“So… will you choose him?”
“If nothing else happens,” Roland said with a smile, “he was the first one who took the initiative to ask by himself, the subjective initiative has always been the most important quality of the employees. Furthermore, I would never expected that there would be someone within the five families who is so well versed in the field of administration and trade. I have thought that they would only know how to ride and kill.”
When he found the name of Petrov Hull on the list, he gently scratched a circle around him.
When he had talked to all of the five noble families, Roland felt slightly relieved.
When he leaned back into the chair, Nightingale took the initiative to step behind him, putting both her hands on his shoulders and began to massage them.
From the moment of defeating the Duke, up until he had taken over the Lord’s Castle, had needed merely one day.
Things were going much smoother than he had initially thought, the moment after the Duke had died, most of the people had chosen to surrender. For mercenaries, it was more usual to change their sides during the war, so they just kneeled on the ground, saying that they were willing to fight for the prince.
So the mercenaries became responsible for guarding over the surrendered knights and nobles, while the First Army was responsible for guarding the mercenaries. Like this, the big group moved further towards to the east, and in the afternoon at 3 p.m. they finally arrived at Longsong Stronghold. When the guards saw the head of the dead Duke and the other captured nobles, they had immediately opened the gate, letting the 4th Prince into the city.
Roland didn’t wait until all the nobles were gathered, giving them the chance to welcome him with great fanfare and to declare him as new City Lord, instead he immediately left for the Lord’s Castle.
The castle was placed in the middle of the city and looked like a city within the city. When he entered the castle area a small skirmish broke out, Nightingale had to use an explosion cachet to blow open the entrance to the flower garden. Within the garden, more than twenty guards loyal to the old Duke tried to stop Roland from stepping in, but they all were quickly killed by the First Army. However the guards had still been able to use their hand crossbows, resulting in five injuries of which two had been seriously injured, fortunately Nana had come along with the military operation and had quickly been able to heal them.
In the meantime, ten personal guards used this opportunity to take the rest of the Duke’s family to flee through the backdoor, but they were still spotted by Lightning and were captured soon afterwards. The Duke’s wife and her two sons hands were tied and were waiting to be judged — even now they were still in the dark, ignorant of the fact that the Duke had been defeated.
When Roland gained control over the Lord’s Castle, Border Town’s First Army immediately swarmed out and took over the castle district. When comparing the Lord’s Castle in Longsong Stronghold with the castle in Border Town, Roland had to admit that the stronghold’s castle had a much more magnificent shape. It had a hexagonal outline with six watchtowers on its wall, and a five-story high tower in the middle — during this era it was really rare to build places that were this high. Within the castle grounds, there were also the residences of the castle’s inhabitants, warehouses, stables and everything else they needed, the Duke even had his own personal prison under the castle’s basement.
He put the valuable prisoners like the Duke’s family into this exact prison, the civilians were all freed, while the mercenaries had their weapons confiscated and placed into the castle garden or it’s free rooms. At the same time he also picked out some leaders and paid them to keep watch themselves — in Roland’s eyes, the Northern Slope Mine would be the best destination for these opportunistic people, but at the moment he still had more important things he had to do.
Until now, he had still to do the most important task after a battle — which was commonly known as looting the corpse.
