He took advantage of the situation to get profit as well as attempt to kill them. Changing identities would remove one of those reasons, the "personal" one. A lot more people are willing to go after them for "justice" than just money (or at least the dangerous ones).
The Steep Path Ahead [Familiar of Zero AU]
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Except the story he spin to justify his act is implausible at best, it sounds more like something he made up to try to justify what he did to someone he's likely to going to kill anyway to hide what he did but wants to lower their guard to make it easier for him.
- Pronouns
- she/her
How exactly was Ulfric going to steal the reward without killing them? If he let any of them survive his reputation is ruined and he has to deal with people capable of killing a hydra hunting him down. It really can't be called justice if he's willing to murder the innocent Tiffania as well the wrongdoers. Plus this line:
Implies nothing nice about his expectations if Tiff had surrendered.
Moving on though, I want to know what the fuck was up with the power levels in this chapter. I get that Saito was stabbed 3 times, but why the fuck was was Ulfric still able to overpower him after this shit?
Ulfric shows no signs of damage from this wound, and Saito's strength boost should have allowed him to tear the sword away pretty easily. Or at least prevent Ulfric from clubbing him unconscious with it.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
In other words, his story's bullshit, because superhuman mercenaries who can shrug off a stab from the Gandalfr burning his runes are not an example of a "Community".
In other words, at best, he was a world class fighter who could reliably expect to solo two mages and a fighter who was good enough to parry a poisonous fog, even with the element of surprise (Because he was in melee range) who just happened to be in their way and in a position to ambush them with this. Or he's just saying bullshit because he's some kind of modified-human assassin, and has orders to make them think that every mercenary on the continent wants their blood to discourage them from hiring help against future attacks.
Because the word of six people saying that two people who got the better of them should not be enough to be instantly trusted unless this apparent "brotherhood" is chiefly built around removing competition rather than serving as some kind of ideal to stand up to.
You don't need to be nice people to be a mercenary, but taking the fact that you were outfoxed personally is a good way to get yourself killed. These guys took things personally right from the beginning--you don't get to be veterans in a dangerous profession by bitching and moaning and then going All In to fuck over people who managed to get the better of you. Not unless you already have enormously powerful backers who for some reason are invested in clearing the road for you.
I think mercenaries and other untrustworthy sort trade on reputation. Reputation is important. If an established mercenary with a reputation of honesty accuses a bunch of newbies of breaking the unwritten rules, people will believe them. You don't have much standing in this community without reputation.
This is true when it comes to your average criminals and your average victims. It's different between professionals. Like it or not, Louise and Saito made themselves professionals when they started calling themselves adventurers. They even officially signed up.
They should have learned the rules of their profession. They didn't. And that's on them.
Six veterans. Six people who spent years/decades traveling around the continent, working with other mercenaries, back-to-back, in very trying circumstances.
And who says being a mercenary is about removing competition? It's cutthroat, certainly, but it's not like the final mercenary standing wins the prize or something.
When a bunch of veteran mercenaries are slapped around by a bunch of kids, they'll do anything to soften the blow to their reputation. We were taking it easy on them. We were betrayed. They broke the rules. Etc.
They trade on reputation. Their reputation is very important to them. They need to be good at spinning PR. And it helps that Louise and Saito actually did break the rules.
It's better to be seen as a whiner than to be seen as weak.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
No profession would last if sword point agreements are enforced by mob vengeance!
And Louis and Saito did not break any rules. The mercenaries did when they abused and threatened the life of a noncombatant kidnapped victim, and then threatened to abuse Louis and Saito!
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
The issue at hand is that it's not like they were advertising it.
And frankly, while reputation is imporant, it doesn't make you instantly and immediately believed when you bitch and moan that two kids apparently managed to outfox you at ever turn. You're basically creating a hit to your reputation just to get revenge, which is counterproductive to being a competent and elite mercenary band that trades on it--after all, the same thing goes both ways--if they really did have the unquestioned ear of every mercenary on the continent, there was literally no risk to them of two kids saying they overcame these guys, because they'd be laughed off the stage at best.
That's why I'm kind of calling bullshit on this guy's story. Unless Mercenaries in this setting are universally Level 12+ Fighters and the like, it seems unlikely that a world class fighter is going to be present and willing to try and solo two mages and a fighter of Saito's calibre. Not on his own. That's an excellent way to get yourself killed.
And you don't survive to be a veteran by taking stupid risks.
It'd be more believable if he wrangled up a posse for this--not immensely so, but far moreso than trying to fight two mages with an elite fighter as a bodyguard on your lonesome.
While there may be a kernel of truth in the saying that these six dudes are spreading shit around to get revenge, the idea that they were immediately and unquestioningly believed to the point of setting off a lynch mob that spreads across the better part of Halkgenia is probably bullshit and fearmongering to get them to panic and make mistakes.
And frankly, while reputation is imporant, it doesn't make you instantly and immediately believed when you bitch and moan that two kids apparently managed to outfox you at ever turn. You're basically creating a hit to your reputation just to get revenge, which is counterproductive to being a competent and elite mercenary band that trades on it--after all, the same thing goes both ways--if they really did have the unquestioned ear of every mercenary on the continent, there was literally no risk to them of two kids saying they overcame these guys, because they'd be laughed off the stage at best.
That's why I'm kind of calling bullshit on this guy's story. Unless Mercenaries in this setting are universally Level 12+ Fighters and the like, it seems unlikely that a world class fighter is going to be present and willing to try and solo two mages and a fighter of Saito's calibre. Not on his own. That's an excellent way to get yourself killed.
And you don't survive to be a veteran by taking stupid risks.
It'd be more believable if he wrangled up a posse for this--not immensely so, but far moreso than trying to fight two mages with an elite fighter as a bodyguard on your lonesome.
While there may be a kernel of truth in the saying that these six dudes are spreading shit around to get revenge, the idea that they were immediately and unquestioningly believed to the point of setting off a lynch mob that spreads across the better part of Halkgenia is probably bullshit and fearmongering to get them to panic and make mistakes.
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??
What do you think war is? You invade a place and, provided you don't want to conquer it, use your victories and military presence to force good surrender terms.
War has rules. To prevent atrocities from happening (too often). You respect the rules or your word is shit to the other players.
There are plenty of situations in which sword point agreements are expected to be honored.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
You still need an excellent Cause for War or else everyone else flips their shit, including many of your own people, because then you're a mad dog who lashes out indiscriminately.
Just "Because I say so" should not be enough to move as many guys as this guy is claiming are moving against it. Even if these guys are The Best And Most Respected Mercenaries on the Continent (Somehow), which means that they really shouldn't have been trumped by two kids, no matter how treacherous they were.
And I really doubt that a count would have the money to hire elite mercenaries and then waste it on basically kidnapping commoners. It's like using a cannon to hunt rabbits.
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Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
And if the invading army is thrown out on their asses, they don't get to whine, "but we had seized the city fair and square!"!
They certainly don't get the entire military community to gang up on the country that threw them out after having surrendered!
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- Pronouns
- she/her
Pretty huge problem with their PR campaign: Saito and Louise left them all alive and mostly unscarred, strongly limiting how much they can spin them as bad guys who need to be punished by the community.
Even if they try to play up the TR-8R aspect of the story it happened 3 times in a row which again, makes them look incompetent rather than victimized.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
In other words.
At worst, these guys bitching and moaning will get Saito and Louise looked at with a stink-eye by fellow Mercenaries, but the idea of them actually basically putting out a Black Spot for them en masse is ludicrous. They'd never be able to function if it was that easy to set out a mass Kill Order that they'll universally honor.
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Reputation.
It's likely that a lot of scum end up as mercenaries. It's probably fair to assume that any mercenary is scum unless they've got a reputation for honorable dealings. Newbie mercenaries probably aren't given the benefit of the doubt in any situation.
Any veteran will have the reputation for respecting the rules, or he/she will have been culled from the pack a while ago.
It's possible that this situation happens all the time. Newbie mercenaries break the rules and get shanked, as a form of self-policing in the community. Maybe Saito and Louise are, like, the fifth mercenary gang [Insert name of the guy in the fic] had to kill this year.
They might have assumed that their defeat would have spread regardless of them keeping it silent and might have decided to get ahead of the story. Additionally, the fic said that there are increasingly harsher punishments for breaking the surrender oath.
It's possible that the mercenaries believed that Saito and Louise would be willing to take a slap for saving a pretty girl. Even a flogging. Breaking the oath three times, though. That's death. It's perfectly reasonable to expect two kids to be unwilling to die just to save a pretty barmaid. This is the third strike. Fun and games are over. It's time to be realistic/pragmatic.
Really, Saito and Louise got the death penalty for the third strike. The first and second don't really matter.
The problem is that Saito and Louise had no fucking idea what they were doing. They didn't know the rules.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Except they didn't break oaths three times, I would go as far as say they didn't break even one oath. They never gave a oath not to rescue the girl at anytime and they escaped twice, the second time after it was clear the mercenaries were going to violate the terms of surrender that they forced in the first place which in case the mercenaries were the ones who violated the terms of surrender.
Also generally trying to put a death mark one people connected to the nobility and royalty is a good way to bring down the wraith of the authorities.
Also generally trying to put a death mark one people connected to the nobility and royalty is a good way to bring down the wraith of the authorities.
- Pronouns
- she/her
Three strikes = death has about as much basis in reality as the cops vs robbers argument did in Worm. If breaking the oath of surrender is such a serious thing that it warrants death, giving people 2 free passes to break it makes zero sense- you would want to kill them on the first offense, not the third. That's like saying "stabbing me in the kidney once warrants a slap across the face, twice a flogging... but 3 times, that's a death sentence!"
Furthermore, even if breaking an oath of surrender was a "strike" against them, it doesn't make any sense to count it as 3 strikes when all three offenses were against the same group in a very short timeframe. The first two strikes definitely happened on the same day or week, and the third strike was instigated by the mercenary group breaking the oath first!
Furthermore, even if breaking an oath of surrender was a "strike" against them, it doesn't make any sense to count it as 3 strikes when all three offenses were against the same group in a very short timeframe. The first two strikes definitely happened on the same day or week, and the third strike was instigated by the mercenary group breaking the oath first!
One thing important to note is that the time period which ZnT is modeled on is one of the heydeys of mercenaries. During this period (and previous periods), mercenaries are generally the highest quality, most obedient, most trained soldiers you can get.
If you're paying for mercenaries, you're generally paying for the best, because only people who are actually very skilled at fighting are liable to take a job in combat. Even with professional armies starting to come into play, mercenaries still generally have the most time to dedicate to training and a high level of skill because they are the small body of people who are fighting because they want to rather than because they are pressganged into it/obligated to do so.
You're also typically paying for reliability, since they have no stake in local politics.
Now, whether Ulfric's story is plausible or not is a different question which everyone else has been freely discussing. What's important is that you have to translate the term 'mercenary' as 'elite soldier,' instead of 'bottom barrel thugs.' His skill is not that implausible.
Because the concept of mercenaries as thugs is a very modern conception, when for the longest time, it was regular soldiers who were the bottom barrel ones.
If you're paying for mercenaries, you're generally paying for the best, because only people who are actually very skilled at fighting are liable to take a job in combat. Even with professional armies starting to come into play, mercenaries still generally have the most time to dedicate to training and a high level of skill because they are the small body of people who are fighting because they want to rather than because they are pressganged into it/obligated to do so.
You're also typically paying for reliability, since they have no stake in local politics.
Now, whether Ulfric's story is plausible or not is a different question which everyone else has been freely discussing. What's important is that you have to translate the term 'mercenary' as 'elite soldier,' instead of 'bottom barrel thugs.' His skill is not that implausible.
Because the concept of mercenaries as thugs is a very modern conception, when for the longest time, it was regular soldiers who were the bottom barrel ones.
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Goldenlima
Statistical Anomaly
False surrender is a war crime for a reason, but escaping captivity is not a false surrender, nor is it a breach of any normal surrender protocol unless that is included in the negotiations.
Chapter Eighty-Six
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Eighty-Six
Getting paid and hiring a coach for Tristain was the first thing they did, and it was only once they were safely inside the carriage and on their way did the silence finally break. Mostly, it broke as Tiffania massaged her red ears, which Louise had pulled with quite the strength in an effort to get her off Saito.
"So," Louise said dryly, looking at her fingers as a red welt was both on Saito and Tiffania's cheeks. "Let me understand this. While I was busy chanting the Vaporize spell, the mercenary whom we previously had never met, never spoken to, never even known of, somehow decided to go against his orders, spout some meaningless drivel, and then try to kill you," she said, pointing at Saito. "When he was getting the upper hand however, a manticore popped out of the bushes and killed him, dragging his corpse away."
Louise's eyes narrowed. "And that somehow ended with you chest-naked and this-this Elf having her hands all over your chest," she said calmly, as if it didn't bother her one bit. "You do understand how contrived and utterly stupid this is, don't you? Even a moron would come up with a better excuse. If you had told me you had somehow slipped in the mud, and her hands had ended up beneath your armor, it might even had worked as an excuse-not."
There was fury in Louise's eyes. "However, let's say I believe you. Let's say this mercenary was somehow a really dear friend -by mere coincidence- with those stooges we hit more than once and defended against, while saving Siesta. Why would he do that? He knew where we slept, didn't he? He could have called up his friends and hit us in the middle of the night, while we all were sleeping. He couldn't know I had to concentrate on my spell and thus couldn't keep track of my surroundings-"
"You do?" Saito blinked.
"It depends on how big I want the 'Vaporize' spell to be, Saito," Louise clicked her tongue against her teeth. "For something as big as a Chimaera, of course I would have to concentrate fully. Still, he might have been thinking that after a Square spell -or what looked like it to his eyes- I might be drained of willpower. It would make sense for him to attack then, since Tiffania here does appear to be utterly defenseless," she bared her teeth, "This conniving thief of fiances that she is."
Tiffania looked away, her cheeks burning with sheer embarrassment. "But this isn't about the technical details of how I use my spells," Louise said hotly. "This is about a mercenary we never met somehow deciding he had to kill us all because we did...what, exactly? Not let a bunch of mercenaries kidnap a girl for a noble's rapist tendencies? Is that it? Seriously? We're in Gallia. How do news even travel this fast?"
Louise grumbled, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Unless Count Mott somehow decided to get his revenge even after the Cardinal tried to appease him? Something like, 'go around and spread the news, they can't be trusted and I'll pay good for their heads' but even that-seriously, they sold masks like mine at Valier, and you're not the first dark-haired boy to exist in this world."
Louise stood up from her spot on the coach and moved, sharply putting herself on Saito's lap. "The last thing though is the manticore. I mean, I doubt my mother is shadowing us since the day we left, and for it to come just at the crucial time-it doesn't make much sense."
Louise tapped her cheek. "Unless-" she shook her head. "No. That's impossible."
"What's impossible?" Saito asked, squirming uncomfortably since Louise was squeezing his feet with her own, a form of sadistic punishment, perhaps.
"You said you stabbed him, but you didn't see him bleed, did you?" Louise remarked. "And he kept fighting ever after that, right?"
"I wasn't trying to kill him-so maybe I didn't stab all that deep? I mean-I'm sure I did stab him straight, but maybe he had more armor beneath the chainmail? Are you implying he could have been one of The Undead?" Saito asked. "He was alive, pretty much his skin was as red as yours or mine-like, I'm sure of it!"
"I just can't understand if we're lucky, unlucky, or something in between!" Louise said with a huff, scratching the sides of her hair furiously. "It doesn't make sense! None of it makes sense! Either the Founder's smiling down on us, or he's taken a sadistic sense of pleasure in watching us suffer!"
Saito sighed, and his arms moved around Louise's trembling frame quietly. "It's going to be all right."
"That's easy for you to say, since you don't worry about anything," Louise shot back hotly, "People who do have a brain between their ears need to use it!" she shook her head, but simply clutched on to Saito's arms around her waist with her fingers holding on tightly.
"You're going to grow wrinkles if you keep worrying so much," Saito said.
"Oh?" Louise's voice came out kind-of cold, "And what if I do?" she asked, nonchalantly even as her fingers prepared themselves to pinch Saito's own in a rendition of a 'I will snap them if you say one more word'.
"I'll keep loving you all the same, wrinkles or not," Saito answered quite smoothly, so smoothly in fact that even Louise had to blink at how the line was delivered. Her face then turned brightly red, and she fidgeted with her hands on her knees.
The short gasp on the other side of the carriage -Tiffania's courtesy- broke the spell. Louise's embarrassment was replaced with cold and quite loathsome anger. "As for you," she said, "Just-just what made you think checking him for a wound in that way was going to be proper? Saito's not one of those kids you check to see how well along they are on their way of growing fat and juicy for you to-"
"I don't eat children!" Tiffania exclaimed. "I told you I don't-"
"Then explain those!" Louise snapped, pointing at the girl's breasts. "Humans don't grow them that big!"
"B-But my mother had bigger!" Tiffania snapped back, tears in the corners of her eyes. She brought both arms to cover them, "A-Are they really so horrible?"
"No!" Saito said, shaking his head vehemently. "There are men who would die for those-"
And he suddenly found himself with a very sharp elbow pointed between his legs. "Oh?" Louise said, staring at the nails of her other hand, "Do continue, Saito."
"There are men, of course not me since I have my dear Louise," Saito said earnestly, "who do love big...qualities like those. But not me. No, I like my Louise just as she is. Yes, but I know a lot of people, my old friend Otias for example, who would have loved to burrow his face in those-"
"Enough with your old friend's perversion," Louise said dryly, her eyes driving drills through Saito's spine by sheer 'chills' alone.
Apparently satisfied, Louise sat back down properly on Saito's lap, and crossed her legs as would a Queen about to pass judgment upon a sinner. "I still don't trust you," Louise said hotly, "Even if you did help Saito, believing him, and that's hard since he always has the best to say about people-still! Believing him, you deserve some form of official recognition for your efforts. Maybe being half-Elf means that rather than being half-heretic, you are merely only half-worthy of Founder Brimir's grace. I can live with a Half-Human hanging around," Louise nodded. "So-"
"Louise...if you keep saying things like 'Half-Human' or calling Tiffania names, I won't talk to you until you apologize."
Louise's head turned rapidly towards Saito, whose eyes however remained pretty firmly set in a determined gaze. "It doesn't matter how cute you are, or how much I love you-some things shouldn't be said because they are wrong. Tiffania's Tiffania, not a baby-eating Elf, and just because you misunderstood doesn't mean it's her fault and she has to apologize for it. Things like 'heretic' or not-if someone's kind and nice, does it matter what they believe in? If someone's simply concerned about your health, does it matter if they're an Elf or a Human? I wouldn't mind meeting a kind Orc, or pet a good gryphon."
Louise huffed, and crossed her arms. "I will not apologize. It's not like you talking to me or not will make a difference anyway!" she briskly added, hotly looking away from him and 'huffing' in displeasure.
Thus, Saito remained silent.
By the end of the third day of the trip back home, Louise's eyes had deep rings around them and the girl looked more like a banshee stalking a cemetery at night than a normal human girl.
Still, Saito did not relent.
It drove Louise mad.
Especially because they still had a week left to travel.
Getting paid and hiring a coach for Tristain was the first thing they did, and it was only once they were safely inside the carriage and on their way did the silence finally break. Mostly, it broke as Tiffania massaged her red ears, which Louise had pulled with quite the strength in an effort to get her off Saito.
"So," Louise said dryly, looking at her fingers as a red welt was both on Saito and Tiffania's cheeks. "Let me understand this. While I was busy chanting the Vaporize spell, the mercenary whom we previously had never met, never spoken to, never even known of, somehow decided to go against his orders, spout some meaningless drivel, and then try to kill you," she said, pointing at Saito. "When he was getting the upper hand however, a manticore popped out of the bushes and killed him, dragging his corpse away."
Louise's eyes narrowed. "And that somehow ended with you chest-naked and this-this Elf having her hands all over your chest," she said calmly, as if it didn't bother her one bit. "You do understand how contrived and utterly stupid this is, don't you? Even a moron would come up with a better excuse. If you had told me you had somehow slipped in the mud, and her hands had ended up beneath your armor, it might even had worked as an excuse-not."
There was fury in Louise's eyes. "However, let's say I believe you. Let's say this mercenary was somehow a really dear friend -by mere coincidence- with those stooges we hit more than once and defended against, while saving Siesta. Why would he do that? He knew where we slept, didn't he? He could have called up his friends and hit us in the middle of the night, while we all were sleeping. He couldn't know I had to concentrate on my spell and thus couldn't keep track of my surroundings-"
"You do?" Saito blinked.
"It depends on how big I want the 'Vaporize' spell to be, Saito," Louise clicked her tongue against her teeth. "For something as big as a Chimaera, of course I would have to concentrate fully. Still, he might have been thinking that after a Square spell -or what looked like it to his eyes- I might be drained of willpower. It would make sense for him to attack then, since Tiffania here does appear to be utterly defenseless," she bared her teeth, "This conniving thief of fiances that she is."
Tiffania looked away, her cheeks burning with sheer embarrassment. "But this isn't about the technical details of how I use my spells," Louise said hotly. "This is about a mercenary we never met somehow deciding he had to kill us all because we did...what, exactly? Not let a bunch of mercenaries kidnap a girl for a noble's rapist tendencies? Is that it? Seriously? We're in Gallia. How do news even travel this fast?"
Louise grumbled, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Unless Count Mott somehow decided to get his revenge even after the Cardinal tried to appease him? Something like, 'go around and spread the news, they can't be trusted and I'll pay good for their heads' but even that-seriously, they sold masks like mine at Valier, and you're not the first dark-haired boy to exist in this world."
Louise stood up from her spot on the coach and moved, sharply putting herself on Saito's lap. "The last thing though is the manticore. I mean, I doubt my mother is shadowing us since the day we left, and for it to come just at the crucial time-it doesn't make much sense."
Louise tapped her cheek. "Unless-" she shook her head. "No. That's impossible."
"What's impossible?" Saito asked, squirming uncomfortably since Louise was squeezing his feet with her own, a form of sadistic punishment, perhaps.
"You said you stabbed him, but you didn't see him bleed, did you?" Louise remarked. "And he kept fighting ever after that, right?"
"I wasn't trying to kill him-so maybe I didn't stab all that deep? I mean-I'm sure I did stab him straight, but maybe he had more armor beneath the chainmail? Are you implying he could have been one of The Undead?" Saito asked. "He was alive, pretty much his skin was as red as yours or mine-like, I'm sure of it!"
"I just can't understand if we're lucky, unlucky, or something in between!" Louise said with a huff, scratching the sides of her hair furiously. "It doesn't make sense! None of it makes sense! Either the Founder's smiling down on us, or he's taken a sadistic sense of pleasure in watching us suffer!"
Saito sighed, and his arms moved around Louise's trembling frame quietly. "It's going to be all right."
"That's easy for you to say, since you don't worry about anything," Louise shot back hotly, "People who do have a brain between their ears need to use it!" she shook her head, but simply clutched on to Saito's arms around her waist with her fingers holding on tightly.
"You're going to grow wrinkles if you keep worrying so much," Saito said.
"Oh?" Louise's voice came out kind-of cold, "And what if I do?" she asked, nonchalantly even as her fingers prepared themselves to pinch Saito's own in a rendition of a 'I will snap them if you say one more word'.
"I'll keep loving you all the same, wrinkles or not," Saito answered quite smoothly, so smoothly in fact that even Louise had to blink at how the line was delivered. Her face then turned brightly red, and she fidgeted with her hands on her knees.
The short gasp on the other side of the carriage -Tiffania's courtesy- broke the spell. Louise's embarrassment was replaced with cold and quite loathsome anger. "As for you," she said, "Just-just what made you think checking him for a wound in that way was going to be proper? Saito's not one of those kids you check to see how well along they are on their way of growing fat and juicy for you to-"
"I don't eat children!" Tiffania exclaimed. "I told you I don't-"
"Then explain those!" Louise snapped, pointing at the girl's breasts. "Humans don't grow them that big!"
"B-But my mother had bigger!" Tiffania snapped back, tears in the corners of her eyes. She brought both arms to cover them, "A-Are they really so horrible?"
"No!" Saito said, shaking his head vehemently. "There are men who would die for those-"
And he suddenly found himself with a very sharp elbow pointed between his legs. "Oh?" Louise said, staring at the nails of her other hand, "Do continue, Saito."
"There are men, of course not me since I have my dear Louise," Saito said earnestly, "who do love big...qualities like those. But not me. No, I like my Louise just as she is. Yes, but I know a lot of people, my old friend Otias for example, who would have loved to burrow his face in those-"
"Enough with your old friend's perversion," Louise said dryly, her eyes driving drills through Saito's spine by sheer 'chills' alone.
Apparently satisfied, Louise sat back down properly on Saito's lap, and crossed her legs as would a Queen about to pass judgment upon a sinner. "I still don't trust you," Louise said hotly, "Even if you did help Saito, believing him, and that's hard since he always has the best to say about people-still! Believing him, you deserve some form of official recognition for your efforts. Maybe being half-Elf means that rather than being half-heretic, you are merely only half-worthy of Founder Brimir's grace. I can live with a Half-Human hanging around," Louise nodded. "So-"
"Louise...if you keep saying things like 'Half-Human' or calling Tiffania names, I won't talk to you until you apologize."
Louise's head turned rapidly towards Saito, whose eyes however remained pretty firmly set in a determined gaze. "It doesn't matter how cute you are, or how much I love you-some things shouldn't be said because they are wrong. Tiffania's Tiffania, not a baby-eating Elf, and just because you misunderstood doesn't mean it's her fault and she has to apologize for it. Things like 'heretic' or not-if someone's kind and nice, does it matter what they believe in? If someone's simply concerned about your health, does it matter if they're an Elf or a Human? I wouldn't mind meeting a kind Orc, or pet a good gryphon."
Louise huffed, and crossed her arms. "I will not apologize. It's not like you talking to me or not will make a difference anyway!" she briskly added, hotly looking away from him and 'huffing' in displeasure.
Thus, Saito remained silent.
By the end of the third day of the trip back home, Louise's eyes had deep rings around them and the girl looked more like a banshee stalking a cemetery at night than a normal human girl.
Still, Saito did not relent.
It drove Louise mad.
Especially because they still had a week left to travel.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Well the knights and regular troops maintained by nobles, kings and such were also highly professional and well armed forces that generally provided the core that hired mercenary companies, militias(quality can vary from poorly trained to semiprofessional) and conscripts would form around in a late medieval to early modern army.
As for the quality of mercenaries it could vary though the best generally worked for the mercenary companies not as individuals or small groups. The best historically in both quality and trustworthiness were the Swiss mercenary companies and the german Landsknechts who were also rivals.
There were also the italian condottieri were also of perhaps just as high quality they were notorious for their capriciousness and treachery.
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As on the subject, even if his story was actually true, what he did was much worse than any violation of the terms of the surrender. Getting a reputation for stabbing your co-oworkers in the back in the middle or just as a job is finished, even if they are the bloody scum of the earth, is the kind of thing that will make absolutely no one be willing to work with you.
Edit: And ninja'd by the author.
Edit: And ninja'd by the author.
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Are we talking about Louise and Saito? Because they were never "co-workers" with the mercs. They were effectively hired on the opposing side.
- Pronouns
- she/her
That has got to be one of the worst lines he could possibly have chosen to convince her not to judge by species. Orcs literally eat babies in this setting.