"The Fair One" Ye Wei'an

Half an hour later, the battlefield was finally cleaned up, and the metallic smell of the coins had diluted the bloody smell in the air considerably.

Kane strode over, his face beaming with barely suppressed excitement, carrying several heavy wooden boxes in his arms.

"My lord, we've struck it rich!" Kane put down the wooden box and reported, "We found over 2,100 gold lion coins and over 3,000 Zantarien 'Crying Wolf' gold coins. And that doesn't even include the odds and ends on those bastards."

Five thousand gold coins is a huge sum of money for Ye Wei'an now.

But he still made a decision:

"Put all the gold coins here."

Before long, a small mountain of gold coins was piled up in the center of the camp.

Ye Wei'an glanced at the soldiers who had surrounded him; each of them wore a look of exhaustion and longing.

"As I said before, 80% of these spoils are yours, and I will distribute the rewards to you according to your merits."

Officers such as Kane, Volodya, and Kreb recorded their subordinates' battle achievements, and these records were compiled and submitted to Yeweian.

Ye Wei pretended to study the merit book, but he did not intend to refer to it to distribute the credit.

He had a more accurate recording system than the officers' unreliable memories.

That is his [Companion System].

In this system, each soldier's contribution in battle, number of kills, and pressure are all converted into the most intuitive experience value.

Who fought to the death on the front lines, who contributed the most effort, who won by doing nothing, and who picked up the kills—the experience system's records are more accurate and fair than anyone else's.

"Raine was the first to charge into enemy lines, personally killing three enemies and rescuing a comrade. He was awarded 160 gold lions!"

"Kreb, you cleared three traps, swiftly destroyed the outpost, and even attacked the enemy's spellcaster. 120 Golden Lions in return!"

"Simon, you remained firmly in the lead throughout the entire battle, withstanding five counterattacks from the enemy, and earning 70 gold lions!"

As Ye Weian called out names one by one, bags of heavy gold coins were handed out to the soldiers.

The soldiers, who had initially thought the lord would only give them a token amount, looked at Ye Wei'an with a completely different expression when they saw the enormous sum of money in their hands, which far exceeded their expectations. Cheers erupted one after another.

However, as more than half of the bounty was distributed, some discordant voices began to emerge from the crowd.

The most senior and longest-serving veterans under Volodya's command gathered together, exchanging suspicious glances.

In their view, Ye Weian's distribution plan was simply incomprehensible.

They only received fifty or sixty gold coins, but many soldiers who didn't even touch the enemy in the battle received about the same amount.

What angered them even more was that the rookies under Kane's command, whom they usually mocked as "peasants," were receiving more bounties than the professional soldiers like themselves.

"My lord!" A scarred veteran finally couldn't hold back any longer. Pushed and shoved by his comrades, he stepped forward, neck stiff with urgency. "According to the old rules of our Firefall Territory, the reward is calculated by the number of heads. Our brothers charged in at the front, chopping off more heads than all the new recruits under Knight Kane combined. Why should they receive less money in the end? That's a bit against the rules!"

"I'm sorry, sir, it's my fault for not disciplining them properly."

Upon seeing this, Volodya's face instantly turned bright red, and cold sweat poured down his back.

He stepped forward, his right hand gripping the hilt of his sword, and shouted angrily, "You bastards! Who gave you the audacity to question the lord's decision? Step back!"

Ye Wei'an gently raised his hand and stopped the furious Volodya.

He remained calm, a gentle smile even playing on his lips: "It's alright, Volodya. Since you've all come out here to risk your lives for me, you can certainly talk about your grievances. I don't want my warriors to be wielding their swords for me with resentment in their hearts."

He turned his head and looked at the veteran leading the group.

"Your name is Hank, right?"

As he casually flipped through the merit book in his hand, he also mentally retrieved the experience records of the companion system.

"Hank, you just said you chopped off a lot of heads. It's true, you were the first to rush into the side gate, but afterwards, because you were so eager to get kills, you caused obvious gaps in the originally tight formation."

"If it weren't for that new recruit you called 'the peasant' who stepped in to cover for you and blocked the enemy's backstab, you'd be a cold corpse by now. You wouldn't have the strength to stand here asking me for a reward!"

Veteran Hank froze, his lips trembling for a moment, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Ye Wei'an wasn't going to stop there: "Also, you think Kane's men are getting paid too much, but they deserve it."

"At the very beginning of the raid, they charged the furthest under the first wave of arrows, and their killing efficiency was much higher than yours."

"Not to mention, when that Black Knight appeared, some of your men were actually retreating! Those fallen brothers were killed because of the gap you created! Meanwhile, Kane's men held their nerve and prevented further casualties. Hank, put your hand on your heart and tell me, shouldn't they be paid?"

After commenting on Hank, Ye Wei'an looked at another veteran, who had been the most enthusiastic instigator earlier.

"And you, Clark. I saw on Volodya's record that you single-handedly cut down four deserters in the final pursuit, which was quite valiant?"

When the veteran named Clark heard his name called, he first straightened his chest, but when he saw Ye Wei'an's eyes, which seemed to see through his soul, his spine inexplicably slumped a little.

"But in my records," Ye Wei'an's voice lowered, carrying a chilling calm, "you were hiding behind the thick shields of the formation for the last quarter of an hour before the fiercest battle. You were conserving your strength, right? So that if things went wrong, you would have the strength to escape, and if our side won, you would have the strength to harvest those helpless figures."

Clark's face instantly turned from red to white, and cold sweat trickled down his temples.

"Those soldiers who were wounded while covering the flanks received a hundred gold lions, while you, Clark, only received forty. Because here, only the courage to not back down in the face of the real butcher's knife deserves a reward. As for chasing down fleeing soldiers... you can find plenty of such warriors in the slaughterhouse."

……

As Ye Wei'an called out names one by one, he accurately described each person's key actions in the battle, even dissecting details that they themselves hadn't noticed.

With Ye Weian's experience in system monitoring, there are no secrets on the battlefield.

The once noisy campsite instantly fell into a deathly silence.

The veterans who had initially wanted to join in the commotion shrank back, cold sweat beading on their foreheads.

To their horror, they discovered that this lord seemed to have a thousand eyes; even while he was fighting, he still had the time to memorize every detail of the battlefield.

"By the Hand of Tyr..." an old soldier pleaded in a low voice, "My lord, we were blind. Your distribution was indeed perfectly fair."

"Since you're convinced, take what you deserve and get back to the queue."

Ye Wei'an slammed the merit book shut, his gaze sweeping across the room like a sharp blade: "I see clearly who is bleeding, who is slacking off, and who is truly risking their lives to protect their comrades. Here, the bounty isn't just about how many heads you've taken. I value who fights desperately on the front lines, who protects their comrades. As long as you fight, even if you don't kill a single enemy in the end, I won't shortchange you a single penny!"

The camp, which was originally somewhat noisy, was now so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The veterans all lowered their heads, their resentment vanished without a trace, replaced by an unprecedented sense of awe.

This absolutely fair and precise method of distribution convinced everyone.

"Since there are no objections, keep your money safe." After distributing the last bag of gold coins, Ye Wei'an turned around. "Now, everyone get moving and reinforce the fortifications. We'll set up camp here tonight."

"Yes, sir!"

The soldiers, who had just received their bounty, erupted in a thunderous response.

They were full of energy at the moment, and even before the officers urged them, they happily went to work.

Accompanied by Kane, Ye Wei'an headed towards the warehouse deep within the camp to inspect his actual spoils.

Kane pushed open the heavy wooden door of the warehouse, his face beaming with a sense of accomplishment.

He stuck a torch into a crack in the stone wall, and the flickering flame illuminated the crammed stone warehouse.

"My lord, these are our biggest finds at this transit point." Kane pointed to the rows of neatly stacked wooden crates. "These are all good stuff that the Zantari Society smuggles between the valley and Cormier."

One corner of the warehouse was piled high with goods tightly wrapped in thick, moisture-proof cloth.

Ye Wei'an casually cut open a cloth bag, and a rich herbal aroma wafted out—it was the finest tobacco from the Cormier Valley, a hard currency whether in the valley or in more distant countries.

Next to it were neatly stacked dozens of bundles of deep-colored valley steel. These specially forged steel bars were essential for making fine weapons and were considered more precious than silver of the same volume by the blacksmith.

Deeper inside were stacks of flour, dried meat, and skewers of smoked meat—enough to sustain a team of fifty people in the wild for three months.

In addition, there were a large quantity of dried arrow shaft material, well-sealed wheat flour barrels, and several boxes emitting a strange, sweet aroma.

Ye Wei'an opened one of them, and inside were neatly arranged rows of potions with ambiguous colors and a faint pinkish glow.

"These heartless bastards even shipped whole cases of banned aphrodisiacs," Kane muttered, then pointed to a small shelf on the other side. "But these potions are genuine treasures."

There were more than thirty bottles of low-level healing potions and a dozen bottles of blazing glue on the shelf.

"Luckily, we chose to launch a surprise attack." Ye Wei'an casually picked up a bottle of Blazing Glue, feeling the liquid sloshing around in the bottle, and couldn't help but feel a little scared. "If we had set up a formation and faced them head-on, these thugs could have each drunk a bottle of healing potion and then dumped all this Blazing Glue into our formation... Even if we had won, more than half of the eighty people we brought out would probably have been killed."

After taking inventory of the supplies, Ye Weian left the warehouse.

Outside the warehouse, soldiers were working hard, sorting and piling up the spoils they had stripped from the corpses.

"Forty sets of intact chainmail and ten sets of heavy plate armor. Although some of the armor has been punctured, it can be repaired at the blacksmith's shop and still be usable."

Kane patted a suit of plate armor forcefully, the metallic clang ringing out crisply and pleasantly. "In addition, there are a large quantity of crossbow bolts and fine steel weapons. My lord, with these treasures, our men can finally say goodbye to those junk and don the uniforms of a regular army."

As they were talking, Volodya stepped forward with a solemn expression.

He carefully held several pieces of equipment in his arms, and even from a distance, one could feel the chilling or strange magical fluctuations emanating from them.

That was the "legacy" belonging to the Black Knight Marcus and the two Zantarlin spellcasters.

A longsword that was entirely black, a suit of black armor, an exquisite silver headband, a black ring, and a bracer.

Volodya didn't know what the effects of these equipment were, but Ye Weian's system immediately recognized the equipment's attributes.

[+1 Evil Greatsword]: When you use this magical weapon to attack, you will gain an additional +1 bonus. It can only be used by the evil faction.

【Adamantite Breastplate】: Made entirely of adamantite steel, with the breastplate section made of adamantite. Adamantite is an extremely hard metal, so any fatal blows aimed at the wearer will be converted into normal damage.

[Amulet of the Mage]: You gain an additional 2nd rank spell slot.

[Mental Focus Ring]: Enhances the wearer's focus when casting spells.

【Agile Wristband】: Enhances the wearer's dodging ability and athletic performance.

After a moment's thought, Ye Wei'an came up with a distribution plan.

"Volodya, this sword is for you." Ye Weian handed over the heavy +1 evil greatsword. "Although you're not a Dark Knight and can't use it directly, the materials used in this sword are quite good. Find a blacksmith to reforge and purify it later, and you can make a good sword again."

Volodya solemnly accepted the heavy gift with both hands.

He did indeed crave a suitable heavy weapon—although the Sabashian family also had a family heirloom greatsword, that sword was still in the hands of his father, Morey, and he needed a high-quality weapon of his own.

Then, Ye Wei'an looked at Kane, who had been directing the moving, and pushed the heavy adamantite breastplate into his arms.

Kane froze, his hands trembling as he stroked the cold, hard nail surface.

In Faerûn, adamantite is a very precious metal. Its greatest characteristic is not its hardness, but its "indestructibility".

For veterans who are always on the front lines, this is practically a second life.

"This... Lord, this is far too valuable!" Kane's voice was hoarse.

"You've been with me for so long, this is what you deserve." Ye Wei'an glanced at his old plate armor, which was full of scratches and dents. "You always like to lead the charge. Apart from this kind of adamantite armor, there's nothing that I feel comfortable sending you to the front lines."

Kane didn't refuse again, but instead pounded his chest heavily.

Of the remaining three magical items, Ye Wei'an temporarily put away the other two, and equipped the [Magic Scholar's Amulet] on his person.

As for the remaining [Mind Focus Ring] and [Dexterity Bracers], he planned to leave them to his two personal maids.