Military Training

The City Guard had already been recruited, but Kerry himself was not entirely sure how to assign their specific duties or what they should do each day. Still, Kerry had an idea.

Since he did not know what to do, he would start with military training, promote the best performers to squad leaders, and tell the squad leaders what he wanted when the time came. He could let them handle things with peace of mind and only look at the results himself.

This was how many bosses in his previous life managed people. It did not matter if they could not do the work themselves. They only needed to promote people who could. If they did well, they could keep doing it; if they did poorly, they would be replaced.

Military training was the only military activity Kerry knew. He had gone through it once in middle school, once in high school, and once in university. They had been three hellish experiences. Now, he finally had the chance to be an instructor and train others. The thought made him a little excited.

That was right. Lord Kerry was personally training his City Guard. Unit 001 could now steadily produce Copper Ore, and after accounting for smelting time, it could produce roughly fifty to sixty tons of Copper Ingots a day.

The capture team also brought in about the same amount of jellyfish every day as they had during the first market opening, earning around ten thousand Points daily. For now, Kerry only had these two operations, and both had gotten on track.

All he had to do next was wait until the appointed time to exchange them for money. That left Kerry with plenty of free time, so he personally trained the City Guard.

In the eyes of many people, they were now the baron's private troops.

The kingdom's laws restricted the maximum number of soldiers each rank of noble could recruit, as well as the normal scope of their jurisdiction. Within those limits, as long as you could afford to support them, no one would say much.

The specific divisions were: baron—five hundred men, covering one county; viscount—one thousand men, covering one district; count—five thousand men, covering one third-tier city; marquis—ten thousand men, covering a first-tier city or a directly administered city, equivalent to half a province; duke—legally no more than fifty thousand men, though the actual number was uncertain and basically always exceeded that, equivalent to one province.

However, this law only applied to ordinary nobles. For a super-noble family like the Green Family, the kingdom's second family, the law was nothing more than a decoration.

Kerry was currently legally permitted to recruit five hundred guards. Unfortunately, he could not afford to support that many people, nor was there any need to.

Recruiting soldiers was not as simple as paying them three thousand copper a month. He also had to consider their housing, food supplies, barracks construction, and so on.

Kerry had no target to invade and no source of troops. Maintaining order was enough.

"Everyone, attention. Stand at attention." Kerry was enjoying himself immensely. With freshly squeezed fruit juice on a table beside him, he reclined beneath a beach umbrella, living an enviable little life. If only he had a beach beauty beside him, it would have been perfect. Kerry could not help letting his thoughts wander.

Unfortunately, things often failed to go as planned. These people from another world had no idea how to carry out orders. After Kerry gave the command to stand at attention, everyone looked at one another before standing stiffly in place. They did not look like an organized formation at all.

"Oh, you idiots." His leisurely method of training clearly would not work. Kerry could only personally teach these otherworldly City Guard members how to stand at attention, how to perform the corresponding movements for each command, and what the final result was supposed to look like.

Unfortunately, these idiots could not even stand properly at attention. Kerry had originally planned to use various commands to make things difficult for them, but he had no choice but to give up on that idea. It was not that they were slacking off. They simply could not understand why they had to do this or how to keep their movements synchronized.

Old Butler Carson was helpless as well. Ever since the young master had become wealthy, he had grown increasingly mischievous. Recruiting people to maintain order in the territory had been an excellent decision, but why had he gone to all the trouble of recruiting them only to put them through this?

Had the young master picked up some bad noble habits? Did he enjoy spending money to torment people for fun? Old Butler Carson felt that he had to find a way to stop this trend before the young master went bad.

Then again, the young master was already seventeen. Many nobles that age were already fathers. Perhaps the young master should find a woman to straighten out his attitude toward life instead of spending all day thinking up ridiculous things to do.

Old Butler Carson watched Emma Watson leave the room and get some fresh air in the garden, his thoughts drifting unpredictably.

Would thirteen be a little too young? No. In many countries that had been at war for years, thirteen-year-old women were already old enough to marry and bear children.

But Reno was not a country at war.

Perhaps it would be enough to have the young master and Miss Emma start dating. Would two years of dating not solve the problem? In any case, it would give the young master something to do.

Had Mrs. Wesley not said last time that she had connections? Still, perhaps it would be better to find someone closer to his age. After tasting the pleasures of women, perhaps the young master would become more mature...

Emma found it strange that Butler Carson was acting so oddly today. Why was he staring at her so intently?

Yet he did not seem to harbor any ill intentions. If anything, his expression suggested that his soul had already wandered somewhere far away. How strange. Could he be ill?

"Mr. Carson, are you all right?" Emma's worried voice pulled Carson back to reality. Only then did Carson realize that Emma had already walked up to him from a distance. What a beauty she was. If the young master happened to be a faithful, monogamous man, then missing out on Miss Emma would be a terrible shame.

Carson carefully looked at Emma, who had come right up to him, and finally made a decision. He said, "Miss Emma, what are you planning to do? There really isn't much to see in the garden. Would you like to watch Young Master Kerry train the City Guard?"

Carson began creating opportunities for Emma and Kerry.

He kept telling himself, This is free love. I'm only creating a few opportunities for you two. Whether it works out or not, you can't blame me.

"Really? I saw them. It looks like they're playing a game." Emma gazed toward the open ground outside the castle, where Kerry was conducting military training with ten City Guard members.

"I heard this is a lost training method. Let's go take a look," Carson invited her. Whatever. His young master came first. Even if the training looked like childish play to him, he had to support his young master at a time like this.

Kerry's throat was nearly smoking by then. The men had only just learned to align themselves by looking left and right to form a proper formation. It seemed the next few days were going to be exhausting.

He had just taken a sip of juice when he saw Carson and Miss Emma walking over together.

"Mr. Carson said this is a lost training method? But I really can't see what's so good about it. It looks a bit like a game. Are you treating them like playthings?"

After walking closer and watching, Emma felt rather sympathetic toward the City Guard. Her tone was not particularly friendly.

After all, she was the daughter of a great noble family. Even though she was currently dependent on others, she still unconsciously spoke with a certain young-lady attitude, especially since Kerry was only seventeen. In Emma's eyes, he was practically her peer—at most, an older-brother figure.

"Heh heh heh, little girl, you don't understand. This was the training method of a great nation from the past. The soldiers trained this way defeated opponents whose equipment was decades or even centuries ahead of theirs. Tell me, isn't that impressive?" Kerry was paying tribute to the great wars of his previous life.

"Really? Why do I just not believe you?" Emma had not expected it to truly be a training method from a powerful nation of the past. Where had Mr. Carson heard about it? Could it have been Kerry who told him?