"Fire!"
Kaboom! Boom!
Fire erupted from twelve muzzles. The bronze cannons lurched backward from the tremendous recoil, and the artillerymen gripping the mounts held on for dear life. The stone shot slammed into the upper walls, shattering and scattering fragments in every direction.
And those fragments rained down on the unsuspecting defenders. Men struck by stone shrapnel and crushed beyond recognition were a common sight.
The defenders howled in agony, crying out to the Lord and to their families as they died. And in the middle of all this, the lord of the city thought of nothing but saving his own skin. You’re worth less than the men who just died for you.
Crack! Crunch!
Craaack!
Kaboom!
It didn’t take long for the morale of the defenders, experiencing bombardment for the first time in their lives, to break. By the second volley, a tower had collapsed and flames were shooting up everywhere.
When only one side has cannons, this is what happens: a one-sided beating delivered from beyond your reach. That’s why they say the only answer to cannons is more cannons.
"Crude, heavy fireworks. Same as always."
"Doesn’t look like they have much left in them."
"Hm? Is that a white flag?"
By the time the third volley ended and the walls were in tatters, a white flag went up. Schneider, who had been warming up the cannons for another round, clicked his tongue in disappointment at the sight. Only thirty-six rounds of stone shot, and it was already over?
The walls hadn’t fallen, but stripping them of their defensive function was enough. They had taken considerable damage, so repairs would cost a fortune. Not my money, so not my problem.
Once again, I rode out as our representative, up near the walls.
Mont Blanc cut a gallant figure, as always.
"Lord of Schafen! Are you ready to surrender now?"
"My apologies, but the lord is not here."
"Fled, has he? Are you the garrison commander?"
The garrison commander had braced himself for me to fly into a rage, so my easygoing question caught him off guard instead. The surviving defenders stared at me in terror. They were already broken.
If they had poured the money they earned running this port city into its defenses instead of into luxuries, they would have given us real trouble. But that is exactly what greedy men never do.
"Your lord has fled. Will you keep resisting, or will you surrender?"
"W-we surrender! But please, I beg you, do not sack the city!"
"This is a royal demesne of the Altringen crown. That will not happen."
We had come to exterminate the vermin gnawing away at the crown’s property. If we plundered that property ourselves, it would defeat the entire purpose. And to any observer, it would look as though I had manufactured a pretext just to sack a wealthy city.
"I’m glad it ended with so few losses on our side, but it isn’t really over if the lord got away."
"I sent troops toward the harbor without the enemy noticing."
"So that’s why your men were heading north. They only made it look that way, then circled around."
"The garrison was so small that the deception worked."
"Fair enough. Every defender’s eyes would have been glued to the Gale Knight."
At times like this, having a name really pays off. I make excellent bait, and the enemy never even noticed the obvious trick. I wondered whether the fleeing lord had run into Drek at the harbor by now.
"Absolutely no plundering. You know that, right?"
"Of course I banned plundering. But you know how it is, don’t you?"
There’s no way the soldiers will actually obey. That was the unspoken end of Michael’s sentence, and it seemed he intended to tolerate a certain amount of misbehavior. It left a bitter taste, but this is reality, and this is a medieval army.
Still, it beats mass plunder and slaughter. If that ever happened, I might be genuinely disappointed in Michael. A port city that had known peace for so long now lay defenseless.
[Child of the Magnolia I Quest]
[Arrest the administrator of Schafen]
[Reward - 1,000 points, 10 silver coins]
A quest was generated. Hm, I suppose the System doesn’t even count a small battle like this as a war. There isn’t even a danger rating. But stingy reward aside, the quest itself was intriguing.
Child of the Magnolia? And the administrator?
I had assumed capturing the Lord of Schafen was the priority, but was there something special about this city’s administrator? An administrator would normally be at city hall, but with a battle having just taken place, there was no way to be sure.
"Eeeek! Help me!"
"You invaders! Aagh!"
Some were already out plundering.
So much for the ban. At my signal, my men hauled out the duchy soldiers who had barged into a house, ready to help themselves to the women and valuables without a moment’s hesitation. The soldiers looked deeply aggrieved.
"I believe the Inspector General of the Military Department banned plundering?"
"Baron, plunder is our rightful due!"
"If this were some other territory, I wouldn’t have bothered stopping you. But this is a royal demesne. You are trying to rob the crown of its own property. Will it take a noose at the gallows to knock some sense into you?"
Large-scale plundering never broke out, but wherever we found them, we rounded up every last one of the sneaks committing outrages like this. They grumbled, but most were ignorant fools who didn’t even know what a royal demesne was.
Michael apparently tried to curb it too, though he looked the other way for most of it.
At least it stopped at stolen valuables. Small mercies.
I don’t know whether this counts as fortunate, but I could never forget the horrors visited on Boeven and the County of Baschurten, once vassal territories of Euz, or the countless villages that went up in flames.
If a civil war was this bad, an invading foreign army would have been far more gruesome.
The scattered plundering in Schafen was truly nothing by comparison.
Fighting down the bitterness, I soon entered the plaza. Around it, the Schafen church, city hall, several shopping streets, and a market clustered in a rough circle. The classic layout of a medieval plaza.
The guards protecting city hall trembled like leaves as they cleared a path for me. I had no particular business at city hall itself, so I asked the guard captain where the administrator was.
The captain seemed puzzled that I was looking for the administrator rather than the lord.
"I-I don’t really know either. P-perhaps he’s at his residence?"
"Can you guide me there?"
"I’ll assign one of my men to you!"
This time it was his men whose faces turned ashen. Having to personally escort the supreme commander of an occupying army must be a terrifying position to be in. I left some troops with Beort and ordered him to secure city hall completely.
Before I set out, Beort asked:
"Um, Baron. Is there something special about the administrator of Schafen?"
"Who knows. He might be holding something we’d never expect."
The quest gave me room to speculate, but I couldn’t be certain of anything.
Not the Lord of Schafen, but the administrator, of all people. Beort thought catching the lord should be the priority, but that was Drek’s job to handle.
"But if Sir Drek fails..."
"I’m the one who gave the order. If Sir Drek fails, the responsibility falls on me."
I don’t shift blame onto my subordinates.
That was a lesson learned through long experience, my office days included. The world is full of people who give the orders themselves, then dump all the blame on their subordinates when things go wrong.
At the very least, I refuse to be that kind of superior.
Beort seemed genuinely moved.
"There truly is so much to learn from you, Baron."
"All of it earned through experience. The day will come when you pass on lessons of your own."
"I’ll take that to heart."
Trusting your subordinates and delegating to them mattered too.
I can’t do everything myself.