Successfully taking over Lamprey Port should have been a joyous moment for Leonard, but he couldn’t wholly tamp down on his disappointment at how easy it had been.
Oh, he was glad that fewer than a hundred of his men had died. It made it possible to [Resurrect] almost all of them before their souls dispersed.
But he had hoped that a town this size could muster some decent opponent. It was an irrational thought, one he was doing his best to keep hidden, but the terrible rage he kept buried deep inside demanded to be let out.
Leonard wanted someone who could take what he could dish. It wouldn’t bring Belinda back, but it would let him breathe freely for the first time since her death. Keeping that dark emotion buried beneath countless layers of willpower was draining. He had almost snapped at Amelia for taking the Tower Master for herself, but apparently, the old man was a disappointment.
Not yet. Not yet. He crooned at the caged beast even as it snapped at the air, agitated. The time will come.
When?! When?! It shouted back, all teeth and fury. Oh, it would be glorious to unleash it. But it wasn’t the time yet.
It will come. Patience will enhance the flavor. A deeper, older voice rumbled. It was something Leonard knew intimately. The emotion kept him alive after being summoned into a new world. What kept him warm as he despaired over his sister, brother, mother, and father. It was what grew watching the senseless suffering that was imposed upon this world’s residents by the upper classes.
Leonard kept many secrets buried within his heart. He thought, one day, that he could share them with Belinda. He had even begun to rely on her, and she hadn’t buckled under the weight. She had helped him heal.
But now she was gone, and that old, terrible creature was back. And he had no intention of suppressing it. No, they were allies now.
“Is everything ok?” Oliver asked from his desk, sounding worried, and Leonard realized he must have been staring at nothing for too long.
Forcing humanity back into his features, he smiled at the boy reassuringly, “Yes, just thinking about everything we must deal with before we can resume marching. Our supply lines are strong enough for the moment, but they need to keep increasing steadily if we want to take the entire duchy before Count Pollus gets enough support from the capital to halt our progress.”
Oliver nodded, scratching at the back of his crimson hair. “The land around Lamprey Port is much more fertile than what we have east. There are already some farms around here, and we can expand them easily with the mages we have. It won’t be the same as having the Arborists do it, but any decent Journeyman can cast [Plant Growth].”
He’s grown. The old Oliver would have said to just rush to Treon and take what we need from the conquered towns, but he now knows that wouldn’t serve our purposes.
Now fully back to himself, Leonard smiled, “That is a good idea. Write it down, and we’ll discuss it during the council later. We’ll need some adjustments, and I already know Lia will insist that a portion of the alchemists be ordered to prepare fertilizers and nutrient replenishers so that we don’t dry out the land. Still, I don’t see why we can’t begin setting up this kind of operation now that we have access to arable space.”
He had already spoken about it with Lia, but there was no need to discourage Oliver. Light knew they’d need thinking minds and new ideas in the future.
“I’ll do that then,” Oliver answered, and his smile was genuine enough to chase the bitterness away.
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“Oh, thank you, m’Lor- Grand Marshal.” An aged farmer said, and Leonard had heard the same mistake enough by now to know it was better to pretend he hadn’t noticed the slip-up.
Much like in Alpar and Thelma, Lamprey Port's lower classes were made up of hardy people. Once they got over their initial fright of their lands being overrun and saw that the town wasn’t in ruin and the enemy soldiers weren’t looting it for all it was worth - and hadn’t stopping that been a pain - they timidly emerged from their houses and began testing the waters.
After the first few encounters turned out surprisingly well, with soldiers directing them away from the upper district where the cleaning operations were ongoing but made no other move to harm anyone, they started returning to work.
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These people knew that no matter what happened, if the world didn’t end, they still needed to open their shops, work their crafts, and throw the nets if they wanted to eat.
Luckily, this was precisely what Leonard wanted them to do. So, after finishing the innumerable meetings needed to set up a local government that could handle the day-to-day issues, he left the commandeered harbormaster’s office and went about showing his face to the people now under his aegis.
It had worked well in Thelma, but he was conscious that Lia and Amelia had influence there that he lacked here, and so he had been ready to put in the work to show the people he was worth their trust.
Watching the bowing man, one wouldn’t be remiss to think he was simply achieving respect through fear rather than gratitude and admiration, but that wasn’t the whole truth.
Yes, the people were afraid of what he could do to them. Who wouldn’t be after he had overpowered century-old wards with the ease of a child breaking a toy?
But they also thanked him genuinely. The freed slaves, of course, all but threw themselves at his feet whenever they caught a glimpse of him, but most of them - those who weren’t injured enough to require specialized care after years, if not decades of hard labor - had eagerly rushed to where the Army set up recruitment booths, offering the newly freed men a good pay, training and the promise of revenge.
That was enough for almost all of those who could pick up a weapon to want to join.
One day, we’ll have to start rejecting some of them. We’ll raise the standards and slowly filter out those not suited for the fighting we’ll see in the next few years. But for the moment, we need all of them, and I don’t have the heart to deny them their rightful revenge.
“Grand Marshal!” A soldier came running, interrupting the grateful workers crowding Leonard.
The man stopped before him, back ramrod straight and breath even. It was a testament to Gerard’s teachings that even Apprentices like this man had such high physical attributes.
After a gesture, the soldier began his report, “We have completed the operations in the upper district! General Doomspear has requested your presence as soon as possible to open the hidden caches.”
Ah, Leonard had been waiting for that. It had taken Gareth’s forces a surprising amount of time to go through all the manors and the Tower, but he hadn’t seen the need to hurry them. The Army needed time to absorb the new recruits anyway, and preparing for the next operations required a few more days.
He would have stepped in should they have taken too long, but they did well without his help.
Looking at the men standing before him in one of the minor market squares, Leonard decided to leave them with something. They already felt better with his assurances that their right to work and trade freely would be protected. But if he wanted enthusiastic citizens and not only subjects, he needed something more than that. Especially if they were to contribute to the war effort.
He swept his gaze among the mass of people who were staring at him. Some with curiosity, some with fear, and more with expectation. Men and women, humans and hobgoblins. There was even the odd half-elf among them, though they managed to blend in well enough that he doubted their identity was known.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/RZkqJgqz/persimmon0-handsome-muscular-medium-short-length-hair-blonde-he-60258d33-2dc3-4699-9277-d9f0a3439d3b.png]
“This is a time of great change. Society as you know it has collapsed, and from its ashes, a new, fairer system will take its place. But we need to nurture it. We need to defend it until it can stand on its own. My men and I will serve as its shield. But we need you to cradle it. To feed it. For that, the fruits you’ll reap will be greater than you can imagine!” He let a tiny portion of his aura slip towards the end. It was a useful tactic he had picked up from the generals of the Kingdom’s Army, who used it to impress upon their soldiers how important a task was.
Leonard had repurposed the ability to become a tool of inspiration. It wouldn’t affect minds directly, but it lent a gravitas to his words, meaning the people would take him more seriously than they would without.
With that, as the people began to cheer and shout that they’d do their part, he swept away, and the young soldier sent to collect him snapped out of the daze he had fallen into and scrambled to join him.
The walk up to the more affluent part of town showed that for all that Lamprey Port was a wealthy place, it suffered from the same sickness that touched Alpar and Thelma.
It’s the fruit of oligarchy. Wealth accumulates at the top, especially when inherited and not earned, which means it will remain stagnant.
The town didn’t have slums on the same level as Alpar, not having suffered a comparable influx of refugees, but it still became noticeably nicer as he kept walking away from the working districts.
During the past few days, Leonard had been too busy pacifying the last few remnants of the old order and putting his army back on its feet to explore, so he entered the aristocratic part of town for the first time.
The houses here were built with an eye for beauty in mind. Large gardens filled with exotic plants - a luxury possible only thanks to Lamprey Port’s positioning along the southern trade routes - and marble statues. Gated entrances made of enchanted iron, capable of withstanding a [Fireball] from a Journeyman without a scratch. Sparkling fountains.
The excesses weren’t as bad as Mellassoria’s, but few places in history ever got close to that monstrosity. Still, Lamprey Port’s aristocrats had grown fat and happy with their stranglehold over the mercantile trade to the east and had spared no penny to show it.
When he finally arrived at the Tower, located in the district's center, Leonard understood why it had taken Gareth so long.
The spire was truly massive for such a small settlement. It wasn’t even its height that allowed it to loom over the rest of the town, but its width made it a nightmare to parse through.
Each floor was large enough for four dozen rooms. Considering that it had twenty floors, Gareth’s team had to look through almost a thousand rooms regularly used by mages, which meant bizarre artifacts spread everywhere, alongside magical defenses and the possibility of triggering traps on every floor.
The man he had lumped the task upon waited for him at the bottom of the building. In his defense, he didn’t look particularly annoyed, but that might have been because he was finally done.
Gareth’s transformation from drunkard to driven knight surprised everyone who saw him, but Leonard wouldn’t have expected anything else. He was a man who needed a purpose, and there couldn’t be a greater one than revenge against the very system that had led him to despair.
“Good, you’re here. We waited to crack open the vault because I have no idea what the Silver Wind might have hidden in the scheme, and Lady Barks has successfully avoided me so far.”
“I think she just wants to avoid having to take responsibility for turning the Tower Master into dust before we could learn anything from him,” Leonard joked, earning a chuckle.