Chapter 324: Pruning

Eugene placed his hand on Homi’s shoulder.

“My sole retainer and champion.”

Homi served as Eugene’s champion when he was incapacitated due to fainting, injury, or other reasons.

This was codified in the military structure, and none of the knights under his command harbored complaints. Regardless of seniority, none could match her in battle.

While there were many knights superior in swordsmanship or spearmanship, in a fight to the death, no one could avoid being torn apart by her except Eugene.

‘I’m glad I surrendered.’

A ruler who had adventured everywhere naturally commanded diverse subordinates. With unpredictable enemies, it was best to avoid fighting. Sigurd asked with relief:

“I heard the Count has never lost a duel or battle. Yet you still need a champion?”

“Whether I need one or not isn’t the point. It’s simply good to have a designated replacement when the responsible party is absent.”

Step.

Elegant as she performed the Britannian courtesy, Homi’s posture showed not a trace of beastly clumsiness. Since there was no hem to catch, she held her tail instead.

“In a story told by a shaman, there was a warrior who wore the souls of beasts like clothing. Wrapping in a bear’s soul made him unstoppable in strength, and wrapping in a cat’s soul made his footsteps silent.”

“Homi is beyond that.”

“The other three seem quite different from the Count’s champion.”

“They’re called Rakshasa. Does Midgard not have them?”

Sigurd placed his hand on his chest and bowed his head.

“Everything the Count has brought to this land is new and wondrous to us.”

“Let me just say in advance—if you encounter other Rakshasa, prepare to fight first. Don’t extend your hand as if to greet them. You’ll be torn apart.”

“They seem quite fierce.”

“Yes. Remember that again and again. Especially you.”

“…?”

“You appear to be the most curious lord I’ve ever met.”

“Hahahahaha!”

Not just Sigurd, but other lords examined the Rakshasa with interest.

Vikings also employed female warriors called shield maidens, but those were rare cases perfected through rigorous training. A race born as female warriors from birth, like the Rakshasa, could only be fascinating.

“Please join us. The geothermal heat here keeps the temperature pleasant.”

Eugene submerged himself in the pond. It was so clear that the bottom was visible—no need to worry about underwater ambushes. Water bubbled up from somewhere and trickled out, its path covered in moss.

“You won’t bring guards?”

“I can’t exactly do that.”

“I have no intention of playing tricks against the Count. I simply wish to share the sacred pond. Great heroes have passed through here for thousands of years.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that wet clothes hide nothing.”

“…Oh!”

After a moment of puzzled looks, the lords began to laugh one by one, led by Sigurd. Not a bad start for breaking the ice.

“Let’s now speak on equal terms, and frankly. Simply as one naked warrior to another.”

The Viking lords’ attitude toward Eugene was favorable. He was far more courteous and gentle than what they had heard in rumors.

“Why didn’t you join King Skal like the others? I heard they’re gathering in force.”

“Survivors from the port city said the Count split Knut in two with a single axe blow and tore down the city gates with a thrown lasso.”

“We also heard fire arrows filled the sky and burned the entire city.”

The lords spoke. Since they all held territories near the sea or rivers, they had heard about Eugene from Knut’s refugees. The details were somewhat mixed up and embellished, but roughly accurate.

-There’s nothing left. Wells filled with corpses, ruined farmland, and scorched black earth where everything burned. Only someone with King Skal’s wealth and manpower could barely restore it.

Merchants who visited shortly after said in unison.

-Knut was a warning. Why do you think they allowed survivors to escape while wiping out a port city of that size?

Sigurd had been spreading word among his neighbors that fleeing or hiding from the expedition was meaningless. That surrendering individually would receive worse treatment than surrendering together.

This was why multiple Viking lords now sat in the pond with Eugene.

“I heard those who joined King Skal are confident of victory. They say more Vikings have gathered than ever before in history.”

Vikings had already caused a stir in Britannia with raids of just dozens. Now a hundred or two hundred times that number were gathering, and their commander was Skal, descendant of the One Who Broke the Horizon.

“Morale is sky-high, yet you managed to persuade this many lords.”

“There’s actually one more decisive reason.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re fed up.”

At Sigurd’s gesture, a Jarl held up potatoes and turnips in both hands.

“These potatoes are from my territory, and these turnips from his. What do you think?”

“If I put them up for sale in my city, I’d be cursed at.”

“You’re very honest.”

Even this was putting it mildly. He had originally intended to say they were only fit for livestock feed. But the lords laughed with satisfaction.

“Joining King Skal offers no future. If they lose, they’re finished. Even if they win, what changes? Fighting over a tiny patch of land no bigger than rat droppings, and when you dig up the carefully grown potatoes, more than half are smaller than eggs. Some are even sparrow-egg sized.”

Splash.

Sigurd scooped pond water with both hands and splashed his face.

“And those who don’t even have those egg-sized potatoes, with bad harvests and frozen seas blocking fishing—what will they do? They’ll grab axes and spears and go raid their neighbors.”

“Not a single Jarl here has a beer belly. Our nobles could learn something from this.”

Eugene pointed at the Viking lords with his palm.

“Britannian lords can be fat. They can be incompetent. The people will suffer and go hungry, but the village survives. But we’re not like that. If a Jarl is dull and weak, the village won’t last two generations.”

In Midgard, lords changed through duels, and authority based on bloodline was virtually nonexistent.

Foreigners criticized this as barbarian life, but there was no choice. It was evolution for survival. If the leader wasn’t always competent, the village disappeared.

In some ways, it was like bee society. The queen bee reigned supreme, but if she couldn’t lay eggs properly, she was immediately culled by the workers. Of course, Vikings weren’t honeybees—they were more like hornets.

A brief silence fell. Eugene was the first to break it.

“Do you want land?”

He had the authority to decide.

“A world where you can harvest fist-sized potatoes, where twisted turnips are tossed only as pig feed, and where arm-length fish are always caught in the unfrozen sea.”

Eugene’s gaze lowered slightly. The Viking lords maintained outward composure but clenched their fists tightly underwater. The water was so clear everything was visible.

The first lords to join had been attached to their territories, but these were far more adventurous and seemed to have no lingering attachment to their homeland.

“Count! Is there room for us in Britannia’s land?”

One excited lord asked.

“There’s land. But taking you in means I have much to bear. If you want to leave a better life to your descendants, you must sacrifice much. Swinging axes for me isn’t enough.”

“You want us to convert.”

Sigurd was calm, but other lords showed reluctance.

“Slaughtering cattle or horses, tattooing ourselves with the blood, scattering organs across the fields for a harvest festival—this is too… tough?”

Customs derived from the Sovereign’s faith were closer to pagan beliefs than major religions. That violent and bizarre culture would cause dissonance everywhere.

“I won’t force conversion. But excessively alien customs must be abandoned. Burial sacrifices go without saying.”

“That’s possible. As long as we don’t strip away the right to ascend to the Hall of the Gods, we can restrain the warriors somehow.”

“And you must prove your remorse for the past through blood. In this campaign, you must fight at the front against King Skal’s army. After that, you’ll work for Britannia’s safety and prosperity. Whether driving monsters from Britannia’s frontiers, sailing warships from coastal bases, or boarding merchant ships bound for Samur or Gord.”

A seafaring people skilled in fighting had endless uses.

“Fighting is no issue. Living in this land means always walking the line between life and death. The only concern is whether the blood and sweat shed will be repaid.”

Sigurd thought about the time when carefully cultivated crops yielded pitiful harvests. Farming was already that sorrowful—what would it be like to fight and die, only to be abandoned?

“That’s my duty from there onward. I give fair compensation for blood and sweat. I can promise that. I did it as a Count, and with greater authority in hand, what couldn’t I do?”

Eugene made a gesture as if writing something on his forehead with both hands.

Gulp.

The Viking lords looked at each other. They had already discussed and agreed on various proposals before coming here.

And frankly, the blood Eugene demanded was infinitesimally small compared to what they would spill for generations to come.

*

With Sigurd and numerous lords joining, the hesitant lords also rushed to the Moving Castle without hesitation.

Shing.

Eugene drew the Last Autumn. Before him stood a nervous young man—the successor of a surrendered Jarl.

“I’m not going to kill you. Calm down.”

“My father told me. To be recognized by such a great warrior with such a beautiful sword—I was simply moved.”

“A silver tongue.”

Eugene tapped his shoulder with the flat of the blade, knighting him. Then the next young man approached with an excited expression.

“Your name was Hales, wasn’t it? Eldest son of Jarl Sten. Right?”

“It’s an honor that you remember!”

“The honor is mine. Aren’t you a descendant of the One Who Sailed North? It’s reassuring to have another ‘One’ on our side.”

Hales knelt with far more fervor than his predecessor. Eugene personally lifted him and corrected his posture.

“One knee is enough. Both knees are for before God.”

“I-Is that so?”

And so another knight rose from Midgard.

The scale of lords who joined as Bargeant by stamping blood oath documents had grown considerably. Enough to allow more relaxed troop deployment than planned in the frontal battle against King Skal.

However, there was no shortage of those dissatisfied with this situation. Eugene persuaded them one by one, and the clergy were not particularly difficult.

“To minimize Britannian sacrifices. The more they kill each other, the fewer of our people will weep. Moreover, peacefully securing the release of the priests is far safer. If battle breaks out, they might kill the hostages.”

“The Count’s words are correct. Life must take precedence over vengeance. We must not repeat the previous tragedy.”

The problem was the nobles who prioritized vengeance and plunder.

“Your Excellency. There’s no need for reconciliation between us and them. We must exterminate these pestilent raiders completely.”

“To grant knighthood to those barbarians?”

They disapproved of the Vikings who had chosen to side with Eugene against King Skal. That meant fewer of their blood to see and fewer villages to plunder.

“This is wartime, and we must follow the Count’s grand vision.”

“Without the Moving Castle, supply lines would have been blocked from the start. Is there any need to turn everything around us into an enemy?”

Even nobles cooperative with Eugene had their own objections.

“The Count commands the world’s strongest army. Why show such generosity to these rabble as well?”

“Generosity?”

Eugene had been listening silently to the nobles’ chatter and spoke a single word.

“Y-your Excellency. That is, what I mean is…”

It was only one word, but the air froze. Knights and nobles who had experienced the battlefield fell silent.

“Forgive my rudeness.”

“You are comrades conducting a righteous war in a foreign land. I respect that honor, but choose your words carefully when addressing me.”

Eugene poured wine into the offending noble’s cup.

“Making humanity extinct in Midgard. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Ahem.”

Perhaps the phrasing was too blunt—the hawkish nobles nodded with awkward expressions.

“Why do you think I’m not doing that?”

“Because Your Excellency is merciful?”

“The Count is Banas’s chosen champion. The only wielder of the Sacred Sword even in the Apostle Kingdom. Who would dare follow such generosity?”

They all said pleasing things. But neither the speakers nor the listeners considered it flattery. It wasn’t an exaggeration or a lie.

“The answer is impossibility. Not because I’m merciful, but because it’s impossible from the start.”

They looked skeptical. It seemed they hadn’t expected an unconquered conqueror to say such a thing.

“The southwest you’re now enthusiastically ravaging is barely 10% of Midgard’s total territory. It’s the flattest, warmest land with the most food. That’s why I granted the Moving Castle. Do you understand what this means?”

“Isn’t it that completely destroying it will make them suffer?”

A typical hawkish remark. Eugene glanced at Baron Leicester, a vassal he had relied on since the Britannian Civil War, who had good communication with him.

“It means our current mobility and supply lines collapse the moment we leave this area.”

Baron Leicester raised his wine cup toward Eugene. Homi brought a signboard with a large map attached—a map drawn with the help of prisoners, merchants, adventurers, and converted Bargeant.

Eugene had been diligently distributing topographical materials to the nobles even before the invasion. But the nobles had only looked at the southwest they targeted, and few saw all of Midgard.

“No matter how thoroughly we massacre the southwest, it doesn’t mean the extinction of the Vikings. Their people also live in the central and northern regions. Half the year is winter there, so if the south empties out, they’ll pour down with joy.”

“Then we can just kill them all. What’s the problem?”

“Would survivors of extreme cold submit meekly? They’ll wage guerrilla warfare, crossing back and forth from their homeland. What will we do then? Send an army into a region where temperatures drop to minus 40? An area as vast as Britannia?”

The hall, previously noisy with excitement and arguments, was now quiet. Eugene tapped the southwest with his index finger.

“Right now, we’re in Midgard’s most comfortable land.”

His finger moved from the southwest to the west. Along the rough coastline stretched a massive mountain range. The Dwarven Mountains looked like a backyard hill by comparison.

“This isn’t just a mountain range. Over a thousand gorges have been carved, most filled with river or seawater. The people here call them fjords.”

“If the Vikings flee west, pursuit becomes impossible. Not just because of the mountains—they’ll attempt guerrilla warfare through the waterways as well.”

Nobles sympathetic to Eugene, like Baron Leicester, spoke.

“They’ll suffer miserably, but I can’t even imagine how many years I’d have to be stuck here.”

Eugene was preparing to become Britannia’s king, not Midgard’s king.

“The only way to end Viking raiding is to make allies here. Reduce their population, but leave just enough to chase down those who come south.”

Eugene shrugged.

“I can’t think of a better solution than this.”

“But what about our grudges? The blood price of our ancestors and subjects? Even those who surrendered to Your Excellency were murderers and raiders who committed atrocities on our lands in the past.”

A somewhat drunk noble spoke passionately. Eugene stopped those around him from intervening.

“That’s why I’m punishing them. By putting them on the front lines to fight amongst themselves.”

“But to settle generations of grudges in a single war…”

“One of Midgard’s two kings is dead by my hand, and the other will die soon. Along with all who followed him. A few survivors will sprout like weeds, but our new friends will continue to uproot them.”

Generations of raids would become generations of vengeance. That was how Eugene envisioned the campaign’s conclusion.

“If you have a more effective alternative, please advise. I’m happy to listen.”

After waiting some time, no answer came. The hawks, seeing the entire map, were also at a loss for words.

“Didn’t the Count seek Midgard’s extermination?”

“Try to remember. What I said when I invaded this place. If you can’t recall, you can ask him.”

Eugene pointed at the only scribe holding a pen in the hall.

“Your Excellency. Jarl Hilde has arrived.”

A middle-aged woman draped in expensive jewelry entered the hall. A tribal chief who made her living through commerce from a favorable location, she had arrived late due to the distance.

“She’s far wealthier than any of you. Those who know how to sail well ultimately choose trade over axe-wielding. Because that’s where the money is.”

Eugene spoke quietly to the hawkish lords and rose.

“It’s just that the world changes their people too slowly… I’m trying to speed things up a bit.”

Hilde approached with open arms.

“Count! A pleasure to meet you!”

“Welcome! Your handwriting in the letters was so beautiful that my wife praised it multiple times. Truly delighted.”

“Hoho! How could I dare compare my writing to the Lady’s? Forty transport ships await. Please leave the sea route supply to me.”

“How reliable. What a ridiculous sea—over a hundred kilometers long.”

“There are villages along the way, but don’t worry. Any ship bearing my flag won’t be attacked. Even after the war, please think of me.”

Eugene embraced Hilde warmly and guided her to the dining table. Britannian nobles and knights watched the scene with mixed expressions.

But it seemed none of them had the courage to cause trouble. Among other things, Eugene absolutely would not tolerate anyone interfering with wartime supply lines.