There was no better place nearby than Sentinel City.

It had a large population, royal administration, and goods in abundance.

Naturally, housing prices were just as spectacular.

Even a courtyard tucked into a corner of the city, just large enough to house everyone, cost 30 gold.

Derek gritted his teeth and emptied his liquid funds to buy it.

At least it was roomy—a sizeable courtyard, roughly a quarter acre. With some remodeling, the front could become a smithy and the little rear courtyard could sleep the whole company.

There was nowhere to train, but for lodgings it would do.

Fortunately he still had a few dozen iron swords and a hundred-plus spearheads; selling those would keep the operation running.

Money was not the most important thing.

As long as the framework held, all he had to do was wait for opportunity.

The North had seen no war in recent years—but counting the calendar, the peace had already run long.

After some simple refurbishing, Derek's smithy quietly opened its doors.

He could not sit still any longer. Training gains were slowing to a crawl. With the Panel, he could theoretically grind away in this starter village until he became a max-level swordsman—but men forged in a training yard could turn to jelly on a real battlefield.

He needed to see blood.

Derek began looking for opportunities in the city.

Caravans, nobles—someone always needed hired soldiers.

No war didn't mean no danger.

Soon enough he found an escort job.

At a local tavern hung a commission board—a notice board for jobs around the region.

The Goat Trading Company needed a squad of soldiers to guard a caravan.

Derek asked around for the company's address and got a meeting with Vincent, its steward.

He gave his background and stated his business.

"From Sentinel City to Count Perez's lands—about a month on the road.

"I can pay you 3 gold. Overtime negotiated separately."

Vincent, the caravan's scrawny steward, eyed Derek with open skepticism.

The young man had no reputation whatsoever. If not for his knightly training and his family's name, Vincent would not have given him a moment of his time.

The figures were simple: maintaining a squad of spearmen for a year—equipment wear, rations, and wages—cost 20 gold, plus roughly 10 gold in initial equipment.

A knight? Warhorse, weapons, iron-studded leather: upward of twenty gold, and ten a year in upkeep.

A band like Derek's—one knight plus a squad of spearmen—cost 30 gold a year to keep, never mind the initial outlay.

Three gold? It looked like a small profit—but mercenaries didn't have work every day.

If men died or were maimed on the job, someone had to pay for treatment and compensation.

Weapon wear would spike too.

And besides—wasn't the whole point of selling your life to earn a bit more?

Derek refused without hesitation. "Steward Vincent, this may be my first commission, but I'm not fresh off the farm. Ten gold and I'll take it. Otherwise, find someone else.

"I am an elite knight who completed his training under Count Perez himself, and my soldiers are strictly drilled veterans. You will not find a more professional outfit for hire."

Vincent hesitated. He was willing to use a newcomer precisely because of Derek's background. As for "elite knight"—he didn't believe one word of it. A true elite would have joined the order. Still, a knight out of Count Perez's household was a gold-plated signboard compared to any other wandering knight.

"If you know the market, then you know 10 gold is impossible.

"Five. I'll trust you this once—House Ferreira and I have done business before."

The steward had made his concession; five was in fact the fair rate.

Derek tried to haggle further, until Vincent finally lost patience. "Five gold, final. If you weren't a knight, sir, four is the most I'd offer."

A knight cost more to keep—but a knight was also worth more on the market.

Seeing how things stood, Derek gave ground.

"Five gold, then. It's my first commission—consider it a courtesy to you.

"Next time, once you've seen what I can do, the price goes up."

Worn down by the bargaining and relieved it was over, Vincent played along. "Prove your worth and the price will rise. So will the work."

They signed the contract and registered it with the local merchant guild; the tavern that brokered the job recorded it as well.

Either party breaking faith would stain their local record.

Reputation mattered enormously.

Back home, Derek had one more matter to settle.

He needed a squire—and happily, he could pick one from among his own recruits.

For a knight, one squire or several handled the feeding of the warhorse, the upkeep of weapons and armor, the donning and doffing of plate before battle, even riding at his side in the charge.

A squire was nearly a lesser copy of the knight himself.

For a commoner, it was also a superb ladder upward.

First become a knight and claim the entry ticket; then think about deeds and glory.

Spearmen were almost never granted titles and land. For knights, it came far easier.

Of course, some squires stayed squires forever.

Perhaps they couldn't complete the training. Perhaps it was a matter of birth.

Derek owed this body real gratitude—otherwise his starting line would have been many a commoner's finish line.

In pure fighting terms, the gap between squire and knight wasn't always a chasm.

To most wandering knights—even knights proper—a squire was simply a tool with legs: a high-grade soldier.

No need to teach him etiquette or command. Use him as a servant-cum-soldier and be done.

For the time being, the same applied to Derek.

Choosing the right man, though, was easier for him than for anyone else alive.

Talent could be ignored. Only loyalty mattered.

With the Panel's help, even a talentless man could be trained up eventually.

But a man whose loyalty could not be secured would only strengthen someone else's ranks.

Fortunately, soldiers picked from farm stock might be ignorant of the world, but most were honest and dutiful.

They were used to serving House Ferreira besides—easier still for Derek to command.

Choosing among them was, as troubles went, a happy one.

In the end he settled on a squire of proven obedience.

Simon

Class: Spearman, Level 8 → Squire ??

Experience Pool: 0/100

One of the very first batch of recruits. Except in name... he hardly counted as a recruit anymore.

A Level 8 spearman: powerfully built, simple leather armor, a short sword, a long spear.

In single combat, an ordinary recruit wouldn't survive three of his thrusts.

In formation, he was worth far more still.

Simon was a name Derek had bestowed personally—a reward for obedience, loyalty, and grinding hard at training.

Truth be told, plenty of men had more talent. But Simon's level had never once slipped out of the front rank.

Opportunity had found the man who was ready for it.

Derek outfitted him with iron-studded leather, an iron sword, and a draft horse.

Four gold in equipment, and his wages doubled on the spot.

No small investment—and if the man ever undertook formal knight training, the bill would grow far larger.

...

This was exactly why knights rarely took on squires lightly: years of grooming, sometimes a decade or more. The cost was enormous.

Before departure, in front of the assembled soldiers, Derek dressed Simon in his new equipment with his own hands.

To these farm-born lads, this was a leap across half a social class.

Every gaze in the yard burned with envy.

"In the name of Derek von Ferreira, I grant you the station of squire. I grant you the name Simon. May the day come when you bear a surname of honor all your own."

Simon knelt on one knee, imitating a knight's investiture as best he could.

He was visibly cramped and nervous, and the effect landed somewhere between solemn ritual and farmyard imitation.

But no one was watching his clumsiness. They were too busy envying him.

"In your service... Knight Derek. I—I, Simon, do swear it: my life and my loyalty are yours."

The honest country boy took the longsword with trembling excitement.

Derek pulled him to his feet and helped him hang the sword at his waist.

One small change, and he already stood apart from the spearmen.

The treatment that followed would differ too.

Striking while the iron was hot, Derek turned to the spearmen drawn up in three ranks and let the rhetoric fly: "May Simon's today be your tomorrow! Train hard, fight bravely—and I will grant you money, station, and honor!"

"We serve Lord Derek!"

Morale soared.

Painting grand pictures of the future was a skill in its own right—and Derek plainly practiced it better than most men of this world.

Then, soldiers gleaming with fresh spirit, Derek marched to the rendezvous at the Goat Trading Company.

The company kept guards and hands of its own; hiring a squad of soldiers was strictly a temporary measure.

Keeping soldiers year-round was an expense, and a trading house existed to maximize profit.

Rather than bleed themselves dry saving on protection, better to squeeze in one more run down the trade road.

As for those company guards—by Derek's standard, unqualified.

Alert-looking enough, but a long way short of strong.

Their weapons were a stew of everything: sabers here, swords there, spears over shoulders—even one bow, of unknowable skill.

The caravan straggled along at thirty or forty people, yet counted over twenty wagons.

Before Derek could get a proper look at the cargo, Steward Vincent came hurrying to meet him.

"Knight Derek—are these your family's household troops?"

The mistake was forgivable. Three months of drilling, food without stint—and above all, the Panel's blessing.

These soldiers had swelled with strength like inflating balloons.

High-level soldiers simply could not look like starved chickens.

Only the equipment lagged: even Derek himself rode an ordinary horse and wore studded leather that merely leaned heavy on the iron.

But they were fully equipped and built like oxen, and against the Goat Company's own guards the contrast was merciless.

No wonder the boy had dared name a high price. I've come out ahead, Vincent thought.

The smile on the steward's face warmed by several degrees of sincerity. In the end, respect was purchased with strength.

Derek declined to answer the question directly. When a man hands you a tiger skin, you wear it.

"Steward Vincent—I told you I was worth more. Next time, the price rises."

"Of course, of course." Vincent agreed readily.

Next time, he thought, I hire someone else.

A gold coin was a gold coin. Any passable band of mercenaries would do; the odds of real trouble were tiny anyway.

Between the company guards and the hired soldiers—call it thirty men, with thirty-odd hands and servants in a pinch—ordinary bandits could be handled.

Get more money out of a merchant? Only with a blade at his throat.

The caravan finished packing and rolled out.

Derek's first independent job—but hardly unfamiliar work.

His years as a squire had been full of it.

Caravan escort, armed engagements, forced marches, battlefield command—

all of it part of a complete knightly curriculum. That was why knights cost so much to produce.

They had never been bred for use as arrow-fodder.

In a knightly order—setting aside the heavy cavalry kept purely for breaking lines—most knights served as junior and mid-rank officers.

Noble knights especially: in war, a proper knight led a banner company or a company of a hundred.

In peacetime that sufficed for armed squabbles between nobles; when things turned truly deadly, he could raise a scratch force and still guarantee its basic fighting order.

So Derek—leaning half on this life's training, half on his last life's memories—found himself not particularly rattled.

He set the order of march and rode inspection now and then.

Quite the professional picture.

The only flaw: the equipment was miserable.

Even the horse under him was thoroughly ordinary.

In service, he'd ridden the count's warhorses.

Back home, the family would have equipped him.

But out on his own? You made do.

Squire Simon, on his plodding draft horse, looked shabbier still.

Derek trained his squire as they traveled.

Even the spearmen got their drills in.

On the Panel, stats long frozen would twitch upward once in a while.

But the real story, as ever, was the quiet accumulation in the Experience Pools.

For the first few days, so close to Sentinel City, there was no business to be done.

Once inside Count Perez's territory, though, the Goat caravan followed a carefully planned route.

Roundabout, yes—but it threaded through far more manors and villages.

This ground Derek knew well. He had served here, after all.

He'd never dealt with the Goat Company before, but presumably they were too small to draw the count's attention.

The truly great trading houses entered the count's lands under military escort—that, in fact, was where Derek's own escort experience had come from.

The longer the road, the better he and Steward Vincent got to know each other.

Their talks yielded plenty of information.

The Goat Company worked the commoner trade, and seemed to have some connection to a certain personage in the count's household.

The linen, farm tools, and modest crockery in the wagons would all fetch good prices.

The emptied wagons would then pick up furs and grain here and there to sell back home.

Out and back, the margins were respectable.

The exact figures, naturally, were not shared with Derek.

The road stayed peaceful. They even crossed paths with a knightly patrol, and Derek exchanged greetings with a few squires he knew.

That he'd chosen the wandering knight's road left most of those noble knights baffled.

Only after leaving Count Perez's territory did the caravan's mood tighten.

"We're near the mountains here. The odd barbarian slips across the range now and then—but the real threat is roving bandits."

Steward Vincent made a point of warning Derek in advance.

Derek knew this country better than the steward did—he'd fought in bandit-suppression actions here.

Turning the local map over in his memory, he asked, curious: "There should be nothing out here but scattered hamlets and hill forts, on land no noble claims. Why would the caravan come this way at all?"