"Hooves rise,
hooves fall,
a herd gallops between mountains and plains, sweeping through like the wind.
You are in the river,
you are among the mountains,
you are on the grassland,
you are among the herd.
Now is the age in which you will conquer the Gallop Plains.
Our Gallop Tribe is under the protection of God Emperor Augustus VI.
That city of Night-Kirin, with its palace and temples built of stone,
march on, and awaken the glory of our ancestors.
You are in the people's writings,
you are on the people's lips,
you are in the people's hearts,
you are above the people's heads.
Now is the age in which you will conquer the Gallop Plains."
Forty-three Barbarian Mana-Wielders and nearly a hundred Mana-Less people in the Right Camp sang a song Landen had adapted from one from his homeland.
It was October 20. In ten days, Landen had defeated two small-to-medium camps and one medium-to-large camp.
These three camps had yielded a wealth of Black-Scaled Horses, pack beasts, and Long-Haired Sheep, as well as currency worth 350 gold coins, 42 sets of Iron Armor, nearly four tons of grain, over a dozen Rune Tablets, and nearly thirty Magic Crystals.
They had freed twenty-one Human Mana-Wielders from the three Barbarian groups, including five knights.
Although no small tribe had formally sworn allegiance, several of Landen's adapted songs were already being sung among the smaller tribes.
Military conquest for the large tribes, cultural conquest for the small ones—that was Landen's current approach to the Barbarians.
Besides, the Barbarian people revered strength, and naturally held powerful tribes and their champions in awe.
Landen's tribe had won one victory after another. In every major battle, Landen had charged ahead, breaking through enemy lines and claiming the first kill. The Barbarian Cavalry had seen him smash through the enemy ranks with their own eyes, naturally earning their loyalty—but that loyalty had come at a steep price.
Before each battle, Landen had to spend two Magic Crystals to activate his armor and another to replenish his Battle Qi. The three battles had cost him nine Magic Crystals, worth ninety gold coins.
If Landen hadn't recently been hunting low-rank Water School Devil Beasts in the ponds with Neil and a few others whenever there was no fighting, he really wouldn't have been able to stomach burning through Magic Crystals like this.
Of course, these battles weren't just a drain. Landen felt that after each costly fight, he became more skilled at using Battle Qi techniques and could use them more often. Even the number of times he could activate his armor after consuming a Magic Crystal had increased.
Raul thought that releasing more Battle Qi had increased Landen's reserves and improved his proficiency. It was all part of the process of breaking through to the intermediate level.
After several battles, and gathering the scattered survivors of the defeated tribes, Landen's Barbarian Mana-Wielders numbered forty-three, thirty-five of whom could ride into battle.
Based on the traditional ratio of one Mana-Wielder to five Mana-Less people among the Barbarians, and the usual size of a Barbarian tribe, Landen's Right Camp could now be considered a bona fide large tribe.
Landen's Left Camp now had thirty-three Human Mana-Wielders, far more than the former Gallop Barony in both Mana-Wielder and Mana-Less populations. All twenty-four Mana-Wielders—including nine low-rank and reserve knights—were fully equipped with Iron Armor and Black-Scaled Horses. This force was now a name to reckon with even in the Northwest Count Territory.
The number of Mana-Less people in the Left Camp had also grown by more than two hundred. With the population larger and more people able to read, Landen had found more people to start educating the Territory Residents. All the children in the territory were now divided into three classes, with lessons in literacy, arithmetic, physical education, and practical skills.
Literacy lessons taught all the children the letters, vocabulary, and grammar of the Human Race's common language. The goal was for them to learn the alphabet within a month and be able to sound out simple words in two or three months. Arithmetic covered addition and subtraction up to twenty, as well as more advanced multiplication up to a hundred. The children weren't the only ones who struggled with it—Albert wasn't much better.
Physical education focused on building strength and fitness. Promising children also learned to ride from the young Barbarians and swordsmanship from Fang. There was a wider range of practical skills.
It mainly depended on what the craftsmen in Groups One and Two were working on and what they had time to teach. Some craftsmen also took a liking to certain children and made them their apprentices.
More talent also brought more management problems. The knights and Mana-Wielders came from different countries and families, and had been freed from different tribes. They didn't know one another. Landen's regular hunting trips also meant he had to bring the newly joined Mana-Wielders along for retraining in riding and combat.
What was more, while they were captives, the Human Mana-Wielders had received only the bare minimum of food. The Barbarians were deeply wary of powerful Mana-Wielders: they cut their rations and casually whipped them or assigned them backbreaking labor.
So before training, Landen had to give the Mana-Wielders plenty of mutton, even Magic Beast Meat, to make sure they recovered their fighting strength.
The Barbarians in the Right Camp had a new song, and naturally the Left Camp wouldn't be left out. Landen adapted a farewell song from Kislev in the Republic of Ersun of his previous life and had the women in camp sing it together. The women's voices were soft and lilting, making the knights who rode out feel even more reluctant to leave them.
"Why write a farewell song?" Albert asked curiously. "I thought you'd write a battle song."
"Every time I set out, looking at Nila brings a melody to mind. It was the first melody for this song," Landen said. He'd made up the reason, but not the reason he'd written the song.
"Our Human Mana-Wielders come from too many different places. I looked into it, and the Barbarians deliberately scatter them when settling them among the smaller tribes, to stop them from joining forces.
"That means our Mana-Wielders come from every corner of the Human Empire. Most weren't even taken in raids from the Dragon Kingdom. They were cast off by their families for one reason or another and sent to the Gallop Plains."
"That's true. I've noticed it too."
"So here's the question: why should they become my Mana-Wielder Territory Residents?"
"What? Didn't we save them?" Albert didn't understand.
"Of course I saved them, but that doesn't mean that because I rescued them, they'll live in my castle and serve me.
"They'll fight alongside me as knights. The most I might be able to offer them in the future is a knight's fief—or perhaps not even that. I'll assign ten Mana-Less people to each of them, then expect them to help me develop new territory." Landen continued, "I'm only a baron's fourth son. I have neither money nor land. Perhaps these people will be the foundation for my rise, but there's just as much chance that this is as far as I'll ever go. The Barbarians might go quiet in the south, and I might return to Korniko to live out my days as a minor noble."
"So what?"
"Nothing. I need to give them a reason to stay in my territory, a bond that lets them truly become part of this place. They have comrades who fight alongside them and Mana-Less family members here. They won't risk their lives again and again for a lord who saved them once; they'll do it for their own territory and their families." As he spoke, Landen watched the Barbarians.
"I think, whatever happens, I don't want to call them Barbarians anymore. Maybe I'll call them herders or Grassland folk.
"Whether they're in the Left Camp or the Right Camp, I want them to truly identify as people of the Gallop Barony and the Gallop Tribe."
"Can you really make that happen?" Albert couldn't tell whether Landen's vision was a grand ambition or a flight of fancy.
"Whether I can or not, I have to start somewhere.
"As long as we make our decisions carefully and keep winning, we'll live to see that day." Landen was confident.
"Landen?" Albert sounded hesitant now.
"What is it, Uncle?"
"Have you ever considered... going back the way we came, to the Gallop Barony?" Albert asked tentatively.
"I have," Landen said honestly. "Every time we win, I think about it."
"You have?"
"Of course. If I went back now, I'd have saved our Territory Residents, grown our population, and gained more Mana-Wielders. If we returned now, we might be able to take part of Rothe Territory—or simply ask the Count to let us trade places with Viscount Rothe," Landen said.
Then he changed tack. "But, Uncle, if I just went back like this, and dreamed of my father and two older brothers, how could I face them?
"Would I tell them I'd gotten enough out of the grasslands and didn't want to deal with them anymore?"
"No... We could do it another way."
"We've swept through the tribes south of the Gallop River. Do you think they'd trade prisoners with us?"
"Well... they wouldn't."
"Then tell me, what should I do?" Landen looked at Albert.
"If these Barbarian riders, who've been roaming the Northwest Territory, return to the Gallop Plains and find their camps gone, their fathers and brothers killed by us, and their Human slaves freed—and there happens to be a new barony or viscounty near Rothe Territory—what will they do?
"Or suppose that on their way back, they happen to see us heading south, returning to our territory, riding Black-Scaled Horses, singing, and eating mutton hot pot. What will they think?
"Can we face two hundred Barbarian riders in a charge?"
Albert fell silent. He had thought of all this before talking to Landen, but had still wanted to try.
Landen was too dangerous now. His actions were digging a grave for his family, and his ideas were practically heretical.
In the thousand years since the God Emperor Era, there had been others who wanted to recruit Barbarians and educate Mana-Less people on a broad scale. But without the protection of a great family or a legendary powerhouse, such actions were bound to earn the enmity of other great families.
What Albert couldn't figure out was who was backing Landen.
Was it a legendary, or even classical demigod, bent on uniting the Barbarians? One of the Gallop Family's ancestors, hidden within the Magic Web? Or the Tower of Purity school in the Imperial Capital?
Albert didn't know. So he decided to test Landen.
To see what Landen truly cared about.
"Since we still have to travel all over the plains, what can these children possibly learn if their lessons are so intermittent?"
Landen pointed to one of the children in the distance. "The first tanner's child in the Left Camp is Little Hilt.
"I remember when I first saw him, his little face was sallow, and he couldn't string a proper sentence together. The old tanner had to look after the cavalry's leather clothes every day, and Little Hilt had nothing to do but play with mud and pee."
Landen looked at Albert and said very seriously, "For Little Hilt, education means realizing that there are more possibilities in life. For me, it means raising the Territory Residents I need.
"I want the children to know that their lives aren't limited to the sand beneath their feet. They can learn to farm, raise livestock, weave, and play instruments.
"If they learn to read, they can also discover a bigger world in books, with more possibilities and a broader perspective. Isn't that a good thing for them?"
"But... what does that have to do with you? You're their lord. Shouldn't you be focused on your own rank, your family, and your territory?" Albert was confused.
He'd thought Landen might say the Gallop Family needed talented people, or that he needed to reclaim the Gallop Plains, or that the common folk deserved more resources. But Landen had chosen an angle he'd never considered: the individual Territory Residents.
"Don't those things go hand in hand? I have to develop, and the development of the family and the territory are one and the same. Look at when we first entered the Gallop Plains: we were short on food, in danger of attacks by Barbarian tribes, and struggling just to survive.
"Now we have everything. I have Rune Armor, knights of my own, a big tent, herds of Black-Scaled Horses, and vast flocks of Long-Haired Sheep.
"Before, I needed them to keep going with me and not fall behind during the migration. Now I need them to raise horses, skin hides, and make sausages. In the future, I'll need them to make pottery, woodenware, and ironware.
"I can give them hope for a better life, and I need them to learn more skills. They're part of my territory, so of course I care about them."
"You could have Mevenan handle all that. You could tell him what you want and let him do it for you. Or I could take care of it."
"..." Landen said nothing, but thought: Don't make me laugh. I found Hark and the others, and you two just took your people and went with them.
Besides, you're both far too rough in how you manage things. Mevenan can barely manage the fewer than a hundred people in the castle, and all you do is look after the Mana-Wielders.
You haven't even figured out how many Black-Scaled Horses or gold coins the Gallop Barony has. How could I hand over the 570 people in the Left Camp to you?
"How many Black-Scaled Horses do we have?" Landen asked.
"What?"
"When we left the territory, every Mana-Wielder had a Black-Scaled Horse. We had twenty in all.
"After all the battles we've fought, big and small, how many Black-Scaled Horses do we have now?"
"Well, that's a question for the stablemaster."
"We have 101 in total, and 81 of them are new ones we acquired in the recent battles. Of those 81, thirty-five are foals born this year and can't be ridden. Another forty-odd are older stallions or mares.
"Our territory also has 240 pack beasts. We used to have about 650 Long-Haired Sheep, but now we're down to 550.
"Besides that, we have enough grain for about a month. If we can't find a large supply of grain after that, we'll have to use up even more Long-Haired Sheep.
"We have enough Pig Iron left to replace the horseshoes on every Black-Scaled Horse two or three times. But if more than two months pass, our Black-Scaled Horses will lose their fighting strength too."
"You..." Albert couldn't imagine that Landen knew the territory better than the steward.
"You're not attentive enough to numbers or to the territory. I expect more of my subordinates than other lords do." Landen's expression was firm.
Albert looked at Landen, feeling as if he'd fallen into an abyss. He had never heard anyone speak like that, nor had he seen any other knight-lord in the Dragon Kingdom pay such close attention to the territory's exact wealth.
And now, the man before him seemed to have lost all reverence for the aristocratic system that had endured for millennia.