“Hmm.”

Count Winslon stood on a high wall and looked down with a somber gaze. He was wearing his family’s armor for the first in a long time. A huge encampment was located beneath walls with nearly three thousand troops swarming about like ants. Dozens of flags could be spotted hanging all over the place as well.

There were as many as six nobles with titles granted by royalty, and there were over twenty nobles, including the minor lords. This was the noble union’s army. The huge gathering of troops could surely compete against the army of the royalists. In fact, until only a few days ago, Count Winslon believed that the noble union could win.

However, his optimism about a victory quickly subsided after news spread that a large number of elite soldiers from the northern border had joined the enemy’s army. The soldiers of the noble union were experienced in evil land subjugations and territorial disputes, but they could never compare to soldiers from the border who experienced war every day. There was bound to be a qualitative difference between the two forces.

“Trust our knights, my lord.”

“Well, of course, Sir Rhymesler. I feel reassured thanks to you, sir,” Count Winslon responded to the words of the knight. Sir Rhymesler was the captain of a knight order Count Winslon had personally sponsored.

However, his thoughts were contradictory to his words. The knight order had been organized partly to flaunt his power to the neighboring lords, not to participate and effectively fight in an actual war. There was no doubt about the individual skills of the knights, but a small territorial dispute was completely different from a real war with thousands of participating troops. In a situation like this, one hundred well-organized mercenaries would prove much more useful...