The Regressed Mercenary’s Machinations

Chapter 252 – A Place That’s Incredibly Impressive (2)

The Kingdom of Turian was located beyond the Kingdom of Seiron, where Claude had been. While it was just as small as Seiron, it was renowned as the “Land of Knights” due to its abundance of exceptional knights.

It wasn’t just the knights who were remarkable—the kingdom’s people as a whole were strong and held martial arts in high regard.

There was a good reason for that. An enormous number of monsters resided in the Shadow Mountains, which stretched across the kingdom.

Just as Ferdium had fought against the savages for countless years, the Kingdom of Turian also waged endless wars against the monsters.

However, they couldn’t handle the sheer number of monsters descending from the mountains on their own. The more they fought, the more resources and manpower the kingdom expended.

Thus, the Kingdom of Turian devised an alternative plan.

— “Anyone is free to come here and hunt monsters. We won’t ask about your status or identity—be you a criminal, adventurer, or mercenary, it doesn’t matter. Hunt monsters, and you’ll have full rights to the byproducts.”

When the royal decree was announced, people from all over the continent flocked to the kingdom. After all, they could make a fortune with only a small tax.

It was a mutually beneficial strategy—the kingdom reduced its losses, and outsiders gained wealth.

Thus, people who specialized in hunting monsters in the “Shadow Mountains” came to be called “Monster Hunters”.

Now, Ghislain also planned to head there to hunt monsters and procure hides.

Claude agreed that Ghislain’s idea was the best course of action. However, having a lord frequently absent from his territory was hardly ideal.

“How long do you plan to stay there? I heard Count Desmond is seriously mobilizing troops and inspecting his forces now. It seems like they’re finally trying to resolve things with strength.”

“What about Amelia’s side?”

“She’s still locked in a siege battle with Baron Valois. But it seems like she’s holding back to avoid excessive damage, as her offensive approach has been very passive.”

At that, Ghislain let out a quiet laugh.

Amelia’s usual style was to overwhelm her enemies to the point they couldn’t recover. If she was acting cautiously, she was undoubtedly aiming for something specific.

And Ghislain had a general idea of what that might be.

“For now, keep a close eye on both sides. I’ll only be gone for a short while.”

“Do you really think a short trip will suffice for securing a steady supply of hides? It’s not like there’s anyone over there who can provide you with a large quantity of hides all at once, like the savages could. Are you planning to steal all the hunters’ hides?”

“I’ll guide them at the start, and after that, I’ll leave the work to someone else. I’m planning to take around fifty knights with me—only the least skilled ones.”

“Who do you intend to leave in charge?”

Claude tilted his head. The only person suitable to oversee the knights in Ghislain’s stead was Gillian.

However, Gillian was unexpectedly busy. He wasn’t just responsible for the knights but also managed the soldiers’ military training.

Leaving someone like that to handle things for an extended period wasn’t feasible. While Ghislain could step in to oversee training himself, he was even busier than Gillian.

And it wasn’t an option to assign such a critical responsibility to the relatively inexperienced young knights.

While Claude mulled it over, he quickly came up with a surprisingly suitable candidate.

“Ah! Someone who’s good for nothing but fighting, with no immediate use for territorial development! I’ll leave it to that guy.”

Claude’s comment made Ghislain chuckle.

“Yes, I was planning to leave it to him.”

* * *

“Ugh, damn it! This is so frustrating.”

Kaor kicked a rock in frustration, his annoyance evident. Lately, all he felt was irritation.

“Ah, fighting the savages was fun. Aren’t we going to war again anytime soon?”

After muttering to himself a few times, he plopped down on the ground and scratched his head furiously.

In truth, Kaor had been feeling quite anxious lately.

He believed Gillian to be his eternal rival, yet Gillian seemed to grow stronger by the day. During their battles against the savages, Gillian had demonstrated an entirely different level of skill. Honestly, Kaor felt like he’d lose if they fought now.

It wasn’t just Gillian. Belinda was the same. If she backstabbed him in the middle of a battle like during the war, he’d likely fall without being able to counter her.

That alone was unsettling, but what made it worse was that even those who had once been weaker than him were rapidly improving. Especially that guy Lucas, whose growth was almost unbelievably fast.

“Damn, am I going to end up the weakest at this rate? That can’t happen.”

—

He had definitely become stronger than before, thanks to Ghislain’s help. And he was still growing, little by little.

However, as his skills didn’t improve as quickly as he’d hoped, uneasiness took hold of Kaor. At this rate, he felt like even Alfoi might surpass him someday.

“Tsk, fighting is the only thing I’m good at.”

Even he admitted to himself that this was my only redeeming trait. But if even that got overtaken, it would utterly make him feel miserable.

He wasn’t of much help in the development of the estate.

While everyone else was busy with training and development projects, he just went around ordering the “labor assault team” to work. Aside from that, he occasionally helped out with the garrison’s duties.

It felt like everyone else was busy finding their places, while he alone wandered without direction.

The longer this situation went on, the greater the sense of isolation grew.

“I’m bored. Isn’t there something else I could do to help the estate? I’d like to be of some use too…”

Without realizing it, Kaor muttered those words to himself and was startled enough to clamp his mouth shut.

‘Me, Kaor, who was once famed as the “Mad Dog of the North,” saying something so soft-hearted and virtuous?’

He’d lived his life by the motto, “bad boys are cool,” so there was no way he could accept becoming some diligent, earnest type of person.

“Argh! Forget it. I’ll just go have a drink.”

Springing to his feet, I began berating the members of the labor assault team.

“Hey! Move faster! Why are you so damn slow? Especially you three! You’ve got strong bodies, but why are you so disgustingly bad at this? You useless idiots!”

The three spies planted by Count Desmond, who had been moving a large boulder, tried to slink away unnoticed. But he was faster.

Kaor darted over like lightning and began pounding on the three of them.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“Argh! Why are you doing this again?!”

“What did we do to upset you now?!”

“You madman! You can’t just start hitting us out of nowhere!”

Panting heavily, he barked back at their protests.

“There’s something about you bastards that I just don’t like! You give off a terrible vibe! You’re spies, aren’t you? Yeah, that’s right. You’re definitely spies. Your faces annoy me, your attitude annoys me—everything about you annoys me. So from today on, you’re officially spies. Got it?”

He was just venting his frustrations and making baseless accusations. Hearing his outburst, the three flinched slightly, but continued to vehemently deny the claim, emphasizing how unjustly they were being treated.

“We’re not that kind of people!”

“We’ve lived honest lives, working diligently!”

“Madman! This is seriously too much!”

He pretended not to hear them.

“Shut up! If I say you are, then you are!”

And so, his irritation only continued to grow as the days went by. The biggest reason was the frustration of not being able to improve his skills as fast as he wanted.

The stress from feeling like he might fall behind in the competition, combined with the inferiority complex of not being able to contribute much to the estate’s development, started to eat away at him.

“Even that idiot Alfoi is doing a ton of work!”

Honestly, if he were in another estate, he wouldn’t have been this stressed. In other estates, knights did nothing but train and practice all day, being nothing more than a drain on resources.

But in Fenris Estate, one capable person handled multiple responsibilities at once.

Most of the other knights didn’t seem to care much, but Kaor thought of himself as one of the estate’s key figures. So, Kaor couldn’t help but constantly compare himself to Belinda, Gillian, Vanessa, and Claude.

“Damn it, should I go to the lord and ask him to teach me more?”

After giving the three spies a thorough beating, he fell back into his thoughts.

He’d already received plenty of special treatment. Asking for more would hurt his pride.

Still, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing to Gillian, who’d joined around the same time as him. The ones climbing up from below were also starting to get on his nerves.

In the end, he swaggered his way to Ghislain’s office. Once there, he stood silently, as if staging a protest.

“…….”

“What?”

“…….”

“Say something.”

“…….”

“It seems like it’s been a while since you’ve had any special training.”

As Ghislain rolled up his sleeves and rose from his seat, he finally opened his mouth.

“……Don’t you have anything?”

“Anything like what?”

“Just, you know, something nice…”

Kaor approached Ghislain with great determination, but when the time came to explain his reasons, the words wouldn’t come out.

As someone who had survived in the North on nothing but grit and pride, asking for something good felt embarrassing and beneath for Kaor.

‘It’d be nice if he just handed something over like last time.’

But Ghislain, of course, was unsympathetic.

“If you’re feeling weak, go ask Claude for some mandrake roots or beg Piote to heal you with his holy power. But do you really need anything? You look perfectly healthy to me.”

“Damn it…”

Kaor pouted and turned his head away.

He was annoyed. He didn’t want to ask for help, but the frustration inside was driving him mad.

When he stayed put, sulking like a child and refusing to speak, Ghislain chuckled.

“Why? Feeling stifled?”

“…?”

“Frustrated that your skills aren’t improving as fast as you’d like? But your pride won’t let you admit it?”

“What the…?”

Kaor widened his eyes and stared at Ghislain. He hadn’t said anything yet—how did he know? Was he that transparent?

Ghislain nodded a few times before continuing.

“It’s a common feeling. I know because I’ve been there.”

‘At your age, what could you possibly have been through?’

It was hard to take his words seriously, but Kaor didn’t dwell on it. Solving his own problem came first.

“Then please teach me something better!”

It was easier to ask once he’d acknowledged the issue. Emboldened, Kaor spoke bluntly.

But Ghislain shook his head.

“Even if I taught you the best mana cultivation techniques or swordsmanship in the world right now, it wouldn’t help.”

“If you don’t want to teach me, just say so!” Kaor snapped.

Learning something better would obviously make me stronger. Look at Gillian—he was advancing rapidly right now!

He must have been learning inferior techniques, which explained why his growth was slower.

Ghislain, unfazed by Kaor’s outburst, replied calmly.

“Gillian has already carved out his own path. He’s spent years diligently building his skills, so he can grow quickly as long as he stays on course. But you’re not there yet. You’re still too… lightweight.”

“What do you mean by ‘lightweight’?”

“You’ve lived relying only on quick wits and improvisation without laying a proper foundation. The fact that you’ve survived this long means you have talent, but you haven’t built anything solid. That’s why it’s hard for you to move forward, and that is also why you’re feeling impatient.”

Ghislain himself had once been in a similar state in his previous life. He had been blinded by vengeance, pouring all his efforts into honing his skills.

But the more he pushed, the more his progress stalled. He hadn’t been patient enough to build a solid base, instead seeking shortcuts to power.

Of course, shortcuts could be good paths too—there was no one “right” answer in life. But impatience prevented people from finding the right shortcuts.

Kaor was in that exact state now.

“That’s how the basics work. It takes time to rebuild and solidify your foundation, but once you do, you can become stronger than anyone.”

“I want to get stronger right now!”

By the time he was Gillian’s age, he might surpass him. No, he definitely would.

But what good was that? he wasn’t someone who cared about age.

In a world where you could die at any moment, being strong now was what mattered for Kaor.

The things Ghislain had taught him at first had made him stronger quickly because they addressed his weaknesses.

But now, it was just tedious repetition. Naturally, Kaor’s progress had slowed.

He had finally hit a massive, unyielding wall after breaking through smaller ones all this time.

Desperate, he shouted again.

“There has to be something better!”

“There isn’t. Even if there were, it wouldn’t matter to you right now. You’d just hit another wall soon enough. From now on, you need to take your time and build step by step.”

“Damn it! But you’re so strong even though you’re young! How did you get so powerful without some special method? Did you get extra time or something?”

Ghislain clicked his tongue at his rude remark. Normally, Ghislain would have dragged him off for some “physical therapy,” but his lord let it slide this time. Ghislain understood how frustrated he must be.

Yes, Ghislain had gotten extra time, thanks to his regression.

But in Ghislain’s previous life, when he rose to become one of the Seven Strongest on the Continent, it hadn’t been like that. It had taken grueling effort and countless years to build his skills.

Though, he had used one special method.

“There is a way to speed things up,” Ghislain said.

Kaor’s face lit up.

“Really? There is? Don’t keep it to yourself—teach me!”

“Your life.”

“What?”

“Put your life on the line and accumulate real combat experience.”

“So… I just need to roam the battlefields?”

“Sure. But even that won’t be very effective unless you’re fighting nonstop every day.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Kill a lot of monsters.”

I scoffed at that.

“I’ve already killed plenty of monsters. Didn’t we go to the Forest of Beasts together?”

“How many have you killed in your life?”

“Well… probably about a thousand!”

He exaggerated a bit. Adding up everything from his mercenary work and the Forest of Beasts, it was more likely just a few hundred monsters.

Ghislain looked at him with an amused smile.

“That’s nowhere near enough.”

“Then how many do I need to kill?”

Ghislain grinned wickedly, his lips curling upward.

“About… ten thousand.”