Derek accepted the assignment. He understood its danger and difficulty perfectly well.

To the great figures above him, this celebrated hero was merely a valuable piece on the board—useful for blunting the Holy Cross counterattack in Saint Miller Province. Success would profit them all; failure would cost them little.

Derek understood. He was willing to be that piece.

Their arrogance and contempt gave him an opportunity. The barony and viscountcy looked like the most valuable rewards, but what he valued most was the command of the Saint Miller Legion.

Perhaps the post was merely compensation for a man they expected to sacrifice. To Derek, it was the most important prize of all.

Legitimacy. Authority.

The Saint Miller Legion could legally operate throughout the entire province and garrison any location. Far from home, nobody would be there to tell him what to do.

As for its official limit, that was a joke.

“One day, you will regret this.”

Derek swiftly took over the new Saint Miller Legion. Its soldiers were capable men drawn from the Second Legion. Count Perez had been generous; he had not padded the ranks with militia, though he had inevitably placed a few of his own people among them.

Once power was his, Derek placed trusted men throughout the command structure. His standard was simple: appearing on the Panel did not guarantee complete loyalty, but anyone absent from it could not be trusted.

While the others were still preparing, Derek completed the first stage of integration and marched.

During that time, a letter finally arrived from House Ferreira. A group of cousins came to join him, bringing news from Baron Ferreira.

“Count Perez’s granddaughter?”

When Derek heard it, he finally understood why Count Perez had been so generous. He thought for a single second, then immediately agreed.

Love had little place in marriage among nobles of this age, and Derek had no romantic interest in the half-starved commoners around him. Even without politics, the circle of women he could plausibly marry was narrow.

“Tell Father that I agree. But postpone the wedding until Saint Miller Province is stable.”

He sent his answer to Baron Ferreira. Before leaving, he personally visited Count Perez and indirectly conveyed the same intention.

Then he took another batch of weapons and provisions with him.

This marriage was not a bad bargain.

...

In Saint Miller Province, the barbarians were busy.

The southern surprise attack had not been difficult to win. Holding its gains was another matter. Once the three southern kingdoms fully mobilized, the Barbarian Kingdom could not withstand them in a direct contest—and once those war machines began moving, they would not stop easily.

But the barbarians could no longer grow in isolation. Their expanding population and power demanded trade and resources from abroad. Petty smuggling could not satisfy a kingdom's needs.

The surest way to force recognition was to demonstrate military strength.

From the beginning, the Kingdom of the Holy Cross had been their primary target. Its corrupt Church and nobles were the perfect business partners for smuggling. Yet a rigid kingdom that clung to its sacred name would never easily accept formal diplomatic relations.

No one had expected the Kingdom of Locke to turn the situation around.

So the plan had to be changed in haste.

Originally, the barbarians were supposed to withstand the Holy Cross’s first attack themselves while transferring large amounts of people and supplies home. In winter, they would hand Saint Miller Province to the Kingdom of Locke. The two already-mobilized kingdoms could then tear at each other.

The breathing room created by that conflict would let the Barbarian Kingdom consolidate its gains and grow stronger.

But the plan had changed. They had seized only a tenth of the people and supplies they expected, while suffering substantial military losses. Worse, sending a relatively intact Kingdom of Locke into Saint Miller Province might make the next war dangerously one-sided.

Those questions gave the barbarian strategists headaches. Yet they did not dare delay further. If both kingdoms turned against them, the losses would be worse.

The front-line commanders who knew the plan cursed the army on the Locke front for failing them while hurrying to transport their captives. They still underestimated Derek's speed.

At the border of the Holy Cross, the new Saint Miller Legion intercepted a barbarian unit.

“What are you doing?”

The barbarian officer was tense. He had never heard of the Saint Miller Legion, but the enemy outnumbered him.

Simon personally held the annex to the treaty exchanged between the two kingdoms, nearly shoving it into the man’s face.

“Saint Miller Province was handed over to the Kingdom of Locke half a month ago. Our countries have established relations. Are you trying to violate the treaty?”

The barbarian officer had not expected this. His face darkened. “I am only carrying out orders. If there is a dispute, speak to our High Commander.”

Simon gave a cold laugh and waved his hand. “Take them.”

What was there to fear from barbarians? They were only beaten dogs who had once fled before him.

The barbarian officer had never imagined they would actually attack. Though he had men with him, the prepared soldiers of the Saint Miller Legion captured them easily. Guards who resisted were cut down in front of him.

“You... you are violating the treaty between our countries!” the officer cried in shock and fury.

“I am clearing out slave-catchers trafficking people. The witnesses and evidence are all here. What else do you have to say?”

The law was on Simon's side, however shamelessly he was using it.

The affair quickly grew larger. The barbarian army, still moving supplies, abruptly halted. Several nearby barbarian forces closed in, but the Saint Miller Legion was unyielding. It raised the double-headed dragon banner and arrested men in full view of thousand-man units.

By the time the barbarian High Commander arrived, the air was a powder keg.

Derek finally appeared and met High Commander Wilson.

“Viscount Derek, do you intend to provoke a dispute between our countries?” Wilson opened with a show of force.

But Derek was not someone to be bullied. He answered just as forcefully.

...

“Then let us go to war. At worst, I lose my title.”

Wilson’s momentum collapsed at once. He did not dare fight now; otherwise all their efforts would have been wasted.

“This is your fault. Release my men first.”

“No. You violated the treaty. Under the agreement our countries just signed, you have no right to touch a blade of grass in Saint Miller Province, and you must wait for our army to complete the formal handover before withdrawing. Now I have caught some of your scum. You should thank me. Or are you saying the Barbarian Kingdom officially ordered this?”

Wilson dared not admit any such thing. Treaties meant little to the stronger party, but for now the Barbarian Kingdom needed Locke's cooperation. Derek held the advantage and showed no fear of them.

They negotiated for three days. Derek yielded not an inch. Wilson grew angry enough to threaten to leave several times, but Derek always gave the same reply: go to war.

Wilson had no answer for a man so utterly unwilling to compromise.

The barbarians had also learned who Viscount Derek was: a ruthless man who had cut down more than ten thousand barbarians in a single battle. They despised men who bragged, but hated and feared a barbarian butcher with blood on his hands.

Wilson believed Derek would do exactly what he said. Worse, if they truly fought, the treaty would certainly collapse, and Wilson was not sure he could kill the irritating man before him.

Derek’s record was too terrifying. No commander dared claim he was stronger. And in the meantime, the Saint Miller Legion had not been idle. It uncovered several groups of barbarians, and armed clashes had broken out more than once.

As the soldiers’ resentment grew beyond control, Wilson finally compromised.

“I concede. Release my men. This is my bottom line, or I would rather fight you.”

He had retreated, but he could not allow his subordinates to remain imprisoned. If he did, his reputation would be ruined.

Derek understood. Push a man too hard, and when his future was already destroyed, he might stop caring about any treaty.

“Fine. But you must do something for me.”

Wilson's expression darkened further. Derek had turned a concession into another demand. Yet Wilson could only agree, despite the trouble it might cause.

Then the great relocation began.

The brutal barbarians gathered Saint Miller Province’s serfs, intending to take them back home. Then they took a slight detour—meaning they walked in the opposite direction for several days.

At that point, the Saint Miller Legion arrived and confronted them. After difficult negotiations, both sides reached an agreement.

All the abducted serfs would be settled where they were, and the barbarians would begin handing over the defensive line.

By a remarkable coincidence, the chosen settlement lay inside the Domain of Augusta.

The fearless Viscount returned to his territory and discovered more than a hundred thousand displaced serfs. He graciously offered relief and issued a reclamation decree: any serf who cultivated land around the designated villages would receive freedom.

As for the food shortage, the lords of the Kingdom of Locke had promised several years of rations. What was there to fear?

The Saint Miller Legion recruited soldiers from the surrounding districts while taking over defense. Derek wrote home to bring in part of his manpower, then began building his domain: planning towns, constructing military camps, training blacksmiths and other skilled workers, and recruiting freed serfs into his private army.

Freeing the serfs caused far less excitement than Derek had imagined. Many were too numb to understand what freedom meant. The histories of his former world, he realized, had made emancipation sound far cleaner than it was.

In time, they would learn that no one could kill them without consequence, that they could own property, and that their choices mattered. Only then would their loyalty to their new lord take root.

For now, plentiful rations were enough to lift morale.

While Derek worked without pause, he took advantage of his northern colleagues’ dawdling and seized a batch of resources: mines, manors, town officials. He made a pile of private appointments and even forged title documents for unclaimed properties.

Why leave anything free for someone else?

With that single sweep, he became the most voracious new power in Saint Miller Province.

The rights of local merchants, missionaries, and nobles still had to be respected; that was one of the age's basic rules. But surely a new protector was entitled to collect a suitable fee.

By the time the first northern troops entered Saint Miller Province more than half a month later, Derek had already staked out his territory.

The nobles understood the unspoken rules perfectly well. They simply had not expected Derek to reorganize his army, drive out the barbarians, and seize the initiative before they could react.

By their calculations, he should have only just begun wrangling with the barbarians—perhaps he should still have been tangled up with them. They could arrive after the early trouble, finish organizing their troops, offer Derek some support, and divide the spoils together.

Unfortunately, by the time they heard Derek had settled the barbarians and rushed over, they were still too late.

Count Perez arrived first and followed Derek's example with an even wider repertoire of tricks. The other nobles refused to fall behind and began staking claims of their own. The province was too rich for Derek to monopolize.

The local powers of Saint Miller Province should perhaps have thanked him, because many later arrivals ate far more greedily, openly seizing without pretense. Those Derek had stripped early on were quietly relieved.

Perhaps Derek had simply stripped them so thoroughly that later arrivals found too little left to seize.

In any event, another half-month of chaos passed. Saint Miller Province remained unstable. Some unlucky noble found that only one person in ten remained on his land and learned it was the barbarians’ doing.

As for Derek, even those who knew he had profited did not dare bare their teeth at him. The Saint Miller Legion had expanded rapidly, and with his private troops, few in the province could restrain him.

In a matter of weeks, the once-insignificant knight had seized power on a scale no one would have thought possible. He was now a force rooted firmly in the province.

But the turbulent province was no longer Derek’s greatest concern. His power had expanded greatly in a short time, yet everything depended on withstanding the Holy Cross’s counterattack. Otherwise, all of it would vanish, and the backlash would force him to flee abroad.

After learning that Locke had invaded, the normally slow bureaucracy of the Holy Cross suddenly became efficient. They were confident they could drive out the barbarians, who had won by surprise. But if their old enemy Locke gained a foothold, driving them out would be far harder.

Derek had to put down every other matter and go to the front himself.

From his first day in Saint Miller Province, he had never ignored the coming counterattack. So the newly established fortress beneath his feet had been repaired continuously. Large amounts of supplies had been concentrated there first. Derek was ready for a long war.

This would not be another desperate gamble against the barbarians. His task was to hold what he had taken and consolidate it. A year from now, the balance of power might look very different.

“Until then, we must be ready to bleed.”

Derek’s eyes were resolute. He did not care about enemies elsewhere. But no one would pass through here.