Chapter 19: 17. Medium Barbarian Tribe
After resting for two or three days, Landen led all the knights and a carriage east.
Over the past few days, Greyhound had scouted out the medium-sized tribe to the east. At least ten Mana-Wielders lived there, along with more than thirty tents, nearly a hundred Long-Haired Sheep, and over forty pack animals. The tribe's strength could be said to exceed that of the several Barbarian tribes they had attacked last time combined.
What set this tribe apart from the previous ones was its high level of vigilance, day and night. There were always cavalrymen on guard.
Landen led the knights toward the tribe along the river, acting as if they had nothing to hide. They were all dressed like Barbarians now, with the common Barbarian-style furs worn over their Iron Armor. At a glance, they looked like cavalry from some large tribe.
Landen had spared no expense for this operation. Every Junior Knight carried two Magic Crystals. If anything seemed amiss, they would immediately use the crystals to replenish their Battle Qi and charge in.
Brown Rabbit was the chieftain's younger brother and the leader of the ten Barbarian cavalrymen left behind to guard the camp.
His older brother had taken seven cavalrymen to attend an alliance meeting. Brown Rabbit's job was to watch over the Human Race slaves in the camp and keep other Barbarians from setting their sights on the tribe.
"My lord," reported a cavalryman on patrol outside. "Nine people are coming this way."
"Oh? Is my brother back?"
"Well... they don't look like the chieftain's men. Their clothes are neater than his, and they haven't brought anything back. They're only accompanied by a carriage."
"What are they here for?" Brown Rabbit wasn't sure, so he took a few men to investigate.
Sure enough, when Brown Rabbit left the camp, he saw nine cavalrymen and a carriage approaching at an unhurried pace. Most of them stopped two hundred meters from the camp. Only the man at the front continued toward him, greeting him warmly.
"Hey! We're messengers from the Gray Goose Leader. The Barbarian allied forces have taken a lot of territory, and the chieftain said he'd give Gold Coins to the tribes that took part. Come and collect yours!" The man spoke the common tongue with a Barbarian accent.
"Gold Coins?" Brown Rabbit finally understood. "Hahaha! I bet the Gray Goose Leader's just giving us a little taste to get us to send out troops again." Though he scoffed, his actions betrayed him. He headed toward the carriage with four trusted men.
"Chieftain, that's not right. The Gold Coins are in the carriage. The more troops you send, the more you get!" shouted a cavalryman near the carriage.
"What do you mean, the more troops we send, the more we get? You're just trying to get us to send out troops again, aren't you? Let's see how many Gold Coins we get for one cavalryman! Hahaha!" Brown Rabbit was now sure that the group had come to pay them so they would keep sending out troops. He had seen the slaves on the carriage open a box, its contents gleaming with gold.
Brown Rabbit could hardly wait. He had followed his brother for years, and the tribe had grown steadily larger, but he had never seen a whole box of Gold Coins.
Brown Rabbit and his men trotted toward the carriage, completely unaware that the cavalrymen escorting it had moved in behind them. Even Barbarians shouldn't turn their backs on strangers. "Come on, girl, tell me—how many Gold Coins should we get for sending seven cavalrymen?"
"Bang..." Brown Rabbit's answer came from a figure behind him on the left. Moving too fast to notice, the figure suddenly charged into him and knocked him to the ground. Then Brown Rabbit saw a flash of cold light.
Landen used a Magic Crystal to launch a charge. After knocking Brown Rabbit down, he immediately drew his sword and struck. The other knights didn't waste any time either; they attacked Brown Rabbit's men from behind while their backs were turned.
The Barbarians had been somewhat wary when Landen first arrived, but the moment they heard about getting paid, their eyes lit up. The ten men were quickly reduced to five. Raul had been the first to greet Brown Rabbit and speak to him in the Barbarian accent. Less than ten paces behind Raul stood Greyhound Dante. The two immediately spurred their horses into a charge, sweeping down the two Barbarians on guard before they could react.
The Barbarians on watch were all standing on the ground. Mounted knights stood a meter taller than they did and were incomparably faster. The Barbarians without horses were no match at all.
Seeing that the situation had turned against them, the three remaining Barbarians tried to run into the camp and escape on horseback, but the knights closing in around them cut them down.
"We won! We won! We beat the Barbarians in a head-on fight!" The speaker was Fang Dante, Greyhound's son. Nearly twenty years old, Fang had recently become a Junior Knight. In terms of potential, he was well ahead of Landen.
They had taken part in sneak attacks on Barbarian camps before, but this was their first time facing Barbarians in broad daylight. Fang was beside himself with excitement.
"Fang, what did I tell you? We could win! You have to believe in me—and in yourself." Landen had come up with the plan himself, but even he hadn't been certain it would work. That didn't stop him from taking all the credit now and winning the knights' trust.
"Yes, my lord. You truly can see everything before it happens!" Fang had actually used a local idiom, but Landen didn't understand what it meant exactly, so he simply translated it that way.
Landen and the others were now in the middle of the enormous Barbarian camp. He saw a large number of Mana-Less people emerging from the tents.
They had watched Landen kill their former masters to the last man, and they all fell to their knees.
At the edge of the camp, a tall figure suddenly appeared in one of the large tents. He was taller than Landen.
Damn it, were there still Barbarian cavalrymen here?
Before long, four more figures emerged. They stared at Landen blankly. Then those who had come out later looked at the first man, and after exchanging glances, they all knelt together in submission.
After a sneak attack, the most exciting part was opening the loot boxes. That was true for both Barbarians and the Human Race.
Landen still sent Albert to count the captives, while Raul and Iron Spike counted the livestock. He went into the large tent himself to look for valuables.
The advantage of a medium-sized tribe was that it had more valuables and more people to guard them, so there was no need to bury everything in the ground.
Landen found thirty-five Gold Coins and some Silver Coins and Copper Coins, two magic books, a Magic-Sealing Box containing an enchanted longsword, more than a dozen Magic Crystals, and six Rune Boards: one each for water, fire, wind, and ice, as well as two illumination boards. There was also an alchemical puppet. Landen didn't know what it was, so he left it alone.
The camp had fourteen Black-Scaled Horses, thirty-seven pack animals, ninety-seven Long-Haired Sheep, and nearly a ton of grain stored in a tent. There were also about fifty pounds of salt and some spices, a blacksmith's furnace, just under three hundred pounds of iron ingots, five hundred pounds of coal, thirty wagons, and dozens of cubic meters of timber.
There were also various iron tools, herbs, meat, and Magic Beast Meat. Besides the usual livestock, there were even more than twenty birds, including pheasants and Gray Geese.
It seemed that a medium-sized camp really was different from a small one. This wasn't just a tribe's camp; it was also a trading post for the smaller tribes nearby. They could come here to trade currency or other goods, or to have horseshoes made and other such services.
"Landen," Albert came in, followed by several people. They were the same tall men who had knelt before Landen. There was no doubt they were Mana-Wielders, but they weren't from this tribe.
"Let me introduce you. This is Knight Daniko, once a guard knight for the Frost-Wolf Chamber of Commerce in the Royal Capital. The Barbarians captured him three years ago, and he's been passed from place to place ever since. These other Mana-Wielders were also captured when the Barbarians raided various places over the past two years."
"I, Daniko, thank you, Baron Landen, for rescuing me. I swear to follow you to the death." Daniko knelt on one knee to pledge his loyalty. The other four Mana-Wielders knelt as well.
No wonder this tribe kept so many cavalrymen on constant alert. They weren't guarding against outside invaders, but against the Mana-Wielder slaves in the camp. Landen began to understand a few things.
"Knight Daniko, please, get up. And the rest of you, please rise as well. I, Landen Gallop, welcome you all. Daniko, you've suffered greatly." Landen didn't say anything about how Daniko would make his forces as formidable as a tiger with wings, but he made sure to show the proper respect to a worthy man.
"Lord Landen..." The Barbarians had held Daniko captive for three years. He'd lived like less than a person every day, let alone ever been treated with respect. Landen's approach was unlike anything Daniko had seen. He was deeply moved and overwhelmed with gratitude.
After helping Daniko to his feet, Landen listened as he described what had happened to them.
Daniko had once been a Junior Knight employed by a merchant caravan of the Frost-Wolf Family in the Royal Capital. He had been responsible for escorting trade between the Royal Capital and Bristle-Wolf City. Three years earlier, the Barbarians had seized him while he was escorting a caravan.
These Barbarians were strange. They had no interest in the Mana-Less, and they hadn't touched any goods that weren't money. They had only taken the Mana-Wielders.
After that, Daniko had been passed around the Gallop Plains. First he was taken to a Barbarian alliance meeting and sold like an ordinary good to a medium-sized tribe. Then that tribe was defeated by another, and Daniko was handed over again like spoils of war.
Finally, Daniko was sold to this camp. When he saw Landen's men attack, he thought it was another clash between tribes, like the last time. He never expected to be rescued.
Daniko explained that the Barbarians in their camps were incredibly strong and straightforward by nature. They were good at hunting and herding, but there was one thing they couldn't do: fine work.
Tasks around camp, such as putting up tents, herding, and repairing armor, had to be handled by the Mana-Less. But jobs like shoeing Black-Scaled Horses and forging iron required both strength and skill.
Medium-sized tribes bought Human Race Mana-Wielder slaves to do that sort of work. Once a tribe purchased a Mana-Wielder slave, they would put him to work at these jobs that required both strength and skill. There were usually three or four small tribes around a medium-sized one.
These small tribes could bring game, currency, or sheepskins to trade for horseshoes from the medium-sized tribe, or even for the service of having their horses shod. Daniko had thus become the blacksmith shared by several nearby tribes.
Landen showed great sympathy and immediately offered to make Daniko a knight of his family. The other Mana-Wielders would become his direct household retainers. The group was deeply moved once again.
Then came the census. Among the 120 captured Mana-Less people, Landen had Daniko and the others each choose five people to be their family members. The remaining ninety-five were counted among Landen's own Territory Residents.
Although Landen was more accustomed to directly managing all the Mana-Wielders and Mana-Less, he also knew that this world had tremendous inertia. He could go along with it and turn it to his advantage, but he couldn't change the times by himself.
Fortunately, the camp had Mana-Less people who had once served as butlers, as well as Mana-Wielders who could read. Landen stuck to his original plan: take special care of the children, select craftsmen, require everyone to maintain hygiene, and dig latrine trenches.
The main camp, twenty kilometers away, came to join them the next day. Landen's direct Territory Residents now numbered two hundred, matching the population of the Barony, and they had gained new Mana-Wielders as well.
Now Raul, Grey Dog, Fang, Daniko, Nila, and Mevenan all believed that Landen could lead them back to the Gallop Barony—and even turn Gallop into a Viscounty.
Albert, meanwhile, was already thinking about freeing the Human Race Mana-Wielders from every Barbarian camp along the way and creating a new force for the Gallop Family.
Landen had just finished arranging matters within his territory when he gathered all the girls who could sing and dance. There were eight of them in all. The Barbarian Chieftains had bought them for their own enjoyment, and two of them were the ones Albert had arranged to "look after" Landen that day.
"Ladies, do you know why I've called you all here?"
The girls exchanged glances. "Do you need us to serve you?"
"No. I need you to sing." Landen had spent several nights in this world now, and very few of them had passed without something happening.
Landen knew that his direct Territory Residents were a patchwork of Barbarian slaves. Each person had both the habits they'd developed in Barbarian lands and the way of thinking they'd learned in Human Race territory. If Landen couldn't create a sense of belonging that was uniquely theirs, these people would splinter into factions and groups, big and small.
For one thing, Landen had already decided that all the Mana-Wielders who had joined that day would ride horses and become cavalrymen. He had to separate them from the Mana-Less, so that they wouldn't form factions while he was fighting.
A shared identity required culture, and music was a vessel for culture. On the spot, Landen taught the singers a song called "The Gallop People's Song of Encouragement." It had a simple melody and easy-to-understand lyrics.
"The people of Gallop live a good life, Lord Landen fights the Barbarians on the plains.
"First, resolve to repay the kindness shown, second, never hide what you're good at.
"Third, listen closely to orders when marching, fourth, dig a latrine trench when you make camp.
"Good hygiene matters when you camp for long, wash and do laundry, keep your tents clean and bright.
"Fifth, boil stream water before you drink, sixth, check carefully for water plants before crossing rivers.
"May every Territory Resident remember what matters, may the knights of the Gallop Family watch over us.
"Drive out the Barbarians and reclaim the plains, restore peace to the Kingdom and live in joy."
The song had originally been a military training song from Bavaria, a country in Landen's homeworld of Europa. It was later introduced to Landen's homeland, where several versions had circulated a few decades earlier.
Landen had chosen this song and adapted one version so that the Territory Residents would learn about his family and what was expected of them as his people while singing it.
Landen split the eight girls into two groups. Each group was assigned a hundred Territory Residents and told to teach them the song. Five days later, before the next dinner, each group had to sing it all together once, then select the thirty best singers to perform it again. The two groups would compete, with every knight getting one vote. The winning group would get extra meat that evening.
"The knights of the Gallop Family will watch over us... restore peace to the Kingdom and live in joy..." Albert kept muttering the simple melody to himself, utterly bewildered.
No Mana-Wielder paid any attention to the many Mana-Less, no matter which people they belonged to. But Landen did. Not only did he care about them, he could also find a way to unite them.
At that moment, Albert truly wondered whether some Legendary being had taken over Landen's mind. But what Legendary being would bother with the Mana-Less?