Chapter 457: Fortune Doubled

After committing this kind of plunder right in front of me, you think you can just run? Can’t you see that naked girl over there, sobbing beside her parents’ corpses? I’ll kill every last one of you. Not a single one of you will be left alive!

Crunch! Crunch!

Gaaargh!

I killed two more mercenary captains.

My halberd smashed their heads beyond recognition.

The last remaining mercenary captain tried to flee, but an arrow Herto loosed from horseback pierced his neck and killed him. The leaderless mercenaries scattered in every direction, but we didn’t let them get away.

With the tables turned, the people of Basel who had been plundered grabbed farm tools and even kitchen knives and ambushed the fleeing mercenaries, quite literally "butchering" them. Nothing is crueler than mercenaries, except the vengeance of their victims.

"S-Spare me! I surrendered!"

"My wife and daughter! You son of a bitch!"

"Aaargh! Please, stop! Gaah!"

"Kill them! Kill them all! Send them straight to hell!"

The slaughter was merciless; not even the mercenaries who surrendered were spared. Butchering was just the start. Some were thrown alive into houses that were still ablaze, and the mercenaries paid dearly for their crimes.

Anyway, at this rate, there won’t be anything left for even a little controlled plundering, will there?

Hmm, then I’ll just have to squeeze the lord’s castle, which is still intact, that much harder.

As the vengeful bloodshed raged on without end, the drawbridge leading to the lord’s castle finally came down. So the so-called master of Basel is only crawling out now?

Somehow, he looked as if he’d aged years overnight.

He was staring at me with fear in his eyes.

"Since you were holed up in your castle, Count, I did a bit of the heavy lifting for you."

"Thank you for saving my people, Baron of Rosenheim."

I’d killed so many mercenaries that I was drenched in their blood from head to toe. I really hated looking this filthy, but the sight could be incredibly intimidating to the other side.

"Will you surrender now?"

"...I surrender."

The Count of Basel closed his eyes. With that, the Rosenheim-Basel War, which had lasted a week, ended in a complete victory for Rosenheim. While the soldiers cleaned up the town, the Count of Basel and I sat down at the negotiating table.

Of course, the three lords stood behind me.

The Count of Basel frowned as he looked at them.

"It seems you’ve forgotten whose side you’re supposed to be on."

"Can a count who tried to join the Swiss Confederation really be called my liege?"

Baron Landschaft made no attempt to hide his hostility. Anger flashed across the Count of Basel’s face. The Lords of Wischelbach and Hagenhausen, out of consideration for the Count’s dignity, held their tongues.

"Who told you such nonsense?"

"Thanks for the lovely present at Vintenheim."

"So the raid failed because you caught on, Baron."

The raid on Vintenheim had been meticulously planned, and the Count had even started a skirmish to divert my attention. But the raid failed, and Basel was left in complete ruins.

Ironically, it was the Count’s own mercenaries who had caused all this damage.

That’s why mercenaries are a double-edged sword. The moment you lost control of them, they turned into bandits, which was exactly why mercenary companies with good reputations commanded ever-higher prices.

"Your strategy of using Vintenheim to provoke me into declaring war was pretty good. If I hadn’t caught on, I would’ve been completely at your mercy, Count. Did you want to bring me down that badly?"

"...."

"You may want to break away from Beren and place yourself under the Swiss Confederation, but as long as I’m around, you’ll never be anything but a vassal of Beren, Count. Perhaps His Highness granting me Rosenheim, which was more than I deserved, was a strategy to keep you in check."

Thinking about it now, the grand duke, who knew all about the feud between Rosenheim and Basel, must have granted Rosenheim to me so that Basel wouldn’t do anything rash. Leave it to a born schemer.

That was why the grand duke had gone out of his way to pass along the intel that the Count of Basel was connected to the Swiss Confederation. I’d figured he just saw me as a handy way to keep Basel in check, but his scheming turned out to run far deeper than that.

Anyway, I’d won the war, and now it was time for the peace negotiations.

[The Baron of Rosenheim and the Count of Basel agree to end the war, with a ceasefire period of 10 years.]

[The Count of Basel shall pay the Baron of Rosenheim 1,500 gold coins over 10 years.]

A 10-year ceasefire was standard, and the treaty was concluded between the Count of Basel and me personally. Just like an alliance or a blood pact, it would automatically become void if either party died.

Once one of us died and the agreement lapsed, our successors could freely dispute it or even use it as a pretext for war. That’s why agreements like this were rarely honored over the long term.

On top of that, the Grossent family was now backed into a corner. The family had run out of money fighting the civil war and waging reckless skirmishes, so it had no choice but to pay the reparations in installments over 10 years.

Tsk, tsk. Their greed got the better of them, and it brought them to the brink of ruin. They couldn’t pay the mercenaries they’d been using as guard dogs, and that’s how this whole mess happened.

Anyway, I made a ton of money off this.

War reparations? Nope.

The total income I earned through the Gale Plunderer quests came to 1,100 gold coins and 110,000 points. Wow, what an amazing haul. Meanwhile, what I earned from actual plundering, roughly converted, didn’t even come to 100 gold coins.

Quest income really is the best.

But the income didn’t stop there.

[You have acquired the Gale Plunderer trait]

[You will acquire an additional 100% of the value of your spoils of war]

[Trait Reward 100,000 points, 1,000 gold coins]

So in the end, not counting the plunder, 2,100 gold coins and 210,000 points landed in my hands. My fortune had taken a big hit after I’d invested about 1,300 gold coins in Vintenheim, but now it had doubled in one fell swoop.

The profit was so sweet I felt like I could soar right through the stratosphere.

On top of that, the Gale Plunderer trait would greatly boost my income from spoils of war.

For example, if I got a suit of armor worth 100 silver coins as spoils, an extra 100 silver coins would be generated and go straight into my pocket. Unfortunately, the plundering in Basel happened before I acquired the trait, so it didn’t apply.

And now the only place left worth plundering was Baschurten.

It’d be nice if the Geerhilt family gave me some kind of justification, but they were lying low, so no such opportunity presented itself. I was on friendly terms with all my other neighbors, so plundering them without justification was out of the question.

Hmm, I guess I should pour my points into passives in bulk and develop my territory after all. Still, even 210,000 points wasn’t all that much. Upgrading a single passive to Level 4 alone cost 40,000 points.

My current point balance was 275,420 points in total.

First, I invested in agriculture passives, since agriculture was the most important area. Farming would begin once spring came, so I had no choice but to invest now to secure a bountiful harvest.

[Agriculture Passive]

[Level 0->3 Recovery 30% Soil recovery increased]

[Level 0->3 Resistance 30% Resistance to blight and pests increased]

[Level 0->3 Management 30% Crop storage life increased]

[Level 0->3 Proficiency 30% Farmer proficiency increased]

That ate up a total of 140,000 points. Back when I was the lord of Feuzen, there was a cap on acquiring passives, but that cap disappeared once I became the Baron of Rosenheim. That was exactly why I’d needed to become a prince.

Then I invested most of my remaining points in commerce and industry.

[Commerce Passive]

[Level 2->3 Trade 30% Territory trade volume increased]

[Level 0->3 Transactions 30% Territory transaction volume increased]

[Industry Passive]

[Level 2->3 Production 30% Territory productivity increased]

[Level 2->3 Quality 30% Product quality increased]

[Level 0->3 Proficiency 30% Worker proficiency increased]

I spent 130,000 points on these.

That left me with 5,420 points.

I kept just enough to use the medical service and poured everything else in. Ha ha, 270,000 points gone in the blink of an eye. But since my territory would develop dazzlingly in return, I had no regrets.