The Barony of Hilpin was a small territory. Moreover, the stamina of imperial soldiers was not something to be underestimated.
Even while wearing heavy armor and carrying packs and shields, they had run for more than thirty minutes, crossing several rolling hills along the way.
Thanks to that, they reached ‘Stacked Logs Village,’ located midway between the western forest and Hilpin Castle, without incident before Maldin could make any move against them.
True to its name, the village benefited from the abundant resources of the forest and was protected by a thick, sturdy wooden palisade. Atop it, members of the village militia stood vigilant with torches in hand.
As Karl approached while gradually slowing his horse, cheers erupted from atop the palisade.
Karl immediately realized that the situation in the Barony of Hilpin was far more serious than he had expected.
It was late at night, far too dark to identify who was approaching.
Yet the moment they saw a group of people running toward them in orderly ranks, they rejoiced without even confirming who they were.
“We are an imperial subjugation force dispatched under His Majesty the Emperor’s orders to exterminate the monsters! Open the gates!”
“O Düren!”
“Praise His Majesty the Emperor for his mercy!”
Some called upon their god, while others cried out toward the emperor with reverence and affection.
The gate in the palisade swung wide open without hesitation.
When Karl rode through atop his dazzling white horse, his red cloak embroidered with the crest of the Imperial Family billowing behind him, cries of hope burst forth.
Catherine, Bilford, and Milton followed on horseback, and behind them came the soldiers, marching in perfect formation with imposing dignity.
There were only thirty-four of them.
Yet the words imperial subjugation force dispatched under the emperor’s orders made them appear like an army of thousands.
“Sir Catherine, let the soldiers rest for a moment.”
“Yes, Lord Karl.”
Catherine ordered the soldiers to rest.
There was no trace of the discontent they had shown even earlier that day. They stood in orderly ranks, set down their packs, planted their great shields and spears firmly on the ground, and slowly caught their breath.
Even during their rest, they did not simply collapse wherever they stood.
Seeing them so alert and filled with military discipline was reassuring in itself.
“Who is in charge here?”
“Y-Yes! I am! Yes!”
At Karl’s booming shout, a white-haired old man hurried out from among the villagers.
He immediately prostrated himself before Karl and bowed his head.
It was a dark night.
Mounted on a massive white horse, wearing a helmet adorned with a red plume and a cloak bearing the imperial crest, Karl’s narrow shoulders and frail face were hidden from sight.
He looked almost like a majestic general.
It was difficult to believe, even after witnessing it firsthand, that such a powerful voice and commanding presence could emerge from such a small body.
“Provide the soldiers with drinking water and food.”
“Yes! Of course!”
Karl first took care of the soldiers who had followed him without complaint despite being dragged out of their sleep.
It was completely different from how he had behaved throughout the journey.
“Are you the village chief?”
“Yes!”
Karl addressed the white-haired old man as his inferior without hesitation and spoke arrogantly without even dismounting.
It was the correct choice.
If Karl climbed down now, his small stature would be exposed. And if he behaved too courteously, the villagers might grow suspicious or begin looking down on him.
“I am Karl Felt Hardion, dispatched under His Majesty the Emperor’s command to exterminate the monsters in the Barony of Hilpin.”
“Gasp!”
Startled murmurs broke out here and there.
But Bilford, who had been quietly standing behind Karl, suddenly swept a fierce glare across the villagers, and everyone immediately fell silent.
To them, the fact that Karl was the sickly Fourth Prince meant nothing.
Most of them did not even know Karl’s name.
But they understood one thing perfectly well.
This noble person bore the name ‘Hardion.’
A member of the Imperial Family had personally come here!
We are saved!
“I want to hear the details.”
“Y-Yes…!”
Unlike moments ago, when he had been crying out in joy, the village chief now trembled and barely managed to force out a reply.
To commoners, the emperor was virtually a god.
It was only proper to fear him.
Karl drew his cloak tightly around himself and lowered his head so that the torchlight would not reveal his small frame and gaunt face, silently listening to the village chief.
Because of that, no one could see Karl’s expression gradually harden.
Bilford and the soldiers were less capable of controlling their expressions, however, and could not entirely conceal their agitation.
The villagers repeatedly interrupted without permission to add details to the village chief’s account.
Thanks to them, Karl was eventually able to piece together the entire picture.
Then he fell silent for a long time.
As Karl remained silent, the people of Stacked Logs Village began trembling with anxiety.
After a lengthy silence, Karl pulled on the reins, turned his horse, and looked toward Catherine.
“Sir Catherine. I would like to hear your opinion.”
Karl continued to address Catherine respectfully.
But his voice was no longer gentle as it had once been.
It was firm, as though he were merely a commander listening to the opinion of his subordinate.
“If the situation is truly that critical, the correct course would be to abandon the village, retreat to the castle, strengthen its defenses, and wait for reinforcements.”
The villagers began murmuring at Catherine’s merciless answer.
She was effectively saying that it did not matter if everyone here died.
“If that were my intention, I would have continued playing the fool. Give me your judgment with the greater situation in mind, not my personal safety.”
Karl proudly raised his chin.
The red plume on his helmet swept backward dramatically, displaying his authority almost like a radiant halo.
“Then we must prevent the gnolls from leaving the forest and scattering. If they escape the forest, the situation will become uncontrollable. We should join the troops already deployed at the front and exterminate the gnolls with the momentum of a wildfire.”
Matching Karl’s imposing presence, Catherine drew the blade of decisive judgment and placed its hilt into his hands.
“Good.”
Karl nodded gravely, then turned his horse once more and looked down at the village chief, who remained prostrate and trembling.
With his face shrouded in shadow, Karl appeared far more imposing than he truly was.
“We will advance toward the forest. If the troops at the front have been isolated for a long period, their supplies must be running low.”
Karl forced his mind to work as hard as possible.
He could simply leave everything to Catherine and get through this without difficulty, but then all his effort until now would have been meaningless.
Recalling the countless pieces of information he had read in the Imperial Archives, Karl continued after a brief pause.
“By the authority of His Majesty the Emperor, I hereby order a levy. Gather men and horses, and load supplies.”
“B-But…!”
Before the startled village chief could say anything more, Catherine rode forward and spoke firmly in a voice that rang like striking steel.
“This is a lawful and legitimate levy ordered by Lord Karl, who bears the authority of His Majesty the Emperor. Move at once.”
Until now, Catherine had remained one step back in accordance with Karl’s intentions.
But now it was time for her to act for her lord as his knight.
At Catherine’s words, terror swept through Stacked Logs Village.
They had just resisted a levy ordered by a member of the Imperial Family acting under the emperor’s command.
The entire village could be slaughtered for such an offense.
“Inhale……. Exhale…….”
Catherine and Bilford pretended not to notice the faint tremor in Karl’s breathing as he sat atop his great horse, looking down at the terrified villagers scrambling about in confusion.
‘I am not Ias.’
Karl muttered inwardly.
‘And these are not the swords and staves of House Beria, backed by an enormous fortune.’
In the original story, Ias had resolved this monster subjugation almost effortlessly with the power of House Beria.
When he returned, he had dismissed it with the words, ‘It was nothing particularly noteworthy.’
This was the mission Emperor Madius had chosen to strengthen Ias’s position in the original story, and Karl’s position now.
Of all the countless matters he could have assigned them, why had Madius chosen something as insignificant as a monster subjugation?
How exactly had he intended to use this to grant them power?
‘I could die.’
A chilling fear ran through Karl.
Here, in the place Madius had pushed him toward, Karl could feel inevitable death slowly lowering a scythe toward his neck beneath the dark night sky.
The Barony of Hilpin was small.
But mere gnolls should never have been capable of threatening it.
Under normal circumstances.
Bilford had reported that two villages near the western forest had been destroyed.
But according to the people of Stacked Logs Village, every nearby village had already fallen, and the survivors had gathered at ‘Axe Sound Village,’ the first settlement on the road from the forest toward Hilpin Castle, where they were barely holding out under siege.
Did that not mean the territory was collapsing so rapidly that the people in the castle had not even properly grasped the situation?
At last, the larger picture emerged.
Maldin and the other nobles of House Hilpin were hiding something.
That was why they had deliberately understated the scale of the gnoll outbreak in their reports.
Perhaps when the first report had been sent, the situation truly had been insignificant.
But now, it had deteriorated to the point where the entire territory seemed to be facing destruction.
And despite that, the nobles of Hilpin had lied even to Karl, a member of the Imperial Family and commander of the emperor’s subjugation force, and tried to keep him from taking action.
Why?
‘Running away would be the correct choice.’
Karl thought coldly.
If survival alone mattered, he should leave this land immediately.
Hilpin Castle was not safe either.
There was the threat of the gnolls, and there was no telling what those sinister bastards who had deceived the Fourth Prince acting under the emperor’s orders might try.
‘But I cannot run.’
Even so, Karl had no choice but to stake his life and dance with death.
If he returned now, he would fail Madius’s test in the worst possible way.
And then he would be as good as dead.
Madius would discard him, and Aingir would eventually purge him after becoming emperor.
No matter where Karl fled or how long he continued running, Aingir would never let him escape.
And Cecile, left behind in the Imperial Palace as a hostage, would not survive either.
Karl had no choice but to move forward.
“W-We are ready….”
Karl looked down at the man who approached and spoke in a servile voice.
“Are you the one responsible for accompanying me?”
“Yes…. I am the captain of the village militia….”
“That is enough. From this moment onward, you are the quartermaster of His Majesty the Emperor’s subjugation force.”
“What? Ah, yes!”
Quartermaster of the emperor’s subjugation force!
At those words, the man’s slumped shoulders immediately began rising with pride.
Karl had no desire to hear the militia captain’s name and burden himself with guilt later.
That was why he cut him off.
Then he gave the man a meaningless title to instill a sense of responsibility.
With a single sentence, Karl turned an insignificant village militia captain into someone responsible for organizing and steadying the ragtag conscripts.
“The soldiers’ packs…….”
Drawing on Han Changin’s military experience, Karl was about to order the soldiers’ packs loaded onto the wagons.
But something felt wrong.
He trailed off and subtly glanced toward Catherine.
Catherine’s firm gaze told him that he should not.
“……The soldiers will continue carrying their packs. Endure it a little longer.”
“Yes!”
The imperial soldiers answered with booming voices.
At some point, they had begun regarding Karl unquestionably as their commander.
“We depart! Open the western gate!”
At Karl’s command, the western gate opened, and Karl slowly rode out at the head of the column.
If he had only the imperial soldiers with him, they could have increased their pace.
But it would be impossible for villagers from a remote rural settlement to march at that speed.
It did not take long for the shabby subjugation force, which contained only a handful of soldiers capable of fighting properly, to leave the village.
They did not have much in the way of supplies either.
Karl was not certain whether it would be enough.
“Sir Catherine, why did you insist that the soldiers carry their packs?”
Once they had left the village, Karl moved his horse slightly closer to Catherine and asked.
Catherine answered firmly.
“One well-trained soldier is worth more than a hundred recruits. If necessary, we must save those soldiers even if it means abandoning every one of the others. When that happens, there will be no time to unload their equipment from the wagons.”
The words were chillingly merciless.
But they were also correct.
Karl slowly nodded, his face somewhat pale.
Catherine watched his profile for a moment before quietly adding,
“And you must never assume that those people are good simply because they are weak. If you entrust your soldiers’ belongings to them, they may search through them and steal valuables, or simply take everything and run.”
“I see. Understood. I will remember that from now on.”
For some reason, Catherine’s additional explanation made Karl feel slightly more at ease.
He found that strange and carefully retraced the change in his emotions.
“Hahaha…….”
Karl lowered his head and laughed softly.
Bilford blinked and cautiously watched him.
“Lord Karl, what is it?”
Bilford asked without thinking.
For a retainer to question every minor action of his lord was a serious breach of etiquette.
Bilford regretted the words the instant he spoke them, recoiled again at Catherine’s sharp glare, and then was startled once more by Karl’s answer.
“I am…. merely laughing at how pathetic I am.”
“…….”
“Sir Catherine, thank you. But you do not need to do that again.”
“I acted unnecessarily. Forgive me.”
“No.”
Bilford could not understand what was happening and merely watched them.
Karl pressed his lips together and stared into the distant darkness, where the moonless blackness made it impossible to see anything.
‘I pitied their lives.’
Karl examined his own heart once more.
‘Catherine realized that, so she gave me a reason not to suffer when they die.’
Catherine had said that merely because those people were weak did not mean they were good.
Then she had spoken of them almost as though they were wicked.
So that if those innocent people were slaughtered because of Karl’s orders, Karl might feel a little less guilty.
Karl already knew what the rational decision was.
That was why he had instinctively hesitated before ordering the soldiers’ packs placed on the wagons.
And yet!
‘Pathetic! I can barely keep myself alive!’
Karl savagely lashed his own weakness.
Sympathy.
Compassion.
Guilt.
Such pleasant words were luxuries permitted only to those who possessed power.
Or to those writhing at the very bottom, preserving their lives through empty self-consolation.
Karl was powerless.
But he had to keep moving forward without stopping.
For him, emotions like these were more than luxuries.
They were sins.
‘The mission is to exterminate the monsters. Nothing else matters.’
Karl fixed his objective firmly in his mind.
Kill the monsters.
Resolve the situation.
Pass Madius’s test and seize the power he offered.
For that purpose, Karl would make as many ruthless decisions as necessary.
The trees gradually grew thicker, and the branches stretching across the road blocked the moonlight.
Karl’s figure advanced deeper and deeper into the darkness until it finally disappeared into the distance.
Once again, he could almost smell blood.