48 – Operation Noose (4)

After receiving the report, Lance looked at me and asked with a puzzled expression.

“Looking at the sentences engraved on the armor, it looks like Hans’s squire… His voice is thick enough for his age… Maybe…”

I suppressed the fear that I might be caught and answered calmly.

“I’m slowly getting older too… as an adult.”

“is it…”

And after thinking for a while, Lance looked at me and patted me on the shoulder.

“Well, even though I have seen Hans often, I have no business with those servants. I guess I was mistaken. I’m sorry. So, how is the situation outside?”

Rather than being suspected of lying here, telling the truth about what I saw and felt would be more beneficial to the other person’s morale and to protect my life…

So I just said it like it is.

“The morale of the soldiers is somehow maintained, but the morale of the citizens, especially the refugees, is at its worst. Among the refugees, there is a story that ‘surrender to Baron Creutel is the way to survive’.”

Lance sighed when he heard that.

“Hmm… Things are worse than I thought. Well, if you include food for the refugees, you won’t be able to survive for even a month…”

At that moment, I couldn’t hold back the laughter that came out of me.

Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet so I couldn’t see my face, but if you look at my expression now, you’d be suspicious that I’m a ‘spy’…

So I rummaged through the most irritating moments of my life to match Lance’s mood of despair.

Yes, that look on his face when the evil ‘Mant’ guy came in with me and was lucky enough to capture a squire from the last war and be promoted to sergeant… Those words…

“Oops, PFC Short… Aren’t you going to salute? Now I’m a sergeant and you’re a private…”

A tantrum rises, and resentment and despair well up in the heart.

So I shuddered for a moment, then answered in a trembling voice.

“Serious…then how can I help you?”

After hearing my words, Lance tried hard to straighten his gloomy face and patted me on the shoulder, as if it was admirable that a trainee knight much younger than himself was trying to help him.

“Until Count Helsmann returns, we will not be able to open the castle gates and fight. If the enemy plundered and raped or murdered, we could unite and arm them… but since we haven’t killed any of the serfs, even if we arm them, they’ll do nothing and try to open the gates.”

“then…?”

Lance then looked at me with a suspicious expression, then shook his head from side to side as if he couldn’t do that.

“You have a lot of questions. Don’t do that in front of other knights. You might be suspected of being a spy. A part of the citizens and guards should be allocated, and if the ‘serfs’ directly raise an uprising, we should suppress it with force.”

I nodded and pretended to be impressed.

“This is an excellent insight. If Sir Hellsman defeats the Count of Nantes and returns soon, we will have a much better advantage.”

Hearing that, Lance waved his hands in front of me and said,

“is it? Well, I’m a little better compared to the other knights. Okay, let’s go, Hans will find it.”

“all right.”

Then, as knights do, I slightly bowed my head to show my respect to my superior, and then naturally stepped back in front of Rance.

Ha, I thought my heart would explode.

How on earth did I have the guts to approach the captain of an enemy garrison and dig up such vital information?

Still, if I go back safely, wouldn’t I be able to get promoted to sergeant?

Wait, Sergeant Mant… I’ll tell you all the truth with my rank.

**

After escaping from the lord’s castle, which is being used as the headquarters of the garrison, I met several enemy knights.

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Most of them just said hello and said that they had to go see ‘Sir Hans’.

A knight who happened to be wandering alone in a corner was stabbed through the heart from behind with a dagger while keeping his mouth shut.

And he took a sword and head with a crest to prove his knighthood.

After arriving very close to the wall, I threw the ‘sounding’ armor somewhere out of sight in order to descend the wall.

Then, pretending to be a regular soldier, quietly, very quietly… I climbed up the wall and found a soldier standing on duty ‘alone’.

After looking around for about 10 minutes, I was able to find a guy holding a torch ‘alone’ on the top of the castle wall trying to go to the bathroom.

Before he went to meet the other soldiers, I quickly climbed the stairs leading to the wall.

After climbing the stairs, I naturally met the soldier’s face.

The soldier looked at me and waved his hand.

“Are you a recruit? It’s still going to take a while to get here… did I get it wrong?”

“hahahaha, yes. I was told to go to the west gate, watchtower 5… Where is this place?”

The senior soldier who saw me heard that and smiled.

“’Yo’ This is all disciplined!! But even I, who got caught trying to go to the bathroom while working, took care of me because it was my fault. It’s the other way around. If you run away from me, you won’t be late.”

“thank you.”

Then I passed by the soldier, and as soon as I passed by, I blocked the soldier’s mouth from behind and stabbed his neck deeply with a dagger to make him unable to make any sound.

And as soon as my feet touched the moat, I quickly arrived at the barracks of Baron Creutel’s army with all my strength, so as not to be discovered by the enemy guards.

As soon as I arrived at the barracks, the guard immediately asked in a loud voice if he was suspicious when he saw me.

“Password! hardtack!!”

“Mace!”

“Good! Pass.”

I’m finally alive…

**

“To date, I haven’t seen soldiers belonging to Count Helsman’s territory come this way within a day or two from here.”

“You worked hard, Captain.”

“no. dismissal.”

He said so, but the captain’s face was full of tiredness.

He must have gone out and scouted himself in order to report more clearly…

“It’s okay, even during the mercenary unit days, Helmut praised you for always volunteering for reconnaissance even though you are a veteran mercenary. Do you still keep the good habits of that time? proud.”

The captain struggled to hold back his tears, as if he was proud that his titled aristocrat, his lord living in the world above the clouds, had personally said that he was proud of him as a mere commoner.

“Everyone knows the importance of scouting, but I know better. Consider your promotion soon. Let me go.”

“thank you.”

After saying that, the captain quickly stepped out in front of me, probably not wanting to cry in front of me.

And soon, I could hear the man in his 40s so moved and sobbing.

“Mother, mother… If you had lived 10 more years, you would have been able to see your son rise to the rank of captain and receive a title like this!!!”

Whenever I come across these things, I feel that this place is completely different from modern times.

In modern times, ‘promotion according to ability’ is taken for granted, but here it is regarded as unimaginable luck and grace even if ability is good.

Alright, then I’ll write this down in the personnel log of ‘Captain Sandman’ who just left…

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Just as I was about to add a good evaluation to his personnel record, the sergeant guarding the front of my barracks came into the barracks and said,

“Your Excellency, what should I do when a scout named Short has something he really wants to report to me?”

“No, I know you had a hard time doing the reconnaissance… but isn’t it right to keep the reporting system at all times?”

“Even knowing that, ‘It’s a matter for His Excellency to decide after hearing my report!!’ and insisting on it. Also, he was carrying supplies and supplies on his waist that he considered to be an enemy knight…”

No matter how much you are a soldier, if you brought more than a ‘knight’, it would be right to listen to the report.

Because, even if the information obtained from reconnaissance is meaningless, just getting rid of ‘one knight’ in a situation where the enemy is already outnumbered is a great help.

The enemy’s morale would drop like crazy when they learned of the knight’s death even though the battle hadn’t even taken place.

“Let me in.”

After that, one of the scouts, dressed in mud-stained mats, came in and saluted me.

“I came in because I want to report something to His Excellency Baron Creutel, Private First Class Short of the reconnaissance team.”

“You worked hard. First of all, we will check the supply and demand of articles.”

And Short opened the bloody cloth bag on the desk in front of me.

Inside was the head of a man who appeared to have died not long ago.

“And here is the sword this knight was wearing. A crest is engraved on the handle of the sword and on the pommel.”

Only a knight can carry a pommel and a sword with a crest engraved on the handle…

Any other equipment would be worthy of suspicion, but since a knight never entrusts his sword engraved with his crest to anyone, it must be the knight he killed.

“You’ve worked hard, then let’s start reporting now.”

When I suggested we talk, the soldier gesticulated and reported the cases he had seen.

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Most of the information is similar to what the scouts brought, so the information he brought must be true.

then…

“Is it really? You killed a squire serving a knight named Hans, put on the armor, approached Commander Lance, and told him that the morale of the enemy citizens was so low that the ‘Garrison’ should be used to watch over the refugees?”

“Yes, it is. As proof of that, here is the ‘signet ring engraved with the crest of his family’ owned by a squire who serves a knight named Hans.”

When I checked the signet ring, it seemed that it was genuine, as there was a sentence engraved in the center that I did not know.

Unexpectedly, unbelievable luck rolled down on me.

I was grateful for that luck, but I laughed out loud in front of the ‘soldier’ without taking care of my dignity.

“hahahaha, unbelievable luck. really great!! So, what is your rank?”

“It’s Private First Class.”

“Let’s go. I don’t usually give you a prize on the battlefield, but I’ll review you a little more and pass it on to your superiors right away!”

“Private Short! thank you!!”

After saying that, Short ran out of my barracks.

And that same day, I received a report about Short from the captain, the leader of the reconnaissance.

The next day, I called all the soldiers together and announced the promotion to Short in front of them.

“Private Short, enters Hellsman Castle, directly digs out the weakness of the castle to Sir Lance, the captain of the defense force, and in the process kills ‘one enemy knight and one squire’, and orders a rank of sergeant based on his achievements so far. At the same time, 20 gold coins will be awarded.”

It’s a reward that seems a little excessive, but considering the value of the morale and information this guy lost due to the knight he killed while scouting…

It’s sensible to do something like this.

Now, as long as we build a fortress, we can stretch out and sleep for a while.