participation in the recent Libert civil war had been to accomplish great feats and catch the eye of nobles.

Hearing her story, Shan was reminded anew that he too had possessed a similar option in the past.

If he had headed to Libert instead of departing for the Demonic Realm right after finishing his training, would he not have gotten to know her sooner?

“Thank you so very much, Sir Shan.”

Ravana accepted Shan’s offer and decided to join Cheryn’s command.

As a bonus, being able to accept the 14 skilled mercenaries who followed her meant that Cheryn’s faction had achieved a considerable step forward.

*

After spending one more day, once the looting and organization were roughly finished, Shan led the army out of the city of Zerkan.

The Viscount’s family was escorted in a prisoner transport cart fitted with iron bars.

Presumably, they could be used later in ransom negotiations with their relatives or their lord, Conrad.

Although Ravana had rested for only a single day, she had recovered her health enough to walk on her own.

Considering the severity of her injuries, it was an utterly impossible feat… a level of toughness hard to attribute to an ordinary person.

‘Should I ask the princess to perform a physical exam on her later?’

If it were Cheryn, she would likely rejoice, saying another interesting specimen had appeared.

Meanwhile, Ravana’s daughter, Kiri, had become adored by all the Altoan mercenaries.

Whenever the cute girl with fox ears and a tail ran around doing errands, everyone would smile warmly.

In an army packed with sweaty men, was this not precisely the sort of thing that brought vitality?

Of course, a few among them entertained thoughts edging into impudent territory, but whenever that happened, Ravana (slinging a sizable axe over her shoulder) glared sharply from behind, so none dared to show it.

When about two more days passed, Court Count Tenon, President of the Magic Society, finally regained consciousness.

During that time, he had been attended to by a military priest inside a carriage requisitioned from Viscount Zerkan’s mansion.

Thanks to the continuous use of healing miracles and pouring water and thin gruel down his throat, the old man appeared fairly energetic even right after regaining consciousness.

“Grandpa!”

“Oh, my cutie… Move aside just a bit, this old grandpa is too heavy.”

Court Count Tenon, faintly regaining consciousness, patted the back of Kiri, who was hugging him, and pushed himself up with effort.

After filling his belly with water, porridge, and melted cheese, he listened to an explanation of the current situation and expressed his gratitude to Shan.

“I am Orum Sagat, President of the Magic Society and Court Count Tenon. Thank you so very much! You have preserved the true intellect of this era and the lamp of civilization.”

It was quite a peculiar expression for a word of thanks.

The Society President, Orum, was a type of person Shan had never encountered in his life.

To put it nicely, should one say his self-love was somewhat excessive?

At every turn of phrase, he referred to himself as one of the greatest geniuses of this era (the reason he was not the greatest, he claimed, was Cheryn) as well as the lamp of civilization and a giant of humanity.

And although he did not say it outright, he seemed to view everyone who was not a mage as a fool.

Yet despite that, he cherished Kiri like his own granddaughter.

“Is the princess doing well?”

“Yes. Though she did mention that she needs someone like you, President.”

“Of course, naturally she would. The only ones who can understand her are a select few geniuses like myself.”

Shan knew well that Cheryn was a genius, but seeing even a man so overflowing with narcissism refrain from daring to place himself above her was quite intriguing.

Hearing from Shan how the Palles territory was operating, the Society President clicked his tongue.

“I can pretty much picture it. It can’t be helped. Even if the princess is the ultimate genius, she is utterly lacking in that area. No, perhaps it is precisely because she is a genius.”

“What do you mean by ‘that area’?”

“The ability to understand fools, of course. Ordinary humans who see one thing and only grasp four or five, or who have to re-read a book dozens of times just to memorize it. Explaining things on their level happens to be my specialty.”

Based on experience, mages were generally a breed that enjoyed spouting what they knew and showing off, but President Orum was truly exceptional even among them.

Shan inwardly suspected that the reason Orum had failed to reach Palles with the other mages and got left behind along the way might have been due to that very arrogance.

After chattering pretentiously for a good while, Orum glanced outside through the carriage window and abruptly asked.

“So, how long will it take to return to Palles? I don’t mean to complain, but carriage travel at my age leaves my whole body aching…”

“It will take some time. We have to tour a few more cities now.”

Shan’s army had just arrived at Barja, a small city west of Zerkan City.

As bells sounded signaling an enemy attack, just as Shan was preparing for battle and about to send a messenger like before, surprisingly the city gates opened and a messenger holding a white flag approached.

“Baron Barja wishes to know if the terms of negotiation are the same as those offered to Viscount Zerkan previously.”

The story of Shan suddenly kidnapping the lord in Zerkan City and capturing the city without even a siege had spread far and wide, causing them to yield out of sheer fear.

Thanks to this, Shan’s army was able to secure all the Mana Stones embedded in the castle there, as well as strategic supplies such as stockpiled iron ingots, without fighting.

This state of affairs continued as they went further south to stop by two more cities.

The fear of when the Cliff Climber or the Night Raider might scale the castle walls and attack them was stronger than expected.

By the time a week had passed in this manner, the army’s transport capacity was nearly at its limit.

Even though they had requisitioned carts and carriages from every city, it was still the case.

Since the objective of this expedition had been achieved, voices naturally emerged advocating for a return.

“Let us head back soon.”

“We truly don’t have the capacity to carry anything more.”

On the faces of the knights deciding on the return, relief and regret were mixed.

Not having to fight life-or-death battles was good, but at the same time, it meant there had been no opportunity to perform meritorious deeds.

Of course, pressuring the enemy as part of the army to obtain supplies could count as a contribution, but it was hardly comparable to winning fame in direct combat.

Having secured a vast quantity of supplies, Shan’s army set off on their slow journey back to Palles.

As they passed familiar trails and the cliff of Zerkan City came into view in the far distance, a scout cavalryman sent to the rear was seen riding up urgently.

He was an Altoan scout who had been specifically taught horsemanship because he had particularly large eyes.

“Sir Shan! An army is pursuing us from behind! Around one thousand armed infantrymen! The number of cavalry is uncertain, but about sixty to seventy!”

At the scout’s words, everyone’s complexion turned pale.

If what he said was true, it was a massive force that overwhelmingly outnumbered them.

“Could it be that Conrad is already here?”

“He shouldn’t have the spare capacity to mobilize a force that size while currently contending with Prince Elvin…!”

“Did Conrad completely subdue Elvin in the meantime? Otherwise, it makes no sense!”

In the few estates they had visited, each city possessed no more than thirty or forty proper armed infantrymen and three or four knights.

They had merely inflated their numbers by hastily drafting hundreds of young men.

That was because most of their available troops had been sent to Conrad’s army to fight in the south.

In other words, even if all neighboring estates gave up defense and rallied an allied force, such numbers could never be produced.

Unless Prince Conrad had truly turned his troops back north.

“What of the banner?”

As Roden, having regained his composure, quickly asked, the messenger rolled his eyes as if thinking for a moment before answering.

“Wings… blue wings! Above them was a star drawn…”

“That’s a coat of arms I’ve never heard of.”

“Could it be a force not under Conrad’s command?”

While the listening knights fell into confusion, Roden, after pondering briefly, let out a soft groan.

Ravana, who was accompanying them thanks to her fame despite not being a knight yet, also opened her eyes wide as if realizing something.

As everyone’s gazes turned to him at his realizing expression, Roden immediately explained.

“If my guess is correct… that is undoubtedly the coat of arms of Duke of Morayen’s house. Although I have no idea why it would suddenly appear here.”

That was the name of the great noble who had waged a fierce war in the west (Shan’s homeland of Libert) to become the regent of the young king.