Calrad Mercenary Company

Just then, the cabin door opened, and someone stepped out. He stood over seven feet tall, his chainmail glinting silver-gray beneath the moonlight, instantly drawing Karl's gaze.

Ron looked at Karl, his eyes passing over the tip of the lance before he spoke. "Good vigilance."

Karl moved first, raising the lance tip an inch.

Then the entire wedge formation began to slow, the rhythm of hoofbeats shifting from dense to scattered.

The lances lowered from horizontal to an upward slant. Sixteen warhorses slowed from a charge to a trot, then from a trot to a walk, stopping twenty paces from the river bend.

Karl pushed up his visor, revealing the face beneath. His eyes swept from the raggedly dressed people to the red-bearded dwarf holding a wooden barrel, finally settling on Ron.

"They're friendlies," Ron said.

Karl withdrew his lance to his side.

Brom was still holding the barrel, his mouth still curled in a grin, but the low growl in his throat had stopped. His gaze moved from Karl's face to Ron, then back from Ron to Karl.

"Friendlies," he repeated. He lowered the barrel from above his head and slammed it onto the gravel with a thud. "Then why the fuck didn't you say so earlier?!"

He brushed the wood chips from his hands and looked up at Ron.

"Is this how everyone in your camp says hello?"

Aina still had her hands raised, but they were no longer shaking as badly. She watched Karl remove his visor, revealing the young face beneath it.

Ron walked down the gangplank, his leather boots crunching over the gravel.

"Karl," he said.

Karl walked over from beside his horse, his armor plates clattering with every step.

"Move the equipment from the cargo hold back to camp. Every crate, not one left behind."

He paused. "There's food in the lower deck. Take that too."

Karl clenched his fist and struck his chest. "Yes."

Ron turned around, his gaze sweeping over the ragged people on the shore. They huddled together, trembling, as the frigid night wind of Velen seeped through their clothes and into their skin.

Ron's gaze passed over their faces.

"The camp is behind the courtyard," he added.

"Women and children first."

The woman in gray robes turned away with the child in her arms and headed toward the camp. The child lay over her shoulder, staring at Ron the whole time.

Aina followed behind them, gently brushing gravel and mud from the child's feet.

The midday sun shone over the camp, which had become livelier with the arrival of new people.

When Ron sat down at the low table in the courtyard, a notification appeared on the system panel in the upper right corner.

Companion System Unlocked

He set the clay cup in his hand on the table and tapped the notification. The panel expanded, opening a new tab.

Erwin von Herdman's name was at the top. Behind it was a humanoid silhouette holding an unfurled scroll, with several lines of small text below.

Development Path: Administrative Governor

Ron's gaze lingered on the panel for a while.

Recruiting companions in the game had never worked like this. You spent a few hundred denars at a tavern, and they followed you. As long as you paid enough, there was no such thing as someone who couldn't be recruited.

But this was not a tavern, and Erwin had not been recruited with money. They had met in the dungeon of a bandit camp.

They had opened their hearts to each other beside a campfire, when Erwin had said, "Don't get used to it." The system had only added him to the companion list today, not because Ron had only "recruited" him today, but because only today had the system determined that his loyalty was genuine.

"Words alone don't mean a thing," Ron muttered, draining the remaining water from his cup.

This mechanism would prove useful in the future. When people came seeking refuge, there would be no need to guess who was sincere and who had ulterior motives. The human heart was the least reliable thing in the world, but the system did not rely on hearts. It relied on judgment.

He closed the companion tab, and the troop tab appeared. The numbers had changed.

It was no longer thirty-seven. Beneath Miko and the others was an additional tab: fourteen people.

Among the civilians rescued from the ship's hold, some had sought out Karl of their own accord within two days of returning to camp and asked to join.

But not everyone could wield a sword. Karl selected only some of them. Fourteen names were listed beneath the Imperial Recruit tab, their progress bars all empty. The total troop count had risen from thirty-five to fifty-one.

Then he noticed a small upward arrow beside his personal level.

Level Up: Lv.31 → Lv.32
Attribute Points Gained: 1

His gaze hovered over the attribute panel for a moment.

Strength ten, agility eight, endurance seven, and more than three hundred in one-handed, two-handed, polearm, archery, and riding skills—those were already enough in this world. What was never enough was not those things. It was knowing whether someone was lying in wait beyond the woods, whether there were traps at the point of attack, whether a smiling plate-armored leader was telling the truth. Perception mattered.

He tapped it.

Perception: 5 → 6. The panel flashed, and the number settled. He closed the interface, removed the clay cup from the inventory list, then stood and headed toward the courtyard.

In the courtyard, Karl was leading the soldiers in changing their gear.

The fourteen soldiers who had returned from the beach stood in a line. Aside from the wounded Pete, everyone was there. Karl and two veterans were handing out equipment from wooden crates one piece at a time. The crates had been hauled back from the ship's lower deck last night. When their lids were lifted, the chainmail within glimmered finely beneath the afternoon sun.

Miko was the first to receive his. As he pulled the long chainmail hauberk over his body, the iron rings clattered. He fastened the chainmail coif, donned the finely forged breastplate, set the wide-brimmed iron helmet straight on his head, and draped the outer surcoat over it all.

The surcoats had been cut overnight from coarse linen by several women in the camp and dyed light purple. The dye had been boiled from the roots of allheal growing near the camp. The color was uneven, but purple was the color of the Empire.

Miko hung the sword Ron had given him at his waist, its scabbard leather polished bright by the sunlight.

Karl walked past him, his gaze stopping on the coif's strap. He reached out and tugged it. The strap tightened without coming loose.

He patted Miko on the shoulder, making the armor plates ring once, then moved on to the next man.

When all fourteen had finished changing, the courtyard fell silent for a moment. Fourteen soldiers in purple surcoats stood beneath the afternoon sun, breastplates gleaming beneath their tunics, the shadows of wide-brimmed helmets covering half their faces. Their formation was not perfectly neat, but Karl no longer needed to shout at them to straighten up.

Ron stood to one side and watched. In the troop interface, every slot in the equipment column beside the Imperial Infantry icon was lit up. That represented complete, standardized, properly organized equipment.

Erwin came down the steps of the main building, his monocle crooked on his nose and a scroll clutched in his hand. His pace was quicker than usual. He stopped before Ron and spread the parchment open.

"Three matters," he said, pressing a finger to the paper.

"First, I inspected the wasteland east of the manor. The soil is good. Once it is turned over, we can grow oats and barley there. The land by the river to the north can be turned into vegetable plots for turnips and cabbage.

"Our population is already nearing eighty. We cannot rely entirely on plunder and purchases. That land has been left fallow for at least two seasons, so its fertility is sufficient. Reclaiming it will not be difficult, and we have enough hands."

He paused and moved his finger to another part of the paper.

"Second, we need an official name to use when dealing with outsiders."

Ron looked at him.

"A mercenary company. A mercenary company is the most flexible organization for the initial stage. It will not draw excessive suspicion, and it will allow us to deal with the port authorities in Novigrad. As for the name, I have one in mind, if you have no objection."

He turned the parchment over. On the back was a charcoal sketch of a banner: a purple field with a golden lion standing in the center, its mane spreading outward.

"The Calrad Mercenary Company. The banner will bear the crest of your homeland."

Ron lowered his head to look at the sketch. The purple banner and lion crest held his gaze for a while. Then he folded the parchment and handed it back to Erwin.

"Fine."