The fact I chose an isolated estate had benefits; for example, one could undertake major construction without neighbors complaining about the noise… cough—I was referring to how I slightly enhanced the military defensiveness of this location and how our military training here wouldn’t be noticed.
According to my agreement with Orloss, I needed to organize my subordinates’ strength to participate in the upcoming plan. While it sounded cool to fight as a boss with numerous ultimate abilities, what that meant was the boss had no reliable subordinates.
Considering the high level of the future battles, plus how the current situation was becoming more and more troublesome, it was indeed time to reorganize all the combat strength that fought under the banner of the Mist.
Yes—the banner of the Mist. Mist as in Roland Mist. This Mist didn’t refer to East Mist and Reyne but rather the personal forces that belonged to me, Roland. Or perhaps I should say those that belonged to the Mist Family.
The overall combat strength of all our allies’ armies combined would be considerable. However, much of this would belong to another country or alliance. The combat strength that could be counted as completely my own wasn’t all that much.
My current combat strength included the Seven Original Sins, of which the eldest sister Lust was in a deep sleep, Pride was disobedient and Sloth wasn’t yet born. Most of my elite Red Hunting Hounds were still in the Underground, messing around, while the remaining worked in East Mist.
I had a series of subordinates similar to retainers, such as my personal consultant Timlad, Olivia, and all those engineers and alchemists. There were also Elisa’s gift of a merchant association, the arch druid Eaglestorm and the Dark Elves Diana, Yawen, Momo, and Victoria, who were no longer tied to Dark Elf society constraints, “and so on.”
“…Why is it that I’m called ‘and so on?'” a certain Dracon complained.
“…It’s because your name is getting closer and closer to becoming a censored word. Sooner or later, your name will become a completely censored mosaic of Holy Light.”
With my identity as the God Envoy of Law, along with our relationship, I could utilize Xueti, Lilith and the other Law job class members. But strictly speaking, they didn’t belong to my personal forces—they had sworn loyalty to the Church of Law. As executors and judges of the law, they were supposed to remain neutral.
With my identity as a descendant of the Mist, I could give orders to East Mist’s Aurora Knights and Sleuweir’s royal knights. But strictly speaking, these warriors were loyal to Reyne and Glina, their true rulers, first and foremost. It wouldn’t be good for me to often make use of them.
Actually, every time I used them, I would have either Reyne or Glina personally lead them. This was both to give the young royals more experience as well as my respect for their royal authority.
Of course, with the Mist Alliance’s establishment and me as one of the core members, the invisible forces under me would only increase. However, it was true that the forces directly under me could even decrease because of it.
Normally, to begin with, I didn’t have many subordinates with me. If some emergency battle broke out or if I wanted to start a battle, everything would depend on my ability to summon allies. This wasn’t a problem only I had—it was a common problem for this generation.
Although I didn’t want to admit it, humans’ basic combat strength in the world of Eich still relied on nobles and knights. This difficult environment caused the weak humans to learn early on how to stay together in groups for protection. Nobles ruled their domains and had total control over their citizens’ lives but also took responsibility for guaranteeing their citizens’ safety. And countless domain lords swore fealty to their king, creating various kingdoms or empires.
Or course, a few countries wereparliamentary or republics, but these were typically tiny; the entire country would be only one city, or they had special circumstances, such as being ruled completely by divine authority or having too many different ethnicities. Still, the great majority of countries used the feudal system of domain lords, or basically the exact system of landlords and the rich ruling that communism worked to overthrow.
I was no transmigrator—like you might see in another story—who wanted to try capitalism or communism in another world. That was because the current feudal society and way of thinking was a good fit for how society really worked in this world. Forcefully trying to push through an “advanced” system which didn’t fit the situation would only cause me to be crushed under the wheels of history.
The weak served the strong, while the strong protected the weak. The harsh environment’s conditions gave birth to such rules of survival, so nobles who held power would forever exist. Those who weren’t nobles to begin with could also become a noble or domain lord after obtaining strength.
In this feudal generation, even a country’s ruler was just like the biggest domain lord—but that of a country. The ruler’s authority mostly came from the system’s established royal authority, but the ruler’s direct subordinates would be only from his family’s domain and the knights that swore loyalty to his family. Yep—the royal knights. In most circumstances, the royal knights would be the personal knights loyal to the royal family, but since the royalty would be the leader of the country, there would be no difference between that and being loyal to the country.
Alright then. With such a big explanation from me you should have understood the situation by now. The countries in this world were very different from those back on modern day Earth of my time. From a certain standpoint, the countries in Eich were created out of countless “families.” The knights’ loyalty was typically to a specific family but not to the so-called country itself. It could even be said that the pure concept of countries hadn’t even formed yet.
The creation of such “families” didn’t only rely on bloodlines. Having similar goals or ways of thinking was fine as well. For instance, many groups of people immigrated to and hid in the Shining Mountains to resist against the Raff Empire’s despotism and ethnic slaughtering. When these people finally succeeded in defeating the Raff Empire, a family with “White Eagle” as its emblem became the master of the Shining Mountains. Their descendants became a new combined ethnic group known as the Tinflame, whose descendants all swore loyalty to the White Eagle.
As for a different type of family, I could give the example of the Fran Family. The Fran Family consisted of scholars who loved to research ancient arcane mysteries and astronomy under the leadership of an incredible genius by the name of Fran. Through the innumerable generations, members intermarried among each other, and a legendary family was born, known for having genius astrologists in every generation.
Countries were the amalgamations of families. Local knights would swear loyalty to their domain lords. Domain lords would swear loyalty to the royalty. All free knights would also swear loyalty to the royalty. A country’s destruction would typically be caused by the destruction of the royal family, which was why a royal family with zero descendants would be in even more danger than if they were invaded by a foreign power.
That was why I could say that as long as I didn’t die, the Mist Kingdom wouldn’t be destroyed. The Mist Kingdom’s loyal warriors and royal knights had now become my undead followers. Then, in public perception, did our Northlands Mist Family never die off at all?
“This seems rather confusing? How about I go and ask Karwenz?”
From a certain standpoint, there was no previous example of what had happened to the two of us. One had died and the reincarnated, while the twin had joined Hell—indeed, it was something with no precedent.
Meanwhile, Reyne’s East Mist royal family and Sleuweir’s royal family could only be viewed as branch families of the original Northlands Mist Family. Even the founders of their two countries had admitted this.
If I directly recognized Reyne and Glina as members of the Northlands Mist Family, then these two could be considered as my direct subordinates. However, this would make things quite awkward between all three of us as I was indeed the original master of this land. Perhaps our descendants would even have wars against each other for the purpose of determining the true ruling family, something I obviously didn’t wish to see.
No matter what things were like in the past, I was currently using the identity and status of Roland Mist to act in this world. Naturally, it could be said that the Mist Family had survived, or at least it was reviving.
Bastian and the others had already complained to me several times. They hoped I would be able to reestablish the banner of the Mist. Even if the Mist Kingdom had been destroyed, the home remained. They wished to proudly carry the banner of the Mist and completely revive the Northlands Mist Family.
It could be said that this was something necessary after the Mist Alliance’s establishment. The Mist Alliance I hoped for would be an alliance between countries ruled by a council. Of course, the council members would be the royalty of each country. If I personally participated in this council, my status wouldn’t be the right type.
Alright then—I’ll be honest. The part I found most difficult to withstand was that I never expected these old skeletons and zombies to be so bored and hungry for gossip that they tried to force me to get married.
“Your Highness, you’re already more than three hundred years old. My next-door neighbor has five generations of descendants, while you’re eternally single. I’m too ashamed to face your father!”
“…Who are you calling eternally single!? Does me not having a girlfriend have anything to do with my dad? I already have a girlfriend! Elisa, the Demon Lord, the Marchioness of the Flame Sea. She’s really powerful, are you afraid now?!”
“…Who cares if she’s a SemiGod and Demon Lord? The Mist Family needs a female master, not a female fighter. Even if she’s the Demon Marchioness, she can’t give birth to any children, so why would I be afraid? Your Highness, please think about it. If you happen to die off, who will we old guys swear loyalty to? The Mist Family has continued its inheritance for more than two thousand years. I can’t allow the Mist Family to die off in our generation. While Miss Elisa can be your mistress if you wish, the Mist Family needs a female master who can give birth to children.”
I was quite frustrated with their attempts to force me into getting married. Fine, in a way, the one trying hardest to get me married was old Ferdinand, who had loyally served the Mist family for many generations and was my elder. He could indeed take on a fatherly role for me, so I couldn’t even get angry about it.
If that was all it was, I could have accepted it. I used to have very few living subordinates, but in this life of mine, Timlad and the others joined me, causing me to have more and more living subordinates—but this also meant more trouble.
“Your Highness, even long-term mercenaries working for major merchants will swear loyalty to the merchant’s family. You now have more subordinates than ever before. Even if you don’t really pay attention to their interests, you should at least consider them. There should be a system in place to give payments to their bereaved families if any of them sacrifice themselves for your cause and to give them retirement money when they’re old. Only that’d allow your subordinates to truly not worry about fighting for you.”
“That’s right, Your Highness. You should think more about your subordinates’ interests. At least give them a chance to become nobles. Even if the powerful ones don’t care about such things, the basic level warriors and youths will really want it, won’t they? Even the Dark Elves want to be in a reliable family.”
After we returned to the Northlands and could openly walk under the sun, these knights continuously gave me lectures on such topics.
I could understand their way of thinking. They had returned home, but things had changed. They wished to completely restore the Mist Family and hoped the family they swore loyalty to could continue on. Finally, a certain person’s words caused me to decide to reestablish the Mist Family.
“Actually, I feel Her Highness Reyne is an excellent candidate to become the future female master of the Mist Family! She’d make an ideal pair with Your Highness. It’s quite easy to accept a branch family back into the main family. Your Highness could even use the same royal palace—how perfectly convenient!”
Cough—that wasn’t the quote I was referring to. I tossed the bastard who said that directly out of a third-floor window and investigated—it turned out he had been bribed to say that by Reyne! I then punished Reyne by making her swing her sword a thousand times.
“Your Highness, you should at least consider us. With the Mist Family reestablished, all of us will be able to take in adopted children to inherit our techniques and honor. This way our entire family will finally have new descendants, and our family will have a meaningful inheritance!”
I looked before me to see that it wasn’t only one or two undead knights that had such hope glimmering in their soulfires. Instead, every undead knight had this hope.
Having the living accept them, and being able to adopt children or have disciples inherit their family names was a beautiful dream that the Mist Kingdom’s royal knights didn’t even dare to dream about. Right now, they were only a step from their dream—how could these royal knights, who viewed honor and inheritance so importantly, possibly restrain themselves?
“All of you can just go ahead and take in adopted children to add to our family. It doesn’t need to have anything to do with me.”
“Your Highness, who are our new family members supposed to swear loyalty to then? Whose descendants should our adopted children and their descendants swear loyalty to?”
Alright then. From a certain standpoint, it was just like if the government didn’t give the go-ahead, the citizens didn’t dare to start the fireworks… Although this analogy felt rather off.
Since my loyal knights who had followed me for so longs all thought this way, reestablishing the Mist Family would be necessary. At any rate, I agreed in the end because I’d assumed it to be only about changing our name, and that it wouldn’t affect my personal affairs.
However, just publishing this news—that we would formally become the Mist Family again—improved everyone’s motivation and caused both the living and the undead’s work efficiency to increase by more than fifty percent … I could only sigh about how this was indeed a feudal society with deeply-rooted traditions.
“It would seem that shared goals are important, but long-term social security, as well as a resource guarantee, is needed…”
And now I summoned the entirety of the newly-born Mist Family to deal with the upcoming, major trouble.