Side Story 32. Anemone Smiled Brightly (8)

I pointed to the count's castle and said, "Let's have lunch over there today."

Doomstone readily nodded. "Then we should bring the owner of the house along, right? Hmm, should I leave those knights and soldiers behind?"

The knights seemed more dead than alive and seemed like it would be difficult for them to hold a sword moving forward, while the soldiers seemed to have fainted from the impact.

At my concern, Doomstone grabbed the count by the collar, who’d turned into an idiot, and said, "No. I can take them all."

"Are you going to tie them up with a rope and drag them?”

If you estimated that an adult weighed 60 kilograms, with 21 people, it would weigh 1,260 kilograms in total. I don’t know about the soldiers, but the knights who went around with the fat count were trained enough to walk around casually in those heavy armors. I didn't think they’d be only 60 kilograms, so wouldn't it be more than 1.5 tons?

"Well, you don't seem like you’d have trouble dragging them, but we don't have a rope.” I voice my concern.

I thought it wouldn’t be impossible for a Crow to drag them. But just now, the city residents screamed and ran away, so I don't know if they would sell ropes.

Doomstone smiled casually and said, "It's okay. I don't need a rope or anything."

He proudly and confidently bragged and put a leg of the count on a knight sprawled out nearby. Then, the knight, who seemed more dead than alive got dragged along as if he were attached to the count's leg.

"What’s this?"

"Catching a Gecko. It's a secret Enlightenment technique of my village. If you use this, you can even walk around the walls and the ceiling.”

After briefly explaining, Doomstone lightly connected the count and soldiers, just as if sticking magnets together.

"Isn't it heavy?" I was surprised and asked.

Doomstone looked curiously. "Heavy? It's only 1.6 tons? This is the perfect weight for a 10-year-old’s errand.”

His tone seemed like he was speaking common sense sans even a bit of lie.

Just what kind of people are the Crows?

"Ah, is it a little difficult for a 10-year-old to lift it completely? But it's okay because a demon’s skin wouldn’t get damaged from just dragging it.”

Is the precious demon’s skin being used as an errand basket?

"Okay! Let's go!"

Doomstone grabbed the count's tattered collar and headed to the latter's castle. I smiled and walked side by side with him.

-o-

Arriving in front of the count's castle, I smiled at the soldier guarding the gate and waved my hand lightly. "Hello. We came by with an invitation."

The guard freaked out and blew a horn to announce an emergency.

Bbooo-!!

Aigoo, it's so loud.

I frowned and covered my ears, and Doomstone quickly stole the horn.

"It's not a nice sound to hear."

The soldier, whose horn was taken away, shouted in a frightened voice, "What, what did you do Count-nim?!"

"Uh… Ugh..." The count groaned, recognizing that he was called.

I shrugged at the soldier’s question and said, "Ayy, I told you. We were invited. Right, Count-nim?”

"Uhh… Uahhh…!”

"See? Count-nim says the same thing."

At my sly words, the soldier looked at me with an exasperated face. I didn't care about the gaze and pretended to listen to the count.

"Oh my! Count-nim, what did you say? Hurry up and open the door and treat us well!? We are so thankful! You heard that, right? Please open the door."

"When did Cou-Count-nim say that?! Isn’t it you who made Count-nim like this?!” The soldier grabbed the spear with his trembling hands. He swung it threateningly, but in reality, he was terrified and had tears in his eyes.

Well, it wasn’t strange to be frightened since besides the 15 soldiers, all five knights had their heavy armors destroyed and were beaten bloody. In addition, the fact that the count was made like this meant that they didn't care about this anymore than an ant's eye booger.

I shed tears at the soldier's cry and spoke pitifully, "Huk, huk, you don't believe me. We were just invited."

"I, I, I don't believe you! You, you witch!"

A witch? That's too mean.

"Really? Then we'll open it ourselves and go in."

At my words, Doomstone gently touched the huge gate.

Bang-!

Doomstone's arm was not even moving, but the gate was completely destroyed. He looked at his hand that touched the gate, clenched his fist, and opened it repeatedly.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Doomstone smiled. "No, I just think I understand what it’s like to control my strength. It's quite difficult."

"Really? That's good. Shall we go in?”

When I crossed my arms with Doomstone's arms, he blushed and coughed dryly.

"Ahem! Yeah."

Haha, how cute!

By the way, such a nice forearm muscle.

How solid!

The soldier, who was guarding the door, collapsed without even thinking of blocking us. As I entered the castle, I saw soldiers and knights running towards us.

At a glance, there were 300 knights, close to 1,000 soldiers. There were fewer knights than I thought and a decent amount of soldiers. It seemed that his financial situation was not quite good.

"Count-nim!"

"This villain! Let go of Count-nim!"

The knights pulled out their swords one by one. Doomstone abandoned the count and blocked in front of me with a cheerful laugh.

"Ahahaha! This is hardly any fighting spirit! This is how you release killing intent!"

I didn't know what happened, but the air shook for a moment, and the soldiers in front of the knights fainted with bubbles foaming in their mouths. The knights also stepped back a few steps with tired faces.

"What kind of killing intent is this?"

"Who are you?! How can you have killing intent like this?!"

"How many lives did you have to kill to have killing intent like this…?!”

Doomstone smacked his lips as if he didn't like the reactions of the knights.

"Your reaction is very different from that hyung-ssi. At this level, that hyung-ssi could handle it by himself."

He deliberately did not say Glont ahjussi's name.

I smiled and spoke as a matter of fact. "I told you. He’s one of the best in the Empire. They're probably much better than the knights from the central region.

The central part of the Empire was the most peaceful land in the Empire. There were not many monsters, let alone demons, and few people starved because of fertile land. On the other hand, the northern part was adjacent to the Alps, which was a heaven for monsters, as well as Olympus Forest, which was like heaven for demons. The demons did not come out of Olympus Forest often, but the northern men had to be strong.

Doomstone sighed as if he was really disappointed by my answer.

"Really…?"

I hit the mound because my drooping shoulders were cute.

"Cheer up. There are not many strong people who can be your opponent one-on-one, but you can enjoy it if it's against a large number of people.”

"Is that so? I guess!"

Back in his spirits, Doomstone clenched his fist.

I spoke, pointing to knights who were wary and not approaching recklessly, "Well, first, there are people to practice against in front of you." They couldn't run away and leave the count behind anyway.

Knights who abandoned their lord would no longer be knights. There was no way that those who were well-versed as the Count's force would face the punishment of having work far from honor as mercenaries and adventurers.

"We have more people! Let's defeat the villain and save Count-nim!"

As expected, the knights strengthened their determination and instilled mana into their swords. Among them, a competent knight overlaid a weak sword aura on his sword. Although I am also a noble, most nobles could not abandon their natural privileges. How pathetic.

It was pathetic that a knight couldn’t even abandon his privileges while speaking of protecting someone. As the knights were determined, Doomstone smiled broadly contentedly and jumped between the knights with a strong aura around his arms.

The scene was like a wolf, or dragon, between sheep. He was literally trampling them.

-o-

From the watchtower located at the top of the castle, he looked at the sunset falling below the horizon, savoring low alcohol wine.

"Wow, it's beautiful. The sunset from the top of Olympus Mountain was also cool, but it's comparable to that." Doomstone continued to exclaim as he drank wine with the entire oak bottle at his side.

It was so beautiful to see the golden wheat fields spreading out of the city waving in the wind and colored the red of the sunset.

"Delicious dishes and wine, pleasant breeze, beautiful scenery, everything is good.”

The cook that the count had was quite good. The wines in the wine storage were all famous wines.

"Is it okay for us to be so relaxed in the count's castle?” Doomstone sighed quietly, perhaps feeling a little guilty.

"It's okay. The soldiers are scared, so they don’t even dare to fight."

We roughly placed the half-dead count in his room. The 300 knights that were smashed by Doomstone were sent to the temple, so if they were lucky, they would be able to hold a spoon again.

I smiled and went through all the documents, including the count's accounting books. There were quite a few useful documents. It was pathetic to see how incompetent the count was, going into a deficit with these good things.

"Hmm, is it ok that we’re taking all the treasures and money we have in this bag?”

After we left, Doomstone seemed to be worried that the count might plunder the people of the territory.

I smiled lightly at his concerns and said, "It's okay. Considering the state the count is in, he probably won’t be getting up for a few years, not a few days, and I left the minimum funds to operate the territory. And you can't raise taxes recklessly just because you're a lord.”

"Huh? But my grandfather says that people like lords are bad guys who rob at will?"

"That was 120 years ago, not now." I folded napkins to make a large castle and a small castle and put them on the table. "It’d be long to explain in detail, so in short, as the current emperor, the Blood Emperor, took power, he tried to centralize the power around the imperial family. The most important thing in centralization of power is to weaken the power of the lords in the provinces."

I then pressed down on the small castles one by one and continued to explain. "If the power in the provinces is strong, centralization will not be possible. Tax reform was the most damaging way to weaken them. It fixed the national tax rate and made most of it head to the national treasury and imperial family. Naturally, the nobles, especially the lords, protested greatly, and the emperor purged them. At that time, he killed so many that the emperor's nickname became the Blood Emperor.”

So our family and several other families began to operate markets because the money earned by the nobles themselves was not subject to tax reform.

"Oh… Is that so?"

He didn't seem to understand at all.

"In short, the emperor prevented the raising of taxes."

"Oh! Really? Then the emperor is a good person!"

I smiled bitterly at Doomstone's simple conclusion. "He’s not a good person, but in the end, it was a good thing. At least he doesn't commit tyranny except to maintain his power."

For now, he was good, but we shall see if it stays the same after achieving the perfect imperial power.