While Fiel and Oscar cleared the battlefield, I met with the prisoners Viktor had rescued. The prisoners’ condition was poor. They appeared to have suffered from cold and hunger while being dragged around.

But they were foreigners who couldn’t communicate.

"Light a fire first. They’ll die of hypothermia."

"General, do you happen to speak French?"

When the fire was lit, two of them brightened up and warmed themselves, but one man with strangely fierce eyes, alive with intensity, didn’t even think to warm himself by the fire and instead looked at me as he asked. He was a man with an unusual presence about him.

"I do. Where are you from?"

"The two others and I are from Brabant."

"Hold on, did you say Brabant?"

The Brabant I knew was a duchy in the Flanders region. In other words, it was the southern region of what is now the Netherlands, but the problem was that this was Burgundian territory—Beren’s eternal enemy.

"Where is this place?"

"This is Feuzen, which I rule."

"Feuzen... You’re a lord. Forgive my discourtesy."

So he didn’t know where Feuzen was.

Then again, knowing about a small village in an enemy country would have been even stranger.

"This is the Duchy of Beren. You understand what that means, don’t you?"

"To think we crossed all the way into enemy territory. We shouldn’t have gone through Épinay."

"How did a man from Brabant end up being dragged here?"

He was from Brabant, from a family of painters. His uncle was working as a court painter in Burgundy, and he’d been on his way to Dijon to meet him.

Near Épinay, he’d run into the deserter group—now reduced to corpses—and had nearly been killed, but the leader of the group was a fellow Brabantine, so he’d been kept alive and dragged along as a prisoner, doing all kinds of chores.

He’d come all the way to a foreign land and gone through every kind of hardship imaginable.

He didn’t even know where he was.

But there was a chance they were spies, so I checked their information through the Manager Scouter. They weren’t spies, nor were they soldiers. They were definitely Burgundian civilian victims.

They were telling the truth.

"Were you driven down here while fleeing from a suppression force?"

"Until we met you, my lord, we never encountered a proper suppression force."

"Then why did you come down to Feuzen?"

"The weather grew cold, so we headed south without thinking. But internal strife broke out, and the faction that split off went east."

The group had split in two?

I’d thought it was strange that the quest hadn’t been completed.

In the end, I’d have to track them all down and crush them.

"I have witnessed firsthand, while traveling with these men, just how vile a human being can become."

He seemed to express the horrific memories he’d experienced as if he were painting them.

His twisted smile and fierce eyes were extraordinary.

"They mercilessly killed people who begged for their lives, raped women and children, and played instruments and sang songs using their screams as accompaniment. In their behavior, I saw a true purgatory."

"That’s regrettable. But such things happen everywhere."

"That is precisely why human beings are prone to sin. But if we could heed the Lord’s teachings and remain conscious of the gaze of our holy and great God, would such foolish behavior not be corrected?"

Was he not a painter but a devout believer?

He had the unique disposition of pessimism (good).

It was the first time I’d seen the pessimism disposition.

Suddenly invoking the gaze of God—he must have suffered considerable mental shock after directly witnessing the deserters’ war crimes. He looked like someone who had only ever painted in a peaceful village.

Like Winter’s example of changing from compliant to loyalty, this man might have shifted to a pessimistic disposition after being traumatized. From the way he spoke, he seemed to have come to view human nature with deep pessimism.

This man, who had made a deep impression on me with his fierce eyes and his French, said only what he wanted to say and then suddenly collapsed. He’d been putting on a brave front, but his strength must have given out.

Viktor checked on him.

"He’s fainted."

"He’s quite an unusual fellow."

"My lord, what shall we do with these men?"

"We have to take them to Feuzen. We can’t just leave them, can we?"

Although they were Burgundians, they were civilians and not soldiers, so I had them taken to Feuzen for the time being. Then we pursued the rest of the deserters, who had reportedly headed east. After all, tracking is the cavalry’s specialty.

Thud thud thud thud thud!

I searched thoroughly with the Commander Scouter.

I couldn’t miss out on the 5,000 points at stake.

Eeeeeek!

"Burn in hell, you bastards!"

By coincidence, the deserter band was raiding another household. The victims appeared to be free folk. Unlike serfs, free folk can move to other fiefs with the lord’s permission.

To choose this time of all times to relocate and run into a deserter band—what terrible luck.

Fortunately, their luck turned. The Gale Knights, with lances leveled, trampled the armed group that had been preoccupied with plundering. To cavalry, scattered enemies are nothing more than easy prey.

Two men were impaled in the back simultaneously by the lance points, snapping the shafts. I drew the cavalry sword strapped to the saddle, slashing through the faces of the bewildered deserters and stabbing through their throats as I rode past.

I drenched my armor and cavalry sword in blood.

And the quest was complete.

[Guardian of Feuzen I completed]

[5,000 points, 1 gold coin awarded]

[Family Prestige 20 points gained (2,150 points)]

Aah, this is what point-earning is all about.

[Horsemanship Manual Stage 2 Complete]

[1,000 points, 1 silver coin awarded]

[Stage 3 Training Quest started]

[Mounted Combat Manual Stage 2 Complete]

[1,000 points, 1 silver coin awarded]

[Stage 3 Training Quest started]

These two manuals had finally moved on to Stage 3.

I’d earned a whopping 7,000 points by suppressing the deserters.

Ah, this is the joy of doing quests. I’d have to take my time browsing the shop when I got back.

While Anton went to bring the soldiers, I received words of gratitude from the elder who served as the free folk’s representative. They were said to be a beekeeping family from a village in Euz called Murbach.

"How did you come from Murbach all the way to Feuzen?"

"We were leaving Euz to seek out relatives in Breisburg. We had no idea those bandits would appear. My daughter-in-law and younger son died, but it’s all fate."

The elder gazed sorrowfully at his now-cold son and daughter-in-law. Sadly, he hadn’t been able to protect his entire family. There was nothing to do but pray for them to find rest on Resurrection Day.

So I asked why they were heading to Breisburg at this time of year.

The elder hesitated briefly, then gave an answer that planted concern in me.

"The Lord of Murbach raised taxes to eighty percent?"

"Yes. On top of that, he was pressuring us to pay a war tax. It was unbearable. Since we’re free folk, we planned to legally settle in another fief, but the Lord of Murbach wouldn’t grant permission."

So they had taken advantage of a moment of lax surveillance and successfully made their nighttime escape.

But by ill luck, they ran into the deserter band, and by good fortune, they were rescued.

"A war tax. Could war be about to break out in Euz again?"

"I’m not sure, but the atmosphere did seem dangerous."

Count Euz had once asked me to come to his aid if anything ever happened within Euz. The day I’d have to keep that promise might come sooner than expected.

"How about settling in Feuzen?"

"Feuzen?"

"What kind of work could a beekeeping family do in Breisburg? Feuzen happens to be lacking in apiaries, and if your family settles here, you’ll be well treated."

The elder thought it over and chose to secure his family’s safety under a powerful lord—his savior—who would protect his people. For me, it was an unexpected windfall.

If I could settle craftsman families this way, Feuzen could develop even further.

The problem was the situation in the north.

Something serious was unfolding beyond Feuzen.