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Chapter 78

-VB-

Count John of Toggenburg

Three days after the end of the battle…

John finally cornered the Count of Sargans after the count had attempted to raid Schiers after bypassing Maiefeld, where the villagers had quickly fortified to their best extent with help from Chur. When the count returned after being spotted right between Schiers and Maiefeld, John had ambushed him just like how Hans and his rangers preferred.

And today, he had forced the Count of Sargans to give up his claim over all of the Compact, the Toggernburg lands, and his own ownership of the County of Sargans. It was either that or death at John\'s hands; the now-former count had relatives he could run to, otherwise, he might have fought til the bitter end.

It was days after finalizing the war when he received news from the east.

"Victory!" the messenger shouted manically as he ran in on a horse at full speed. The messenger brought the horse to a stop, which nearly collapsed where it stopped, and the messenger himself looked as exhausted as his mount. "Overwhelming victory in the east! Baron von Fluelaberg defeated the Duke of Upper Bavaria in a pitched battle between six thousand soldiers and five hundred!"

John blinked even as he found his feet carrying him to the messenger. His adoptive father had … defeated that big of an army by himself?

Six thousand against five hundred?

That was a feat worthy of an epic, but it was something the baron regularly performed. A dozen against a thousand. A hundred against a thousand. One mercenary against a dozen cavalry knights…

It was … not surprising.

As the messenger collapsed to his knees, he helped the man back up.

"And he is safe?" he asked.

"W-Who?"

"The baron. Is the baron safe?"

"Y-yes, milord…! The baron is safe."

"Good," he smiled. "Then I should go to meet him. Tell him of my success here in the west."

-VB-

The Two Victories Statute, commissioned by ***** in 14**, stands in Chur today as a monument depicting the victories in Sargans and Zernez in 1303 against two forces that sought to upend the burgeoning republic of the Compact. A pair of men stand back to back with their signature weapons in hand. Hans von Fluelaberg look to the east with his langhackmesser and John Toggenburg look to the west with his shortsword.

-VB-

Duke Henry of Gorizia

A week after the battle…

He stared at the letter in front of him.

The messenger, one of the Fluelaberg soldiers of the Battle of Zernez (even though the battle took place far away from that town), stood ramrod straight while waiting for his reply.

"To defeat an army over seven times his size with a few preparations and choosing the battle\'s location," Henry hummed as he tapped on his table while still staring at the letter.

It was both a declaration of victory … and one of warning. It wasn\'t directed at him per say but at everyone around the Compact.

The Compact is strong and guarded on all fronts. Beware anyone who think they can win against us.

Small and mighty. It was oxymoronic yet that was exactly what the Compact was: the producer of fine goods, finer dyes, and finest warriors.

"Your Grace," his aide spoke up. "We have another messenger from the Compact. This one comes from the baron as well, but the origin is from the Count of Toggenburg."

Toggenburg? Wasn\'t that boy-count at war with one of his neighbors?

His aide walked over to him and gave him the letter with both hands, and he took it. Ripping it open, he read its contents and …

"Well, Jesus Christ," he muttered to himself. "Another victory, this time in the west."

The baron\'s messenger twitched, showing a brief moment of surprise.

"You did not know?" he asked the messenger who pondered on how to express himself.

"I did not, Your … Grace," the obviously commoner soldier replied. "I knew that there was another war but not that it ended so quickly."

This letter had been a declaration of victory against the Count of Sargans, who\'s been the emperor\'s peace over and over again. The Count of Toggenburg had taken it upon himself with the blessing of the Bishop of Chur to end this threat to the peace of all, and had achieved a near total victory, depriving the count of his lands and claims. Combined with Hans\'s victory against Duke Rudolf of Upper Bavaria, this meant that the Compact now possessed a military capacity equivalent to a greater count. In fact, Henry wagered that there was a very good chance that if he only used his knights and levies belonging to the County of Tyrol, then he would lose against Hans.

\'And that man is now my ally through marriage with my cousin,\' he thought with a hum.

Things seemed to be working out for him without him even having to lift a metaphorical finger.

What a wonderful feeling.

"Stay the night, messenger," he spoke to the commoner. "I will have my congratulations gift and letter ready by tomorrow morning."

"Yes, Your Grace."

-VB-

Emperor "King of Germans" Albert I of Germany

Two weeks after the battle…

He was having a normal day. Though he remained unsuccessful so far in bringing the wealthy Lowlands under his control, it was obvious that they would sooner or later fall under his sway. On top of that, Flanders, a rebellious region of the Kingdom of France, looked to be losing their war against the French, especially with their count, Guy, and the heir, Robert III, in the prison of the French king. If he timed it right, then there was a chance that they might bend the knee to him if he offered them both protection and high autonomy.

The current problem was the warmongering John II of Brabant. He rallied many of the Lowlands into a coalition against the French who were sieging and looting Flanders. Because of this, the rest of the Lowlands remained stubborn about taking any further military or political actions until the French threat was pacified.

And his imperial counterpart was simply not going to stop.

In a way, he was here to reassure the Lowlands that the empire will stand with them.

Kind of.

"Your Highness!!!"

He blinked at the frantic call and turned to look from where he was atop his horse and down at the ground where a messenger had ran up to him with a letter.

"What is it?" he asked.

"News from the east. The older duke of Upper Bavaria lost a war with the Baron of Fluelaberg!"

He had to think for a second before he remembered who they were.

The House of Wittelsbach … lost against a mere baron? A peasant baron at that?

He took the letter from the messenger, tore it open, and pulled the parchment out. He began reading it, a message from his spymaster in Aachen. The further he read, the more the letter sounded like some myth. A thousand men defeated six thousand? The duke and most of his nobles captured?

And then the second parchment …

"Why is the church getting involved…?" he muttered incredulously before he began to read the "concerns" that led to the church\'s involvement.

Or rather, the involvement of the Prince-Bishop of Freising.

-VB-

Duke Louis of Upper Bavaria

A week after the battle…

His brother, who\'d taken nearly six thousand men-at-arms and knights from his domain and that of his vassals that he called to banner, lost.

He lost to an army of barely under a thousand. He lost a battle so decisively that he and almost two-thirds of the nobles that had followed him to battle had been taken prisoner, lost all of the arms and armors of their knights as ransom for their release, and significantly diminished the power of Duchy of Upper Bavaria.

It was … perfect.

He stood before the council of vassals under the joint duchies and waited for the clamor to die down.

"I am sure that most of you have heard what happened in the Alps," he began.

A hush fell over the council of four counts and sixteen barons. Many of them here had been made prisoners by peasants, and the sheer indignation of it all had … colored many of their decisions and language. Especially language. Despite this, none of them spoke up to interrupt him.

"And I am sure that you are all keenly aware of who is to blame for this humiliating loss against a peasant army."

"Your brother," someone sneered, and Louis glanced to his left.

Standing from his seat was Lord Christoff of Schwengau, a noble lord who did not own his ancestral lands but lived beside it, unable to buy it back from the empire.

"Yes, my brother."

This was a finicky issue for Louis. For one, if he accepted too much responsibility on behalf of his brother, then the responsibility would also fall on him for allowing his joint duke to engage in a disastrous campaign. On the other hand, if he didn\'t accept enough responsibility, then the vassals of Bavaria would see this as a weakness.

"I supported my brother thinking that he was tactically and strategically competent enough to fight against a mere baron!" Louis growled. "He fooled me with his competence. But then what about the competence of those under his authority? Where are they now?"

That made the Schwengau lord twitch.

"Why does no one speak up? Weren\'t half of you here not with my brother when he led you all into disaster?"

The best way to handle this situation was to turn the table on them. He would make them feel that they were responsible for being unable to hold their li-.

"Sorcery."

Louis paused his line of thought and turned to look at a shivering man. It was a landless noble, one who worked within Munich itself.

"Sorcery?"

"The ground lit up in flames with the force of the most powerful winds!" the noble sputtered. "You were all there! You all saw the fire that burned our men in the rear!" he stuttered out as he looked around wildly.

What nonsense was -?

"Aye," someone else gritted out. This man, a knight, had half of his head wrapped up. "The fire burned me. Something struck me in the face and refused to be scrubbed off. That fire … it sought the eat the living!"

… Louis looked around as a momentum grew. He quickly waved his hand in the air, and they all quieted down.

"Are you claiming that the Baron of Fluelaberg … is some sort of heathen?"

"If he\'s not a heathen, then he has heathens with magic working for him. You all know that he allows Muslims and Jews to live in his demesne," the same knight gritted out. "They must have taught him the secrets of fire!"

Louis … wasn\'t sure if this was what he wanted. From the fervor some of these men had when they spoke, it was obvious that they were looking for an excuse to justify their loss. Whether it was by sorcery or tactics, a loss was a loss. Their denial just made them look pathetic in his eyes.

But pathetic men were easily swayed.

"Then it is obvious we must do," he declared loudly as he stood up from his seat. His vassals looked up to him. This was how he would get their approval… to dethrone his brother and take control of all of the Duchy of Upper Bavaria. "We must petition the Prince-Bishop of Freising! We must demand that the church send the inquisition!"

-VB-

Chapter 79

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

When I received the news that John had defeated the Count of Sargans and taken over everything that the troublemaker had, harvest season came rolling around. Now, despite being a lord with more investment in trade and non-agricultural production, I still lend my aid to the farmers because a faster harvest would mean that there would be more people to help me out in my own ventures in the narrow time between the harvest and the first snowfall.

And that was the expansion of the road network!

Our current road network extended from my township of Fluelaberg all the way to Chur, snaking down from the Upper Pratigau Valley to the Lower Prattigau Valley and into the Alpine Rhine Valley, which was where Chur was and where to the road network extended to.

Now that we had all of the Sargans land as well as Toggenburgs, I wanted to expand the road down south to Churwalden and Vaz while expanding the road network up north and west toward John\'s new seat of power in Walenstadt; instead of rebuilding the Toggenburg Castle I accidentally burned down, John apparently wanted a new castle by the Walensee.

The problem was the distance between Walenstadt and Vaz; it was over thirty-five miles of Alpine mountain valley, and the fifteen or so miles between Chur and Vaz were especially rough with a lot of ups and downs in altitude. Even with all of the wealth I had accumulated, this was going to be a very expensive undertaking, especially if I couldn\'t get it started in the fall; the spring climate in the Alps was one of snow and rain, neither of which I wanted to deal with while constructing a road.

At the very least, I had a lot of limestone from all of the mining my people have been doing, though we also had a lot more granite than limestone. I was very tempted to start making and selling granite tabletops. Nobles liked shiny and smooth trinkets and it was even better if that trinket was practical.

So!

I gauged the wider nobility\'s reception of the smoothed granite tabletop by inviting all of my noble allies for the end-of-harvest feast.

And it was why after the first snowfall, I received more than three dozen nobles and merchants ranging from rich merchants and knights to dukes and bishops from not just within the Compact and my allies but beyond that with word of mouth invitation.

---

Though snow fell sparingly, it was still a sign of winter coming a bit earlier and one that worried many of my people. This didn\'t change the fact that it made for a more dramatic background for Henry\'s arrival at the head of a noble entourage some fifteen carriages long and surrounded by at least a hundred men-at-arms.

"Welcome," I said with a grin as Henry got off of his horse. "To Fluelaberg!"

"Yes, yes," Henry huffed at my dramatics. "Thank you for welcoming me. I\'d like to do all of the meet and greet right now but everyone\'s cold and miserable. Can we go inside first?" he asked, and he definitely did not look prepared for the weather. He had expected the winter to come later and not sooner.

I chuckled at his reply but nonetheless stepped aside to allow the carriages through. "Yes. We can talk later. Let\'s all get your people inside first."

As the carriages rolled through the eastern gate, I saw many of the nobles and their children inside the carriages blooking out of their carriages at my fort speculatively. I wondered what they were told about me and thinking about in this instance.

Henry, despite his words, stayed outside by my side as the carriages went through, and perhaps that was what he was waiting for.

"Once again, I\'d like to congratulate you on your victory over Duke of Upper Bavaria."

I was about to turn to face him but my [Rulership] activated, which was a first. I got the sensation that he wanted to look like we weren\'t having a serious conversation.

"Thank you. It would have played out differently had it not been for your warning," I replied with a smile as I waved at some of the children inside the carriages. A particular pair of brown-haired girls waved back with big smiles on their faces. "Setting up the battlefield was what brought me the easy victory."

"... Speaking of easy victory. There have been words in the grapevines about how you achieved it."

"Yes?"

He glanced at me. "Did you use magic?"

I glanced back and our gazes met. He looked … tense.

"No," I replied honestly. "I just used something that all commoners know, even if they might not acknowledge it right off the bat."

"Something everyone just knows?"

"Yes," I replied with a slight smile. "Maybe nobles and knights might not know because they aren\'t the ones usually cleaning out the latrines."

There was a pause before he realized what I was getting to.

"Wait, you\'re not serious? How can it make the fire that the survivors are talking about?"

"What kind of fires would they be talking about?"

He had to pause to remember what he heard. Or read. "A force of wind and fire like a tornado, striking at all who was near. A fire that would not go out easily."

"Yes, normal … excrement wouldn\'t do that," I hummed. I didn\'t elaborate because if I told him how exactly I made it, then it might leak out faster than I would like it to spread. It was, after all, easier to make an IED shit bomb than dedicated gunpowder; there was only a longer time investment and the risk that came with storing explosive material.

Because that\'s what my shit barrels had been: IED fertilizer bombs. By allowing certain strains of ammonia bacteria I cultivated (which was hard fucking work in a lab without sterile conditions or good microscopes!) to have an advantage in growing when I stored those barrels, I essentially built up barrels of ammonia of questionable ratio. As for the fire, I wasn\'t sure exactly how that came out to be but the fire used to start the explosion might have been enough to ignite what didn\'t immediately explode into flames.

The truth was that less than half of the buried barrels exploded.

… Yup, my barrels had a near 50% failure rate. Sure, some of that definitely had to do with how they were set up but those barrels also, when I opened them up, didn\'t make ammonia but something else that I could identify right off the bat and definitely couldn\'t use.

Whatever that was, I was storing it in a different location this time. Otherwise, I might not get to sleep with Isabella.

Speaking of Isabella, my dear wife was currently in charge of the castle right now, setting up everything and directing the servants and employees for the feast.

"Fine, keep your secret," Henry grumbled.

I grinned. "I will be sure to pay you back for the favor you gave me with that letter," I told him. "It just won\'t be what I used to defeat the duke."

"... Fine," he huffed, sounding appeased by my words. "And what exactly did you have in mind?"

"It would depend on how you want the favor repaid," I replied as the last of the carriages entered the gates. I gestured for him to follow and we walked in. "But I would have to ask whether you are speaking as a family or a duke."

He gave me a stink eye. "Sly bastard."

"Ah, I apologize, but my parents are happily married!"

Speaking of whom, they had been invited as well, and the Forest Cantons had sent them and some others as representatives to probe their new neighbor.

This feast was going to a dance of politics, business, and scheming, and as much as I disliked having to deal with politics, I wasn\'t bad at it and needed to get involved now because of how big the Compact had become.

Those who didn\'t play will lose.

Those who took advantage will win.

That was the nature of the world, and politics, as I realized, was no different.

---

Two days after Henry arrived, Count John arrived from the west with his entourage and others who had joined him on the journey to my town.

"John, welcome back!" I grinned as I met the boy who had become a man in the few months of separation we hadn\'t seen each other. I hugged him.

He grinned right back. "It\'s good to be back," he replied as he hugged me back.

The still-teenager quickly broke the hug and cleared his throat as a pair of men walked up from behind him. "Ah, before we talk, I want to introduce you to some important peers of the realm." He gestured to the two men, who stepped up. "This is Prince-Bishop of Freising, Emicho Wildgraf von Kyburg," he said while gesturing to the fifty-ish man with wild hair and cassock of a bishop. "And the man next to him is Lord Mayor of Memmingen, Albert von Lorsmich."

I immediately recognized his name. He was the one who sent me that letter that showed me Upper Bavaria\'s involvement in the bandit issues.

I bowed and knelt before the bishop, kissed his ring, and he gave me a smile and shook hands with the Lord Mayor.

"Welcome to Fluelaberg," I greeted them both. "I did not expect your august self to journey so far south in winter for a feast hosted by a mere baron, Your Grace."

"I have heard about how big of a rising star you are, and I just had to see for myself!" the bishop chuckled, who looked vaguely like Philosopher John Locke except with a better nose job. He looked around the town wall. "It is a marvel how you managed to safeguard the people here during the crisis two years ago."

"Oh, you are aware of it?" I asked.

"Of course! It isn\'t every day that the emperor raises a commoner to the seat of a baron."

Ah. I supposed that it was a big event if you thought of it like that.

… Wiat, Kyrburg? Wasn\'t that a castle in Swiss Habsburg land? He … couldn\'t be a an agent of the Habsburgs looking into a new polity right next to their ancestral lands, right? He was a prince-bishop from … Bavaria. Which was the seat of power of the Habsburg\'s main rival, the Wittelbachs.

… Ugh.

I couldn\'t refuse a prince-bishop. Not when I already invited the Prince-Bishop of Chur and granted admission to the Patriarch of Aquiela who came with Duke Henry!

I made sure to not show my wariness and stepped aside. "I\'m happy to have new friends join me during the feast."

"Wonderful!" Lord Mayor Albert laughed. He was a slightly portly man with a thick mustache. "I\'m thrilled to see what you have to offer, Your Lordship!"

His joyous outburst set everyone back a bit in surprise but then we all shared a glance with each other and a shrug.

There were just people who were loud and boisterous like the lord mayor.

---

"... You\'re going to let me participate in your feast?" Rudolf asked me.

Deep inside one of the mines that had been converted into a prison, I sat across from bars made out of logs, which was impossible for a man to break, and looked at Rudolf.

"Yeah, I am," I replied.

"... Why?"

"To show you off as a trophy, why else?"

He glared at me. "And why would I indulge you?"

This wasn\'t the kind of thing I liked doing. Not really. I liked my enemies dead and quickly. However, holding onto Rudolf when there was a big chance that his brother might not pay for him was … suboptimal. I wasn\'t interested in keeping a foreign ruler as my prisoner. We also hashed things out, and while he was still grumpy as fuck about his situation - and we were both wary at potentially who might have caused this misunderstanding - he was also quite sullen.

Even if the prison cell he got was one of the better ones and furnished with a chair, desk, and indoor plumbing. Kind of. His shit just fell into a pit that had running water through it and discharged into another location and not directly into the river.

"Well?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It\'s about how others will perceive your house. If your brother is careful about his image like you say that he is, then he either has to pay up the ransom and bring you back, and I already lowered the ransom in a letter I sent him, or say something about not bringing back his own brother, which will impact his image."

"And showing me around will do that?"

"Well, I have three bishops, a duke, three counts, and two dozen minor nobilities. They\'ll talk. Rumors will spread." Then I leaned in. "And maybe the person who arranged this fiasco will show up unwittingly to try to kill you."

He glared at me. "You want me to be bait."

"Yes. Because there is no other way to catch them otherwise."

He gritted his teeth.

"My outfit better be worth my standing…!"

"Oh, it will be. It definitely will be." It will be so expensive that you will never wear anything as rich as the outfit I had in mind. And if I made an announcement about potentially helping Rudolf take back his seat?

Someone will have to respond.

-VB-

(Using the highest title set per person)

Prominent participants:

Baron of Fluelaberg (of the Compact) Hans von Fluelaberg

Baroness of Fluelaberg (of the Compact) Isabella von Fluelaberg

Duke of Upper Bavaria Rudolf von Wittelsbach (Prisoner of Hans von Fluelaberg)

Lord Mayor/Baron of Memmingen Albert von Lorsmich

Prince-Bishop of Chur (of the Compact) Siegfried von Geilnhausen

Patriarch of Aqueila Ottobuono di Razzi

Duke of Carinthia and Landgrave of Carniola Henry of Gorizia

Count of Gorizia Albert of Gorizia

Count of Toggenburg and Sargans John von Toggenburg

Prince-Bishop of Freising Emicho Wildgraf von Kyrburg

Count of Werdenberg Albert von Werdenberg

+ Less prominent participants.

-VB-

Chapter 80

-VB-

Rudolf von Wittelsbach

Duke of Upper Bavaria

A lot of events transpired to bring him here, and he couldn\'t help but wonder if God intended for any of this to happen.

Was he not a good and just ruler, unlike his politicking brother? Was this a trial to make him a better man? Was it a warning from the Lord on High that he was too hotheaded and inept in certain areas of rulership?

There were many questions, and there were many conversations he had with the local priest who always came by to help him give thanks to the Lord that he lived, even if it was because of his cowardice and not because of good fortune.

It\'s been… two long months. While he had been a prisoner, he was allowed to go out to take in fresh air. However, he walked only with half a dozen of the "rangers" that the baron trusted. He learned weeks after first meeting them that they were the ones who set off that explosion of fire. They were instrumental to his defeat… and as he got to know them and their routine, he felt an inkling of respect for what they prepared for each and every day.

He couldn\'t not feel respect after seeing some of the rangers fight to the bitter end against the baron every day as part of their training.

Torture, more like.

He also got to explore Fluelaberg, and felt envious once more as he saw wealth in the hands of mountain folks who should have been the poorest within the empire. Why couldn\'t his people have this? Why did those guildmaster have to cause a scene like that?

Questions, questions, questions.

Some of those questions had been answered, and the greatest of those had been how he had ended up fighting the baron. While it didn\'t normalize anything between them, they had an understanding that should they find who pitted them against each other, then, well, revenge would be had. That was for later. Right now, the more honest conversations they had eased his loss a little, especially once he realized that he hadn\'t lost to a peasant rabble but a hardened army that had fought overwhelming odds one after another for the last two years nonstop. He was merely the latest in a long line of nobles who wanted the Compact gone and dead for one reason or another, and just like all those before him, he lost. In fact, he lost to less than a fifth of the Compact\'s actual military force as the other four-fifths hadn\'t even been called up or was off fighting someone else in the west.

And that… that was what stung his pride the most. It wasn\'t losing but losing to someone who could have overwhelmed him in quality of troops and had strength to spare. He still remembered how his troops broke apart at the peasant spear formation. The length of the spear combined with their sturdiness and density prevented his men from approaching them while the narrow mountain passage riddled with dense alpine forest prevented flanking.

Even if the baron had not taken to the field and decimated dozens of men with his brutish cleaver, Rudolf would have lost so many to the spear and fire that he would have no option but to turn back, especially once he met the thick walls that cut off Fluela Pass and thus the only passage from the east into the Compact.

"Your Grace."

Rudolf paused in his ruminations and turned around. Standing in front of the tall but narrow clear glass window of the room given to him for the duration of the feast and festivities, one would think that it was a humble room but he knew better.

He knew so much more now.

He saw a servant by the doorway of the room.

"What is it?" he asked not unkindly. He also knew not to throw his weight around here.

"The baron asks if you are ready to meet the guests."

And here was the herald of his humiliation.

He let out a sigh. "... Lead me to the hall."

He followed the servant across the cobblestone walled but wooden floored fort\'s inner hallways, out of the fort itself, and to a new building next to it just outside what was once the eastern wall of the town but now a wall that separated the Center Town from the East Town.

Rudolf had also seen this town, this tiny barony, grow at a spectacular rate. Harvests had failed in many villages on either side of the Alps, and people entered the cities in hopes of finding jobs. The same was true for those within the Alps as well. While there were those who went to the imperial cities like Lindau, many alpine residents as far as Bolzano to the east came here to the barony of Fluelaberg because there were jobs here to do that they couldn\'t find in other cities like Milan, Munich, and Zurich.

If they survived long enough to reach this town, that was.

He glanced around the street as the servant continued to lead him around the town.

What was once a town of maybe a thousand had swelled to over four thousand. It made this place a city by the standards of the empire, and yet, it didn\'t feel like a city. It felt alien, especially when he looked at the multi-story wooden buildings jutting up from the foot of the mountains. Supposedly, they were for newcomers to the city and offered very generous staying prices. As for the men who could work, they were either asked to work in the mines or help other means to earn their keep. The women went to work in the giant workshops from where the luxurious Fluelan dyes flowed out of. However, only those trusted by the baron worked in the porcelain workshops and the furnaces.

Speaking of which, his attire was dyed with those dyes but with the best of the Lowlands fabric. It may appear at first glance like normal robes, cotes, and wooltunic, but everything from Lowlands fabric and Fluelan dye to the gold thread inlays and speckles of tastefully clipped ruby, sapphire, emerald, and diamonds, he knew he wore the richest thing he ever owned.

And this was made possible by the industry that Baroness Fluelaberg managed with her husband.

It was in those areas that he came to respect the baron\'s wife and the daughter of the Gorizia, Isabella von Fluelaberg. She organized the people and raised their loyalty to the baron. Had she been born a man, then she would have been someone Rudolf would have invested his weight in gold to get an alliance out of or pull into his camp.

But she was a beautiful woman married to the man who defeated him.

Some guys get all the luck.

---

When he finally arrived at the Feast Hall, he found himself face to face with a number of people he knew.

The first was Baron Hans von Fluelaberg himself who stood next to him not in a domineering fashion but like an equal.

Ha! A baron and a duke? Equal?!

… But that was the reality of it. Flualaberg will soon match Munich in wealth and population while the rest of the Compact could match the Duchy of Upper Bavaria. He didn\'t know all of the information, though, so he couldn\'t dispute what was being portrayed.

"You are not enjoying this," Rudolf whispered to the baron as the feast began.

"No," he replied with a smile so genuine that it had to be fake. "I would rather be in my workshop finding new ways to make growing crops easier in these mountains."

"... You are an odd man."

"I know."

The second person he met was none other than the Prince-Bishop of Friesig Emicho Wildgraf von Kyburg.

"Your Holiness," Rudolf kissed the prince-bishop\'s ring once they were far away enough from the baron in the feast.

"Your Grace," the bishop replied. "I have come here on behalf of your brother…"

Rudolf felt hope rise up.

"... in seeing whether or not the baron is a heretic."

And his hope died. Then suspicion set in.

His brother couldn\'t have been behind all of this. Right?

-VB-

Chapter 81

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

The feast and the festivities took up a swing as I spent the occasion to impress all of the guests. Some of it was simply through the impressive decorations, fine china, and expensive fabric on display. Oh, and in one corner of the displays, Isabella put all of the cleaved plate armors neatly in a row for everyone to see my prowess.

This display was where I found the Prince-Bishop of Freising after he separated from the duke.

I didn\'t know what kind of relationship he had with the Wittelbachs, which was a house with many branches, and Freising was in Bavaria, according to Isabella. There was a very good chance that they were chummy with each other, right?

Looking around, I noticed that everyone else was minding their own business, so I slid next to the bishop.

"What do you see when you look at them, Your Grace?" I opened up.

The bishop glanced at me from the corner of his eyes before returning to examine the ruined plate armors. "I wonder what kind of strength is needed to cause … such devastation. They look less like they have been cut and more like they had been torn."

I hummed. "It comes with using a sword as heavy as I do."

"A sword?" he asked me curiously.

"Well, it\'s less of a sword and more of a butcher\'s knife as tall as I am and half as wide."

"... And you can wield that?"

"Yes, Your Grace. It took some time but I can."

He hummed. "I will be honest, Your Lordship. I was asked to participate in the festivities by none other than the currently self-proclaimed sole Duke of Upper Bavaria, Louis the Fourth of the Bavarian Wittelbachs." He paused, trying to put words as politely and gently as he can. "And he specifically asked me to inquire whether there is heresy and witchcraft afloat in these valleys."

Ah. So that was their angle.

"Is that what you are here to do then?"

"It is what I must do, yes."

"And words of the local Prince-Bishop of Chur is not credible?"

"He seems … too connected with you." Another pause. "Ah, but please, be at ease. I am not here in any official capacity nor have I called upon the Inquisition."

The Inquisition.

Personally, I felt ambiguous about the Inquisition. Having grown up in these mountains and met people all around, I learned more about them than I thought I would or remembered from my past life. The Inquisition was not what was popularly portrayed in Hollywood (never mind the fact that the power brokers, movers, and shakers in Hollywood and the United States, in general, were usually not Catholic nor pushed for Catholic agenda). Hell, I\'ve seen the people do the things that the Inquisition had been accused of. In fact, I\'ve learned that the Inquisition wasn\'t … really all that frightening. Hell, they didn\'t even give off a bad vibe, and I would know because I met one.

See, back in Uri, there was this priest who had ideas about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, claiming that they were not here and were never here in the flesh.

While I initially didn\'t understand, I found out why that was bad. See, if Jesus Christ was not in the flesh and did not sacrifice himself upon the cross, then did his sacrifice have meaning? It was apparently a question that had been around for a very long time, sprouting heresies left and right since before the formation of the orthodox church. It was a set of beliefs, essentially, that invalidated the idea of Christianity, that Jesus Christ came down to Earth to sacrifice himself for us, and our sins were washed away with his noble sacrifice. If Christ never had to sacrifice himself and only "acted" like he did because he who was not in the flesh could not suffer for sins of the flesh, then Christians were still not saved from the Original Sin and thus God and salvation were forever out of reach.

In fact, the Inquisition was more of a threat to the clerics than the regular folk like the Wittelbach Dukes, myself, or even the emperor. No, what we needed to watch out for was -.

"Leaving aside the armors, I am more curious about how you accomplished some of the deeds that were told by the soldiers at what the Munchners experienced. Fire and brimstone, they said."

… wait, my half-assed dung bombs with near 50% failure rate? That\'s what he was here for?

"Your Grace… shit burns if you set it on fire."

He blinked and turned to face me a little. "Excuse me?"

"Have you ever seen the latrine get emptied?"

He scrunched his nose handsomely. Hmm, I wondered why this man, who - even in his 50\'s - made women blush and fluster, became a priest.

"I have not."

"Well, Your Grace. When enough excrements pool together, they produce miasma… that can be lit on fire with extreme results."

He stared at me.

I stared back at him.

He grimaced.

I grinned.

"You… you set them on fire … with excrements?"

"Fermented excrements, but yes."

He gagged. "You realize I will be telling them this if only to dissuade them of the idea that you are not a warlock or consorting with the devilkin?" he asked as he stepped away from me.

I only felt amusement. "Is that what they were accusing me of? Sorcery?"

He glanced at the torn plate armor pieces. "Something like that."

"Well, you will be glad to hear that a lot of what I do are all within the natural causes and effects of what Our Lord Above has set into motion. You need not worry about that."

"Oh, I wasn\'t worried about it at all," he replied with a casual "what are you talking about?" look. "I\'m actually here to see if you were amiable to a military alliance."

I froze. I tilted my head.

"... I must have misheard you," I said as I looked around. No one was paying attention to us for now.

"Is it so hard to imagine that a prince-bishop seeks to better his lot within the empire? Or that he wants to protect his subjects?"

"... Were you not their friend?"

"Friend? My boy, I\'m not sure what gave you that idea, but I am a prince whose realm is constantly under threat of the Wittelbachs. Now, if the closest prince-bishop, Bishop Degenhard of Augsburg, wasn\'t so focused on internal development, I might not be here at the behest of the Wittelbachs of all people, but here I am. So, are you interested, son?"

Oh.

This … just got interesting.

"What did you have in mind, milord?"

It was a good thing that none of the other guests were connected to the Wittelbachs because the one guest who I thought I needed to watch out for?

He didn\'t like them either.

-VB-

Chapter 82

-VB-

Isabella von Fluelaberg

It\'s been a week since the start of the festival, and she had to say that it had proceeded and ended without a hitch.

Her husband\'s diplomatic endeavors during the festivities had also paid off and they were now in contact with like-minded peers of the empire.

Her cousin, Duke Henry IV of Tyrol, Carniola, and Carinthia; her husband, Hans von Fluelaberg the de facto ruler of the Compact; Prince-Bishop Siegfried of Chur, the de facto spiritual leader of the Compact; Prince-Bishop Emicho of Freising, an ally of the Habsburg; Lord Mayor of Memmingen Albert von Lorsmich; and Duke Rudolf of Wittelsbach, the fooled and foolish dethroned ruler of Upper Bavaria.

They now sat around a table in a room with thick walls and doors with trusted guards outside keeping anyone from listening in.

Their purpose today?

Bringing down Louis IV of the Wittelbachs, the self-declared sole ruler of the Duchy of Upper Bavaria.

… Well, they would have gone with it right away had it not been for an unexpected visit from an uninvited guest: Otto.

The lands of Tyrol, Carinthia, and Carniola were, similarly like that of the Upper Bavaria, ruled together by her cousins: Otto III, Albert II, Louis of Gorizia, and, last but not least, Henry IV, the youngest of the four. Despite being the youngest, Henry was the one who had been most active internationally while Otto was focused more on low-key diplomatic development. Unlike Louis of Wittelbachs and Rudolf, these four brothers did not fight over the inherited lands because they trusted each other, and she knew they trusted each other because they often trusted one of their own to speak on behalf of them all.

It was the truest example of sibling love that she knew of… but some things could not be left to a single representative, which was why, two days into the festivities, Otto had "crashed the party" as her husband put it.

Isabella snuck a glance at her cousins and couldn\'t help but make the same comparison she always made when they met them together.

Where Henry was tall and thin, Otto was stocky and muscular. Henry\'s sandy blonde hair contrasted sharply with Otto\'s jet black hair (and she understood that color name now since she came across multiple jet rocks). Henry looked sharp like a hawk but Otto looked more like a bull. Henry was cautious with his finances. Otto… was not. That last particular comparison could be seen in how they dressed. She knew because she\'s been to her late uncle\'s castle often as a child. Henry was wearing his father\'s most prized silk-woven cape that hung loosely while Otto\'s more form-fitting and latest fashion from Italian city-states… whatever it was called. It also had gold buttons studded along the side.

There was a reason why Otto\'s court was struggling financially but had the highest approval of his vassals while Henry\'s court grumbled about the lack of tourneys, festivities, and grand gatherings but had a strong financial foundation that has weathered multiple crises.

There was also another person waiting to be allowed into this meeting, and he was someone that the Habsburgs had sent as their representative.

Everyone at the table looked around and her husband finally raised her voice.

"Let her in."

The thick wooden doors pulled outwards, and there she stood, briefly pausing to let them all see her, and then she stepped in.

Elizabeth of Carinthia. Her cousin and the empress consort of the Holy Roman Empire.

-VB-

Elizabeth of Carinthia

Elizabeth looked around the room after stepping into it, and she had to say that there was a bit of mystique here that was hard to find in any of the courts that she had been to. Despite having a sizable town in the valley, the baron that her own husband had given the noble title to had instead chosen one of the unused mining tunnels and refurbished it for this meeting.

She thought it was a show of resourcefulness and wealth. The entire tunnel had been smoothed out with bricks laid out across the floor to serve as the floor. The amount of bricks in her one-minute walk was already a sizable investment, but what truly caught her was the impossibly smooth walls.

It must have taken thousands of days - no, tens of thousands of days of worth of work. That meant that the baron had either employed many people for a short amount of time or a small number of people for a long period. Either way, he had to pay a lot of money for what could be the start of a mountain fortress.

"Duke Wittelbachs," she smiled as she greeted the current enemy of her house. "I must say that fortunes have not shined on you lately."

Wisely, the older of the Upper Bavarian ducal brothers held his tongue. Instead, he stood up, walked up to her, kissed her ring, and then walked back to his seat. All without saying anything.

Rude.

Then she turned to her younger brothers, Otto and Henry.

"How have you two been doing? It\'s been such a long time since we saw each other!" she smiled. Her two brothers stood up and walked up to her, and she each gave them a hug which they returned.

This time, she turned to look at the two bishops.

"Your Graces," she nodded, and when the two elderly statesmen of the Lord stood up, it was she who kissed their rings and they who bowed afterward.

Finally. Finally, it was time to greet the enigma and the main player in all of this.

Baron Hans von Fluelaberg.

Oh, and her cousin Little Red Isabella.

(Not so little anymore).

"Fashionably late, I presume?" the baron asked her.

The others gawked at his audacity but Elizabeth just chuckled, even though she wanted to laugh out loud.

"A lady is never late, dear baron. However, I suppose that there is a certain flair to showing up late and drawing all of the eyes."

Which was exactly what she had done by arriving on the third day of the festivities.

Yes, it had been a surprise visit, mostly one that she had initiated herself, leaving her husband behind to deal with the feud between the Margrave of Brandenberg and the Duke of Saxony as well as the issue of the Bohemians trying to place one of their own on the Hungarian throne.

"Indeed," he smiled.

"Empress Elizabeth," Isabella spoke up from the baron\'s side.

Elizabeth smiled. "Oh, come now, Issie! You don\'t have to call me empress when we\'re in private!"

Isabella glanced at the three non-family members in attendance at the meeting. "Perhaps when we are more in private then," she smiled sweetly and a little nervously.

After that, she greeted the Lord Mayor of Memmingen, and the meeting commenced.

"So, little baron," she turned back to the man who took her cousin as his wife. "How do you intend to bring down the Duke of Upper Bavaria?"

-VB-

A/N 1: I did not think I would be reading scholarly articles on historical events to write my story, but here I am, doing exactly that.

-VB-

Chapter 83

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

Most of the conspirators - yes, that\'s what we were - headed back home within the week, and left me and Isabella alone at our castle.

Now, one would normally think that when a young, married couple are alone, they would go at it in bed like rabbits. Unfortunately for us, we were mentally drained from having hosted over a hundred nobles, ranging from great statesmen who wanted to pick at our brains to generally inferior assholes who entered the festival as the plus ones of their betters.

So instead of sex, we just laid side by side in bed this morning.

"It could be worse," Isabella spoke up from my left, and I glanced over at her. "We don\'t have overreaching vassals and overlord."

"I guess there is that," I hummed to myself. The Compact\'s only overlord was the emperor himself, and we didn\'t have vassals so much as other members of the Compact. But there were members who regretted being in the Compact because of how small they felt.

Fucking assholes. All they did was complain instead of contributing to the Compact.

… Okay, good thoughts, please. It\'s only morning. If I fell down the negativity hole, then I won\'t climb out of it for a long time.

"So what\'s the on the schedule today?" I asked as I pulled myself up.

"You\'re going to work again?" she frowned.

I paused. "Don\'t we have to?"

She looked at me incredulously. "Hans, you\'re the noble, not the peasant."

"Yeah, and?"

She sighed. "Ugh. My husband is a workaholic."

"Oi, I don\'t deserved to be called that. I\'m just … not sure what else I would be doing."

She raised an eyebrow and sat up.

My eyes, unfortunately, drifted down to her barely covered breasts. Her big breasts. Firm, big breasts that my hands couldn\'t cover completely.

She hummed knowingly. "How about we take some time for ourselves today?" she cooed as she draped her arms around my shoulders and climbed up to my lap. "And get to know each other better?"

"Umm. Sure."

She giggled. "Why is it that you always sound awkward whenever I\'m trying to get you to relax?" she asked with a smile. "You really are a workaholic."

Personally, I didn\'t think that, but if my wife thought so…

"Yes, I do think so."

I blinked. "Did I say that out loud?"

"No, but you looked like you were doubting me," she pouted before grinding herself against me a little. Despite the fact that it was near winter outside, select rooms inside the castle, including our room, was well-insulated to the point that we only had to wear thin nightwears. And Isabella thought I did great on our first night and only got better afterward.

She had been more than happy to give me the "hero\'s welcome."

Speaking of which…

[Sex] LvL 12

Wow. That felt good…! Now, let\'s feel even better, because there is nothing better than nature\'s own heroin.

*+1% pleasure felt for you and your partner per level.

*+0.025% chance of causing random orgasm in partner per thrust per level

We\'ve done it a lot.

It was only recently that all of the mental stress was catching up and, neither - or at least, I - was not in the mood for sex.

Even if she kept on grinding on me.

"Alright," I sighed as I grabbed her and rolled down to the bed, making her squeal a little. "We\'ll sleep in."

She pouted a little before snuggling into my chest.

---

By the time we got out of bed, it was two hours before noon, and our main servant, a matronly woman who followed Isabella to my lands, was leveling a look of disappointment at both of us but more at her.

"Isabella~!" Joanne chidded. "Are you seducing your husband to indulge in slothfulness? Have we not talked about this?"

Isabella whined - whined - as Joanne pulled at her hair as she brushed it down from the mess it had become during the night. And the impromptu sexy time.

Thankfully, we didn\'t smell because we had a pseudo-plumbing that brought up water to our room. The water, however cold, let us at least clean ourselves up a little before we came down to meet our servants and whatever guests we might have.

And we still had guests.

"Ah, cousin~!"

Isabella winced a little at the loud call and both she and I turned around to greet the one lord who stayed behind for an extended stay.

Otto III, Henry\'s older brother, grinned as he came sauntering over to us.

"Cousin," Isabella sighed. "Weren\'t you going to go home?"

Otto just grinned even more at that. "I was! But I couldn\'t help myself and indulge in all of the luxuries your little mountain city had to offer!"

I took a note on how he said that. He referred to Fluelaberg as a city instead of a hole, village, or town. A city was a very distinct thing within the Holy Roman Empire; only those that had the city charters could refer to themselves as cities. Of course, since the Compact was a separate entity, we could give our own people city charters if they met a reasonable requirement like Chur and my own city of Fluelaberg did.

"You are welcome to enjoy as much as you like, but please follow the rules of etiquette," she said with a nasty glare.

Oh yeah. Otto was a bit of a troublemaker. Yesterday, he harassed one of our maid servants, and Isabella had to personally get involved in chastising and stopping him. His guards hadn\'t been happy about that, but my near constant presence around Isabella when she was around Otto stayed their hand.

Otto was a bit of a bully but not in a mean sort of way. It\'s just his entire way of life was about being assertive, dominant, and expensive.

Which was one of the other reasons why we hadn\'t kicked him out yet. Instead of demanding he be fed, he always made sure to actually spend his money on the luxuries beyond the first few gifts we gave him. His obsession right now was sweets, because we had a lot more flavors on offer than "any other place I have ever been to, including Rome and Aachen," according to Otto himself.

The muscular and stocky co-duke of Carinthia, Carniola, and Tyrol hummed as he stared out of the castle window.

"This place is what I see as an ideal."

Ho?

"Why do you say that suddenly, cousin?" Isabella asked him as we began to walk toward the dining hall for our lunch.

"Is it not obvious?" he asked in return as he turned to us with a wide grin. "Money! This is where money flows like water! A city-state on par with the likes of Rome, Milan, Florence, and Venice up here in the mountains!" He clenched his fists. "You showed me that man can make his home anywhere and make it prosperous! Is that not the ideal of a man?"

Ah, he was a romantic.

"So to me, finding out that someone was out there trying to destroy this place … it is sacrilege!"

Or you just really like the luxuries we provide.

I smiled.

"It\'s good to know that we have someone who\'ll stand with us," I replied and extended hand toward him.

He looked at me for a second before grasping my hand in a handshake. A duke he may be, but Otto regarded his ideas more than he did his position. I could respect that kind of a person.

"As long as you don\'t fall down from this height and only go higher," he grinned at me. "Oh, and if you make my cousin unhappy, then you bet your ass I\'ll be here with an army."

I chuckled.

See? I could respect a man like this.

-VB-

Chapter 84

-VB-

Isabella von Fluelaberg nee Gorizia

Not all actions can be taken right off the bet. In fact, while the Prince-Bishop of Freising went back to tell off the Duke of Upper Bavaria, the rest of the conspirators needed to continue their normal activities to not arouse suspicion.

For her and Hans, there wasn\'t going to be any major change.

In fact, Hans made a declaration both in public and with his pamphlets that he posted. It was certainly

A Public Announcement

I greet all those who read these words in the name of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Grace of our King of Germans, Albert the First the Holy Roman Emperor.

The past year has been one of troubling times as our dear Compact has come under assault from external forces. In the south and the east, we knew not then but now know that these forces, disguising themselves as bandits, have been the greedy guilds and the Duke of Munich. At the height of the troubles we have come to face, we faced the Duke in battle in the neighboring Tyrollian lands and defeated him and his forces decisively; each of the man, who partook in this defensive battle for our lands and people, took home a men-at-arms or a knight\'s equipment.

In the west, the Count of Sargans once again rose up to burn our people despite the decree of our emperor. The newly admitted Count of Toggenburg who chose to become our brother-in-arms rose to the occasion and ended the Sargans threat, and thus proved himself to be our ally.

Our homes have come under assault time and time again, and were it not for our stalwart defenders, we would have long gone under the dirt with our homes aflame. I congratulate all of the soldiers - commoners and nobles alike - in succeeding in the defense of our home against these threats!

However, our duty to our lands, liege, friends, and family are not over.

So I hereby petition the members of the Compact to create a standing, professional army that serve not one noble or town but the entirety of the Compact! Let us train and rise up together as one to turn our swords and speartips not against each other or our neighbors but those who seek to end our way of life and freedom!

-Hans von Fluelaberg, Baron of Fluelaberg

It was … a revolutionary idea. No, it was a revival of an old idea. Her husband sought to recreate a professional army like the ones that the Romans had. The Eastern Roman Empire also used to have them, but they have since fallen back on hard times to the point that it was less of an army and more of a mob of large mercenary companies.

Having a standing army would allow them to react to sudden invasions like the one the imprisoned duke had attempted, which would have devastated Fluelaberg whether or not they succeeded in taking the city. The army would be able to reinforce any member that are attacked or even be split to place permanent garrisons.

However, she wasn\'t sure if her husband made the right decision to call for a professional army. Not only were the people of the Compact fiercely independent, more than any other lands she had visited in her life, but the mountains made the movement of a large army slow and cumbersome. In fact, she had advised her husband that it might be better if he could expand the Forest Rangers instead of creating an army, but he insisted that this level of commitment was necessary not just for the sake of the Compact but also to deter future threats.

She wasn\'t sure what this enemy would be, however. Henry and her father weren\'t going to be this enemy. The Habsburgs, through her cousin, was going to be their friend, too. The new Forest Cantons that formed in his homeland to the west was a smaller version of the Compact with neither the power or influence that the Compact had. The Serene Republic\'s focus was on naval trade and wars, so they weren\'t likely to …

Well, perhaps, that wasn\'t completely accurate. She knew that the outflow of expensive foreign goods from the east, like porcelain and new dyes, had to impact Venice. Would it be enough to cause them to declare war on them?

Isabella didn\'t think so, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

That "public announcement" was being distributed through the rest of the Compact and even a little beyond. The latter part of the plan was actually her contribution. She reasoned that if there weren\'t enough volunteers seeking to become a professional soldier inside the Compact, then Hans can supplement them with fortune seekers from outside. Of course, this increased the risk of spies infiltrating the army, but her Hans still agreed with her because he thought that there actually wouldn\'t be enough volunteers. His reasoning was that the mountainous valleys of the Compact couldn\'t have enough men "left over" to form an army that can take on the armies of the "flat lands" one-on-one.

She made sure to express her doubts while pointing to his own successes.

\'Yeah, but those are exceptions, not the rule.\'

"Lady Isabella?"

She looked up from where she had been embroidering one of her dresses and saw one of the maid servants of the castle.

"What is it, Joanne?" she asked.

She looked troubled. "There has been a brawl in the streets. It was quite serious."

"Ah. I\'ll be right there."

Right now, her husband was out in the fields looking for better iron veins to supply the castle\'s furnaces. No one knew where he was right now; for all she knew, he could be digging underground right underneath this very castle.

In his absence, she was the one in charge of affairs he would have taken care of. And the rare cases of justice was one she had to act as the magistrate in.

She walked toward the castle hall, and after four minutes of winding towers and halls, she found herself in the corridor just outside of it. The slightly wider hallway was guarded by four men-at-arms, and they bowed to her before two of them opened the double doors of the castle hall.

Standing inside the hall were about fifty people, which was more than most of her court appearances when she was here without Hans. She was, however, surprised by the who were currently being held to their knees. One of them was one of the original residents of Davos who had taken advantage of her husband\'s business expansion to become one of the rich among the Davos-Fluelaberg citizens. The other was one of the Jews living in Fluelaberg. She also recognized him as the one of the more quiet ones who did his best to not stand out and do his job as efficiently and thoroughly as possible. She didn\'t even remember seeing his name on the town guards\' list of troublemakers.

She silently walked across the hall and sat in her seat next to Hans\'s seat.

"Start the proceedings," she told the court recorder.

"Yes, My Lady," he said before standing up from his seat in the corner of the hall, strode over to the bottom of the raised dais where her seat was, and stood at attentive. "Today is Janauary 8th of the year of our Lord 1303. Two men stand before the representative, Baroness Isabella von Fluelaberg nee Gorizia, of our rightful ruler, Baron Hans von Fleluaberg, to settle the dispute and the breaking of our laws. Marin of Davos stands accused of assault and battery, price gouging, intimidation, and premeditated attacks. Yoshua of Fluelaberg stands accused of battery."

"And the related evidences and eyewitnesses?"

"They stand among the room\'s occupants, My Lady."

She sighed. Fifty people? This was going to be a long case.

"Alright. Please split yourself into following groups: witnesses to the fight, witnesses to price gouging, and witnesses to premeditated attacks…"

-VB-

Chapter 85

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

There was a problem I needed to solve. However, any proper solution to this problem of mine would either take too long or require me to depend on someone else to help mitigate the issue.

This problem … was the lack of a dedicated iron mine.

Davos and Fluelaberg were not situated on top of any ores, neither copper nor iron. The iron that have been coming into the Compact were from "artisan" iron gatherers near streams refining bacteria-rich red soi, some iron ore here and there from the gemstone mine,l and the few random peddlers and merchants coming mostly from the east.

The rest of the iron that my city found itself with were all from my personal mine that I spent a lot of time digging when I wasn\'t doing anything else.

And honestly, I was starting to get busy enough with the administration, training of rangers, experimentation, and now the conspiracy to devote any time to mining personally and clandestinely. It\'s worked so far because I\'ve been fudging the numbers on the gemstone mine to make it seem like they were pulling out more than they were actually doing. But anymore than what I was doing and the miners and the mine managers would get suspicious, even if it was to their benefit.

As much as I loathed to shift iron acquisition from external sources since there wasn\'t a place around here that could produce iron ores in the quantities we needed, I was going to have to go with it.

The solution, however, had a problem.

Iron was a tightly controlled war material and most of its sources around the Compact fell under either one lord or another.

There was … one source of iron. It was close to us. However, it was also held by one of the Compact\'s former enemies: the County of Montfort. They weren\'t exactly hostile with us, but we have been keeping to ourselves. Beyond that, there were also the mines in Styria, which was that of the Habsburgs. But it was really far away to just import willy-nilly, if they would agree to exporting their iron in the first place.

… Could I find an iron ore vein somewhere in the Compact? I mean, I could, but that would be time away from the city.

I looked out of my solar window and looked down at Fluelaberg under a light blanket of snow. It wasn\'t a large city but I could proudly call it a city. Maybe I can let it run by itself for a few weeks? It shouldn\'t hurt, right? It\'s also winter now, so there shouldn\'t be any big issues - like invasions - that\'ll crop up.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Just a bit of vacation away from people.

It sounded really nice. Maybe I\'ll set up a shack somewhere that I can use for personal retreats.

But I\'ll have to, ahem, scout the Compact first, won\'t I?

-VB-

Isabella

"You want to take a tour of the Compact?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow.

She knew her husband a little bit more now. A lot of things she didn\'t know back then - like his love of solitary life - were things she took in strides. Oh, she still loved him to bits, but there were little things that were starting to crop up that was making her become more cautious around her husband.

Like storing shit barrels underneath the castle. He didn\'t store them underneath the castle anymore after their first fight.

And right now, she was feeling suspicious about this "tour" that he wanted to do. Not only did he want to do this in the most miserable season of the year, he sounded like something else was the point of the tour.

"And what\'s the purpose for it?" she asked him as she took a bite of the meatloaf.

"Well, you know how we\'ve been having iron problems?"

"Yes."

"I want to see if I can go out and find one in the Compact\'s lands."

She hummed. That was actually a good initiative. On top of that, it was the perfect time to do it. She was pretty sure he wanted to see how Count John was doing.

"And I guess if we can\'t find iron ore vein in the Compact, then I can talk to the Count of Montfort. He has an iron mine, right?"

"He does," she nodded before humming. "But if he knows that we don\'t have a source of iron ores, wouldn\'t he charge us a lot?"

"He might, yes," Hans agreed. "So it\'s best if we could find an iron ore vein. And for that, I am thinking about going far west as Belmont."

"The Barony of Belmont?" she asked in surprise. "But they are the subject of the Werdenbergs."

"I didn\'t say I would go into Belmont\'s lands. Just up to the border between us. But if I could talk to the baron about surveying his lands, I don\'t think he\'ll be against it. If not them, then we might even go ask the Abbot of Disentis."

She looked at him before she realized something. "You\'re trying to invite them into the Compact."

He blinked.

Did he not think of that?

"Well, I guess if they want to join, I don\'t see why they can\'t. It\'s not like they were the offenders of the Unruly Year."

She finished the last of the meatloaf and cleaned her lips. Then she put her elbows on the table and her chin on her clasped fingers and smiled. "And what\'s the other reason you\'re so willing to go out and do a tour? It\'s awfully proactive of you, Hans."

He looked like he bit into a medicinal herb.

"Ah, well. You know, just …"

"If you say you feel cooped up, then I will cal you a liar, husband. Both of us know that you will feel as happy as a babe if you got to spend your entire day in those mines."

"I guess I\'m just built different," he said and then chuckled to himself at his weird phrasing. "But you are right. I could spend weeks in those mines as long as I had food and water, but I do need somewhere that I won\'t be bothered. Once the Compact is peaceful, strong, and stable, then it won\'t be bad for us to go on a retreat. It\'s not like the barony won\'t be ours if we just go off to some other part of the Compact."

She hummed. "I guess you really weren\'t built for this life, huh," she sighed in the end. "As your wife, I say no."

"What? Why?"

"Hans, people become kooky when they spend too much time alone, and as your wife, it is my duty to ensure that you don\'t become a crazy hermit in the mountains. You lost your chance at it when you agreed to marry me."

"Ugh," he uttered in faux despair. "Whatever will I do…"

"You can finish your meal and join me in bed. I feel like I need a bit of loving tonight, husband."

He paused before his hands moved a lot quicker than before in trying to finish his dinner.

She rolled her eyes as she got up to leave and prepare for their night.

\'Men,\' she thought exasperatedly but also fondly.

-VB-

Chapter 85.5

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

Before I left Fluelaberg on my tour around the entirety of the Compact and not just Chur, I wanted to do a little bit of skill grinding for all of the skills that I probably won\'t be using. The skill at the top of this list was actually a new skill that I\'ve developed lately.

[Disguise] LvL.3

I\'m a woman. Honest!

Hides identity and reduces discovery

*1% reduction in disguise failure per level.

This was different from Stealth, which was a skill I\'ve obtained that I\'ve obtained around the same time that I obtained Orator skill.

[Stealth] LvL.17

Sneaky Beaky Like.

Reduces discovery

*0.75% reduction in discovery chance per level.

*Keep reduction when moving silently outside of enemy\'s close vision

I haven\'t had to use Stealth, so it\'s level was very low, at least in comparison to my other skills. What was I going to do around Flelualberg that needed Stealth? Have quieter sex in my own personal castle? Well, I could, but I didn\'t want to.

Speaking of sex, my skill for that … went up quite a lot.

[Sex] LvL 45

Wow. That felt good…! Now, let\'s feel even better, because there is nothing better than nature\'s own heroin.

*+1% pleasure felt for you and your partner per level.

*+0.025% chance of causing random orgasm in partner per thrust per level

At level 45, I was about to make Isabella cum her brains out thrice in ten minutes on average, twice from natural orgasm and once from random orgasm triggered by my Sex skill. This passive skill got a lot of use, but Stealth wasn\'t something I used often. The last time I used it was when I had a midnight snack and didn\'t want to get caught by Isabella.

But both Disguise and Stealth could be very useful skills in the future, so I wanted to train them up. Being so low level, I was certain that I could pump some levels into them before Isabella and I left for the tour.

How was I going to do it, though? Everyone recognized me, so my disguise wouldn\'t work and I needed the disguise to work for me to gain experience! It also didn\'t help that I was big even when I compared myself to well-fed and trained knights.

… Well, there was something that would work. Unlike many towns and cities of similar size, the influx of migrants was not canceled out by deaths due to poor hygiene, crime, and living standard. In fact, the natural baby boom from abundant wealth available even to newcomers saw that children under fourteen made up a good fifth of my city\'s population.

That\'s a lot of babies.

And babies and children don\'t know my face as well as their parents do. On top of this, I had set up a service that finds and pays people to do communal babysitting. Sure, they wouldn\'t be paid as much as most other jobs in the city but it was an "easier" job that many elderly can partake in. Of course, I also knew that some of those elderly were doing those jobs anyway before I set up the jobs, so they got paid.

It was not a medieval model of how communities and cities worked. I knew that. However, it was a popular job that ensured that the elderly did not overly burden their children and grandchildren. Even they have their own pride and being able to work even minutely made them feel better about themselves, especially if it was a job they would have done for their community anyway.

And who paid for this?

I did.

Or rather, since while I did collect tax from the less well-off folks, I just redistributed back into the community so that the community won\'t frail and fall apart should something unexpected happen. Sure, humans and their societies were strong, but societies and communities still fell apart because of unexpected problems. Mitigating weak points so that such unexpected problems don\'t cause a cascading collapse was what I did as a ruler.

So where was I going with this?

… Right.

If I disguised myself to the best of my ability and then introduced myself to one of the … non-Christian sub-communities as a helper sent by the baron, then I can work on both my disguise and gain more understanding about some of the least understood people within my town.

It\'ll have to be quick, though, because I was leaving for the tour within the month.

---

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, don\'t pull on the moustache-!" I hissed but the baby I was taking care of didn\'t understand and pulled. The glue-attached moustache pulled at my skin and gave me an eye-watering pain.

And then the baby pulled harder.

"Ow ow ow ow -!"

---

I ducked underneath the rocks the horde of kids threw at me.

"Brats-!" I hissed as I got back up before ducking back down when someone threw a poop pot at me.

---

"I see, so there\'s just not a lot of space for kids to play around in safely," I hummed as I listened to a trio of mothers talking about what they felt about the state of their section of the city. This area, the non-Christian sector of the city, grew organically after the initial set-up. Because of this and a lack of zoning and infrastructure laws, people did what they do best and improvised.

A lot of the houses here were more ramshackle than the rest of the city and there were even tunnels being dug out by more enterprising miners looking to sell hollowed-out tunnels as homes for new families. Others chose to cut down trees and build by the steep valley walls without the actual engineering or construction know-how to ensure long-term stability of their buildings.

In essence, this place was slowly becoming a ticking time bomb. One bad fire will see not just here but the rest of the city burn.

And considering that this place was filled to the brim with my non-Christians, they were most likely going to be persecuted for something like a fire even if none of them were the ones to start it, intentionally or accidentally.

"Okay. I know the baron, and I\'ll make sure to tell him what you women think. That\'s a promise."

The three mothers giggled.

… What did I say?

---

On the seventh day, I rested and looked at my skills.

[Disguise] LvL.11

[Stealth] LvL.20

… it wasn\'t a great leap in skill level, but I\'ll take it regardless.

-VB-

A/N: a more lighthearted chapter with a bit of citybuilding.