“Anyway, we’ll just fight well enough not to die. They’ll want us to do more, but...as if we’d sacrifice ourselves for them.” Debardan had been used as a shield for an army’s main force multiple times in the past, so he knew how to deal with this kind of situation. “We’ll just do what we usually do: create a mess, pull the enemy to the rear, then find an opening to kill the enemy general to distinguish ourselves. The world has no place for us mercenaries. We take the field to earn money. Don’t think about useless things—just focus on surviving,” Debardan told his subordinates. He didn’t care which of the two princes would become the emperor. He would kill the enemy, and if it looked like he was going to die, then he would flee. Debardan was a mercenary, and as such, he had no pride. He didn’t care how many people called him a traitor or treated him like a stray dog.
“Let’s side with Prince Lance, Captain Debardan! If he takes the throne, I’m sure he will make the empire a place where we can live!” Debardan remembered what his vice captain had said, choosing to stay with Lance.
You shouldn’t hold such hopes, Ikkaku. After all, you should know how people in power treat us.
Ikkaku, the Knights of the Black Dragon’s vice captain, was also an immigrant. She had lost her family during a war and had fled to the empire. Because of that, she yearned to find a homeland and create a family. She adored Lance and had decided to continue serving him along with the other half of the Knights of the Black Dragon.
Ikkaku wasn’t the only mercenary who respected Lance. The prince treated everyone equally, even foreigners, and he was different from the influential people Debardan hated.
Once we reach Berwick, we’ll have to fight Ikkaku and the rest... No, I shouldn’t feel down about it. It’s not that rare for that kind of thing to happen in the mercenary world.
For mercenaries, fighting between people as close as siblings was a common occurrence—even when it went against their wishes.
Debardan let out an aggravated sigh and slowly shook his head.
“Please don’t glare at me like that. What will you do if I wet myself?”
Among the nobles in Arthur’s army, not all of them were getting along well. In particular, two aristocrats on horseback were currently clashing with each other—an old man and a middle-aged man. While they both supported Arthur, the two of them clearly weren’t on good terms.
The older man was Count Beock Lyzbeth.
The middle-aged man was Marquis Jagliese Eberle.
Though the two served the same man, they shared a complicated history, and their relationship was far from friendly. Which was natural—after all, Eberle had kidnapped and killed Lyzbeth’s daughter twenty years ago.
“Do you still believe I killed Feena even though you have no proof?” Eberle sneered. He knew the old man hated him—it was obvious from the death glare Lyzbeth was giving him. And yet, Eberle didn’t care. In fact, he even enjoyed the strained mood between them. “Feena betrayed me. I was her fiancé, and yet she conceived a child with another man. She received divine punishment for that. Indeed, her being attacked by bandits on the way to that monastery wasn’t my fault—it was just retribution.”
“Shut up, brat. Don’t you dare say my daughter’s name with your filthy mouth!” Lyzbeth snarled like a lion threatening its prey. “I know it was you! I will never forgive you for taking away my daughter and grandchild!”
“This is why I can’t stand old men with a foot in the grave. You can’t have a proper conversation with them.” Eberle sighed and shrugged exasperatedly at Lyzbeth’s show of hostility. “I told you—Feena only got her just deserts for betraying her fiancé. As if going to the temple would be enough to forgive what she did. Death was the only atonement.”
Lyzbeth’s daughter had once been Eberle’s fiancée. However, she had been unfaithful and had even become pregnant by another man. Adultery was taboo for nobles, so her father had banished her and sent her to the monastery, but she had been kidnapped en route. The culprit was unknown, but Lyzbeth was certain it had been Eberle taking revenge for his fiancée’s infidelity. In other words, Eberle had murdered Lyzbeth’s daughter, and thus he was Lyzbeth’s enemy.
Naturally, Lyzbeth didn’t think that his daughter was without fault, but he didn’t think that what she had done deserved death either. Exiling her to the temple should have been enough. Eberle punishing her of his own accord was inexcusable. Even if they served the same master, Lyzbeth would never forgive nor forget what Eberle had done.
“We’re allies in this war, and I outrank you, so let’s get along,” Eberle said.
“...Shut up.”
“Do you want me to report you to Prince Arthur for disturbing the order in the army?”
“I told you to shut up! Don’t talk to me!” Lyzbeth yelled and had his horse gallop away.
An unsettling grin spread across Eberle’s face as he watched the old man leave. “This feels so good...”
Eberle enjoyed the hostility and spite Lyzbeth aimed at him. Every time the old man glared and shouted at him, it reminded Eberle of his late fiancée, relishing the memories of when he had tormented and killed her.
“I shouldn’t have thrown away that baby girl. If she were alive, she would be nineteen now... I would’ve been able to have a lot of fun with her.”
Eberle was a psychopath—a scumbag who loved to make the people close to him suffer. If he hadn’t been born into a noble house, society would have dealt with him like any criminal long ago. He was the kind of person who should never be given any power, and Lyzbeth’s daughter wasn’t the only one he had trampled underfoot.
“Ah, Feena... Even twenty years after your death, I still haven’t found a woman I love more than you. If I had known, I wouldn’t have killed you so quickly...” The homicidal marquis smiled sadistically as he spurred his horse forward.
Carrying hidden agendas and numerous seeds of conflict, Arthur Garnet’s army continued to head east.
The war between the two imperial princes would start in just a few days.