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-VB-

Swiss Alps, as it would later come to be known as, looked picturesque when I, in a distant past that may be the future, looked it up on Google.

During my less than twenty years of life here, I have seen examples of the picturesque valleys and mountains.

Not a lot of people talked about how cold it could get, though.

Despite being wrapped up in at least two layers, I felt the cold valley winds crawl their way through whatever crooks and crannies they can push themselves through. Worse, I stood at the head of our little raid party, so I faced the wind head-on while the rest of my volunteer raiders lined up behind me like ducklings.

We made good time crossing the valley towards reaching our destination.

I … worried about what was going to happen.

I already made clear orders and instructions on what we were going to do, but I knew better to think that the men would do all that I said. These people were, after all, the denizens of a realm that tried to kill us. If I wasn\'t there with my fort and my Gamer-given strength, speed, and endurance, they would have been at the receiving end of what we intended to do, only worse.

I continued to move forward as the forest in the valleys began to thin.

"We\'re getting close," I said out loud.

The volunteers heard me and paused as I did.

"We\'ll set up camp here tonight," I ordered. There was no paved road here, just a cleared and somewhat used dirt path. If we built our camp away from it, then no one would discover us as long as we didn\'t have a fire on throughout the night. Besides, no one should be heading through this path.

We headed off the path and quickly set up tents and a single campfire with a pot over it. Our dinner tonight: hardtacks soaked in water. That\'s it.

(This was one of the many unspoken reasons why I preferred to have not needed to raid, but Kraft and his villagers forced my hand. Who the fuck wants to leave behind warm food and bed for this?)

I paused in eating my tasteless hardtack watery soup when one of the older volunteers sat down next to me and ate his own gruel.

We ate in silence before he finally spoke.

"... So, chief."

I had half a mind to tell him to not call me that because the thought of even more responsibility irked me when I simply wanted to enjoy the world. However, not accepting this title would mean that I would also not have control over what the volunteers did. That was the advantage of being a leader: people did shit that you told them to do, and if they didn\'t, then you had a reason to correct them.

This was especially true in this day and age. Sure, there were rules and laws that prevented a leader, mayor, chief, lord, count, dukes, and kings from indiscriminately punishing or extorting his people (hello, Magna Carta and Haandfaesting, shouldn\'t the two of you be in existence by now?), but stealing was punishable by death (not everywhere for every minor infarction of stealing but it was still possible).

Disobeying the lord in a battle had even worse consequences.

"Yes?" I responded mildly instead of the glare I wanted to throw.

"Are you sure about not taking more than what we need? I mean, some of us here aren\'t married, you know."

… Was this guy?

I saw the gleam in his eyes.

Oh, he was fucking serious.

"Are you a Muslim?"

The sudden question threw him off. "A what?"

"A Muslim. People who call our Lord Jesus Christ a mere prophet and places someone else as above him? The people who enslave

Christians like ourselves? Who enslave Christian women to be their sex slaves and concubines against their wishes?"

My voice had risen a little during my demanding rant, and he quickly shook his head.

"Then why do you intend to enslave someone against their will?" I demanded again as I set the bowl down.

"W- I- S-"

I glared at him a little more -.

Ping!

[You have gained a new skill!]

[Intimidation] LvL 1

Instill fear in others.

*Once toggled (passively or manually), stun all within 10-yard radius for (LvL*0.05) seconds every second with [ (TARGET.CHA - YOUR.CHA)*10% ] chance of succeeding.

*At LvL 10, gain access to mana-infused target-assisting spell variant.

Everything just stopped as, one, I stared dumbly at the new skill, and two, at what the skill\'s secondary function implied.

My first magic spell.

My first magic, period.

I didn\'t know whether to thank the wannabe-rapist-wife-stealer raider or kiss him.

Actually, he was a wannabe-rapist-wife-stealer raider. I\'ll merely let his help slide, negated by the fact that he had the gall to ask me the previous question.

"There are such a people who most live far south of us, across the entirety of the Italian peninsula and beyond the Mediterranean," I sighed as I drew myself back. "Their laws prevent themselves from enslaving each other, so they enslave others, even if their victims are those who worship the same God."

My words hooked at their minds and reeled them in. I spoke of a world none of them knew about. How would they? They were literal peasants who worked the mountainous fields of the Alpine valleys. They didn\'t get vacations or time off nor did they have education beyond what was strictly necessary for their survival (to be fair, they learned a lot, just not a lot of things beyond the pragmatically practical).

I could go on a tangent about how God\'s action in the Old Testament, the very first action after creating us humans, was to grant us freedom (Almighty and All-knowing God didn\'t stop Adam and Eve from eating the Forbidden Fruit) and how slavery itself was a heretical act that went against God himself, but that would be lost on most people. Hell, from what I remember, that simple lack of action was lost on most of the priests and pastors I\'ve met in my past life (especially the younger ones).

No, I was going to make it simple for them.

Were you something not us or us?

"So are you going to go and join the people who enslaves your Christian brothers and sisters?" I asked, and the mood was … hostile. It wasn\'t just from me, but the others who heard me understood what was going on, and what kind of question had to be asked for me to act up like this.

Arnold seemed like he understood the most.

The balding man gulped.

I should kill him.

… Should I?

…

No.

Death was too final of a sentence. It left no room for improvement. People could get better; the question was whether or not they wanted to.

"I know that … these kinds of events give all of us opportunities to able to do something that we normally can\'t," I slowly spoke. "But there is a limit to what you should do, and as long as I am the leader, I will enforce that. Is that understood?"

"...Yes, sir," the now meek man replied.

"Good. That means no kidnapping woman to be your wife. Barter her like most of the widowed or single men do if you must-" Because that was the system of the time and era. "-but you don\'t kidnap and steal people. That is enslavement and I will not allow slavery on my watch." I gripped my broadsword meaningfully.

The rest of the meal was silent, and I stewed in the bad mood with the bad food.

It wasn\'t until later that I got giddy in my private tent while thinking about the new skill.

-VB-

Joseph von Sax-Misox

He swayed slightly from side to side as his horse ambled forward with his most prized knights around him while his levies and the mercenaries followed behind him.

On his way, he ransacked the villages and towns that belonged to the Counts of Zernez. Bergun fell without fighting back. Ponte didn\'t expect him and his army, and barely managed a defense at the crack of dawn before they too burned. The Noble House of Planta tried to negotiate, but they were nothing but lesser nobles so he plowed through them and their mob of hastily assembled peasant levies. They didn\'t even have a knight! That\'s how poor they were.

And here he was now, at the southern corner of Zernez…

He spotted something.

It drew his eyes and forced him to look.

There, at the northern side of this castle town, was a group of men. They looked like mercenaries. Were they hired by the Waldenbergs?

… He could not let them enter the castle, then.

"Men! Enemies up ahead!"

---

Arnold

He froze when he saw an army show up from the south.

"Oh, that can\'t be good."

He looked at Hans and saw the man grinning.

Why was he grinning?

They\'d just arrived at the town and were deciding whether or not to enter negotiation with the next count or whoever else was reigning until the succession was settled.

Hans looked all for negotiations because he said it would be "less work for more reward," and Arnold agreed. Hans, using his booming voice, had called for a representative and got one in the form of the late count\'s wife.

But they hadn\'t even started the negotiations when that army showed up, and Hans, who\'d just advocated for less work, looked like he was ready to do more work.

"Hey," Hans spoke up, and Arnold knew from Hans\'s tone - the same tone Hans used to put him to do grueling work back at the Fluela Fort - that this was not going to be fun for him or the other volunteers. "How about this? You give us two hundred thirty-pound bags of grain and then a hundred gold coins on top of that. If you do, then I\'ll help you fight them-" he gestured towards the army. "-off. And just so you know exactly who I am: I\'m the guy who killed eight knights and then your late husband by myself without even getting a scratch on myself. Oh, of course, this also means that I don\'t do this to you and your castle," he said while pulling out his greatsword - the one that was longer and nearly wider than Hans, who was a tall man himself - and slammed it into the ground, making the ground tremble under their feet from the weigh of the sword.

And Hans did that with a single hand.

As the countess\'s shoulders tensed, Arnold felt his shoulders sag.

He knew it! Hans always said he didn\'t want trouble, but he built a fort, fought battles, and did it all with a smile on his face! Hans was a liar! A goddamn liar! Fuck! He even made threats to Berthold and then does this? Hire them out as mercenaries?

… He\'d better share that gold.

"... Very well," the countess said. "I will tell my son."

"Good then." Hans turned to them. "It\'s Battle of Fluela Pass, take two!" he cackled with words that made no sense but obviously meant something funny. "You lot, escort the lady back to the castle and defend it. I\'m going to go and harass these guys from the rear."

Hans took a bow and two quivers of arrows from him, and then, while wearing armor and weapon that had to weigh at least five men, ran - faster than Arnold could ever run - into the sparse forests near the castle town.

"Alright, Countess Waldenberg. Let\'s go to your castle. I don\'t want to fight an army out here," he urged her and they all quickly retreated.

---

I grinned as I ran between the trees and shrubs. The army obviously saw me and the others, and probably assumed that I was a messenger or a scout, because they sent five of their cavalrymen after me.

All I could think about was how quickly I was going to level up [Intimidation] so that I can use fucking magic!

The sparse forest, obviously sparse because the locals were cutting down trees for fuel, sped around me as I ran at half my top speed. This was still twice faster than the average top speed of humans, so I wasn\'t losing much ground to the cavalrymen sent after me.

Instead, I ran uphill and then abruptly turned around with my bow out and an arrow already nocked and drawn.

I saw before me a downhill slope of a forest with fall leaves already thinly layering the ground and shrubs. The horsemen urged their mounts forward, and they had their swords and spears drawn, ready to run me down.

Too bad for them…

I loosed.

The arrow struck the frontmost horse\'s forehead, and it crumpled forward.

I loosed again and again and again.

Of the four arrows, three found their mark, and three horses died. Two of the three riders managed to get off in time while the third screamed as his horse fell sideways and crushed his leg underneath him.

The fourth and fifth horsemen continued to run at me, but the moment they entered the range of my Intimidation, I grinned behind my helmet and unleashed [Intimidation] as I swung.

Dazed by the sudden foreign feeling, the fourth horse died as I cleaved its neck and its rider. Human and horse blood spewed out momentarily like a fountain, and I used the forward momentum to spin and strike at the fifth rider and horse.

This one got lucky. They had been just outside my striking range, and got away as I missed them by a good foot.

I didn\'t stop, though. I slammed the sword onto the ground, pulled my bow back out, and loosed an arrow at his back.

I missed the upper back and instead struck where his kidney would be.

Ouch.

Whirling around, I saw the two de-horsed cavalrymen staring at me with horrified realization.

[Intimidation] LvL up!

Huh? But I didn\'t use it-.

Ohhh… it gained experience if my targets got feared on their own.

\'… Normally, I didn\'t like being cruel, but what would this do?\'

I drew another arrow and fired.

Stunned, the nearer of the two riders didn\'t have the time nor the chance to dodge as the arrow flew true … and pierced through his groin.

He screamed.

The other rider screamed.

Now that I was paying attention to my Gamer, I could feel the EXP gains flowing in. It was here that I had a horrifying realization. Like a WoW player who grinded raid dungeons, I could grind Intimidation by holding people in a dungeon and torturing them.

The thought of it sickened me even as my own mind brought it up.

I drew another arrow as the now only surviving rider fled.

I loosed and struck mostly true. The last rider went down with an arrow through his throat.

I slung the bow around my torso, picked my greatsword back up, and rushed out of the forest.

The commander would be too busy sieging the castle. There was no way he was at the frontline…

So just like I did with the Count of Waldenberg, I would strike at the army\'s commander.