The Importance of an Experienced Old Steward

Next, Nalant and Boris's teams headed north together.

Their pace was not particularly fast—at least, it was slower than when they had gone to Tulip City for the grand celebration last time. After all, they had brought more carriages and more people.

The road from Black Rock Territory to Tulip City was usually not exactly deserted, but it was certainly not bustling either. Often, one could travel several miles without seeing a single soul.

But this time was different. As the group continued north, the road gradually grew livelier.

Quite a few other noble lords were also leading their retinues toward Tulip City to gather.

Although Nalant was still an obscure little knight, he was no longer as utterly unknown as before.

Whenever they encountered these nobles, they all showed him friendliness.

And after seeing these nobles, Nalant finally realized that Boris's troop composition truly was not outrageous at all. He himself was the real oddity.

Boris's party at least had eight fully armed cavalrymen, along with forty guards carrying longswords and wearing armor—though the equipment of twenty of them was somewhat shabby.

Still, that met the minimum requirements of the duchy's noble laws for the conscription order.

Yet among the nobles they encountered afterward, Nalant saw two who were even more outrageous than Boris.

These men had only twenty guards genuinely equipped with leather armor and longswords, but in order to meet the conscription order's minimum requirements, they had come up with a wildly imaginative idea: using rattan armor as armor.

For instance, there was a baron named Clo. Thirty of his guards wore rattan armor, and those rattan-armored guards were dark-skinned and thin as reeds. One look was enough to tell they were poor serfs temporarily dragged out to make up the numbers.

Nalant seriously doubted whether they