Field was stunned. What was wrong with this guy?
"Fuck!" Field was thoroughly pissed.
Steward Kao shrank his neck. This was exactly what he'd been about to say and swallowed earlier: Baron Bull and his son were neither of them decent men.
"Wait! You're the Baron of the Nightfall Territory — wonderful, finally someone to serve as a buffer for my fortress. I hope you last a couple more days! But once the rotting corpses are hunting you down, don't come bothering me. I won't open the gates for you."
The man on the wall, prompted by his adviser, had remembered Field — but unfortunately, all he'd thought of was using Field as a strategic buffer for Kashan Fortress.
The steward couldn't hold back. He leaned in and whispered, "Baron Bull's only son, Richard Bull, is known as 'the Craven.' We'd best not bother talking to him."
"Well put. No point arguing with an idiot." A vein bulged at Field's temple as he slowly backed away. "So everyone wants to play it like this. Fine — then I won't stand on courtesy either."
"Open the gate to the Nightfall Territory yourselves! It's perfectly safe out there." With that, Richard ducked back into the castle. "Now get out of my sight! Stinking out-of-towner."
Beside him, the adviser wiped a cold sweat and said, "Young master, deceiving them like this — is it really...?"
"Shut up!"
Once they'd pulled back a fair distance, Field had everyone wait a moment.
"Now I understand why the rotting corpses turned up here." Field's mouth twitched as he straightened the longsword at his hip. "Lucky the beastmen are walled off by the gray mist too, and bound by the peace treaty — otherwise the Empire's proudest defense line would be a joke."
"Then, honored lord... we'll stop troubling you, hmm?" The villagers crowded around, jostling one another in embarrassment. They had no wish to court bad luck; Baron Field looked furious. In the end none dared simply bolt, so they pushed one man forward to take their leave. "We'll be off now. Thank you for your help."
Field was in the thick of his temper. He may have been born in a modern society, but that didn't mean he'd let himself be pushed around. His eyelids dropped, and like a man-eating wolf he growled coldly, "Did I say you could go? Your lord abandoned you. You're masterless now — so I'm taking you in."
Free labor, conveniently topped up.
"Huh? No, no, my lord, please let us go — we're free folk." The villagers were a thousand times unwilling. By what Richard had just said, Field was bound for the Nightfall Territory, a cursed land brimming with death — go there and you died for certain.
"I can let you go, sure. Five gold each as a redemption fee. I saved you; that's mine to collect." Field drew his longsword without ceremony. "Either come with me to the Nightfall Territory, or pay up — or I'll chop you into mince and feed you to the dogs. Understood?"
"Whew. Looks like he really is a noble after all."
Beside him, Ashina relaxed instead. These past days, Field's gentle kindness had left her thoroughly unsettled, forever feeling she was living in a dream. Now that Field was playing the vicious, shameless noble, she felt right at ease again.
Like Ashina, the villagers had their itch scratched just so. Threatened, they turned obedient, dropping to their knees and clamoring to go to the Nightfall Territory after all. Death there or death here — may as well go try their luck.
"Spineless wretches." Field sheathed his sword and rubbed his face, sighing inwardly: fists are always more persuasive than words.
"My lord, don't give up!" Seeing Field displeased, Ashina crept up to comfort him.
Field glanced at her — and froze outright. He stared until Ashina's face filled with fear, and only then did he snap back, hurrying to laugh it off. "I'm fine. Just spaced out for a second."
Pressing on, as Field neared the fortress gate, he was startled by a great cluster of skull markers on the little map.
"This is what Richard meant by 'the gate is perfectly safe'?"
That damned fool — took the money and didn't deliver, and meant to use the rotting corpses to do him in besides. If Field had blundered through the fortress gate, the corpses lurking inside could easily have caught him off guard.
Field seethed — then a thought struck, and he stroked his chin, fingers working. "Since Baron Bull's idiot son is holed up in the inner keep, having ditched the outer positions — doesn't that mean I can fleece this place good and proper? No one's watching anyway."
He was a man who acted on his thoughts. Field was no white-lotus saint.
To hell with propriety and shame — these wretched bastards didn't deserve a kind face! He'd rob them blind of their money, their grain, and their women.
Field gave his cloak a flick. "Kao, remember the ones who dared pick up a weapon and fight the corpses? Round them all up. If there aren't thirty, fill the gap with the strongest of the rest."
Timid as he was, Kao was efficient at his work. Soon thirty slaves of various races were assembled.
"Before that — there's a certain dung-eating party in the way." Field shot a look at Connor in the distance, whose face had gone grim.
"Valiant Sir Connor — this isn't my fief, true, but as a noble of martial virtue I mean to help these farmers and slay the rotting corpses. Will you join me?" Field had cooked up a flimsy pretext.
Are you insane?! Connor was dumbstruck. He'd lost one of his men killing those corpses already.
He was still stewing over the matter of the death-benefit payout, and now this brain-dead baron actually wanted to help others quell a corruption tide? He couldn't believe his own ears.
"No thank you. I've delivered you to the border of the Nightfall Territory — one gate's distance now — and I must report back to the count." Connor refused flatly. As he spoke, he couldn't hold back a grin, then burst out laughing. "Forgive me, but I think marching that rabble against the corpses would be less effective than bringing pigs — at least the pigs would let the corpses eat their fill."
Field's face was a study in regret. "A shame. And here I thought you'd come share in the glory."
"Do not forget the Empire's law and the family's creed — take up your post on time."
Leaving that warning behind, Connor galloped off with his cavalry. Field didn't even get the chance to remind him he still hadn't eaten his horse dung.
"Are we really going to go provoke the rotting corpses?" Steward Kao asked, trembling.
Field hadn't counted on the steward for killing anything. He waved a hand. "You just stay here and mind the slaves. Don't let them run. Anyone who tries to flee, burn him to ash with the slave contract."
He said it loudly, and the slaves listened with their hearts in their throats.
Kao, on the other hand, felt as if he'd been granted a pardon.
Forcing the slaves to arm themselves with sickles, dung-forks, and felling axes, Field set off with Ashina at his side.
After ten minutes' walk, Field circled into a deserted stretch of woods. Using the little map his Lord's power carried, he carefully confirmed there was no one around, then took a beautiful crystal orb from the pack slung on his warhorse's right side.
Ashina's panel had already changed. The reason he'd spaced out earlier was that he'd been making sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.