So the Medieval Age Has a Split Inheritance System…
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Derpy
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 03 – The Immortal Corps
A skirmish occurred in the county that was (planned) to be succeeded by me. It was just a fight on the scale of a city head versus a village head, but I had the slaves I trained for half a year participate as a mercenary group.
The leader of the mercenary group was Wright-san, who recently acquired self-regeneration level I thanks to six months of whipping. He was a good person who continued to worry about me when my face winced in pain while whipping them, but he was also the most active person in the skirmish. Basically, he killed many people.
…Well, they say that killing a person makes a villain while killing a million makes a hero. And since I am ultimately the one to give the order, I am the one who ends up killing them indirectly. Anyway, the two sides were apparently fighting over the rights of the river, but it was evident that the management of the county wasn’t good by the fact that this escalated into a minor war. Well, this county didn’t originally belong to my family after all. It was a territory taken over by the Klaus duchy after slaughtering the original count family who governed the territory very well until 10 years ago.
It was just a fight of 60 versus 50, and my group participated on the side with 60 people. It didn’t matter to me who won, so I naturally sided with the one that was more likely to win. With the addition of my troops, the scales tipped in the city head’s favor with 80 against 50, and he who I sided with showed slight gratitude toward me. Moreover, I even got some reward money. It seemed that the survivors of the villager’s side ended up as his slaves, so I guess it was obvious the city head would try to flatter his future lord. Using the reward money, I bought another 10 slaves.
Then I gave a name to this unit of slaves. As a result of thinking about various things despite my lack of naming sense, I decided to call it the immortal corps. I would constantly replace missing persons with another one, and it was a special corps chosen for their self-regenerating characteristics, so it would be nice to choose a cool name to reflect this.
Just as I was thinking about that, the eldest son Wagner had successfully amassed a 300-unit, heavy infantry regiment as a standing army. And he also looted the territories of neighboring nations for a lot of money. To announce the result of such looting, was he a barbarian? Also, the neighboring nations adopted a new religion, so he was worshiped even more as a saint lord. I felt that that was weird, but it irritated me since it wasn’t wrong to do so in these medieval times.
…The characteristic of the saint lord that Wagner had was like a title given to those who were deeply religious and brave. Just having that title would raise the evaluation of people of similar faith and also serve as proof of credibility. I, who was a model Japanese of the atheist faith in my previous life, didn’t mind. But his army made me want to cry.
Rather, I wondered when it would be possible for me to create a standing army of 300 soldiers. The second son Alfred had a 100-man cavalry in his standing army, and since our father had 1,000 people, that meant that the Klaus’ family had 1,400 men in total under their command. Since there would be conscripted soldiers on top of that, one could see how mighty they were.
Ah, 200 of these 1,000 men are supposed to become part of my troops once our father passes away, so I guess I technically have 200 men as my standing army. It made me worry about the maintenance cost, though. Rather, I doubt I could pay it at all. The biggest reason why I chose slaves as the core of my army was because it would keep the operational cost at a minimum since a military force costs money to maintain after all.
But it was fortunate for me that none of my slaves died in that skirmish. The morale of overwhelming victory from the start might have had some effect, but there was also the reassurance that they wouldn’t die easily even if they received what would seem like fatal wounds. It seems that the occasional serious spars have taken a turn for the better, so I guess they were growing well.
However, since Wright-san was released from slavery and then re-contracted to me as the leader of the mercenary group, the operational cost jumped up. Since he took part actively, if I still didn’t release him from slavery it would make my initial promise a lie, so it couldn’t be helped. It was also done out of consideration of maintaining the motivation of my slaves. Even though they didn’t suffer physical pain from the whipping, there was no doubt they would suffer mental trauma.
After all, the flesh on their backs and arms were still gouged. The blood would still bleed and scars would remain. I have also often fallen unconscious during each session, but after doing it for three months, as expected, I got used to it. I probably acquired some sort of resistance characteristic. Though I didn’t check at the church, so I wouldn’t know.
Ah, even after being released from slavery, he would still receive whipping. That was part of the contract, and I had no intention of letting him escape. I tied him to me with various contracts the moment he was released. If a competent human resource were to be stolen by others, it would be better to just kill them off after all. But well, other than whipping and combat training, he was basically free to do what he wanted. Since you are free, make sure to earn your own meal, okay? Be sure to be the first to rush out during war, okay?
The newly bought slaves were trembling at the sight of their seniors enduring the whipping, but once they experienced it themselves they would tilt their heads in confusion as they felt no pain. Seeing men doing such actions wasn’t cute at all, damn it. Perhaps it would be better to buy at least one female slave. That said, female slaves were priced several times that of male ones, and their combat strength was much lower as well.
Come to think of it, it seemed that my engagement partner had been decided. She was the third daughter of Duke Schult’s family, which was quite a distance away from us. Apparently, my father wanted to start a big war before he died, so he chose Duke Schult as an ally for this.
As for the brides of my two elder brothers, they were either an imperial princess or a princess of another kingdom. The territory of Duke Schult wasn’t that large, just a duke with 3 counties, but it seems that they were known for having a strong army so he wasn’t a bad ally. However, since it was his third daughter, it meant that she couldn’t serve as a strong connection to her family, so it seemed I couldn’t depend on my in-laws’ family.
…If possible, it would be nice if she was cute. It wasn’t uncommon in this era to meet your betrothed for the first time on the day of your wedding, and I didn’t think I would be able to see the other person’s face until that day. For the time being, it would be fine as long as she wasn’t an ambitious person. Otherwise, she might try to kill me and take over my territory. I wish to believe that there wasn’t anyone who would want to take over a territory like this, though.
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