The Third Son of a Medieval Knight Family Chapter 57 - Tribal Conflict (22)

The nobles’ fight showed no signs of calming down.

This had now become a matter of pride.

And anyone who could smoothly overlook having their pride wounded wasn’t worthy of being called a noble.

Day after day, the great hall became a pandemonium, and there seemed to be no signs of mediation whatsoever.

Eventually, even the Count, who had been somewhat tempered by central politics, finally became exhausted and collapsed.

From the beginning, mediating such situations didn’t suit his temperament at all.

If it were a matter of taking one side and crushing the other, that would be different, but for the Count, who was impatient even by noble standards, the task of somehow reconciling both sides was nothing short of torment.

Mikhail advised that he should use this incident as an opportunity to gain good experience before succession and try his best until the end, but the Count was already exhausted.

He had now reached a state where he didn’t care about anything.

“Foolish bastards. Just let them all get crushed by the barbarians!”

“Your Excellency, please…!”

When the Count withdrew, the fighting became even more intense.

And the side that consistently maintained the upper hand in that fight was, surprisingly, the Viscount’s side, which was only a minority.

Above all, the fact that Radovitz Castle was the Viscount’s castle and the lords were essentially lodgers there worked most effectively.

“Just get out of my castle! I don’t care if you die outside or not!”

The Viscount was now openly spouting such words whenever the mood struck him.

That didn’t mean the lords’ side was completely disadvantaged either.

After all, the side that possessed the most troops in this castle was the alliance of eastern lords.

They, in their own way, were openly spewing out the ominous atmosphere they no longer bothered to hide.

“The castle lord is a warmonger! He’s the type who would throw all the troops into hell and still have more to spare!”

“For the greater good, someone must inevitably correct this situation! Who would follow a captain who orders them to sail into a typhoon?”

The atmosphere inside the castle was heading toward the worst.

In the midst of all this, the news that Lusimov had deployed his utmost diplomatic skills to negotiate with the Count and organize scouts to search for the forces that had gone outside the castle was truly heartbreaking.

Everyone spoke in unison.

Before the war with the barbarians, civil war was an unavoidable situation.

And now the mercenaries and conscripted soldiers began calculating busily in their own way.

While the nobles and the knights who followed those nobles were firmly divided into camps, the story was different for those below them.

The mercenaries began watching which side would be better to join, as did the soldiers.

Some rather bold mercenary captains were even reaching the point of openly declaring they would side with whoever paid more money.

At least those who had followed the Count were firmly declaring neutrality, but the situation was deteriorating to the point where it seemed unclear whether they could maintain complete neutrality in the daily escalating conflict.

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And finally, Viktor’s patience was beginning to reach its limit.

He was leaning back comfortably, gazing at the blazing torch fire.

Viktor’s expression looked peaceful, but Lukovich realized that Viktor was on the verge of exploding.

The servant carefully handed Viktor a plate with steam rising appetizingly from it.

“It’s borscht, Lord Viktor. Please try some.”

“Ah, thank you.”

The night air was quite chilly.

He stirred the deliciously heated borscht with a wooden spoon and took a big spoonful.

“Hmm… not bad?”

Viktor began nodding repeatedly and focusing on eating.

Lukovich let out a sigh of relief at the sight.

His master, perhaps because he came from a barren village, wasn’t particularly picky about food.

Yet occasionally he showed strangely fastidious or detailed behavior regarding taste, which still remained one of several unsolved mysteries about Viktor.

‘Still, when he eats delicious food, he tends to soften a bit…’

The story about the castle’s poor stockpile situation was now an open secret, but even so, decent food was still being distributed.

This was thanks to the strict orders of the Viscount, the castle lord.

‘And because of that, the lords caused another uproar…’

Lukovich truly thought nobles were difficult beings.

Even in this situation, they couldn’t yield to each other over that damned pride.

‘If all the nobles were like Lord Viktor, there wouldn’t have been any problems.’

After going through one vicious battle, Lukovich’s perspective had also changed considerably.

If until before he still couldn’t abandon his merchant’s viewpoint, now he had gained the perspective of a proper combatant.

And from that perspective, his master, when viewed anew, was incomparably greater than before and truly worthy of reverence.

Since his perspective had changed, he could feel it even more keenly.

‘Lord Viktor is strong but prudent, firm but also generous when it’s time to be generous.’

Truly a knight who would appear in legendary martial epics!

Lukovich swallowed his saliva and, despite himself, began unconsciously substituting Viktor into the flame of ambition that had begun to grow within him.

‘Someday, if someday I could become a knight comparable to Lord Viktor…’

Though there was now an unimaginably vast difference, still, if he kept working tirelessly…!

Just as Lukovich was clenching his fists and thinking about his newly sprouted dream.

“Are you hungry? Sorry, I ate it all…”

Viktor was holding up a cleanly emptied bowl with an embarrassed smile.

Lukovich bowed his head while looking at Viktor, who was unpretentious to the extreme in such matters.

No matter how many times he thought about it, deciding to follow Viktor back then was one of the few excellent decisions in his life.

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‘Well then, my stomach should be full, so gradually…’

Viktor’s eyes gleamed.

He quietly stood up and began heading somewhere.

A damp place located in a corner within the castle.

It was Radovitz’s underground prison.

The guard watching the door recognized Viktor and saluted with precise movements.

“You work hard even late at night. How is that fellow doing?”

“Yes, thanks to your mercy, there seems to be no problem with his recovery. Would you like to check?”

The guard naturally unlocked the door with his key and guided Viktor inside.

It was quite skillful, as if this wasn’t the first or second time.

“Thank you, I’m just planning to have a little conversation and come back.”

“Yes, understood.”

“You always work so hard too. When your shift ends today, go have a drink.”

When Viktor handed over a silver coin, the guard received it with both hands and saluted loudly.

“Haha, as expected, there’s no one but you who looks after lowly ones like me. Thank you!”

Viktor waved his hand and slowly walked toward the deepest part of the prison.

The prison was damp and filthy beyond measure, with strange smells floating throughout, but he didn’t particularly mind.

Viktor walked without hesitation past the bent section and arrived in front of a room blocked by bars.

Clang! Clang!

When Viktor knocked on the bars, the man who had been lying hunched over frowned and raised his head.

It was Tumen, the Grand Chief’s third son who had been captured as Viktor’s prisoner after the battle at Remolnyaf.

“Well now… what’s this about?”

He roughly shook his hair and opened his mouth with an attitude much more subdued than before.

Viktor stared at him quietly and said.

“How are your legs?”

“Well… they’ve gotten much better thanks to you. But this feeling is a bit strange. To think I’d be giving thanks to the person who crushed my legs about my recovery going well.”

Tumen was treated as Viktor’s spoils of war and was fortunately able to save his life.

While there were many who immediately clamored that the barbarian prisoner should be killed, the Count strongly argued that Viktor’s rights should be guaranteed, and the Viscount also supported this, so Tumen ended up confined in the underground prison but was able to survive.

In addition, at Viktor’s personal request, healers visited to treat Tumen’s crushed ankles.

‘That was truly amazing. The medical arts of this world…’

The healers summoned from the monastery used treatment methods that Viktor’s common sense couldn’t understand.

However, the effects were quite definite, as not only Tumen but also Yelchin and the other knight who had been hovering between life and death were showing great improvement.

“Yes, I’m glad to hear they’ve gotten better.”

“…You probably didn’t come just to ask about my wellbeing. What’s the matter?”

At Tumen’s question, Viktor opened his mouth in a low voice.

“About the one who planned this operation you mentioned.”

“Ah… has the attack finally begun?”

Tumen spoke with a strange expression.

He couldn’t easily gauge whether this would be good or bad for him.

However, Viktor shook his head.

“There’s been no sign of attack so far. The problem now is that we’re on the verge of fighting among ourselves.”

At Viktor’s words, Tumen began sneering and speaking sarcastically.

“The principality has always been like that. Your country is truly strange. Why doesn’t the highest leader control everything? I can’t understand how even higher-ranking nobles can’t give orders to nobles below them…”

“You guys are always fighting between tribes too, aren’t you? It’s not like the Grand Chief can control them all either. Rather than that, I need more information about that person.”

“…Having already sold tribal information to you and extended my life, there’s no reason to hide anything now, and even if I tried to hide it, I’d obviously be tortured and forced to talk anyway, so I can tell you anything. But I have one question.”

“Tumen, what are you curious about?”

“Why now specifically? What you should be worrying about right now are those pathetic people fighting among themselves while facing steppe warriors, aren’t they?”

At Tumen’s words, Viktor replied with a calm attitude.

“That’s exactly why. I have to try something, don’t I? If we just stay still like this, we’ll all die together.”

“Hmm… so even a monster like you worries?”

“Tumen, it seems prison has become quite comfortable for you. Seeing how insolently you’re running your mouth, it wouldn’t matter if I crushed your wrists.”

When Viktor spoke with a slight joke mixed in, Tumen’s face turned pale.

“S-sorry! I couldn’t help myself…”

“Fine. Rather than that, hurry up and tell me more details about that person.”

At Viktor’s words, Tumen slowly began to open his mouth with his face still pale.

“Um… as I told you before… that bastard, I mean, the one currently leading the situation, his name is…”

At Tumen’s following words, Viktor’s brow twitched slightly.

“The man who leads the wolf tribe of the Uley region, Bohdan.”