With the four family alliance settled, Lorist breathed a sigh of relief. After all, the Northlands was far too large; the area it covered was easily as wide as that of two duchies combined. To travel from Firmrock Castle all the way to Hendliff Suspension Bridge took at least 7 days on horseback. However, given that it was occupied by Baron Felim's forces, there was no longer a need to worry about troublesome outsiders like the Second Prince entering the Northlands without warning.
Lorist hoped that Baron Felim and Hennard would reorganize their troops and build up combat ability by routinely sending them to the Second Prince's Winston Province for some excursions to bring in more commoners to the Northlands while pillaging some nobles who didn't cooperate. The point was to cause as much turmoil as possible within the area around the Iblia Kingdom's capital to sabotage the Second Prince's chances of forming yet another army to once again threaten the peace of the Northlands.
Baron Felim and Hennard both agreed to that request right away but they also stated one of their own. As they were quite impressed by the performance of the Norton Family's soldiers, they requested Lorist to provide them with the same stainless steel armor that they thought Lorist's soldiers were using. However, they didn't know that the armor used by the Norton Family forces were actually made from an extra durable steel which was only coated in silver.
Initially, Lorist had planned to distribute some of the metal armor taken from the prisoner soldiers of the First Legion to the other two nobles. However, Baron Felim and Hennard perceived those armor as inherently inferior and believed that the low quality only provided slightly better defense than normal leather armor. Having witnessed the performance of the armor used by the Norton Family forces, they naturally didn't hold normal iron armor in high regard.
At that moment, Count Kenmays came to join the conversation and also decided to outfit his own troops with better equipment. In the past, no matter they be plate armor, scale armor or chain mail, he would be satisfied as long as they were metal armor. However, after seeing the armor of the Norton Family, he felt that his own troops were poor beggars in comparison. Putting aside other factors, just based on looks alone, the Norton Family troops looked far more imposing. Additionally, he felt that getting new sets of identical armor for his troops would improve their uniformity as well as give a slight boost to their morale.
Seeing the other three pleading nonstop, Lorist told them that Grandmaster Sid was the one who redesigned the armor for his troops. He also mentioned that while he naturally couldn't offer the armor used by his own troops for sale, he could have Grandmaster Sid design other custom-made armor sets for each of the three families which would have no less defensive capability than the armor of the Whitelion Legion.
With that, the other three revealed expressions of joy. But before saying anything else, Lorist snapped them out of their daydreams and asked them how they would be able to pay for the cost as each set of armor cost no less than 40 to 50 gold Fordes to make alone, not to say anything about profit yet.
Upon mention of funds, Baron Felim and Hennard's expressions both turned sour. Fortunately, Baron Felim had some wealth on his hands valued around 100000 gold Fordes from his successful conquest of the two bastides of other landed nobles. But Hennard was practically broke and couldn't pay out more than 20000 gold Fordes. Initially, he thought that he could raid the treasury in the duke's manor to gain quite an amount of wealth, but out of his expectations, Princess Sylvia and her Blademaster godmother was still there and had captured Knight Tabik and himself before he could start. Had it not been for Lorist's timely arrival, both of them would still be imprisoned within the manor.
By the time Princess Sylvia leaves the manor, there shouldn't be any valuables remaining within it. Hennard sighed in resignation at the depressing thought. But at that moment, Count Kenmays approached him and gave him a novel idea as his cousin-brother-in-law.
Count Kenmays said, "Right now, what do you think you can do to gain the most amount of money? The answer is, selling off military equipment. Before this, us three families bought a huge number of metal armor from the Norton Family, right? We can just resell that armor to others and use the funds we obtain from that to buy new equipment. As long as Lorist cuts us some slack and doesn't profit too much at our expense, we might even have some funds left from selling the old gear."
Upon hearing that idea, Baron Felim and Hennard turned their frowns upside down and praised Count Kenmays for his keen insight. They followed up and asked who they should sell the old equipment to.
Count Kenmays answered, "I believe the ideal person to sell them to is Duke Madras. These past few years, his forces suffered huge casualties and the Madras Duchy doesn't have any copper mines. Most of the equipment purchased by the duke is either done at a high price from the central four duchies or traded with using food. Currently, as the four central duchies are arming themselves for war, Duke Madras wouldn't be able to buy any equipment from them to refit his army. If we can get into contact with him, I believe he'll offer a good price for our equipment."
The three of them continued to discuss the matter for the rest of the day before finalizing it and handling it to the salt merchant committee since Count Kenmays was in charge of it anyway. However, since they had just split the duke's dominion, Baron Felim and Hennard had things to settle within the area, so the meeting was scheduled one month later at Firmrock Castle, during which Lorist would present the armor designed by Grandmaster Sid to the three other families.
......
Now that the matter was handled, Lorist intended to return, only to remember the troublesome task that awaited him. Princess Sylvia said that she wanted to return to the Wild Husbandry Province and even appointed him personally to be her escort. Even though the Second Prince's territory is on the other end of the Hendliff Suspension Bridge, can't you go back yourself? Why would you go out of your way to use the suspension bridge built by the Kenmays Family at the eastern Northlands? It seemed that Lorist would have to spend at least ten or so days to accompany the princess all the way to the territory of the Kenmays Family.
Even though Lorist had planned to drag Count Kenmays along with him on the trip with the princess, the moment the truth about Hennard's concubine being the count's cousin sister was revealed, he insisted on meeting up with her first. Coupled with the fact that he would be a little busy meeting up with his other lovers at Gildusk City, the count couldn't leave that area during the days that followed, so Lorist had no choice but to escort the princess himself.
What a useless friend, Lorist thought helplessly. Fortunately, Josk's mounted archer unit had just arrived at Gildusk City. Coupled with the guard brigade led by Els, there would be around 6000 men joining the trip. But when it came to dealing with the princess, Lorist was the only one who could handle it.
Princess Sylvia's own escort consisted of around 400 soldiers, including a fully-armed squad of mounted guards of 120 plus soldiers, split into equal halves of men and women, with most of them being Silver ranks. Combined with the princess's own Gold ranked Battle Force and her Blademaster godmother, Lorist couldn't imagine an imbecile that would dare to provoke them.
Apart from that, they had more than 80 four-wheeled carriages as well as around 300 attendants and maidservants. Given its large scale and status as a noble's convoy, it was the least Lorist could do to show respect by providing a suitable escort.
Just a while after they departed, Lorist's expression had already changed, because along the way he saw many of his own family soldiers escorting groups of poorly-dressed people who were carrying their belongings with them heading in the direction of Firmrock Castle. As Lorist could no longer withhold his curiosity, he stopped one of the squads of soldiers and asked them what was going on.
The squad leader who recognized Lorist frantically saluted before replying seriously, "Milord, these are all prisoners..."
Enraged, Lorist pointed to the elderly folk and women and shouted, "Are you blind? Who told you that these elderly people and women are prisoners? Do they look like they would be sent to the battlefield?"
The squad leader said in a panicked manner, "Milord, I didn't have a choice either. If we don't classify them as prisoners of war, the supply stations on the way won't provide us with any food to distribute to them. How else would we feed them? Additionally, they are family members of the soldiers that joined the allied noble army who have become our prisoners. These people here are worried about their captured family members and willingly followed us as prisoners to be brought back with us. Just now, they were even singing aloud happily as they traveled..."
"Ugh..." Lorist was completely speechless as the people he saw did indeed not look like they were forcefully captured. Instead, they seemed to be in high spirits. However, Lorist found something weird about the guard's statement and questioned him about it. "What's that about supply stations along the way?"
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