June 29, 2022 – 4 minutes read – 698 words

Dozens of men have gathered in a certain house

“We can’t allow that man to marry someone from the Royal Family!” Man A

“That’s right! I will not allow my house to be crushed by that young man!” Man B

“He’s the reason I was downgraded to Sergeant!” Scott Pagenou

Complaints about Patrick are being shouted by anyone and everyone.

“Hey! What are we going to do? Are we just going to let him keep riding roughshod over us?” Man A

“I can’t accept that!” Man B

“He must be destroyed! There is no other option!” Man C

“What can we do with his territory?” Man B

“How many people can you prepare? Do you need money to hire troublemakers? Do you need recommendations?” Man A

“I don’t have the money since all my property was confiscated.” Man C

“You’re lucky your family survived. My brother and his wife, my nephews, all of them were executed.” Man B

“Same here” Man D

“So we can’t spend much money on harassment, since we don’t have much capital. But a little harassment is better than nothing, right?” Man A

“Of course! I want to see him fall!” Man B

“He’s got a sizable militia guarding his territory, so any actions we take need to be done in the Royal Capital. Can you do it?” Man A

“So we should hire a small number of talented people?” Man B

“Do we setup a night operation into his mansion? Or target him on a military operation?” Man C

“It depends on who we can hire and what their skills are.” Man B

“Let’s pool as much as we can and use it to hire the best people we can find. Let them try assassination, and harass him as much otherwise. That’s our best course of action for now.” Man A

I need to deal with the collection of unclaimed spies I now had at my mansion. I sold the men I captured to the mines, except for those that withstood the first round of interrogation (torture). The first group were sold as debt slaves.

The Kingdom allows slavery for criminal acts and debt repayment. Debt slaves must worked until their debts are repaid. Criminal slaves undergo forced labor of a certain length according to the crime. Crimes committed in a territory can be sentenced according to the laws of the local lord.

I could have charged them as criminal slaves for the trespassing crimes they did, but that was complicated since they didn’t harm anyone and didn’t steal any items. Instead, I set their debt amounts to the cost of interrogation that was spent on each person and sold them off as debt slaves. I wanted to put other houses on notice as to the consequences for invasive spying in my territory.

For those who failed to crack in the first round of interrogation, I offered them something…

“Are you willing to work for me?” Pat

My Snake family is an emerging house. When the Riggsby house was around, they only had a handful of espionage agents. Well, it seems they were all let go when the debts overwhelmed the budget.

I mentioned before that a Knighthood is granted by a noble, not the King. But how can a noble convey a knighthood onto someone without eroding the powers of the Royal Family?

The noble will pay an annual knight fee of 10 gold coins to the Royal Family, who then pays 5 gold coins to the Knight. The Knights then serve the family that paid the tax. By appointing a Knight, a noble is spending more money than simply employing the soldier as a militia member, but the Knight receives more exposure than an unremarkable militia commander.

I don’t yet have any Knights serving my family, nor do I have a dedicated group of intelligence agents. But I have 29 trained espionage agents in front of me, who are currently unemployed. I may make one or two a Knight in the future, assuming they provide stellar results.

After hearing my generous offer, all 29 of the captured spies joined. On the other hand, they may have been too scared to refuse.

Editor Note: Right now, I’m heads down on wrapping up the last chapters for Volume 1 (translation and images). Then I’ve got to tweak the combined chapters to make them cohesive and so on. I’ve never tried to edit a book-length text before, it’s… interesting.