Recruiting Soldiers and Suppressing Bandits!

After the two made their agreement, Ye Wei'an met Lady Serena in a side hall of the temple.

When he offered to help clear potential threats to the territory before he left, the exhausted widow's eyes were filled with complex emotions.

With the Baron dead and the new Baron young, the entire Barondom was leaderless.

She was very worried that the neighboring Yeland family would disregard her brother's warnings and hire bandits to harass the territory.

Not to mention, she had promised Ye Wei'an that she would allow him to recruit more soldiers. If Ye Wei'an took too many troops with him, she might have to cede some of her territory to Raymond Yeland in order to have a chance to recuperate.

At this moment, Ye Wei'an volunteered, which she considered a timely help.

"Since you're willing to do this, I have no reason to refuse." Serena sighed, revealing a rare hint of sincerity. "Ye Wei'an, perhaps I really misjudged you before. You have more of an elder brother's responsibility than I imagined."

Seeing Serena nod, Ye Wei'an could only sneer inwardly.

Sure enough, no matter how shrewd she was, she was just a woman who never left her home and whose vision was limited to the interactions of the nobility.

She had no idea who was behind those bandits who plundered trade routes.

At the border, smuggling and banditry are two sides of the same coin. Combining that map, he could easily determine that Amarisk's smuggling operations had most likely partnered with the Zentalin Society.

In other words, to her, most of the "bandits" in Hurek Forest were actually her own people.

Without the orders of the legitimate baron, even if Ye Wei'an was Baron Xia Xing's son, he could not arbitrarily wipe out those bandits.

After all, the bandits didn't have any name tags on them. If you say you wiped out bandits, who can prove it?

In the Eastern Territory, the only ones who decide who is a bandit are the local lords and the Purple Dragon Legion under the Eastern Territory Guardian.

The position of Guardian of the East is currently held by the Amaresk family.

If he were to suppress the bandits without authorization, he would be handing Earl Wafred a handle against him.

Coincidentally, Earl Wadford was unhappy that he had taken a share of the 20,000 gold coins inheritance. If the Eastern Guardian then accused him of raiding a caravan and threatened to beat and punish him, he would have no way to defend himself.

Now, everything is different since Serena, the Baron's mother, issued the order.

In border regions, orders issued by local lords are legally exempt from the control of the Purple Dragon Legion.

Ye Wei'an received the order and, of course, would help his younger brother eliminate the bandits suspected of belonging to the Yeland family.

But whether he might accidentally injure some other bandits in the process was beyond his control.

Of course, causing trouble for the Emerysque family and taking revenge on Earl Wafred were only some of his objectives.

In addition to this, there are three other benefits to this military deployment.

The first priority was to demonstrate his leadership: let the knights and soldiers see for themselves his ability to lead troops into battle, and let them believe that he could lead them to conquer new territories.

Secondly, there is the training of troops. To gain a foothold in the dangerous pioneering territory, ordinary troops alone are not enough. Ye Wei'an wants to train an elite force.

For him, who has a companion system, the fastest way to train troops is to kill monsters and gain experience, and the simplest way to gain a lot of experience is to suppress bandits.

In the end, it's just a case of the wicked eating the wicked.

As a smuggling partner of the Amaresk family, the Zantalin Society must also have a lot of valuable smuggled goods.

Criminal organizations like this wouldn't get involved in businesses with low profit margins.

The subsequent recruitment campaign almost perfectly confirmed Morey's prediction.

Every recruitment point was packed with people.

When Yevian promised to provide settlers with land, tools, and seeds in the new territory, the entire Firefall Territory was shaken.

Farmers who had toiled their entire lives in Firefall Territory but never owned an inch of land, and second sons who were destined not to inherit the family fortune, flocked to the recruitment point like a tidal wave.

At the same time, the recruitment of craftsmen and technical personnel went exceptionally smoothly.

His reputation in Firefall Town came into play: blacksmith apprentices, carpenters, shoemakers, brewers, clerks, engineers... many townspeople voluntarily joined his ranks.

Some unusual figures also appeared in the crowd.

They were all informants who provided testimony in the "Grey Crow" case. Although they received a pardon from Ye Wei'an, they were disgraced locally and scorned by their neighbors.

Ye Wei'an took them in as he had promised, allowing them to start anew in their new territory.

To replenish the workforce, Ye Wei'an even took away the thugs of the Gray Ravens who were imprisoned in the castle dungeon.

Although Cormier's laws strictly prohibited slavery, there were always ways to circumvent them.

Many merchants, nobles, and gangsters would turn people into "debt slaves" by saddled them with huge debts.

These villains are exactly like that.

Ye Wei'an imposed hefty fines on them and personally "paid" these fines on their behalf.

The price was that these prisoners had to sign harsh contracts with him, becoming nominal "contract workers" but in reality, slaves.

On the other hand, recruitment of soldiers and knights was extremely slow.

Apart from trusted confidants like Volodya who were directly loyal to him, and the twenty-odd soldiers who had followed Ye Weian in the past, not many people came to enlist.

The vast majority of these recruits were soldiers who were acquainted with Kane and his men.

After three full days of recruitment, Ye Wei'an's forces only numbered around 40 men.

But this does not mean that Ye Weian failed.

His reputation for "fairness in rewards and punishments" certainly worked, and coupled with Grand Knight Morey's prestige in the army, many people became interested in this bandit suppression campaign.

"I heard that Lord Ye Wei'an is going to wipe out those scum in the forest?"

"Let's go and see! If he really has the ability, it's better to follow him to the wasteland and earn some military merit than to have to put up with that woman Emerys in Firefall Valley."

This mentality is highly representative of veterans and knights.

Although they did not immediately swear allegiance, they were willing to temporarily obey Ye Wei'an's orders.

These people, when combined, formed a force of about forty men.

Morey had originally suggested that he personally lead the team to keep them in check, since this ragtag army of eighty men was composed of diverse individuals and without someone to keep order, they could easily scatter in the forest.

Ultimately, he was still worried about Ye Wei'an's ability to lead troops.

But Ye Wei'an refused.

"Sir Morey, recruitment and resource preparation are the most important tasks. I need to take Lina with me during this bandit suppression, so I have to leave you here to keep things under control," Ye Weian explained.

"As you command." Morey, though still worried, couldn't disobey his lord and could only agree. Then he found Volodya: "You brat, remember to protect the lord and your sister. If anything happens to you, don't come back to see me!"

Volodya bowed his head and accepted the order.

On the drill ground, a team of eighty people had already assembled.

This hastily assembled armed force consists of thirty soldiers who are only [Lv.1 militiamen], thirty [Lv.1 warriors], and more than ten [Lv.1 wanderers].

The core consisted of seven or eight Lv.2 level warriors and wanderers, who were assigned as junior officers.

As for the top combat force, in addition to Volodya and Kane, there are four knights (Lv.3 warriors).

Although their attribute panels are slightly inferior to Kane and Volodya's in the system display, their rich combat experience makes them competent enough to serve as mid-level commanders.

Ye Wei'an had not received military training and was unfamiliar with most of them.

So he simply divided the army into three groups.

The first team was led by Kane, who mainly commanded his old subordinates and soldiers who had been influenced by them to join the cause, totaling nearly forty men.

Ye Weian also arranged for two Lv.3 knights to be his deputies.

The second team was led by Volodya, who led the soldiers who had volunteered to participate in the bandit suppression.

This group didn't have much confidence in Ye Weian, so to avoid them disobeying orders and affecting tactics, Ye Weian had no choice but to assign Volodya to lead them.

In reality, they were taking advantage of his influence as the son of a great knight.

Ye Weian also arranged for two Lv.3 knights to be Volodya's assistants.

The remaining wanderers formed a scout group, personally led by Ye Wei'an, with a Level 2 wanderer named Clayb as his deputy.

Morey watched from the side, his eyebrows twitching.

Normally, lords tend to stay in the center of heavy guard—especially when the commander is a vulnerable spellcaster.

Ye Wei'an actually wanted to take this scout to lead the charge.

He wanted to ask his daughter Lina to persuade the lord, but Lina refused.

"Lord Ye Wei'an has his own ideas; we just need to trust him."

Even his daughter said that, so what else could Morey say?