Herald of Steel



Lord Prantik of course understood Alexander's demand.

And surprisingly, he took the offer quite well.

"My lord, in exchange for the ransom, I'm willing to become your vassal, and declare His Majesty Ptolomy as the rightful king." He quickly and fluidly replied, showing little hesitation in such a grand announcement.

One would think a man would think a bit more before switching allegiances.

Especially as choosing the wrong one could easily end in getting one's entire family and ancestry wiped out.

He was in a civil war regarding the legitimacy of the king after all.

And in such conflicts, loyal followers of the 'false' king did not usually end up well.

And being one of Alexander's first vassals, unless Shordar (Baron) Prankit betrayed Alexander, he would be considered among the core inner circle of his retinue.

Whether that be true or not.

But the man had good reasons for doing this.

On one hand, it was because he was that desperate for the men, and at another hand he saw Faruq, and by extension Djose as unreliable, as evidenced by the disagreements and Faruq's oath-breaking that had been going on up until now.

In fact, the chaos and clamor that Alexander had detected was caused when Lord Bahram and the others wanted Faruq to negotiate about prisoner exchange, but the young man had straight up refused, giving the excuse, "I'm too busy organizing the ships. You go if you need to."

The nonchalance and the indifference with which he had said this led to another round of row between the two factions, as Faruq was accused of dereliction of duty by the other side,

This is because traditionally it was the leader of the army who facilitated such talks.

But Faruq had simply brushed these accusations to the side.

Since the battle had been lost, this man who had come here with grand dreams could care less about anything else.

In fact, this damn care attitude had pissed off some of the more hot-blooded and affected nobles so much that they had called up their men to surround Faruq's tent and blockade it, intending to drag him out and beat him up.

And it was only luckily due to the intervention of cooler heads that there was not a full-fledged civil conflict at the camp.

Much to Alexander's disappointment.

But even though the worst possibility had been avoided, the event had managed to drop the relationship between Faruq and some of the nobles to a nadir, and there was even the distinct possibility that Faruq might not even give them a ride back home.

Hence there was ample reason for Lord Prantik to jump ship.

But many of Shordar (Baron) Prantik's associates, even his close friends, did not see it like this, so they shouted in alarm, shock, and even somewhat in rage.

"What! Prantik, have you gone mad? Allying yourself with this usurper?" They looked at the thin man with disbelief, even calling Alexander names right to his face.

Even Alexander himself was a bit surprised by the quickness of this declaration and found the hastiness of it all a bit insincere.

"Your friends may be right. Perhaps you will reconsider it when I say that all lords under me have to pay a property tax of 1%." Alexander tested the man.

And this test proved to be a challenging one, as Prantik, and all the other nobles for that matter too, looked at Alexander like they were looking at a freak.

'What kind of an idiot would choose to become his vassal?' They were all eager to see, as being a noble and paying taxing was oxymoronic.

After that, that struck at the very heart of what it meant to be a noble.

Prantik too felt a blow to his chest at this outrageous demand, and woodily asked, ".....cou…could you elaborate on that a bit my lord?"

He really hoped that he had heard it all wrong.

But Alexander disappointed him on that, repeating what he said and then adding, "Many of my generals have been made Shordars (Barons) with the same condition. That they will give a 1% land property tax for six years until the armistice ends."

And then, putting on a magnanimous face, Alexander finished by saying, "Of course, as an invader, you should be asked to be paid much more. But since you are the first one to accept my vassalage, I will give you the same deal. Do you accept?"

"........" Hearing Alexander, Prantik silently cursed his weakness over and over right now.

to everyone.

After all, only low-born peasants paid taxes.

So to ask him to pay taxes was basically reducing him to the level of peasants.

There was no way any true, blue-blooded noble would ever accept that.

'This idiot has a cracked head!' Lord Prantik thus ultimately shook his shook in dismay, resigning himself to losing around a thousand men, and most likely all his spring harvest.

He had hoped that this young man whom he had heard so much about, both good and bad would be a sensible man and maybe even a good lord, able to see reality and judge accordingly, but it seemed he was just a brash fool who had gotten lucky.

Because speaking from experience, Lord Prantik knew that there was no anyone who would ever want to become Alexander's retinue unless forced to at the threat of the sword.

And even then, the moment that threat disappeared, there would likely be a rebellion.

Because nobles paying taxes ran in complete anthesis to everything up until now.

And there was no way Alexander was going to collect that from them without many bloody conflicts.

Thus, Lord Prantik instead focused on mentally preparing himself for the mass starvation about to occur in his territory as he had planted all the elidible crops he had left into the fields.

This would likely cause a revolt which he might not be able to stop as he had lost a lot of men in yesterday's fight, and even if he was able to get help from his neighboring lords to pass these predicaments, they would surely take a huge bite out of his desperate rear.

This was how the world worked after all.

But that was still better than losing his pride as a noble.

So while Prantik thought of a way of try to minimize his losses, the other nobles, hearing of Alexander's deal jeered.

"Heh! Lord Bahram was right in calling you fakes. To think you guys would voluntarily choose to pay taxes even after becoming nobles. Oh, Ramuh! How did we lose to you, idiots?" One cried at Menes and the others, laughing hard while clutching his belly.

And this man was soon followed up by another,

"Hahaha, yes. I don't know whether to call them idiots or Alexander a genius for managing to swindle them out of their money. Hahaha, does your lord also pay a 1% tax, hahaha?"

The last sentence was a completely throwaway line, meant to disparage Alexaner's men.

But it would prove to be a pivotal point in the negotiations, as Alexander seriously replied in a short burst, "No, I pay 2%. Plus all kinds of sales tax from the goods my business sells."

"...wh..what?" The other side appeared stunned, unable to believe their ears.

As they were busy mocking Alexander and he had spoken over them, they thought they had not heard it properly.

"I said I pay double the land tax, …plus all the sales tax." Hence Alexander repeated, leaving no doubt.

It was not only the opposing side that was surprised by this declaration.

Even Alexander's own side was caught off guard.

Because up until now, it was known that Alexander would only pay the same amount of land tax as them.

So when did that double?

But whether Alexander had genuinely decided to increase the tax burden on himself or simply lying could wait.

For right now, it was the duty of his retainers to back him up.

Hence Heliptos bravely jumped forward into the conversation, swing his arms around to gesture to Alexander, and then say, "That's right, Lord Alexander is the most benevolent lord there is. Where else will you find a man that pays double the taxes as his retainers? He is the greatest lord in Adhania."

Following him, Menes too stepped forward, and grandly declared, "You call us idiots for following him! We would indeed be idiots for not following him. For his sacrifice is greater than all of ours."

Menes truly believed that, not only because of this new announcement but also because of the enormous amount of ropals Alexander had dumped to bring the city back to life.

He had truly sacrificed a lot.

800 million ropals to be exact.

"Is that true my lord?" Lord Prantik then slowly squeaked out, unable to believe his ears.

This was like the king paying taxes, something akin to the sun rising in the West.

"Yes, in Zanzan everyone pays taxes. That's how we were able to field such a huge army despite being only a single city," Alexander mixed lies with truth.

"Th..then I accept. I will pay the 1% land tax for six years in exchange for my men," Finally, clenching his teeth, Lord Prantik bit the bullet, and cast his dye.

Since even the lord himself paid twice the tax as he did, the man saw no point in wasting time ruminating.

Because if true, he would likely be a million times better lord than his superior.

And so, in this way, Alexander got his first noble retinue.