Chapter 442: I Am It

Konrad von Heindel woke in the dungeon and drank the wine I offered him in long gulps. Wischelbach had fallen to a hostile lord, which had to be an unbearable humiliation for the man who ruled this land.

There’s nothing more wretched than being locked in the dungeon of your own castle.

"To think the day would come when Wischelbach, which the Heindel family has held all these years, would be taken so easily. How can I ever face my ancestors at the Lord’s side when I die?"

At his father’s lament, the heir Rudolf couldn’t lift his head, and the other knights sank into gloom. The knights of Wischelbach had been soundly defeated by the Gale Knights. Not one man on our side had died.

Taking Wischelbach cleared the first quest and put 50,000 points and 500 gold coins in my hands. Plundering a small village nets you a few gold coins at best, so this was a serious payday.

Anyway, I’d come down to the dungeon to tell him something, and now I couldn’t get a word in. Still, I kept my patience and waited for Heindel to pull himself together. Looking older than ever, he turned to me and said,

"There’s a saying that circulates among us lords: never face the Gale Knight alone on open ground. You must always face him in numbers, as an alliance. And in the end, you took our castle."

The Lord of Wischelbach said it with a heavy heart.

Hmm. I was starting to feel like I’d done something genuinely terrible.

"I got lucky. You didn’t take my bait, Sir Heindel, so I’d given up and was turning to leave. Then your son suddenly attacked, and that gave me my opening."

"Baron Rosenheim, don’t deceive an old man. You were aiming at my son from the start, weren’t you?"

So he’d known all along. I didn’t answer, just smiled meaningfully and wet my throat with wine. Rudolf, who had set all of this in motion, was near tears as he begged his father’s forgiveness.

"I’m sorry, Father. I ruined everything." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

"It is not your fault. All responsibility falls on me, the lord. Never forget the weight of that responsibility. One wrong choice can cost you everything."

Rudolf had learned a valuable lesson today. His recklessness had cost them their entire home. Of course, I had no intention of taking their land. I had no justification for it, either.

The plan was to strip away half of everything and get out. But if I’d been an outside enemy with a legitimate claim to the title of Wischelbach, the Heindel family would have been finished. So Heindel wasn’t wrong.

"Sir Payne, I’ve caused you trouble as well. And now here you are, a prisoner."

"I was ambushed, my lord, and failed to bring you any help."

Payne was a knight of Hagenhausen, south of Wischelbach. He’d received Heindel’s request and was leading reinforcements north when he had the rotten luck to run into me and get captured.

If his men had joined up with Wischelbach, it might have turned into a hard fight. It was heaven-sent luck for me and a disaster for them. Strategy always involves a large element of luck.

"Baron Rosenheim, thank you for showing mercy to my people."

"Who thanks the man who came to plunder them?"

"When Sir Rupert’s men brought word of the Rosenheim invasion, I didn’t believe the claim that no villagers had been killed in the plundered places. And yet after you took the town, I heard no screams."

"A few of my men got out of hand, but I kept my hands off your people as much as I could."

Those bastards had nearly turned the mood in Wischelbach ugly. It’s funny for a man who came to plunder to worry about public sentiment, but playing the gentleman plunderer keeps the resentment comparatively shallow.

The reality is that a plunderer who refrains from massacre, rape, and arson gets praised as merciful.

Brutal plundering sows hatred and grudges, and one way or another, all of it eventually comes back around. That’s karma. So it was worth doing what I could to keep the resentment from running deep.

"Wischelbach suffered a humiliation today, but I’m grateful it was the Gale Knight who took it. Had Wischelbach been taken by one of those bandit packs from Euz or Essenbach or Baschurten, most of us would have been slaughtered, and my family would not have survived either."

He was right. Lords fight local wars precisely in order to plunder the other side, and once a lord’s castle falls, indiscriminate looting is a given. But I’d set my own limit and taken only half.

For the Heindel family, it was a godsend. What mattered most was that they had a chance to recover instead of being ruined outright. And the whole thing had started because the Count of Basel picked a fight with me.

"I still cannot understand why my liege provoked Rosenheim, which was quietly minding its own affairs. Apart from the Lord of Birsfelden, every local lord refused his request for support."

"Your knight told me you hadn’t sent troops because you’d already fulfilled your term of service. That’s why I ended up facing Swiss mercenaries on the Plain of Hissen."

"He must have paid dearly for them. I don’t care to imagine what concessions he made to the Swiss Confederation. I don’t know whether you’re aware, Baron, but we lords of the Basel region dislike the Swiss Confederation."

That was unexpected. An alliance binds only the principals; it has no bearing on their vassals. These men had come to dislike the Swiss Confederation because of Zurich’s high-handedness.

Zurich was the leading power of the Swiss Confederation and wielded the strongest influence within it. The Confederation at present could be described as Zurich against an anti-Zurich bloc, and the Lord of Wischelbach leaned toward the anti-Zurich side.

Zurich had also been the driving force behind the smuggling trade with Schafen.

The smell of conspiracy was starting to creep in.

"Whatever his reasons, the Count of Basel attacked Rosenheim with some purpose in mind, and I counterattacked lawfully. The plundering I’m doing now is nothing more than retaliation."

"My liege’s defeat and Wischelbach’s fall both came from greed in the end."

Heindel genuinely lamented the whole situation.

Personally, I’d have said his son was the biggest reason Wischelbach fell. I also kept quiet about the fact that the Count of Basel had conspired with the Swiss Confederation on a grand strategy to eliminate me through Vintenheim.

I was saving that as material for negotiations.

Or I could wait until I held every local lord prisoner and then drop it like a bomb. Either way, it was bad news for the Count of Basel. Right now, the Count would be waiting for his detachment to destroy Vintenheim.

Before that happened, I had to do as much damage to Basel as possible and set the stage in my favor. As the Gale Plunderer quest suggested, the best course was to plunder the major holdings and take every lord captive.

The first of them, Wischelbach, was done.

The next destination was Wischelbach’s neighbor, Hagenhausen.

"A messenger has already gone to my liege, so by now he’ll have learned of the Rosenheim invasion."

"I’m looking forward to seeing how the Count of Basel reacts."

I planned to enjoy a game of tag with him.

Naturally, I was It. I’d be the one doing the chasing, not the one being chased.

"Once the plundering here is wrapped up, I’ll take you and the other prisoners to Hissen. You’ll be held quietly until the war ends, but once the peace talks conclude, I’ll send you home safely."

"So I’ll be imposing on Rosenheim for a while. Let me leave a letter for my wife."

"As you like. I won’t stop family members from exchanging letters."

I left the dungeon and headed for the square.

A crowd had gathered there while my men were busy collecting the spoils. The Hungarians couldn’t speak a word of the local tongue, but the lady of the castle had urged the townspeople to comply, and they quietly handed over half of what they owned.

Some tried to cheat, of course, but I picked them out like a mind reader and had their houses searched, turning up more silver and jewels. Without exception, those men became the target of everyone else’s resentment.

"Heh heh heh, I’ve never seen this much silver piled up in one place."

"Sir Szolnok, laughing like that makes you look like a bandit chief."

"If I’m a bandit chief, my lord, then you’re the bandit king."

"Say that again, you little...?"

Barosi played innocent and went on greedily stacking coins, savoring his happiness. It really was a lot of silver. Converted to gold, it amounted to only a few coins, but for a small holding, that was decent income.

How much could you squeeze out of a big city? Hmm, if war with Burgundy breaks out, Dijon (the Burgundian capital) goes first. In any case, we finished the plundering and prepared to head back to Hissen.