With the bandits driven off, there was no more traveling to be done that day.

They found a spot nearby and made camp. The rest was no longer Derek's concern.

He used the opportunity to do a little more work on his soldiers' minds.

One real battle, and much of their terror of war had simply evaporated.

Their rawness was visibly fading. Some were downright euphoric, eager for another fight.

Only when the morale work was finished did Derek at last open the Panel.

Sure enough—every soldier's experience had jumped, ten or twenty points a man.

That surge came from real combat and steadier nerves.

For spearmen past Level 5, ordinary gains had grown feeble.

Past seven or eight, the numbers all but froze.

A jump like today's was no small gain.

Though chances like this would be few—and each smaller than the last.

Then he looked at his own line.

Derek von Ferreira

Class: Knight, Level 7 (5/100)

Experience Pool: 0/100

Not bad—up three points himself.

Even his squire had reached Level 4.

And there was an unexpected discovery besides.

Derek opened the bottom-most portrait in the list. This one was plainly not human.

Warhorse (unnamed)

Quality: Common (46/100)

Experience Pool: 0/100

"Horses can join the Panel too?"

Derek's attention sharpened at once. If the arms trade brought windfall profits, the warhorse trade was a monopoly.

The price range was enormous—and money alone could not always buy one.

Take his own very ordinary mount: 10 gold and up.

A properly trained warhorse started at several dozen.

The question followed immediately: what exactly had gotten the horse admitted to the Panel?

The battle just now?

Or obedience?

Judging by how his soldiers had been absorbed, obedience seemed the likelier answer. Though if every horse required his personal touch to register, the feature's value shrank considerably.

He could only file it away for now. Even at worst, he could steadily produce a few fine warhorses of his own.

That evening Steward Vincent paid a quiet visit and promised a bonus upon returning to the city.

Nothing extravagant—but something, without fail.

That was customary. Men who bled for the cargo could not simply be ignored.

Business was business; sentiment was sentiment. Keeping both books balanced—that was how one conducted oneself.

Derek was satisfied. Future dealings would run more smoothly for it.

After the brief halt, the caravan swayed back onto the road.

Few villages remained; the return leg was nearly at hand.

Steward Vincent prayed there would be no further surprises.

Despite the ambush, the caravan was still making excellent profit—this back half of the route was where the real money lay.

The mountain folk shunned outsiders. Without the Goat caravan's standing, Derek would never have walked into their villages so easily.

He kept his soldiers on a tight leash to avoid any friction.

They simply guarded the wagons and watched the mountain folk come and go, trading.

And not from one village only—word had apparently drawn mountain folk from all around.

Derek stood with arms crossed, sharp eyes sweeping the crowd, quietly discouraging anyone entertaining clever ideas.

"Can't you come down a little on the wound salve? These rabbit pelts are all we have."

"No. Rabbit pelts make gloves and nothing more—they won't fetch a price. That salve is first-grade, set aside for my own use. I don't sell it cheap."

The quarrel drew Derek's attention.

He turned: Steward Vincent, arguing with a mountain man in rags.

Derek drifted closer, in case it came to blows.

The sight of him gave Vincent considerably more confidence.

Men would do business that cost them their necks; no man did business that cost him money.

However restrained the steward acted around Derek, he had not a drop of sympathy to spare for these lowly hill folk.

Asking him to take a loss hurt worse than cutting his own flesh.

The mountain man looked ready to swing—then he saw Derek, and his neck retracted, a flicker of fear crossing his eyes.

He seemed about to leave. Then he remembered whoever it was lying wounded at home, and stood his ground.

"Steward—give me the salve, and next time you come I'll bring you ten wild boar hides."

Ten boar hides would make several full sets of leather armor. Serious value.

Vincent's eyes gleamed—then he took in the man's rags and his lip curled. "Next time, he says. Try not to starve first. Now clear off and stop blocking me, or I'll stop being polite."

Veins bulged along the mountain man's arms.

At which point Derek stepped in and set a hand on his shoulder.

"Friend. You look familiar."

The man froze—remembering where he was, and remembering exactly how dangerous the man in front of him was.

He tried to twist free. The hand held him like a bolt through timber.

The strength he'd been proud of all his life could not so much as budge it.

Privately, Derek was surprised as well. This man had real strength—more than most hardened men.

Mountain folk weren't all built like bulls; strength born in the bone like this was rare.

But it was something else about the man he valued more.

"I don't know you. Let go of me. This is no place for you outlanders to throw your weight around!"

The shout drew eyes from all around.

Even with the Goat Company's standing behind them, starting trouble here required careful arithmetic.

Derek ignored him entirely and turned to his squire. "Simon. Fetch my wound salve."

Simon hurried off and came jogging back with a small bundle.

"Friend, I mean you no harm. The ten boar hides—I'll take that deal. This salve I prepared for my own use, and it's better than anything on the market.

"Particularly for... puncture wounds."

Derek held his gaze, seeming to read the thoughts straight out of him.

The mountain man's head snapped away. He didn't dare meet those eyes.

Had he been recognized? He couldn't tell. But his brother's life... Teeth clenched, he took the bundle.

"Outlander. You'll have your ten boar hides. My word on it."

"Good. Next time the caravan comes, I'll be waiting. If I'm not with them, leave the hides with Steward Vincent."

The man walked a few steps, then turned back stubbornly.

"Knight. Tell me your name."

"Derek von Ferreira!"

"I'm called Wood. You'll get your boar hides."

Only when the man had strode away did Steward Vincent sidle up, face full of regret.

"Knight Derek, I'm afraid your salve just walked into the river. These people... possess none of a knight's virtues."

"No. I think he's a brave man. I'm willing to give him a chance."

"And where exactly did you see that?"

Vincent was genuinely curious. Derek only smiled.

Where did he see it?

...

Of the bandits, the few who dared charge home were also the strongest fighters of the lot. Brave, or not?

Against a different escort, that charge might well have carried.

A man like that was flat-out talent by mountain standards—worth the price of recruitment.

Besides, Derek von Ferreira did not give things away for free.

Steward Vincent never did get his answer, but by the reckoning of his long merchant years, that investment was eight parts in ten already lost.

Still, Derek wasn't company staff; it wasn't his place to interfere.

On the contrary: a young knight overflowing with force like this was someone to cultivate.

The caravan stayed two days, bought a great quantity of furs, and turned for home.

The road back ran a little differently.

Vincent bought goods the whole way, plainly wishing he could stack the wagons into small mountains.

Watching the drayhorses strain, even Derek felt a pang.

Capital, it turned out, dripped blood in every world alike.

The only variable was who got squeezed.

Derek could only remind himself: be the one doing the squeezing. Never the one squeezed.

Near Sentinel City, one more piece of good news arrived.

Squire Simon's plodding draft horse had joined the Panel too—and was rapidly climbing toward Common quality.

No exaggeration: the buy-low, sell-high margin on that single animal was three gold at minimum.

But the windfall was the lesser prize. A source of warhorses—that was the treasure.

In an age of backward warfare, fully armored heavy cavalry were a decisive force, feared across the battlefield.

And none of it existed without superb horses.

Back in the city they closed out the commission, and the brokering tavern entered it into the books—a record on file.

Any caravan looking to hire Derek in the future would consult it; an outstanding entry could even justify a premium.

This time, for instance, Vincent—wincing at every coin—produced two whole gold as a gratuity.

Formalities complete, Derek returned to base.

Between limited training and ever-higher levels, the spearmen left behind had gained little.

The three smiths, though, grew steadily more skilled—Little Tru could now independently forge iron swords of respectable quality.

Derek stockpiled strength and took the odd local commission, rotating his spearmen out for field seasoning.

Bit by bit, Derek's name spread.

Sentinel City's mercenary circle came to know it: a crew of hard men had arrived, and their word was good.

The money kept growing.

So did the muscle.

And yet the anxiety wouldn't leave Derek—a pressure always at his back.

Without land and people, even a flourishing enterprise had a ceiling.

Consider the Ferreira barony: four or five thousand souls in the whole fief. Could it feed him recruits without limit?

Every other noble's land was the same. Freely recruiting soldiers was a fantasy.

Most freemen held their own land and trade besides; they didn't enlist.

Those without land or trade were nobles' tenants, forbidden even to move at will.

To say nothing of the farmhands and herders—those were, in every sense, means of production.

This feudal society had welded its ceiling shut. Strive all you liked; the lock held.

Only by breaking through class itself could a man keep growing.

For now, three smiths' worth of output was about what he could protect. Expand the business without a powerful patron, and sooner or later he'd be eaten to the bone.

Derek knew the habits of the nobility far too well to gamble on their restraint.

And maintaining the status quo... seemed comfortable enough, didn't it?

A micro manor in the Northern Province ran about five thousand gold.

Strive for fifty years, and he could save up exactly one.

By this era's lights, leaving your heirs an asset like that made you a resounding success.

Look at the Perez family: all these years, and they'd accumulated two micro manors—and that was considered fine stewardship.

Derek ought to have been content.

Content? Not a chance.

Cross into another world, cheat in hand—to spend one mortal lifetime just getting by?

Besides, one mishap along the way and he might not see the fifty years out.

This world offered him no safety.

Not unless his fate sat in his own two hands.

Small wars might have offered openings—but Derek wanted none of them.

The kingdom's politics ran on a classic dual-lordship system:

liege lords, and the King.

A noble under the King's name owed the crown its duties, but kept relative freedom.

Take investiture from some great noble instead, and you might still hold royal office—but political freedom? Practically none.

Your liege's position was your position.

Short of outright treason on his part, refusing your liege's "requests" was nearly impossible.

And it so happened that the kingdom's political resources sat overwhelmingly in the King's hands.

Even your descendants would answer to your liege's descendants.

Breaking class and seizing power through a great noble was a hard, fenced-in road.

The best path ran through the royal capital—through the kingdom's own heart.

But House Ferreira was country gentry. It had no political capital to make him a royal official—and any it had would never be spent on a third son.

Resources like that belonged to great nobles and the royal house alone.

A perfect closed loop.

Unless a great war broke out. Military merit, a title, the King's eye—then the slow clawing accumulation of power and resources.

What Derek waited for was the northern war. The barbarians risen in the north had seized broad tracts of the kingdom's land during its years of division.

As the kingdom's strength recovered, a war of reconquest was only a matter of time.

Every thinking man knew it. But "a matter of time" might mean tomorrow—or ten or twenty years hence.

Derek had believed he could wait. He was discovering... he lacked the patience.

All of the restlessness, of course, flowed from the same source: the eyes, idle and otherwise, forever probing at his business.

An operation bringing in more than a hundred gold a year—an arms operation, no less—made many mouths water.

Only the knight's title, the deterrent of the family behind him, and frankly his own sword arm had made the greedy stares slide away. For now.

Grow the operation, and the greed would return on schedule.

The first to move might well be his own backer—Baron Ferreira.

Yes. Weighed against the family's interest, what exactly did a father's love count for?

A business worth several tenths of the family's entire income—

In the end, Derek had underestimated what a competent blacksmith was worth.

Why did smiths command such value?

Smelting technique. Forging technique. In this era, both were treasure.

Most smiths forged good steel by feel and accumulated experience, nothing more.

Hence the scarcity. Hence the enormous margins.

Hence, too, the caution and secrecy that shrouded every transmission of the craft.

Only the few powers that had systematized their techniques monopolized the industry.

Against all that, the Panel was pure cheating—it converted luck into certainty.

Any smith at all, given only time, would become a master.

What a power to make men's eyes burn with greed.

Once Derek understood this, he stopped daring even to allocate points.

But a fire had lit in his chest. He needed a place beyond every watching eye, where the Panel could be used to its fullest.

One opportunity, he believed—just one—and he would vault onto history's stage.

And the target... he had already chosen.