Poor or Rich

"Rabblе." Richard, standing atop the carriage, gave his assessment after losing the chance to throw a third spear.

The barbarians wanted to continue pursuing the routed Gnolls, but their path was blocked. Two rows of Hobgoblin spearmen stood across the road, firmly holding their ground without any intention of giving a single step.

During the chaotic charge just now, the Hobgoblins who had kept their formation had fallen behind. Now that the army ahead had completely collapsed, they had instead become the only lucky survivors.

A well-trained spear formation possessed immense power and could easily slaughter a rabble several times its own number. Even against cavalry, the kings of land warfare, it was not without a fighting chance.

The Hobgoblins' spear formation was clearly one of those—although their weapons were crude and their physiques were not particularly strong. Still, one look at their orderly ranks, calm eyes, and silent soldiers was enough.

No one was arrogant enough to think they were just for show.

Faced with such a grim formation, the barbarians stopped twenty paces away and raised their spears in unison.

The next moment, they hurled them all at once.

"How were the casualties?"

Richard could see his soldiers' losses directly through the System Panel, but he still had to ask.

"Only a few brothers got some minor scrapes." A small battle like this was the best possible warm-up for Gunther. He was far more spirited now than he had been in Corun City.

The barbarians had defeated twice their number of enemies without suffering a single death. Even Gunther himself found the outcome surprising.

Whether in physique or discipline, the Highland Barbarians were only slightly superior. They were nowhere near overwhelmingly better in every respect. The main reason for such a vast disparity in losses was the enormous gap in equipment.

Steel spears and javelins with leather armor would only count as mercenary gear by human standards, hardly worth mentioning. But to Wildlanders who still used wooden clubs, they were unimaginable divine weapons.

Richard looked over the corpses strewn across the ground and sighed deeply. Once again, reality proved that war was about money. That truth held firm everywhere.

"Chief, look what we found!"

Some barbarians with too much time on their hands had actually started searching the impoverished bandits for loot. Even more unexpectedly, they had really found something.

"A bronze sword!"

The watching barbarians burst into unrestrained laughter. Even the Highland Barbarian tribes that had lived on the snowfields for generations had entered the Iron Age long ago.

Richard took the greatsword, whose design differed completely from modern weapons, and recognized it as the weapon of that unfortunate Hobgoblin officer.

He turned the sword over in his hands and studied it carefully, then could scarcely believe his eyes. "Good heavens! He was begging with a golden bowl in his hands. Olive-leaf patterns, a color almost like pure gold—this is a bronze artifact from Nero's era!"

It was difficult to imagine that an antique which ought to have sat in a collection room, admired by antiquarians, was still serving as a practical weapon somewhere in this world.

Gunther immediately doubled over laughing—he had no idea what his chief was talking about, but that did not stop him from heartily mocking his defeated foe.

"It's worth even more than the same weight in silver. At Koren Antique Market, it would fetch at least a hundred gold coins."

Richard did not know how to judge this Hobgoblin. Poverty and wealth, two utterly contradictory traits, had blended together strangely in him.

When the watching barbarians heard that a broken bronze sword was worth a hundred gold coins, they immediately crowded forward to get a closer look. Richard rewarded each of them with a kick and sent them all flying aside.

"Chief, he's got an armguard on his arm too."

Gunther had sharp eyes. He bent down and tore open the tattered scraps of clothing. A metal armguard was clasped around the Hobgoblin's bluish-gray arm, bearing the same olive-leaf pattern and the same nearly pure-gold color.

This Hobgoblin officer might have been the only person in the bandit gang with protective gear. Unfortunately, the armguard had been useless when it mattered. A javelin had pierced straight through his chest, turning his ribs and organs into a mangled mess of flesh and cleanly claiming the poor bastard's life.

Richard examined it in his hand for a moment, then smiled helplessly. "This guy was diligent, too."

The Hobgoblin officer had clearly maintained the proper habits of a swordsman while alive and cherished his equipment. Whether it was the greatsword or the armguard, he had maintained them as best he could despite his limited circumstances. Beneath the verdigris accumulated over countless years, their original bright metallic sheen had emerged.

Unfortunately, that kind of maintenance was irreparable damage to an antique's historical value. The two items together could originally have sold for three hundred gold coins without issue. Now, they were worth no more than one hundred and fifty.

"All right, that's still a good profit."

He suddenly felt that life was rather strange. Southern Province was famous for its prosperity, yet it had taken him ten years there to save a hundred gold coins. The wilderness was universally acknowledged as a barren backwater, but in just one day here, he had earned ten years' worth of savings.

Richard had the two bronze artifacts put away. He still owed more than a thousand gold coins and had no intention of letting even the smallest windfall slip away.

"Um, Chief." One of the barbarians suddenly called out to Richard, looking unusually awkward.

"Yes?"

"I think... I think I can feel the effects of that drug." He looked down at his hands, his face full of confusion.

The barbarians who had just dispersed immediately gathered around again.

Honestly, if they were being fair, neither he nor the other barbarians believed that what they had swallowed was some kind of magical potion. Everyone had seen how poor their chief was. Arming a guard of fifty men had nearly forced him to sell the sword at his side. Without question, he was the poor sort among nobles.

Could the boast of a down-and-out noble really be trusted?

Secret medicines that strengthened the human body might truly exist, but anyone could tell they would be precious treasures—let alone enough for fifty people at once. But...

The barbarian warrior closed his eyes and slowly clenched his fists, feeling the power surging through his veins.

This power had appeared abruptly. It was completely unlike the gradual growth gained through training. Thinking carefully, it had emerged in his body after he killed a Hobgoblin, exactly as Richard had described before.

—"This is Demon's Drug from the depths of hell! Consume it, and from this day onward, you will forever fall upon the most savage Asura Path, gaining unimaginable power through slaughter!"

Thinking back on it, all of them had been distracted at the time. Richard had suddenly raised his voice, nearly making a sensational threat. That expression of his... he had seemed like a demon himself!

Gunther waited for ages without hearing what came next. Seeing only his clansman's face twist in pain as though he were constipated, he casually swung his hand and smacked him across the back of the head. "Why are you closing your eyes and putting on this mysterious act?"

"Chief, I think I can feel it too." Another barbarian warrior stepped forward.

He was much more straightforward. He picked up a spear, gathered himself slightly, and then thrust out in an instant like lightning. A forward stance and direct thrust, a sideways lift, a retreating defensive step—there was nothing fancy about the plain spear techniques. Only the dull howls of air being torn apart merged into a continuous sound that made everyone's heart pound.