“Go and make sure the local slaves don’t kill everyone. Most of the nobles are guilty, but some decent people might be mixed in. Newly freed individuals are not the best judges of character. They will have a chance to tell their tale before a judge," Leonard ordered, despite how much he would have liked to just raze the noble district and be done with it.
Cleaning up Alpar had been a hassle and a half, and he had personally known everyone there. Doing the same to Thelma would take too long. Luckily, he had people to delegate to now.
Gerard saluted and directed a squad of his men to follow as he marched straight to the demarcation line, where the houses transitioned into villas. Considering the population of Thelma, the space occupied by the nobility was excessive. Large mansions and gardens comprised a third of the town despite belonging to only minor lordlings. Having witnessed the opulence of Mellassoria, the kingdom’s capital, Leonard wasn’t particularly surprised. It was just another instance of the local nobility being out of control.
With a sigh, he turned to his fallen opponent. The half-orc had fought better than he expected. Indeed, she had to have reached the high Expert tier to be able to wield her aura so easily, and yet she had refrained from using powerful skills.
She must have been ordered to fight me with all she had, so she’s either the most lopsided Expert I’ve ever met, or more likely, she found a way to fight against the compulsion.
He observed the dark collar around her neck, looking for evidence to prove his theory. It seemed decently made, strong enough to contain even a fourth blessing warrior, but to his keen eye, it sported signs of burnout.
It wouldn’t have led to breaking any time soon, but it would have failed over the months or even years.
“You must have fought that thing with all you have, huh?” Leonard asked gently once he saw her start to come back.
Before she could answer, he placed a glowing finger against it. Neer flinched, a likely conditioned response to anyone reaching for her collar, but didn’t attack him. She might have been too battered to attempt, but given the willpower she had demonstrated, Leonard thought it likelier she had just decided to allow him to do whatever he wanted.
It’d be better than living under Dandelion De Hoop.
But Leonard’s intention wasn’t to hurt her. Instead, he crafted a thin shield of light around the artifact, being careful not to trigger its failsafe. Once it was complete, he cast a rudimentary implosion spell on it and supplied it with as much mana as needed. It was just a drop in the ocean anyway.
“What are you doing?! Kill him!” A nasal voice interrupted him, though it was too late. With a flick, he activated the magic and watched the dark collar collapse upon itself, its foul energies purged from the world.
Rather stupidly, the Mayor ran up to the still-stunned Neer, ignoring the real danger before him. “Stand up, you stupid bitch! He’s in front of you! Kill him now!”
She blinked incredulously, touching her neck in wonder. She ran a finger along its entire circumference, where the collar had once sat, and chuckled in delight.
That quickly turned into laughter and then full-on cackling.
Neer laughed for an entire minute, rolling on the ground and holding her stomach. Tears fell from her eyes as she kept laughing.
Finally, she stopped. Her once-master still stood there, flummoxed at the sight. All preservation instinct had apparently left him. Neer looked at the man and then at Leonard questioningly.
“Don’t kill him. I have questions I want to ask. He’s all yours after that," he answered with a smile. That seemed enough for the Mayor to finally understand what had happened because all color left his face.
“You can’t do that! I’m a noble of His Majesty’s Court! Even barbarians know this!” He shouted, but it was quickly stopped as a very green hand covered his features.
“We are not barbarians. We are worse,” was Leonard’s answer, and he walked away, signaling for one of the sergeants to keep an eye on the situation.
“Don’t let her hurt him too much, but she should be allowed to release her frustrations.” He murmured, and the man saluted, enthusiastically taking to the task.
I don’t like torture, but revenge is a different thing. That poor woman must have been a slave for the majority of her life to have corroded her collar so much. And she’ll be allowed to bring down the axe when it comes to that.
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Chuckling, Leonard moved towards the docks. He could sense Gerard rounding up the nobles and knew that he could likely get a fight if he took over clean-up duty, but it would feel too much like stealing experience from his men. They’d need it in the future.
Neer was a different matter, as only Amelia and he could have handled her. Gerard and Gareth could have, too, but they’d have risked killing her, and Leonard felt it would have been a waste. Even beyond the sheer disgust the practice of slavery invoked in him, losing someone like her couldn’t be allowed.
Turning his head slightly, he saw Oliver fall into step with him. His squire had come far from the skinny boy who pleaded to be trained. He felt he had made a good choice in accepting him. One day, he would become a pillar for the new society he was starting to build.
“Are they fleeing?” The boy asked, squinting at something in the distance.
Leonard turned and saw that, indeed, some ships were beginning to leave the piers, likely having realized that the battle was lost. “We can’t have that,” he murmured, lifting a hand.
[Stasis] was a spell of the second tier, typically taught to practitioners of Holy Magic to prevent wounded patients from dying.
Leonard used his unending mana to apply it to seven merchant ships.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/hG0ny2y9/persimmon0-seven-merchant-ships-trying-to-flee-from-a-medieval-bd0e855b-470e-4ab3-a57a-5a2eec3e2300.png]
Golden light covered them, from hull to sail, and they stopped in place. No matter that the wind was pushing them to the open seas or the crews were frantically rowing, the ships did not move.
“Well, that’s one way to do it.” Oliver choked out, scratching his head in disbelief.
“It’s not very efficient, but it does the job. Any other spell risked breaking something, and then I would have had to lift the ships from the sea to prevent the crews from drowning. Better to go with a larger expense at first to prevent a later one that’s even more onerous,” Leonard said, slipping into a teaching tone.
His squire nodded, looking a short way from whipping out a pen and paper.
Chuckling, Leonard accelerated his pace, “Let’s see exactly what they felt they needed to keep away from us, eh?”
----------------------------------------
What had pushed the merchants to run away, it turned out, was slaves. Of course, it was slaves.
Hetnia, as a province, had never attracted too much trade and was traditionally only visited as a stop on the way from the southern countries to visit the capital. The Incursion had made it even poorer, which should have kept savvy merchants away, but instead, there had been an influx of ships coming to visit their ports.
They brought a lot of desperately needed supplies, which were well received by all. The only issue was that instead of benevolent saviors - even though no one expected merchants to be such - they had come to exploit the region’s vulnerability.
The only payment the people could give after the price gouging was revealed was flesh. Slaves were sold to foreign buyers in droves as desperate and dispossessed people fled from the Void.
Even now, months after the last crack in the fabric of reality had been sealed, they were still around, looking to take the last scraps before someone else got them.
Merchants from Hammerfest were the worst. Over the centuries, the empire had become one of the major powers in their corner of the world. They fielded an army so powerful that when unleashed, it overcame the Rondon Magocracy in a single month.
Their Bloody Legions had shattered the once vibrant state, leaving behind a smoking, ruined husk. As far as Leonard knew, the remnants of its magical culture survived only in secret gatherings and hidden schools. Rondon’s economy had been redirected to serve the needs of the Hammerfest Empire, primarily in the extraction of resources and forced labor. The once-magnificent magical defenses and towers were dismantled, leaving it vulnerable to potential destruction if its new owner deemed the colony deserving of punishment.
Such a history had made the Hammerfest merchants proud and arrogant. They knew very well that no one aside from Lantea could defeat them. Even the Handriatic Union and the Brander Republic - two countries with significant investments in defense - treaded lightly around Hammerfest.
Leonard didn’t care for any of it. He wouldn’t kill the merchants outright, as that way laid a complete embargo that he could ill afford at the moment, but he wouldn’t allow them to leave with hulls full of his people.
“Do you not understand what will happen once Thoren Splatterskull hears of this?” One of the merchants he had prevented from fleeing ground out, looking one step away from screaming.
It seemed the man had heard enough of his prowess to earn some respect, a privilege reserved only for the strong in his culture. Regrettably, that did not suffice to silence his tongue.
“I understand perfectly well that he won’t like it. I also know that you are such a small gnat before Splatterskull that he will gladly ignore you if it means not drawing my attention away from a domestic campaign. The man is known as a good strategist. He won’t stop me from what he sees as weakening Haylich for good," Leonard explained calmly.
That seemed to do the trick because the assembled merchants before him deflated. While those from Hammerfest were the loudest, they weren’t the only ones complaining that their cargo had been seized unlawfully. Still, his earlier show of might and unconventional response took the wind out of their sails, and he could finally send them away from the quartermaster’s office he had commandeered after taking the docks.
Leonard massaged his temples lightly once they were gone and resisted the urge to chase and run them all through with his sword.
Just as the other countries won’t attack me as long as it looks like I’m only concentrated on the interior, they will have no trouble banding together to destroy an upstart if I begin butchering their merchants. I give myself good odds against any one of them, but fighting them all together is too much even for me. I can’t be everywhere, and the losses of life would be unacceptable. Especially before I take over Haylich.
“Should I send the last merchant away with the others?” Oliver asked from the door, watching him curiously.
“No, no. Send him in. This is the only one who had no slaves, right?” he asked, earning a nod.
Soon, a tall, balding man with a hook nose who held up a pair of silver glasses entered the room. He wore a typical Brander frock, with a cotton overshirt and high boots made of sea-snake leather.
“Grand Marshal, what an honor. Congratulations on your elevation.” The merchant said it with a tone that was so deadpan that Leonard couldn’t be sure if he was sarcastic. “My name is Augustus Milner, and I am a humble captain. How may I assist you?”
“You are the only foreign merchant that didn’t have slaves in your hull, and given that it was reportedly full of timber, you didn’t come here to buy any,” Leonard replied flatly.
Augustus waited patiently for him to continue, but when it became clear Leonard wasn’t interested in saying more, he sighed, “Slavery is outlawed in the Brander Republic. It has been since the Civil War. I have heard you wish to rid Haylich of its blight?”
Leonard could feel the honesty in the man’s aura. That was enough for his aims.
“You’ll do. I have a task for you, my good man. You’ll be rewarded handsomely if you see it through.”
When a greedy gleam appeared in Augustus’ eyes, Leonard smiled.