SML Ch 7

Chapter 7

The Soft-Hearted Lord

At dawn, Reynald immediately made his rounds inside the fortress to assess the situation. The residents who had hidden away in the lord’s manor for the night were now busy moving about the garden. They were in the midst of dismantling the wyvern carcasses slain by Reynald and the town watch yesterday.

Their faces were visibly bright as they conversed, saying that with the meat and hides from the wyverns, they would somehow manage to survive the winter. It seemed that normally, they would barely manage to drive away the enemies, let alone hunt them. Having repelled the wyverns without any fatalities and even gained useful by-products—well, their joy was understandable.

“My lord, did you get any rest?”

Heide, who had been helping carry the wyvern corpses with the others, spotted Reynald and hurried over to him. Looking at Heide’s face, beaming far brighter than yesterday, Reynald felt a rather complex emotion stir within him.

“No, not with all that going on. Sleep completely escaped me. Are you all right? Any injuries?”

“Why would I be hurt when I wasn’t even part of the fight? Not just me—thanks to you, my lord, the damage from the wyvern attack was far less than usual.”

Without being prompted, Heide began to explain the current situation in detail: how many were injured and their conditions, how many wyvern carcasses were recovered, and how they would utilize the remains.

There was no real need to go into such detail. Reynald thought so but didn’t voice it aloud. After all, Heide was only fulfilling his duty.

Reporting the state of the domain to the lord was an expected responsibility of any steward—even if that lord was already thinking about leaving in a few days.

In any case, Reynald listened attentively. Fortunately, there had been no deaths, and over twenty wyvern carcasses were now awaiting dismantlement. Heide added with a pleased smile that thanks to this, the villagers likely wouldn’t have to suffer from hunger or cold during the spring famine season.

Looking at it from another angle, if something like this didn’t happen, then every year the people of this territory would go hungry or shiver from the cold. As Reynald clicked his tongue lightly at the thought, Heide continued speaking.

“Thank you, my lord. This is all thanks to you. Had you not been here, we wouldn’t have been able to repel the wyverns—we would’ve been wiped out.”

“Well, it’s because you all fought hard that we got a good result. We had luck on our side too. Besides, those wyverns might’ve attacked because of me in the first place…”

“No, wyverns always tend to swoop down and cause trouble around this time of year. Yesterday’s attack likely had nothing to do with you. And from what I’ve heard from the others who were out yesterday, they say you inflicted serious damage on the wyverns’ forces during the day. That’s probably why we managed to hold out last night.”

Heide pointed to the wyvern corpses that bore puncture wounds in their eyes. Wyverns, despite their large bodies, had relatively small eyes. Hitting those eyes while they were flying at high speeds would be an incredibly difficult feat for any archer who wasn’t exceptionally skilled. Of course, the eyes were a major weak point for any creature, so hitting them made incapacitating the enemy much easier.

In the end, it was Reynald’s swift incapacitation of the wyverns that kept the damage low. The villagers, now gathered nearby, nodded in agreement with Heide’s words, each chiming in with their own remarks. They’d never imagined a lord could fight so well; some even said he had saved their lives.

Well, they weren’t entirely wrong. Reynald didn’t particularly want to brag, but it was true that he’d helped them. He wasn’t planning on staying long, but seeing the villagers joyful because of his aid was, admittedly, a rewarding feeling.

It wasn’t the first time Reynald had helped people like this. Since his youth, he had led countless monster subjugation missions. The number of people who had thanked him over the years would easily number in the thousands.

But the emotions he felt now were different from those times. It was… perhaps…

A sense of responsibility.

“Still, it was fortunate that the fortress was well equipped. With those anti-monster shields and the defensive installations still in good shape… Without them, even I would’ve struggled to deal with the wyverns.”

“That’s true. But… we had no idea those were defensive installations. With no big windows and only some holes in the walls, we assumed they were for storing potatoes.”

“Well, they’re certainly good for storing potatoes. But from now on, keep them empty. If the person wielding the crossbow gets in danger while fighting wyverns, it could be the end of us. We were lucky yesterday.”

Reynald sighed, wondering if there were more fortress facilities being misused or neglected like that.

Surely these people had lived with monster attacks for a long time, so they must’ve been raided often. Still, the complete lack of organization was baffling. But perhaps it couldn’t be helped in such a rural fief.

One couldn’t expect too much from a territory that hadn’t had a proper lord or combat system in place. Even experienced soldiers could fall into disorder without a good commander—morale would drop, and mistakes would pile up. These people had spent decades without a lord or a trained leader. It was no wonder their fighting lacked structure and their facilities were poorly managed.

If only someone could at least teach them proper formations and anti-monster strategies, they wouldn’t be so helpless in the face of attacks. While Reynald was thinking this, Heide cautiously continued.

“Um, my lord. Though the overall damage was minimal, we did have some injuries. Several villagers were bitten badly by the wyverns, and one of the young watchmen is severely wounded…”

Heide’s expression darkened slightly, and Reynald let out a quiet sigh. It wasn’t just sympathy for the pain of the injured—it was the knowledge that winter was still over a month away, and monsters would continue to swarm in the meantime.

Even if they had somehow driven off the wyverns, wyverns weren’t the only monsters that attacked human strongholds. In fact, wyverns were among the easier ones to deal with. If more intelligent monsters, who used complex strategies, came to invade, then the villagers would all have to fight together. With the injured in their midst, defending the territory would be that much harder.

“This domain needs someone to take care of it right now.”

Reynald had intended to leave as soon as possible. But despite that, he found himself hesitating. In truth, there was no real reason to rush away. He had already passed on his role as Commander of the Knights to a trustworthy individual, and the order itself would continue functioning smoothly. A few weeks away wouldn’t cause any major disruptions.

Besides, a thought crossed Reynald’s mind—that if he returned to the capital too soon, the king would mock him for it. If he did that, the king would think his scheme had worked and would surely devise more ways to toy with Reynald in the future.

At the very least, Reynald decided, it would be better to stay until the king started to worry.

“For now, let’s go see that injured watchman. Lead the way, Heide.”

The conclusion was simple. He would return after the villagers had recovered from their injuries, after the monster attacks had subsided somewhat, and once the watchmen had learned the basics of combat.

Following Heide at a leisurely pace, Reynald thought to himself that playing the role of a rural lord for a few weeks might not be so bad after all.

Heide led Reynald and a few young members of the town watch toward the west side of the fortress, where the injured were being treated.

Though it was called an infirmary, it was barely more than a space with a few beds and a stockpile of herbs. Of course, in a remote rural domain like this, that was already quite impressive.

The inside of the infirmary was cleaner than Reynald had expected. Though it still felt old and worn, the floors were clearly swept and scrubbed, and not a single stain marred the sheets. At the very least, the place was maintained with great care in terms of cleanliness. Reynald was quietly impressed and asked Heide:

“Who’s in charge of maintaining this place? It’s quite clean.”

“There’s no specific person in charge. When someone gets injured, whoever has free hands takes care of the cleaning and dressing their wounds. Dirty places cause infections, after all.”

“I’m glad to see they have a clear understanding of hygiene. Even in more prosperous towns, you often find infirmaries neglected.”

“There’s really nothing else we can do. All we can manage is grinding up herbs and wrapping wounds with bandages.”

Heide gave a bitter smile, saying that even those bandages and herbs were in short supply due to the number of injured. Reynald understood. In a place struggling to feed its people, procuring bandages and herbs would be difficult.

Bandages could be substituted with cleanly boiled cloth, but the real problem was the herbs. According to Heide, it wasn’t that herbs didn’t grow nearby—but rather that the places where herbs grew were always crawling with monsters. Intelligent monsters, in particular, could use herbs the same way humans did.

Sometimes the young watchmen would risk sneaking into those areas to collect herbs, but the danger was high, and injuries were frequent. In the end, the effort often cost more than it was worth.

“If we can’t secure herbs consistently, things will get tough. Even if it’s risky, we should probably consider clearing out the monsters in those herb-rich areas for the long term…”

As Reynald contemplated asking about the local monster distribution soon, Heide led him and the watchmen further inside the infirmary.

There, on a bed deep within, sat a black-haired young man wrapped in bandages all over.