Chapter 399 - 147: Noble Troops

Chapter 399: Chapter 147: Noble Troops

Leaving the armory, Robson felt like he was walking on air.

He considered himself a level-headed man, but even he couldn’t quite handle the flood of perks he’d received over the past two days.

He felt that a chance to truly soar was finally within his grasp.

After leaving the armory, Robson and Valentino immediately headed for the city outskirts. On their way, they picked up Ais and the personal guards he had brought with him.

The Royal Capital permitted nobles to bring a certain number of personal guards, with the exact amount determined by their title. Robson had brought over a hundred men under Valentino’s name.

Furthermore, these men were not allowed to carry weapons, and they had to get a permit to enter the city.

The Royal Capital was not small. The two traveled by carriage for over an hour, then got stuck in traffic for another hour.

Finally, they reached the military camp outside the city walls.

Marquis Oscillate had, after all, promised to hand over a full three thousand soldiers to him.

When they arrived at the camp, the commanding officer, who had attended the previous night’s banquet, recognized Robson at a glance. He immediately came forward and greeted him warmly.

The benefits of Louis III boosting his prestige were already starting to become apparent.

...

"General Robson, your soldiers should be right over here."

"I’ve already sent someone to fetch the officer in charge here," Count Feng Lun said with a smile.

"Then I must thank you, Count."

"Think nothing of it. We are all Franks, after all. We’ll inevitably be fighting side by side in the future."

"I just hope that when the time comes, I can count on you to look out for me, General," Count Feng Lun added with a smile.

"Of course!"

The Frank Kingdom’s warfront was massive, comprising three large theaters of war alone.

’We’ll most likely never run into each other again.’

’But if you thought that way about everything, you’d never build any connections. Even if the chances are slim, who can say for certain what the future holds?’

’This is how favors and connections are made.’

Before long, they heard the CLANK-CLANK sound of armor approaching.

Several young nobles appeared before them.

"This is Knight Noon."

"He is one of the officers of this army, and the two knights flanking him are the commanders of the second and third regiments, respectively," Count Feng Lun explained.

Robson curiously sized them up. The man in the lead was a sturdy, blond fellow—Knight Noon, he presumed.

Neither Knight Noon nor the two knights with him had the slightest air of a battle-hardened veteran about them.

Having fought countless battles, large and small, Robson was a seasoned veteran. He could say with confidence that these knights had likely just finished a round of basic military training before being rushed here by their families.

Moreover, judging by their features, they didn’t quite look like Franks.

A guess formed in Robson’s mind. ’They’re probably scions from the great clans of other Human Kingdoms, sent here to gild their reputations.’

This sort of thing was common in the Frank Kingdom, usually happening in the later stages of the war against the Beastman Empire. By then, humanity had the upper hand, and the survival rate for nobles was significantly higher.

As Robson observed them, the young men were observing him in turn.

There weren’t many human reinforcements arriving at the moment, so the community was small. Any news spread like wildfire.

It was only this morning that they had learned about their future commander: a man who had once turned the tide with three thousand soldiers to crush a Beastman allied army of one hundred thousand, and who had also held off tens of thousands of Beastman elites with just five thousand of his own.

The minds of the young are often straightforward, unburdened by complicated calculations of profit and loss. They simply admired strength.

"Gentlemen, Robson Odogin. A pleasure to meet you." Robson took the initiative to greet them.

’Don’t be fooled by the fact they’re serving under me now,’ he thought. ’Who knows what kind of powerful families are backing them.’

’In any case, it’s never a mistake to get on their good side.’

"General, are you really General Robson? We heard you stripped the armor right off the Beastman Prince!"

Robson nodded.

"A pity I couldn’t capture him, though."

"I also heard that at Thermopylae, you slaughtered your way through the Beastman Army and cut down the enemy commander in the midst of his forces!"

"Just rumors. Once you’ve been on a real battlefield, you’ll understand what ’in the midst of his forces’ truly entails."

The young scions, filled with curiosity about the battlefield, immediately crowded around Robson, asking him all sorts of questions.

Robson was happy to oblige.

Seeing how skillfully Robson was mingling with these young masters from the south, Count Feng Lun said his farewells and departed.

...

As they continued their idle chatter, Robson, Knight Noon, and the others arrived at the barracks.

The moment he arrived, Robson’s brow furrowed.

In the camp, there were no Non-commissioned Officers organizing things, no Soldiers training, and not even a single person on patrol or standing guard.

A few Soldiers were leaning lazily against a wall; some were even lying directly on the ground.

When they saw Robson and his party arrive, they offered nothing more than a lazy greeting.

Robson frowned.

’Clearly, these are not troops from the Frank Kingdom,’ he thought. ’It seems Marquis Oscillate wasn’t lying. These really are the reinforcements from the Human Alliance.’

The southern Human Kingdoms existed in a strange, paradoxical state.

They possessed the most powerful Extraordinary Corps, yet their conventional armies were practically useless.

"General, this is your future army."

"They were specially selected from within your kingdom. Men were dispatched to pick out only the strongest Peasants, at a price of five Gold Coins per head."

"When can we get on the battlefield?" Knight Noon asked excitedly, completely oblivious to any problems with these troops.

Prompted by Knight Noon, Robson took a closer look and realized that while the men were lazy, each one of them was indeed robust and well-built.

Just then, a notification from the system panel sounded in Robson’s mind.

"DING! 1909 Tier One Algeria Peasants have joined your troops."

"DING! 801 Tier Two Algeria Recruits have joined your troops."

"DING! 310 Tier Two Atlantis Conscripts have joined your troops."

Algeria?!

Robson was stunned. This was the first time he had ever seen troop types from another kingdom.

In the past, Robson had never understood the significance of the "Frank" prefix before a soldier’s type.

’Now I think I get it,’ he mused. ’It must be a classification based on culture.’

’But what’s the difference?’

Perhaps it was because he had already unlocked the entire line of conventional troops for the Frank Kingdom, but while the Algeria troop types under his command were at most Tier Two, he could already see their advancement line up to the Bronze-tier Extraordinary units.

In the early stages, the Algeria Kingdom’s troops were indeed no different from the Frank Kingdom’s. Even at the Bronze tier, both had a "Bronze Glory" unit. The only difference, it seemed, was at Tier Six.

The Tier Six Soldiers for the Algeria Kingdom was called the Duel King.

But what truly surprised Robson was the Atlantis Conscript.

Atlantis was the First Empire in human history, the ancestors of the Algeria Kingdom, but that was common knowledge.

The progression path for the Atlantis Conscript was unlike that of other soldiers; it started at a minimum of Tier Two. While other soldiers were nameless at Tier Seven, the Atlantis Conscript had a named rank. Even its promotion path was strange: the ranks from Tier Two to Tier Seven were Conscript, Fighter, Duelist, Duelist, Dueling Master, and Duel King.

A memory Robson thought long dead suddenly surfaced, jarring his senses.

’Could these be the world’s so-called noble-exclusive troops? Why doesn’t the Frank Kingdom have any?’