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Vol 02 Chapter 51: Territorial Issues III

「It’s such a hassle… I want to go home already.」

「Don’t say that. It’s our job.」

「That’s right. You have to do your job properly.」

Ron, Roswald, and Soyon were on guard duty at the border with Dibel territory.

The guard consisted of sixty cavalry and a hundred infantry. A considerable force.

There was a reason for deploying such a number of guards. The treaty with Rigal Dibel.

Rigal Dibel asked Almus to reinforce the security at the border, so that should any fugitives appear in the future, the guards would be able to catch them when they enter the territory.

In other words, he  implicitly said,

「I’ll overlook this time, but this is the last time.」

Almus had no intention of being openly hostile to the Dibel family. Therefore, he agreed to the conditions and had them on guard duty.

「Captain! There seems to be a group of refugees clashing with soldiers from Dibel territory over there!」

「Alright. Let’s head there immediately.」

Ron and his team gathered the scattered soldiers and headed to the scene.

A river was used to mark the boundary dividing the Aris and Dibel territories. This river, at its deepest, reached the waist of an adult. The east side of the river belonged to Aris territory, and the west side to Dibel territory.

Upon arrival, Ron and his team immediately addressed the refugees.

「Citizen’s unauthorized movement is prohibited by law. Return to Dibel territory quietly!!」

As Ron and his team spoke out, the refugees dropped their shoulders and ceased their resistance. Once they crossed the border, the Dibel soldiers couldn’t follow them. But if the Aris soldiers, who were cooperating with Dibel’s, were waiting for them, it would be a different story. Their attempt to escape was doomed to fail.

The refugees had fled, spurred by rumors that those who sought asylum in Aris territory had succeeded. They believed that the lord of Aris territory would welcome them.

Therefore, their shock was profound and they were captured without resistance by the Dibel soldiers.

Normally, this situation would simply end with the refugees being taken back without any further incident. But this time, it was different.

◇

「What are they doing?!」

Roswald shouted.

In front of Roswald and his team, the Dibel soldiers began executing the refugees. Their method was not quick and clean, like beheading.

They beat them, kicked them, broke their bones, torturing them to death. They killed the refugees as cruelly as possible in front of Roswald and his team as if they wanted to make a show of it.

Hey, that’s just a kid!

The Dibel soldiers began to kill even the children without mercy. They tore off their flesh one by one, making their deaths as painful as possible, the screams of the victims reaching the ears of Ron and his team on the other side of the river.

「… This is terrible.」

They even began to gang-rape the women in front of them. They strangled them, tore out their eyes for fun, and raped them like toys…

Soyon instinctively buried her face in Ron’s chest.

But even with her face buried, the screams pierced her ears. No matter how hard she tried to block them out, the cries of agony found their way through the gaps.

But there was nothing they could do. Because this was happening on the other side of Dibel territory.

The Aris soldiers had no authority to reprimand them. Had Almus been there, perhaps the situation might have been different…

Roswald bit his lip unconsciously. Powerless to act.

Staying there would only bring more pain. Just as they decided to leave, that’s when it happened.

「Help!!」

The scream of a little girl reached their ears. Without thinking, Roswald turned back.

A small girl was being pinned down by several men. She appeared to be about five years old… certainly not yet of age to menstruate.

Roswald’s hands moved on their own. The spear thrown from his hand pierced the heart of the man who was about to rape her.

Triggered by this, the Aris soldiers charged at the Dibel soldiers, rescuing the refugees one after another.

◇

「They played right into our hands.」

「As expected of you Belmet. Brilliant idea!」

Rigal was in a great mood

He wanted to steal the mine from Almus Aris using military might, but using force unprovoked would cause heavy criticism. However, if the other side attacked first, a military action in response was justifiable.

Now that they had a justification, Dibel soldiers would attack the soldiers guarding the mine, secure it, and when Almus Aris tried to open peace negotiations, ask for the ownership of the mine in exchange for not pursuing the matter of the earlier unprovoked attack on Dibel’s troops. Belmet estimated that at least a third of the mine could be secured.

Securing the entire mine was very unlikely, its value was too big to secure everything as compensation.

However, this plan had a significant flaw: the scandal of massacring refugees would spread all over the country. No matter the justification, massacring fugitives, would be condemned.

So, what to do? It wouldn’t be an issue if they killed criminals condemned to the death penalty.

In Dibel territory, there were villages that had not paid taxes for years. In Dibel territory, not paying the taxes for several years was punishable by death.

However, killing them wouldn’t turn their corpses into gold coins. They didn’t pay the taxes because they didn’t have anything to pay them with, so it was customary not to execute the punishment, to lend them the seeds for the next year, and to let them pay everything the next year.

This time, however, they decided not to forgive them. They grouped murderers, robbers, and their families and transferred them to a prison near Aris territory.

After threatening them with execution in the prison and letting them overhear guards’ idle talk about how some refugees that had escaped to Aris territory were safe, they would ‘accidentally’ leave the keys unattended during a drinking party. The plan was complete with the escape of these ‘criminals.’

In essence, the perfect excuse was completed. They simply killed criminals who had escaped from prison.

Belmet wished to end the excessive taxation that was the cause of all this, but Rigal’s relatives, who benefited from the current system, obstructed his efforts. Lower taxes would mean less income for them. Belmet wanted to get rid of these parasites if possible, but Rigal heavily relied on them, making it difficult to go against them.

「Then, I’ll go crush the Aris soldiers and reclaim the mine. Wait for good news, Belmet-dono」

Gilbert, the most troublesome of the relatives, declared eagerly.

He was strong and capable as a leader of a unit of a hundred soldiers but not suited for anything larger. However, his willingness to engage in battle made him better than the other relatives who barely worked and lived in leisure.

「We need to win this battle. Failure will be a huge problem.」

This time, Gilbert led three hundred and twenty soldiers, while the enemy numbered between one hundred and two hundred.

A defeat here would not only give light to the tyranny their land suffered but also give rise to rumors of their military weakness.

Belmet had wanted to muster a larger force, but bringing too many soldiers would no longer make it seem like an accidental clash. This was the limit.

「With such a disparity in forces, we have more than enough. I hear the enemy commander is a young upstart, not even twenty. He stands no chance against someone like me who has fought on battlefields time and again.」

「Overconfidence is dangerous. Remember, these are the people who defeated King Ferme.」

「You worry too much, Belmet-dono!」

Gilbert laughed heartily.

◇

「How are you going to take responsibility, Roswald?」

「Hey, don’t push all the blame on me. You were involved too!」

Roswald and Ron were playing a game of blame-shifting. Ron argued that it was Roswald’s fault for acting first. Roswald countered that Ron was also to blame for joining in afterward.

However, blaming each other would only worsen the situation.

「「Ouch!」」

Both winced as Soyon hit them on the head with her staff.

「What’s done is done, right? Let’s just get these people to a safe place for now… and then figure out what to do next.」

She was making sense.

Fortunately, there was a reasonably sized mountain about a kilometer away, with a small village on it. It was visible from their location, so they could simply walk the refugees there.

This temporarily deferred the refugee problem. Next was…

◇

「If I’m not mistaken, we killed every Dibel soldier there so they shouldn’t have received the news yet.」

In front of Ron and his team, a group of Dibel soldiers were approaching. Their numbers were between two hundred and three hundred, significantly outnumbering them

「How many do we have again?」

Ron asked Roswald and Soyon.

「To cover the wide border, we have sixty cavalry, which is quite a lot, and a hundred infantry, including ten archers.」

「And we have four blast spears. Almus-san insisted we take them as a precaution.」

Their force seemed inadequate against an enemy of about three hundred.

「Should we run?」

「If we run, helping those people would have been meaningless. Plus, the village behind us would be in danger. And…」

Ron paused, then looked at the enemy.

「Negotiations tend to favor the victor in battle, right? If we win this, can’t we turn things around?」

「Are you sure? I doubt things are going to be so simple.」

Roswald looked skeptical, but Ron was confident.

「Well, if we just run away, we’ll definitely be invaded. We have to hold them off.」

Soyon agreed with Ron.

Roswald thought that initiating an unprovoked attack and then crushing the reinforcements might complicate matters further. However, seeing Ron and Soyon’s confidence, he agreed to go along with them.

And, having saved the refugees once, it was their responsibility to protect them to the end.

「So, how are we going to win? We’re outnumbered…」

「Why not rely on the cavalry?」

Roswald suggested. With the mobility of the cavalry, it was entirely feasible to strike the heavy infantry from the flanks.

However…

「It’s true that heavy infantry’s flanks are their weak points… but, it’s not impossible to defend against attacks to the flanks.」

Heavy infantry wielded very long spears, making it difficult to turn quickly. If cavalry of equal numbers hit their flanks under those conditions, the heavy infantry would be devastated.

But with only sixty cavalry against three hundred enemies, with so much difference in numbers, the odds of receiving a counterattack were high.

If they could attack from behind, catching the enemy completely off-guard, they might stand a chance… But such a tactic would be impossible without employing an ambush.

「Hey, I’ve got an idea. Is it okay if I share?」

Soyon proposed a strategy.

Upon hearing it, both Ron and Roswald exclaimed,

「That’s it!!」