Now that was something you didn't see every day.
As Knife-in-the-Butt's eyes widened in astonishment, Chris, who was watching the scene from behind him in third-person view despite being far away in Bagnia, also opened his eyes a little wider.
Wait, what just happened?
Even Chris was briefly bewildered.
Still, Chris had a sharper nose for politics than Little Knife. He quickly collected himself and, from the introduction given by Colonel Vigo, the self-proclaimed leader of the Self-Rescue Army, discerned why this so-called Self-Rescue Army wanted to join the Kingdom of Bagnia.
First, they had no other choice. Colonel Vigo said the Minicia Kingdom had betrayed them. However much truth there was to that claim, Chris would accept it for now... the Self-Rescue Army was a rebel force from the Minicia Kingdom.
Second, during their brief conversation, Chris could sense Colonel Vigo's naked, utterly undisguised dissatisfaction with his own King Charles.
That dissatisfaction was so genuine that it was hard to doubt.
Chris also had reason to believe these Minisians who called themselves the Self-Rescue Army really ought to resent Charles. Even from Charles's own perspective, the things he had done hardly seemed like anything a sane person would do.
How many times had Charles sold out his own Minicia Kingdom since taking the throne?
He had sold it to Bagnia, sold it to the Retalia Empire, and now even sold it to the nonhuman Snake-Man Faction...
Honestly, if Chris had been a Minisian, he wouldn't have enlisted to defend his country. He would have gone to the capital first and assassinated that traitor.
If assassination proved impossible, he would have left the big cities, recruited men in the countryside where the Snake-Men had destroyed homes and families, and raised a rebel army to overthrow Charles.
So Chris wasn't surprised