69 – Great Leap (2)

And being a human being, it is difficult to betray for the first time, but if the situation starts to go wrong the second time, betray immediately.

It’s a bit different from betrayal, but why is it so hard to have an affair ‘the first time’, because later on, if you don’t have a husband or wife, you can eat comfortably at home.

Of course, in this case, it’s a little different from the ‘betrayal’ that hits the back, but…

Whatever the reason, killing the Count before he sent me a secret letter saying he would surrender was ‘going too far’, but…

Still, after molesting Ella, these guys will be useful depending on how you use them…

I guess I’ll have to give it another chance.

If not, there is no choice but to use it as an excuse to secure the county of Nantes.

“Thank you for killing Schwein for me. Yeah, why did you kill him? Please answer honestly. Wouldn’t that make it easier for me to help?”

At first glance, this may seem like a nonsensical question.

Because the people before me already said that they killed Schwein for me.

However, the words I asked contain the only hints and clues that can save them.

Will I be able to find it…

The man in front of me got down on both knees and said.

“I will be honest. Your Excellency, even now, we intend to expel the disgraced lord and serve the honorable Sir Ciel von Kreuttel. Please accept our loyalty.”

First of all, I have to answer what he said, but I will have to give ‘different treatment’ to those who have different opinions.

Even if you kill a person, the punishment is divided according to whether you killed someone intentionally, accidentally, or in self-defence.

“Are you all of the same opinion? If so, raise your hand.”

The bastards in front of me, except for one, raised their hands and whispered.

“Rather than following a dishonorable lord, it is better to follow the honorable and wonderful His Excellency Kreutel.”

“If I can work for Baron Creutel, can I become a knight too?”

“If I could receive the territory and be acknowledged by my father…”

I ignored them and approached the one who didn’t raise his hand.

“Why did you agree to kill Schwein?”

The man I asked the question stuttered.

“I would rather beg for my life than to die in disgrace. If, as they say, you wished to serve your Honorable Excellency, I think you should have surrendered… before we met like this.”

What this man said is right.

No matter how scum the Count is, and even if no one criticizes him for betraying him.

If you are an aristocrat, a politician, or a soldier, at least ‘since the war situation has become unfavorable’, you should not betray your honor while dripping.

Those who do such things are wary and abandon their masters as if they were devoted to a subject that is not worth cherishing, when things go a little worse, or when they think they can get a bigger advantage.

And that is a huge disqualification for a person who tries to pretend to be a knight, no, just an aristocrat.

“Okay. Thanks for telling me. I listened to everyone’s opinions, and I’ll treat you the best accordingly.”

At those words, the students’ eyes began to twinkle.

They seem to be under the illusion that a rosy life is unfolding under me now, even though I have knighted some bastards like you…

They’ve never betrayed their honor… never betrayed.

Idiots, I just did it because I wanted to live in moderation! Save me!’ If he had said that, he would have saved his life and made a way for the second lieutenant or sergeant to come in after properly ‘identifying himself’…

These bastards have only one method they can use now.

As if they were aware of my feelings, the bastards looked at me and began to weep with joyous expressions on their faces.

I applauded the soldiers on the other side to signal and shouted.

“Shut up all these bastards. And to change the axe, everyone is executed.”

I’m not sorry, but if you killed your master and came back in an advantageous situation, you can use it as a propaganda saying ‘If you betray in an advantageous situation, you will be treated like this’.

Because you killed ‘your lord’ in an advantageous situation, it’s hard for me to build a justification for eating Nantes.

Now that this has happened, I have to use a cause that is not often used in Europe.

The cause of improving the lives of the serfs of Nantes and establishing justice by killing the dishonorable sex offender count and the cowardly and greedy nobles under him.

It’s not bad, but like a nobleman from the Joseon Dynasty, ‘For the people!! For the sake of a country where the old school students live!’ I never thought I would be able to make a sound.

Is this the result of the ‘chance on the battlefield’ that Clausewitz said in his war theory?

**

And the next day, I called all the soldiers to a plain a short distance from our barracks.

The soldiers lined up on the plain looked at the ‘temporary execution table’ with quite nervous expressions.

As I sat on my chair at the top of the scaffold, the idiots who sold their soon-to-be-executed lords to buy me fell on their knees and started shouting.

“Your Excellency, please save me!!!”

“We just did it for you, Your Excellency. It’s unfair!!”

“Please, please save my life. We have children like rabbits and wives like foxes!!”

When I heard that, I felt more confused.

Not because of killing these guys, but because of the people who died while enduring the extreme fear and pain of colliding with a 500-kilo iron mass for the sake of Ciel von Kreuttel.

In fact, some soldiers were beaten with maces and lost one eye, chin, and the top of their heads as if they had been punched through the windows, but they died holding their long spears to the end…

When I thought of how sad the families of those soldiers would be when they heard the news of the ‘warrior’, my heart was just heavy.

So I called her and told her to take my anger out on those who will soon die and to solidify Chris’ ‘position’ for his work so far.

“Chris Belladora, put on your armor and come out immediately. Ah, like a noble, put the ‘sword’ in your waist and come out.”

Chris listened to me and said with a puzzled expression.

“dismissal? Why do you… only me…”

“It is an order. If you come out wearing it, I’ll give you a surprise present.”

“all right.”

As soon as I heard that, Chris bowed his head at me and backed off.

And I beckoned the old lieutenant next to me and asked.

“How many bastards surrendered to us with the head of the ‘Count of Nantes’?”

“40… No, 58 people. The rest ran away.”

“Then, how many people were put on the execution ground?”

“Fifty-seven people, all except for the ‘guy who secretly escaped’ under His Excellency’s orders.”

The honest guy I let out yesterday had at least the ability to judge the situation.

As proof of that, even when he waved the ‘prize to be obtained by killing the count’ in front of his eyes, he honestly replied that he did it because he was afraid of ‘disgraceful death’.

In Joseon, even if you are forced to die a dog, if you do one shot of poison and die without dying, you are a traitor.

So I sent him a letter with the contents of a meeting with the Duke of Brussels in Brussels soon.

Now that the civil war has broken out, delivering my letter, which has a territory the size of a ‘duchy’, is a bit risky, but if you do this well…

You can give him a chance to be commissioned as a second lieutenant based on his abilities.

“Right. How about an ax blade?”

“As your Excellency commanded, some of the ax blades have been dulled. This is hardly an axe, but an axe-shaped mace.”

I said while handing two gold coins to the old second lieutenant who was a mercenary who was supervising this execution.

“Very well done. Let’s go to Nantes with three of your subordinates and have a dinner. Take the extra money.”

“thank you.”

Shortly after, Chris came up to me in his armor.

Of course, the armor worn by Chris, a ‘woman’ who has not undergone professional physical training, is a breastplate and iron greave, and the rest is a ‘suit that exposes the body’…

In the case of the ‘chest’, which is an element to be recognized as a woman, it is hidden inside by wearing a thin quilted armor…

Come to think of it, I saw Chris like I sometimes see in anime and thought ‘I must be crazy, why do I get excited when I see men?’ Are there any fools like this?

And I looked at her and said, to give Chris a final test and a chance to be recognized by them.

“Chris Belladora, have you ever killed a person?”

“No, sir.”

Hearing that, I just told her calmly, as if declaring it.

“The continent of Europe, where you live, is a society dominated by knights. In other words, a person who is unable to ‘kill the enemy’, which is the minimum level of competence as a knight, cannot stand on top of someone else. Oh, His Majesty doesn’t have to do that. Aren’t you from the royal family?”

As if the situation of having to kill someone made him nervous, Chris bit his lip and said.

“That’s right…”

“I am not asking you to wear plate armor and carry a lance like knights do. Because Chris Belladora is a worthy subordinate to me even without that. I don’t want to force you to do something dangerous and impossible. Also, the dream you told me a few months ago, ‘even though I’m a woman, I want to revitalize my family and become a government official respected equally with men’, right? I will give you a chance.”

After a moment of silence passed between us, I spoke to Chris.

“Kill our enemies. If you can do that, I’ll give you a chance to rebuild your family as a noble again. No, if you just want it from tomorrow, it’s okay to wear a dress to work unless it’s a ‘war’ situation. Because neither I nor Kreutel can afford to discriminate against talented people like you because they are only women.”

In any case, it is a taboo that cannot be ‘discussed’ about having a ‘woman’ in the role of managing the military.

However, our family is not a noble family.

Balth, who will probably be given the title of baron near the end of the work, is a knight from a serf who has won a tournament in the county of Nantes, and the two lowly former mercenary captains are already knights whose position in the territory is much faster to count from the top. to be.

Some of the bastards who couldn’t become knights unless they made a feat or a feat that would have a major impact on the war, were officially knighted after only a few years of serving under me.

Some of the soldiers from serfdom would soon be promoted to ‘second lieutenant’ and treated as gentry, a position equivalent to a knight.

In order to cover up the aggro caused by this, and to create a propaganda that says ‘a country where everyone can succeed equally’, in fact, personally…

It’s best to show Chris Belladora wearing a dress to work, commanding a second lieutenant or baileef with a baton.

Then all the ‘attention of the downtrodden’ would be directed to Chris alone, so it would be easier to manage such idiots, and Chris would of course have to be prepared to die for me.

So I raised my right hand to her chin in the same position I had when I threatened Chris in the first place, but differently, to make a ‘devilishly sweet suggestion’.

As if he had no tolerance for men at all, Chris’ face turned red.

And when Chris’s eyes met, I whispered sweetly in his ear.

“Chris Belladora, I don’t know what kind of family you came from. give everything for me Then I guarantee In about ten years, the Belladora family will now make a name for themselves as an honorable family of knights, whose origins are the only females in Europe. I can’t give you a knighthood right now because I don’t have a direct track record on the battlefield, but I’ll give you a full administrative post soon. Will you risk everything and follow me? In that case, grab the ax that the second lieutenant is holding behind you.”

Hearing that, Chris put on a serious expression, grabbed the axe, and looked at the blade for a moment.

“Ensign, the execution of the sentence begins. The ax Chris is holding is intentionally blunted, so place the bad guys on her side.”

Then Chris and the executioners stood on the scaffold and mercifully beheaded the criminals in front of them.

Not long after the ax of the executioners except for Chris touched the executioner’s neck, blood splattered even to the executioner with a ‘thunk’ sound.

And the body and neck were kicked into a pit dug beforehand in front of the execution ground.

Chris, meanwhile, with a clearly strained expression on his face, raised his ax to mechanically slash the criminals’ necks once more.

Then Chris’ prisoner started screaming loudly.

“Jibal, zu,, balju, porridge, porridge, yeoju…”

A pitiful scream was heard, but Chris just mechanically didn’t answer, hitting him on the neck again and again.

And when the criminal’s neck turned purple and was crushed like a meat paste, the criminal no longer moved.

Seeing such a criminal, Chris calmly, no, pretended to be cold, and kicked the corpse.

So Chris and the executioners mechanically struck and killed the renegades who had abandoned their honor in front of them.

As a side note, on this day Chris collapsed as soon as he shouted the end of the execution due to physical and mental exhaustion from execution.

So, in order to spread rumors that I care for Chris anyway, I personally carried it to her barracks as a ‘princess hug’.

On this day, I heard rumors circulating among the soldiers that the Baron might be…

**

Then, as before, we divided into ‘squadrons’ and started marching as fast as we could to Nantes Castle.

It took only 7 days to reach Nantes Castle from the plains of Strenheim, the battlefield.

In the meantime, I told the two barons who had expressed ‘neutrality in the war’, ‘If you don’t want to lose your territory and fall behind like Schwein, quickly go to the eastern part of the county and station. The cost of stationing is paid in cash at a rate of 1.5 times, so make sure to keep an account book.’ So he sent messengers to the barons to deliver the letter he had written.

If I send it now, by the time the other side tries to see it, the two barons will be holding on.

Again, to keep from hearing the goddamn gay noises, he and Ella rode in a noble carriage and marched.

Although I have no intention of doing such a thing in the ‘carriage’ that Ella and the soldiers can hear, if I stimulate the unnecessarily excellent imagination of the soldiers of this era… it’s a rumor that will disappear in a few days.

That’s how I spent most of my travels, chatting with Ella even in the carriage, and finally arrived at Nantes Castle.

Then, I ordered the soldiers standing at the gates to ‘occupy the county of Nantes’ based on the results already agreed upon.

“The honorable lord of Nantes, Ciel von Creutel, has arrived. Open the door for the new lord.”