CHAPTER 78: CHAPTER 78: WAR

"The power of words," Ryan replied. "Don’t worry—everyone will hear that it was the brave Baron Hatton who chased away a shrieking woman from a knight’s domain."

Hatton beamed with pride at that.

Two more days passed before Ryan finally received the long-awaited response from Baron Roch.

"Ryan! Ryan, it’s terrible! That bastard Roch actually brought an army into my domain!"

Hatton came running in a panic, clothes half-done, his face pale with fear.

"My slaves say Roch brought thousands of troops. They’ve already pushed into my farmland from the south!"

"Thousands?" Ryan’s expression turned flat.

"Can your slaves even count?" he asked dryly. "What, did Roch bring his entire domain with him?"

Hatton paused and then, realizing, growled in frustration.

"Damn that lying slave! I’ll whip him to death for deceiving a noble like me!"

"Let’s go meet this ’Baron Roch’ of yours," Ryan said calmly.

Assisted by his soldiers, Ryan donned ornate mithril armor and mounted his warhorse. Hatton, mimicking him, wore his own set of knight armor—which, unfortunately, made him look almost as bloated as the woman from before.

Behind them stood several hundred organized soldiers, and the sight alone stirred up feelings of grandeur in Hatton—his plump form nearly trembling with excitement.

"Ryan, if I ordered a charge now... they’d all charge forward, wouldn’t they?"

Hatton was already lost in a fantasy of glory. Ryan promptly doused that with a bucket of cold water:

"No."

"Maybe if your son gave the order, a few dozen might charge."

Deflated, Hatton nodded—he knew his own limits. But then he smiled with pride.

"At least my son is better than I am."

To build up momentum, Hatton had also assembled a few hundred peasant conscripts to trail behind the army. Together, they marched south toward the farmland.

Ryan felt mildly speechless. Baron Roch clearly wasn’t a military genius.

When Ryan’s troops arrived at the farm and saw the dense mass of enemies ahead, there were no surprises—his scouts had reported nothing unusual. Roch really had brought his entire retinue of several hundred soldiers to this very spot.

Ryan couldn’t tell if it was overconfidence or showmanship.

But such was noble warfare in this world: primitive and crude. Each side fielded armies of conscripted peasants, chose a battleground, and charged. That was it.

That’s why Knight Watt had been crushed without even resisting—no tactics, no preparation, just chaos.

In this world, the gap between nobles and commoners boiled down to two things:

Extraordinary power and knowledge.

Or really, just one—because enough knowledge begets power, and power reveals greater knowledge. Yet even so, among the nobility, those with actual military talent were rare.

Ryan eyed the fairly well-armed troops beside Roch. It was clear the Roch family had surpassed Hatton’s, perhaps inheriting a few old military manuals or training methods.

But only just.

Roch stepped forward with his entourage and began the traditional noble pre-battle trash talk.

"Baron Hatton! You violated noble conduct by kidnapping my vassal knight—a noble of the Empire! I now demand, in the name of Imperial nobility, that you release Knight Watt immediately, and pay 20,000 gold for emotional damages!"

"You scheming rat!" Hatton roared. "You sent Knight Watt into my lands, and now you dare demand gold from me?!"

With a strained grunt, he drew his knight’s longsword—not so gracefully.

"You’re just like your father—conniving and vile. You’re not a raven; you’re a vulture feeding on corpses. You’re not fit to be a noble!"

"You dare insult my father?!" Roch snarled. "Hatton, you’re just like your dead old man—stupid as a pig!"

"Charge! I want that fat pig dragged back to kneel before my father’s grave!"

With Roch’s shout, seven to eight hundred soldiers surged forward. The fifty mounted knights at the front carried an oppressive momentum that even made Hatton sober up a little.

Hatton raised his sword high.

"Charge! Kill them all! Drag that bastard Roch to me—I’ll lock him in the pigsty!"

Few responded.

Fortunately, Ryan raised his hand, and behind him, over eight hundred peasants began to charge as well—just as disorganized as the enemy.

But Ryan’s own cavalry, a hundred heavily armed knights, did not move.

"Just as I taught you, Brand," Ryan said.

"As you command," came Brand’s deep voice from under his helmet.

The knights quietly turned, riding wide across the field and through the farmland to flank the battlefield.

"Leon, remember what I taught you?"

Ryan addressed Hatton’s son, who had remained silently beside him until now. Leon’s blood boiled.

"Sir Ryan, I’ll do exactly as you said!"

He spurred his horse forward. Though his voice was drowned in the chaos, his identity and horseback position allowed nearby troops to rally toward him.

"Shieldbearers! Squat down! Brace your shields with your shoulders!"

"Spearmen! Don’t flinch! Rest your spears on the shields! Hold the line!"

"No one move! If you run, I’ll cut you down myself!"

Leon shouted passionately, but few on this chaotic battlefield followed his orders. Fewer than a hundred managed to form a crude formation, gripping their weapons with pale faces, staring at the incoming knight charge.

Fear of death consumed them.

Had slaves not feared death so much, the institution of slavery would’ve collapsed long ago.

In such moments of terror, character is tested. Whether out of fear of nobles or paralysis from shock, the knights were upon them.

Peasant soldiers who didn’t even know which way to run were crushed by charging warhorses, hurled into the air, spitting blood mid-flight, then spasming on the ground—barely clinging to life.

The bloody cavalry strike tore open the Shenma line, and the knights roared with bloodlust.

But then—just ahead—the cold gleam of spears suddenly appeared in their vision.

Before they could react, the warhorses shrieked in pain. Knights were thrown from their saddles, crashing down in heavy armor, dizzy and stunned. If not for their knight breathing techniques, most of them would’ve died instantly.

"Idiots! Don’t just stand there—kill them!"

Leon shouted from afar. He was furious that his peasant soldiers were frozen in place, even as enemy knights lay helpless before them. But even he held his sword with white-knuckled fear, too afraid to approach.