Ch.33The Best Defense

“You engaged in combat with Amurtat’s soldiers?”

“Y-yes, boss!”

“I told you to call me Count, not boss, didn’t I?”

“Ah! I-I’m sorry!”

“Haaa…”

Evans Hawthorne, the Count of Elisia, sighed with an irritated expression.

In truth, he was a gang leader, but he had been granted the title of Count by Elisia’s ruler Francesca, who was incredibly ignorant of worldly affairs. He was using that position to line his own pockets.

And now, he was very displeased that only three of the subordinates he had sent to capture escaped serfs had returned alive.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well…”

The subordinate explained the whole story, and after hearing everything, Count Evans grabbed his head and drank straight from the bottle of wine on his desk.

Whether intoxicated by the sour scent of the wine or simply calming down a bit, he sat down and began to think.

“Amurtat’s Standard-Bearer personally showed up…? Damn it…”

“W-what should we do now?”

“You don’t need to know. Get out!”

CRASH!

“Eek! Y-yes, sir!”

With the sound of the thrown bottle shattering, the subordinate disappeared from the room like a bolt of lightning.

His rough temperament was unbecoming of a count, but considering that his true nature was not of noble birth but rather a street vagrant, one could say he was actually restraining his natural disposition.

“Damn it… Of all people, the Standard-Bearer had to be there…”

Whether it was Amurtat’s territory or not wasn’t particularly important once battle had broken out.

The problem was that these fools, who were supposed to trample anything that got in their way, had instead been trampled themselves.

And their opponent had been Amurtat’s Standard-Bearer.

To help understand the situation in modern terms: imagine if employees from a small company went to arrest runaway workers, but the neighboring country’s Minister of Defense happened to be there, and the employees rammed the Minister with their van.

Of course, such comparisons were meaningless.

Regardless of whether it was a neighboring country or a distant one, mere cavalrymen (not knights) had swung their swords at a Standard-Bearer directly appointed by a foreign monarch and killed many of his troops.

This wasn’t just provocation—it was clearly a localized war, and any country in the world would consider it an unprovoked attack.

“What should I do…? This wasn’t what I intended…”

Evans Hawthorne’s mind raced.

His intelligence, which had taken him from the streets to becoming a court count, might not have been innate, but he prided himself on its uniqueness. He believed his intellect could overcome this crisis.

And finally, he reached a conclusion.

“Hey! Lackey!”

‘Lackey’ was a vulgar term for an aide.

“Yes, Your Excellency. You called?”

“Tell the men. Not a word about today’s events to anyone. The moment rumors start spreading, I’ll personally cut off their limbs.”

“U-understood, Your Excellency.”

His solution was to pretend nothing had happened.

If asked whether a mere count could cover up such a diplomatic disaster, the answer would obviously be no, but common sense had died in Elisia quite some time ago.

Since when?

Well, since people started losing their limbs instead of their heads.

“I just need to make sure that bitch Francesca doesn’t find out…”

As evident from calling his liege who granted him the title of count “that bitch,” he had not even a speck of loyalty.

The only things he believed in and followed were the treasures and gold coins in his storehouse. This was the inevitable outcome when a mere crime boss was allowed to manipulate state affairs.

And the person responsible for all this, Elisia’s female ruler Francesca, was quietly lying in her room.

Not because she was ill.

Simply because there were too many headache-inducing documents waiting for her. She had decided to sleep until they were cleared away.

*

It was now summer of the 5th year of Amurtat.

Swish!

“Ooooh… it gleams and shines…”

“It’s a good sword… Our city is wealthy because we can produce and sell such swords.”

The 10,000 soldiers who had discarded their old wrought iron weapons (this is a figurative expression) and were now equipped with newly forged steel weapons were spending time handling their weapons to get accustomed to them.

Their armor was quilted armor, which could be mass-produced, but the arms that needed to hold shields and swords were protected by couters for the elbows, gauntlets for the hands, and jack chains connecting them all the way to the shoulders. Their legs had steel greaves to protect the feet that weren’t covered by shields.

It was heavy, but any healthy adult male with military training could handle the weight easily, and indeed, the soldiers moved lightly.

Poorly armed bandits would be cut down in an instant, and even compared to soldiers from other city-states, they were not inferior.

Additionally, having gained practical experience under the outstanding training instructor Ignatz, Amurtat’s army ranked among the upper echelons when compared to all city-states in this world.

“Now! If you’ve finished adjusting, it’s time to train! Next, we’ll practice siege warfare, so everyone move to the model tower.”

“Yes, sir!”

And most importantly, the knights.

While those who received knighthood were quite common, there were only about 100 true knights who wore armor, rode horses, and wielded swords, spears, and maces with the strength of a hundred men.

Even that number was quite significant, as contrary to popular belief, training a knight—a warrior worth a hundred men—required an enormous amount of resources.

If not for the income from the steel industry, Ignatz might have had to perform both field command and shock cavalry roles by himself.

Who was it that said a duke’s daughter could maintain around 20,000 knights? Only those ignorant of reality could make such claims.

*

This Amurtat has no city walls.

It’s quite different from other cities that surround themselves with at least wooden palisades to defend against bandits or foreign invasions.

There were several reasons for this, but the main one was that the urban area was continuously expanding.

The urban area referred to both residential and commercial districts, and in this world where high-rise buildings were not common, population growth meant horizontal expansion of the city.

However, city walls meant restricting horizontal expansion, so considering the current rapid population growth, having city walls now would be a poor choice in many ways.

There would be walls and gates between walled urban areas and unwalled ones, and crossing those walls would require a lot of money, which would just be another form of oppression for ambitious immigrants.

Moreover, there was currently no need for city walls.

Internal security had been stable since the establishment of the police force, and dangerous elements couldn’t enter the barrier anyway.

There had been some complaints recently due to the conflict with Elisia, but nevertheless, the stream of immigrants hadn’t stopped.

Now in the summer of the fifth year, many city-states were entering the lean season, and with food supplies depleted after enduring spring, this was the time when the most immigrants appeared.

Building city walls at such a time would be nothing short of foolish.

“Wouldn’t it be better to at least have a palisade? People’s psychology being what it is…”

The aide said this, inwardly emphasizing the necessity of walls.

To him, who had worked in more than ten cities before working in Amurtat, a wall-less Amurtat must look very insecure.

In truth, having walls would be better in many ways, but considering the resources that would go into them, I couldn’t help but shudder, so I had to reject his proposal “for now.”

The amount of timber needed just to build a palisade would be enough to fuel the steelyard for a week if converted to charcoal.

Restricting urban growth during a period of explosive population growth wasn’t to my taste.

And… why would we need walls anyway?

“Why do we need walls for defense?”

“Pardon?”

The aide displayed a stupid face with a question mark, as if he hadn’t expected my response.

“If there are enemies, can’t we just beat them up first?”

“Pardon?”

“No, think about it. They’d take ages to get here anyway, so why not just go out and fight them?”

“Pardon?”

“Stop saying ‘pardon’ and give me an actual answer.”

The aide, who had suddenly become a yes-man, couldn’t follow my conversation.

Is my strategic plan that strange?

Invading others before being invaded myself… isn’t that just “common sense”?