The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich

The Shawen Free States. Just the name was quite self-explanatory. It wasn’t an actual country, but rather just an “autonomous region”. In fact, this place had been completely isolated diplomatically within the Northlands for quite a long period of time.

In this mystical world which had a feudal generation, human domain lords and nobles were a type of status, as well as a bloodline, inheritance and responsibility. Of course, they also represented a type of power.

Since Eich was no peaceful location, nobles had plenty of special rights that would make others envious. For instance, a noble would typically be able to keep their life as long as they surrendered in a timely manner, and they would even be able to return home mostly untouched as long as they managed to pay enough of a ransom. Of course, such rules were only in effect for the human internal wars. This was why human nobles would always fight their hardest against other species, being willing to fight to the death. In comparison, the human internal wars were never so fierce and bloody.

Another envious right of nobles was that becoming a domain lord was almost exclusively the right of theirs. This was an unwritten rule of the human society that people couldn’t do anything about, but everyone viewed this as only natural.

There were very few methods for commoners to become nobles. The best way would be to use brute force to develop previously undeveloped wilds, but even if you successfully developed a domain of your own, those frontier knight domain lords would still be viewed as lower class than the other nobles. At the very least, even back only three or four generations ago, it would be impossible for them to truly enter high noble society.

Such a rigid social class way of thinking was quite commonplace all around Eich. The fact that the nobles of each country would marry only each other only served to deepen the “noble culture”. Even if a country was destroyed, the local noble domain lords would still survive. This fact greatly weakened royal authority because it was quite common that when a country faced a strong enemy, the royalty would try their utmost to fight, while the nobles were already betraying their country and joining the enemy for potentially greater benefits.

The heraldry was already an established separate study. It involved researching the history, family crests, bloodlines, members, inheritance, and so on of various countries’ nobles. Countless years could be spent on it. In a way, people in this world really did have too much free time… Ahem, I meant that this was a unique culture of this world!

Although the Shawen Free States couldn’t even be called an independent country, the Halar Family, a domain lord family from Shawen, was actually still recognized by the Northlands’ nobles. This was because Kakagar Halar’s ancestors had originated from the Mist Kingdom, and were originally local nobles from the Mist Kingdom of the time.

Something like history and ancestors’ glory would be worthless if others refused to recognize them. But, the nobles who talked about ancestors’ glory every day truly did view such things with importance.

Unlike the central part of Eich which was more stable, the Northlands’ nobles’ history wasn’t as long, due to the map of the Northlands countries constantly changing. A family with 300-400 years of history would be considered really old already. The Halar Family from the Mist Kingdom wasn’t even officially recognized back when the People of the Mist were in decline, but when the Northlands People of the Mist rose up again, the Halar Family benefited from riding along.

So, even though “Sly Fox” Kakagar Halar was only a domain lord from Shawen, he dared to command other Northlands nobles as he pleased. Due to Shawen’s advantages and his own family history, the other nobles really did obey his commands, sending out their bodyguards and mercenaries.

This was no battle between human kingdoms, after all. The hungry wild beasts wouldn’t care about your noble bloodline or spare your life. In fact, the nobles would be considered even more delicious due to having more tender skin and fat on their bodies.

“Damn it, just where did this beast stampede arrive from? Our mercenaries have clearly dealt with all the beasts on the map already.”

Shawen had already abandoned all outer defense lines against this endless beast stampede. All of the outer cities were conquered by the beasts. Any villagers who didn’t manage to escape in time would have a 0% survival rate.

The formerly renowned Shawen defenders and mercenaries showed a terrible performance in front of the beast stampede. They were chaotically organized and lacked too many members. They also hadn’t practiced regularly for quite some time, the result of which was that many members didn’t even have all their weapons and equipment on hand. They lost their lives easily to the beast stampede. In fact, some troops even deserted in the midst of battle due to the beasts’ threat.

Shawen’s condition taught all the other Northlands nobles present a great lesson. Even though the Northlands was now in a time of internal peace, that still didn’t mean that you could leave your own protection solely to others.

The Shawen army was supposed to consist of more than 20,000 soldiers, yet less than 4,000 were actually usable. Meanwhile, the temporary army of mercenaries and bodyguards gathered together from the various nobles easily made ten 1000-person squadrons.

This was actually quite normal. Since wild beasts were always a threat, it was common for a domain lord to bring a hundred or even several hundred mercenaries or bodyguards around with him. With several hundred nobles visiting Shawen at this time, it was quite easy to gather more than 10,000 armed troops. They would all be elites such as professional bodyguards, mage consultants, and so on, so their average combat strength would exceed that of an average army’s.

As for the nobles who dared to travel around in the Northlands with only one or two bodyguards? That would be even better because that meant such a bodyguard’s strength was sufficient to compare with 100 ordinary mercenaries’ strength.

The higher ranked the noble, the more powerful their personal forces would be. There were many royalty members in Shawen right now. Rather than trying to hastily assemble commoners for a defense force, it would be far more reliable to rely on the nobles here.

Kakagar really did live up to his nickname of “Sly Fox”. He managed to find a way to survive in this desperate situation. His personal reputation and connection to the Mist Kingdom helped to make his summons to the nobles actually useful.

Thanks to the mercenaries and bodyguards that all the nobles had brought, they managed to create a temporary defense line using the advantage of the castle walls to forcefully block the beast stampede’s charge.

However, there was still an endless number of beasts outside. Nobody knew just how long the mercenary and bodyguard army could hold out for. All everyone could count on was that reinforcements would arrive as swiftly as possible.

“What about the Eagle Tribe? They should be the closest reinforcements to us.”

The barbarian tribes were allied to Shawen, and lived in the nearby mountains. Thus, it seemed like the barbarians would be the most likely reinforcements to arrive first. However, only Kakagar knew that their trustworthy barbarian allies couldn’t be relied on here.

‘…They’ve made so much money off of mining recently. Why would they still live in the mountains where it’s so cold? The majority of the barbarians have already moved to the big cities to enjoy life there. There’s only a few miners left behind in the mountains.’

In a way, it would be an interesting research topic: learning what barbarians would do with money. Perhaps some people would think that they would spend the money on improving their own villages, but the Eagle Tribe barbarians gave the most direct answer of all: they took their money into the cities to enjoy lives there as the newly rich… Why would they still want to wear so little clothing and freeze in the mountains?

“What about the nearby wild elf and half-beastmen tribes? They should still have enough combat strength, right? We can pay them to come help us! We’ll pay any price they ask for!”

Many mixed-blood individuals resided in Shawen. However, only a portion of the mixed-bloods would live in cities. Those would be the ones who accepted human culture. There were also mixed-blood tribes that worshiped beastmen totems, wanted to live in nature like the elves, and so on. These tribes would be found outside the cities.

These tribes had an ambiguously close yet distant relationship with Shawen. They would often come out of the mountains to purchase daily-use goods in the cities, but they still rejected human culture and assimilation.

They had outstanding combat strength. If only this had been eight years ago, it would have indeed been a good idea to request for help from them as they would also be a part of Shawen. But now, Kakagar was filled with regret about why he had acted so swiftly without any hesitation.

“…There are no more primitive tribes left at all. Our tourism development plans opened up all those tribal locations as scenic vacation spots, with all sorts of mountain bandit camps, tribal locations, and so on being really popular with tourists. Those wild mixed-blood warriors…”

“…You couldn’t have slaughtered them all? Or had them exiled?”

Kakagar’s guard captain had an astonished expression. Even though he was the leader of the lord’s guards, he had never heard of such a thing. Could it be that his lord had secretly started a bloody slaughter?

“What generation do you think we’re in? Who would do such a thing in this day and age? Rather than fighting and killing, it’s much better to all make profit together. The wild tribes all received tremendous amounts of money for their moving costs. The wild elves directly went over to the Northlands elven kingdoms to purchase homes there. They wouldn’t be scared of bullying due to the Mist Alliance supporting them. As for the mixed-blood beastmen, they wanted to experience actual beastmen life, so they took their money over to the beastmen plains. I recently received a letter from them a few months ago. They’re living like emperors over there. Even the mixed-blood beastmen can purchase tribe leader positions with money. I was getting envious of them.”

In a way, Shawen had indeed developed greatly as a country. Kakagar had successfully made every bit of this land valuable. However, the end result was that everyone focused only on money. Thus, all of the nearby potential reinforcements were no longer usable, having left due to “progress” and “development”.

The only ones who remained were merchants who continued to make money. But, did you really want the merchants to fight for you on the battlefield? That would be tantamount to suicide.

Perhaps Kakagar wouldn’t receive a passing grade as a domain lord, but he was indeed someone that everyone in the Northlands recognized as a genius… a genius merchant, that was. But right now, he had a pained expression as he regretted his past actions.

“I can only hope that the Mist Kingdom arrives in time. Their airships should be able to get here in time, right? No, for the sake of all my money, they must arrive and save me on time…”