chapter_0064

64 – Reservists

64 – Reservists

Let’s turn back time for a moment.

While Calix led a thousand soldiers to conquer the dungeon, was there no trouble in the Crones territory?

Of course, there was.

As the Crones territory expanded, the number of soldiers and knights increased.

Thus, the absence of a thousand soldiers did not create a gap in the main castle or the city.

However, the surrounding villages told a different story.

The territory was fundamentally composed of the central main castle and city, along with naturally formed villages around them.

Soldiers regularly patrolled the villages to maintain order, but when troops were dispatched, issues arose with these village patrols.

Naturally, the farther away from the main castle, the weaker the soldiers’ ability to maintain order became, leading to attacks from bandits.

The same was true for Cron.

No matter how many bandit groups were exterminated within the territory, as the territory grew and rumors spread that Cron was thriving, new bandits emerged. They hid in places just outside the reach of Cron and other territories, waiting for opportunities.

For them, the news of Cron’s dungeon management participation was an opportunity.

With a thousand soldiers missing, there would surely be villages with weakened defenses.

Thinking they could reap immense profits by raiding those places, the bandits flocked to Cron.

However, what the bandits encountered in Cron was a sight different from what they had imagined.

“Hey…”

“Yes, brother.”

“Didn’t we hear that a ton of soldiers went to the dungeon in Cron?”

“Yes, that’s what I heard for sure.”

“Then what the hell is that…”

In the village of Yan, located at the farthest edge of the Crones territory, the bandits’ informant had told them that a dozen soldiers residing there had been dispatched.

So they thought there would be no one and came all the way here.

What they saw were dozens of well-armed soldiers.

At first, they thought it was just a simple militia.

It was common for villages to have some armed individuals standing guard when there were no soldiers to protect them.

But these were on a different level.

They were equipped with armor, helmets, spears, bows, and even what appeared to be firearms.

They moved in pairs and were clearly trained, keeping watch from their posts.

In this world, firearms were not particularly effective weapons.

The defense of knights trained with magical power could deflect bullets, and the materials used were very expensive.

However, that was only the case for knights; for untrained bandits, firearms were a sufficiently threatening weapon.

“Looks like there are soldiers here. Let’s hit another village.”

“Yes, brother.”

The bandits gave up on Yan and searched for another village.

But the next village, and the one after that, also had well-armed soldiers.

“What the hell! There are soldiers everywhere!! Is it really true that a thousand soldiers are missing!?”

“I-I swear it is, brother! I saw it with my own eyes!!”

“Then what the hell are those soldiers!!!”

“I-I don’t know…”

Even though a thousand soldiers were missing, the reason their absence was not felt at all was thanks to the ‘Reserve Army’ system operated by Cron.

In the Empire, the relationship between a lord and their subjects was contractual.

The lord protected the lives of the subjects, and the subjects paid taxes to the lord.

But that was the typical relationship between a lord and their subjects.

For the subjects of Cron, Cron was not just a territory.

It was their hometown, their paradise, and their home that they needed to protect.

It was basic to arm themselves to protect themselves and Cron from bandits and enemies, and they suggested that Cron use them in return.

Thus, Calix recalled the reserve army system from his past life, and Hart and Noah refined and completed Cron’s ‘Reserve Army’ system.

This system, implemented for subjects of fighting age, was not mandatory, but all subjects considered it an obligation and participated.

Those registered as reserve soldiers received regular training from instructors who were former knights.

In a medieval time with few recreational activities, such training was a somewhat enjoyable pastime, and especially the men actively participated to showcase their masculinity.

As a result, some of them turned out to be as strong as ordinary knights and were even scouted into knight orders.

They usually trained but were called upon to perform the duties of soldiers, such as maintaining order and standing guard when regular soldiers were absent or needed to protect the village.

So Calix could confidently dispatch soldiers to the dungeon.

From the perspective of the bandits and surrounding lords who were unaware of this, it must have been maddening.

To them, the Crones territory appeared to be a massive fortress where soldiers continuously emerged.

While the bandits were shouting in anger, a voice rang out above their heads.

“Excuse me, what are you guys doing?”

The dozen or so bandits looked up at that moment.

There stood a girl with brown bobbed hair, dressed in black assassin attire, looking at them.

The startled bandits spoke to her.

“What are you?”

“Me? My name is Laila.”

“No, we’re not curious about your name; what are you doing?”

“Oh! I’m a member of the Cron Reserve Army. I was patrolling to protect the village.”

‘Laila’ was a girl who had settled in Cron along with Sharen.

She had caught Lana’s eye while attending Cron’s school.

With her agile movements and talent for physical manipulation through magical power, she learned top-notch assassin techniques from Lana.

Lana told her that learning these techniques would allow her to protect herself, and Laila gained the best agility among the reserve soldiers in Cron.

Wanting to protect her hometown, she applied to the Cron Reserve Army as soon as she became an adult, and now she found herself facing bandits.

“Are you guys bandits?”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Um… you’re going to die.”

Laila said with a chilling expression, sending shivers down the spines of the bandits.

At that moment, a boy with blue hair flew past Laila.

Holding a staff embedded with a blue jewel, the boy spoke to Laila.

“What do you mean ‘die’! Laila!”

“Hey! Aron! You need to go with the flow here!”

His name was Aron, the boy whom Calix had rescued from the sea.

Since that day, Aron had begun to sense the magical power of water.

When Lana learned that Aron had awakened to magical power during class, she told Sharen about him, and Aron began learning basic magic from Sharen, becoming a proper novice magician.

The two were responsible for patrolling this area as reserve soldiers today.

Correcting Laila’s words, Aron said, “Forget what Laila said. We have no intention of killing you. If you go back now, no one will get hurt.”

At Aron’s words, the bandit leader became furious.

It felt as if those little brats were sparing them out of mercy.

Having already failed three times, being disrespected by such kids was more than the bandit leader could bear.

“Those little brats really think they can look down on adults… Kids!”

“Yes! Brother!”

“Attack!”

“Yes!!!”

At the leader’s command, the bandits began to climb trees and shoot arrows in response.

Aron immediately cast a defensive spell, and Laila hid behind the defensive magic.

“Haah… is this really how it’s going to be?”

“See? It’s more effective to scare them like I did.”

“Got it, I’ll do that next time too.”

Aron had a headache.

Why didn’t the bandits run away when they were being spoken to nicely?

Using the magic he had employed before to subdue them, Aron chanted, “Gutta Aqua.”

As Aron cast the spell, countless droplets of water burst forth from his hands.

Seeing this, the bandits found it amusing.

They thought it was just kids being kids and ignored it, trying to swat the droplets away with their hands.

But the moment they made contact with the droplets…

“Ugh… Uwaaaah!!!”

“W-What!?”

The bandit who touched the droplets suddenly began to foam at the mouth and fainted on the spot.

The other bandits who came into contact with the droplets also fell unconscious in the same manner.

“What the hell did you do!?”

“It’s nothing much. I just gave you a little gift in your blood.”

The magic Aron used was the water droplet magic, which injects magical power into the droplets to create foam upon contact.

When used on a person, it could boil the oxygen in their blood, causing them to faint.

Of course, Aron only boiled it just enough so that they wouldn’t die.

Seeing all his subordinates faint, the bandit leader panicked and tried to flee.

But…

“Are you running away all by yourself?”

At that moment, Laila, who had chased after the bandit leader, threw a rope around his leg.

The bandit leader, whose leg was suddenly bound, fell over and crashed to the ground.

“Ugh… Uwaaaah!!”

Thud!

He crashed to the ground and fainted, losing his front teeth.

Looking at them, Laila said cheerfully, “Well then, today’s cleanup is done!”

“Cleanup? Let’s hurry and call the adults.”

“Yeah, I wonder if there are any bandits with bounties this time?”

“Well, if they’re caught this easily, there probably aren’t any.”

The rule of the reserve army was that if they caught a bandit with a bounty, the person who caught them would receive the bounty.

Laila and Aron were actively participating in reserve army activities, motivated by the surprisingly decent bounty money.

And such scenes were not special but rather commonplace in Cron.

Each person actively dedicated themselves to the territory, contributing to its development, and this was shared among other lords.

Lords who once thought of Cron as a fledgling territory now had no choice but to acknowledge it.

Cron was no longer a small house that only needed to be cautious of a few retainers like Sharen and Jarha.

It had become another new nation within the Empire, where lords, retainers, and subjects united and explosively grew stronger.

Most people were amazed by the news of Calix’s dungeon conquest.

However, the lords of the Empire felt fear at the existence of the ‘Reserve Army,’ which took it upon themselves to protect the territory.

The rules of the game were changing under the Crones Family.

Author’s Note:

Next week, there will be a Reserve Army event.

I will do well.

ʕ ᐢ ᵕ ᐢ ʔ