Chapter 96

Chapter 96. An Existence Not Permitted by God (2)

It had been three days since we started throwing rocks.

We had run short of large boulders, so the rocks we threw gradually became smaller.

Perhaps because of that, the enemies on the castle walls had grown relaxed. They no longer cared whether we threw rocks or not. I could even see one bastard sleeping while leaning against the wall.

That was when we started throwing feces.

We had scooped it out of the latrines in our camp.

The enemy knights could not leave the castle walls, so they were hit directly by the feces we threw.

Between the stench and the itching, they could not even sleep properly.

Our knights took turns making shows of force, forcing them to guard the walls day and night.

With physical and mental stress piling up, some of them started swearing or even fighting among themselves.

Then we mixed rocks and feces together and continued tormenting them.

By the fifth day, I confirmed that the enemy knights were exhausted, and that both their concentration and stamina had fallen badly.

I gathered Axel, Martin, Raul, and the senior knights.

“It’s time to start reducing their number of knights little by little. Commander Axel, prepare to move out.”

“Are we attacking the collapsed section of the wall?”

“No. I’m not planning to break inside. We’ll lure the enemy out and deal with them. I only want to reduce their knights.”

“Surely... you aren’t planning to destroy the gate? That gate is reinforced with mana.”

“I’ll try Golem Creation first. If that fails, I’ll disperse the mana and blow up the gate.”

That meant I would personally take part.

The mana-dispersal technique was still something only I could use.

“We move before dawn tomorrow, when humans are at their weakest.”

I had no intention of storming inside.

Obviously, they would have a surrounding formation prepared on the other side of the gate.

Immediately after blowing it up, we would pretend to charge inside, then isolate and destroy the knights who came rushing out.

The enemy knights had already lost much of their stamina and mental strength.

If we ganged up on them and picked them off one by one, we could minimize our own losses.

The next morning, before dawn.

I moved out with the entire knight order.

When fifty knights suddenly charged toward the gate, the enemies on the walls reacted late and fell into confusion.

Their discipline had already loosened from stress and exhaustion, so even their chain of command seemed to have stopped functioning properly.

With the Ferrand knights mixed in among them, the confusion would be even worse.

Bwooo! Bwooooo!

The enemy hurriedly blew their horns to announce the attack, but by then we had already jumped across the moat and reached the gate.

They threw spears and other things from the walls, but our knights calmly blocked them.

I placed my hand against the gate and spoke the activation word.

“Golem Creation.”

[This material cannot be used for Golem Creation.]

“Failed. Blow it up.”

Raul fed mana into a large Winnie’s Bomb, wedged it into the gap between the gate and the wall, then withdrew.

I kept my hand against the gate and momentarily dispersed its mana.

I could not maintain it for long, but I only needed to last until the bomb exploded.

At the same time, Axel and Martin raised shields and generated aura to protect my body.

BOOOOM!

We could not block the entire shockwave and blast.

Axel, Martin, and I were all thrown off our feet, then tumbled into the moat together.

Riiiiing.

My ears rang.

Even though the shields had protected us, the impact had shaken my head.

“Urgh! My lord, are you all right?”

Martin’s voice sounded muffled.

“I’m not. My clothes are completely ruined by this filthy water.”

“They’re coming!”

Several knights burst through the section of gate that had been blown open.

Welcome, you bastards.

This was exactly why I had done all this.

I staggered out of the moat, then headed straight back toward camp.

Our knights could cut them off and return on their own.

BOOM!

Another explosion rang out.

When I looked back, Raul was throwing Winnie’s Bombs through the broken gate.

Apparently, he had decided to act as bait himself and lure the enemy knights out.

Damn it, do you know how expensive those things are?

BOOM!

My heart hurt a little.

We had a few wounded on our side, but we withdrew after killing at least eight enemy knights.

There were probably even more casualties we had not confirmed.

Now it was time to repeatedly accumulate damage through the breached gate.

To fill the moat in front of the gate, I continuously created Earth Golems and sent them forward.

There had originally been a bridge there, so after throwing them in for several hours, a thick earthen path rose above the moat.

Next, I created all kinds of golems and sent them forward to completely destroy what remained of the gate.

The enemy had formed an encirclement and annihilation formation on the inside, so there were no defenders directly in front of the gate.

Thanks to that, the golems successfully smashed the already battered gate to pieces.

Once the huge gate completely disappeared, Knight Commander Axel became excited.

“Should we try a cavalry charge?”

“If you want to become a porcupine.”

“...I’ll wait.”

From that point on, we returned to draining the enemy’s stamina.

During the day, we threw rocks and feces not only over the walls but through the gate as well.

Our knights would sometimes mount their horses, rush forward as though beginning a cavalry charge, then turn around and come back.

And just when the defenders were about to fall asleep before dawn, we sent golems charging in to accumulate more damage.

Even from a distance, the enemy knights looked terrible.

Our own knights, meanwhile, took turns getting plenty of rest.

Now we only had to wait for their surrender.

The longer they held out, the more they would realize they were only making their negotiating position worse.

Three more days passed like that.

“My lord, you need to come outside.”

Axel woke me while I was taking a daytime nap inside my tent.

“What happened?”

“Count Dijon personally came out carrying a white flag.”

I shot to my feet.

If the sick Count himself had come out, that meant Yanis had fled.

“Commander Axel, form a special detachment immediately and find Yanis.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Then I went out onto the field between the castle and our camp and met Count Dijon.

“I am Eric Marcel. Aren’t you surrendering a little late?”

There was no point trying for a conditional surrender now.

In only a few more days, I would be able to force an unconditional surrender anyway.

“I will hand over the entire territory. Let us stop this meaningless sacrifice.”

So it was not a conditional surrender.

It was unconditional.

If I accepted, Count Dijon would be left with nothing.

That was unexpected.

Did he have no intention of rebuilding his family?

“Where are Yanis and Sophia? Did they really run away?”

“...They fled this morning. I came out because I had no choice but to end the fighting.”

So when they saw no way out of their disadvantageous situation, they simply ran.

“Where did they go? Surely you at least know the direction.”

“I’m sorry, but they are my children.”

He would not say even with a sword against his neck?

As a parent, that was only natural.

It was not something I could not understand.

“All right. I accept your unconditional surrender. Order everyone to disarm.”

“Thank you.”

The first person I met after entering Dijon’s lord’s castle was Karin.

She had gone from Karin Ferrand, to Karin Ronalp, then Karin Dijon, and now back to using the Ferrand name.

What a turbulent life.

“Karin, take the surviving Ferrand knights and return home.”

“...Why are you letting me live? I would think you’d want to cut off my head.”

Karin was the main cause of this territorial war.

By ordinary standards, nobody would object even if I executed her.

“I made a promise to Baron Auvergne Ronalp. I told him I’d leave you alone.”

“......”

“As you know, the Auvergne Barony borders Ferrand Territory.”

She looked confused by the sudden comment.

She had already divorced Baron Ronalp.

Worse, she had been the spouse at fault.

“What do you want from me?”

“Live quietly for a while. Then maybe you can become a ‘Countess’ again.”

I meant that macho Baron Ronalp might take Karin back.

Karin’s eyes widened as she understood my intention.

“You want to use him as a chess piece?”

“Yeah. So go back home and behave yourself. When the time comes, I’ll send you back to Baron Ronalp.”

Karin had been the one person capable of controlling that difficult, ignorant Sword Master to some extent.

And although she had caused me trouble for a while, paradoxically, it was thanks to her that I had become a great noble ruling both Ronalp and Dijon.

At this point, my hatred for her melted away like snow.

“All right. Please keep your promise. And please don’t declare war on Ferrand Territory.”

The royal family would reject that declaration anyway.

My territory had already grown too large.

Perrier was small and poor, but if I swallowed the vast and fertile Ferrand Territory, my lands would cover roughly one quarter of the entire Franche Kingdom.

“Of course, Countess Karin Ronalp.”

Meanwhile, Yanis and Sophia were fleeing on horseback with the Head Butler and five knights.

Contrary to what Count Dijon had told me, it was the Count himself who had sent them away.

The Head Butler and knights accompanying them were people who were loyal to Count Dijon to their very bones.

Protected by the knights, the group escaped quickly and safely, then entered the neighboring territory of Grande Est to the north.

“Young Lord, we should slow down now. This is another territory. They won’t chase us this far.”

“That’s a relief. Everyone must be exhausted. We’ll camp for the night before continuing.”

The sun was setting, so the Head Butler and knights prepared the campsite.

Yanis looked after Sophia.

“Sophia, get plenty of rest. It will be a long journey.”

“Brother, are we going to Mother’s family in the Lowlands?”

“We should. They are the only family abroad we can entrust ourselves to.”

Sophia seemed to make up her mind about something.

“Let’s go to Veneto together. I want to meet ‘those people’ again.”

“What are you talking about? We need to gather strength at our maternal family and reclaim Dijon. We don’t have a moment to waste.”

“They might help us.”

“Not that again. No matter how much we owe them, I cannot entrust the affairs of our family to them. That’s why I refused them.”

The followers of Hela had tempted Yanis and Sophia by promising to turn the Dijon family into great nobles.

But Yanis, who was reasonably clever, had refused.

There was no way they would offer such help purely out of kindness.

They would undoubtedly demand a tremendous price.

“Then send me alone. I’ll look for a way.”

“A way?”

“Yes. A way to cut off that bastard Eric’s head. How dare he try to kill his sister-in-law? Hehe.”

Sophia gave a cold smile.

Yanis felt a chill at the unfamiliar expression on his sister’s face.

Is this really my sister? She looks like something else... Right. Like a ghoul from legend!

Contrary to Yanis’s worries, this was Sophia’s original personality.

She had worn exactly the same expression when she cursed Young Lord Noah to death.

But the frightened Yanis decided to send Sophia to Veneto.

There was no need to keep her beside him.

As long as she remained alive, the child in her belly could be made heir to Westfalen.

If Dijon was impossible, he intended to take Westfalen instead.

The first thing I did after taking control of Dijon Territory was put cargo vessels into operation on the Rhone River.

Using Marcel Harbor as a base, we began exchanging goods between the different territories.

The enormous canal cargo vessels could transport goods for roughly one twentieth of the cost of overland transportation.

It would be a great help in revitalizing the economies of Ronalp and Dijon, both of which had suffered from the territorial war.

Naturally, it would also help me, since I had an enormous amount of death compensation to pay.

At the moment, Diego and I were discussing how to divide Dijon Territory.

We had spread out a map and were drawing lines across it with pencils.

“Dividing such a huge piece of land is giving me a headache.”

“It’s too large. How are we supposed to split it?”

Dijon Territory had one unusual characteristic.

There were no cadet-family heads and no vassals.

Count Dijon had purged all of them to strengthen his own authority.

There were no powerful local families either.

Even the knights merely received salaries, they did not possess manors.

That also meant there was nobody capable of governing the land if I divided it.

Even after occupying Dijon, I would have no choice but to use the existing administration.

I tossed my pencil aside and ran a hand through my hair.

“I understand why Count Dijon surrendered unconditionally.”

“He wants to keep the territory in one piece.”

“Exactly. He wants me to administer it as my direct territory without dividing it. That way the name Dijon remains too. One day, he plans to take the whole thing back.”

It turned out Count Dijon was a sly old fox.

Yanis probably had not fled on his own judgment either.

The Count must have arranged his escape.

“Are you going to crush that plan?”

What should I do?

There were two choices.

Break Count Dijon’s will, split the territory into pieces, and appoint vassals.

Or leave it whole, exactly as he wanted.

I smiled at Diego.

“No. I won’t crush it. There’s only one reason the Count is acting this way. Yanis Dijon. That bastard is still alive. The Count wants him to inherit the territory someday.”

“You’re going to leave bait for him?”

“Exactly. Yanis will probably go to his maternal relatives in the Lowlands. Once he holes up there, there’s no way to catch him. But if I lure him out with bait...”

“Then we hook him and cut him down.”

It would not be easy.

If we handled it badly, Dijon might even rise in rebellion.

But perhaps that was better.

I would catch Yanis and end the bloodline completely.

Sophia would be returned to the earth as well.

I would make sure nobody could ever use the name “Dijon” again.