Chapter 279 - 47: Alliance
Chapter 279: Chapter 47: Alliance
"Brother! Brother!"
"Brother! A letter came! A Griffin Knight delivered it."
Wulan was clad in silver-white armor and covered in blood. Holding a crimson-stained letter, he ran excitedly over to Count Uman and nudged him.
Count Uman was also covered in blood. As the heir to the Gauss Clan, his own martial prowess was considerable. He was a Silver Sixth Tier, just one step away from the Gold Tier.
After coming to terms with his situation, Count Uman had been fighting on the front lines, partly to boost morale and partly to atone for his past mistakes.
The sleeping Count Uman’s eyes snapped open, and he scrambled up from the ground.
"A letter? Who sent it?" Count Uman asked, looking at Wulan.
Count Uman’s sudden reaction nearly startled Wulan.
"I don’t know. I haven’t opened it," Wulan said, shaking his head.
Now impatient, Count Uman snatched the letter from Wulan’s hand. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the seal on it.
It was stamped with the words: Viscount Robson, Affleck Domain.
Count Uman was no fool. On the contrary, aside from his lack of political experience, he was a man of considerable insight.
He understood perfectly well what the previous letter, delivered by a Griffin Knight, signified: the entire region beyond the pass was now under Robson’s command.
Count Uman carefully broke the seal, took out the letter within, and began to read.
"How is it, Brother? What does it say? When are the reinforcements coming?" Wulan asked curiously, watching the pensive Count Uman.
After a long silence, Count Uman handed the letter to Wulan.
"The reinforcements... are coming soon..." Count Uman said, his brow deeply furrowed.
Wulan stared at the letter in his hands, his eyes filled with disbelief.
"How is this possible? What kind of speed is this?!" Wulan exclaimed, astonished by the letter.
"Nothing is impossible... I should have realized. He wouldn’t have requested so many carriages just for civilian use..."
"Truly a stroke of genius," Count Uman said softly.
"It’s a shame. If only we had thought of this method back then, things wouldn’t have ended up like this," Wulan sighed.
"There’s nothing to regret," Count Uman said, shaking his head.
"This isn’t about the carriages..."
Hearing Count Uman’s words, Wulan fell silent.
’He’s right. This isn’t about the carriages at all.’
Robson’s ability to achieve such results was partly due to the carriages, to be sure.
But more important was an army that could fight two battles in one night and still be ready for more the next day, and the connections that could make one of the Kingdom’s top Knight Orders willingly fight to the death for him.
"So what should we do now? Brother, Viscount Robson said he ’hopes you won’t go.’
But if you don’t, it will be hard to wash away our clan’s shame..." Wulan looked at Count Uman curiously, wondering what choice his brother would make.
"’Hoping I don’t go’ is not the same as forbidding me to go..."
"It’s just a word game. Of course I’m going."
"In fact, we have to thank this Viscount Robson of ours," Count Uman sighed deeply.
Count Uman might have been proud and arrogant, but his grasp of such fundamental wordplay was solid.
’That phrase, "hopes you won’t go," was a pre-emptive defense. It was to make it clear that if he, Count Uman, were to die on the battlefield, it would have nothing to do with Lord Robson. ’I said I hoped you wouldn’t go, but you insisted. Who can be blamed for that?’’
As for why Count Uman spoke of thanking Robson... it was because this letter, while seemingly assigning a mission, was actually giving him a chance.
Most of the time, opportunities like this mission had to be begged for.
Robson’s campaign had been swift and his military achievements glorious; he could have easily used his momentum to take Wayne Mountain directly.
Though his losses might have been heavy, Count Uman believed Robson definitely had the strength to succeed.
But now, this opportunity had been thrown to him...
Of course, as for why Robson would offer this chance...
In Count Uman’s view, it was firstly to reduce his own troops’ casualties, and secondly, to leave Count Uman himself a way out. Depending on the degree, the nature of the situation could change entirely.
The most crucial part was the authority to report the matter. Given the disaster Count Uman had originally caused, the incident should have been reported to the Kingdom Government.
But by allowing him to atone with a few merits, Robson could keep the affair under his own purview. And once the matter was in Robson’s hands, he could use it as leverage against Uman in the future.
’What kind of monster have I been dealing with...’
Count Uman reflected on the letter’s contents, his heart filled with complex emotions.
Before this campaign, he would have died before admitting he was inferior to a peer—especially one from a mere Baron Clan.
But after the trials of this period, Count Uman had indeed come to understand many things.
After reviewing the history of the fiefs granted beyond the pass, Count Uman was deeply struck. Louis III, Oscillate... all he could conclude was that the old guard were truly in a league of their own. Many things had been decided long before the fiefs were ever granted.
"So, when do we set out?" Wulan asked, looking at Count Uman curiously.
"How many Soldiers do we have left?" Count Uman turned to Wulan and asked.
"We still have nearly a hundred Extraordinary Knights who can fight, and another fifty or so are seriously wounded. As for regular Soldiers, we’ve managed to gather about five hundred of them over the past few days."
Hearing Wulan’s words, Uman felt his heart twist as if being cut by a knife.
The Gauss Clan originally had an Extraordinary Knight Order of nearly two hundred men—the scale of a lesser great noble clan.
These Extraordinary Knights were the very foundation of the clan’s strength. The loss of even one was heartbreaking. They should have been his, Uman’s, support in the Northern Territory, yet now they had died on the battlefield because of his blunder.
"Five hundred men, plus a hundred Extraordinary Knights..." Count Uman murmured to himself.
Sometimes, when an opportunity arises, you might not even have the strength to seize it. Count Uman was now profoundly aware of this fact.
He now had only six or seven hundred men, while a Beastman Army of nearly two thousand was entrenched on the opposing Wayne Mountain.
"Speaking of which, if I remember correctly, that Beastman Army has more than just our unit trapped, right?" Count Uman said, looking at Wulan.
Wulan was a little confused, but he nodded nonetheless.
"Viscount Edwin is also nearby."
"Edwin, is it..." Hearing the name, Count Uman narrowed his eyes.
He remembered the scene perfectly: that Viscount Edwin had simply taken his men and fled.
However, the Beastmen had been too well-prepared, and Viscount Edwin had ended up trapped as well.
For the past several days, the two sides had maintained a tacit silence, only stepping in to help when the other was being besieged by Beastmen.
"In that case, write a letter to Viscount Edwin... Tell him I require his cooperation," said Count Uman.