Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

Enraged by Dople's attitude, the woman who appeared to be an officer raised her voice and shouted again, "Warning: 200 meters away! Anyone coming here must immediately disarm and submit to inspection, or we will take necessary measures!"

No one stopped.

"150 meters warning!" "100 meters warning! Form ranks—prepare to charge!"

This officer, who claimed to be a member of the Cold Iron Guard, was a tough nut to crack. Seeing that Raslaufer wouldn't stop, he gritted his teeth, turned around, and ordered his riders to form a battle formation, draw their scimitars, and spurred their horses to trot. He was actually preparing to charge Raslaufer!

"Final warning! Attacking the garrison can be considered a declaration of war against Ironforge! Don't make a mistake!"

Raslaufer could hear the noisy woman's voice. He looked up and saw that the other side had clearly begun to accelerate. They were dressed in uniform armor and robes, holding standard scimitars, and their bodies were leaning to the same side, clearly in a charging stance.

The two sides were now less than a hundred meters apart, which was the perfect distance for these cavalrymen to accelerate—they would launch an attack no matter what!

"So there are you guys too." Leslaufer licked his lips, and suddenly, a strange smile appeared on his face. The image of a confident young nobleman began to overlap with the figure on horseback.

If that's the case, then nothing is surprising.

"kill!"

Dobler's demonic roar plunged half the city into panic. At that moment, Raslaufer and the others behind him accelerated, heading straight for the riders ahead.

They are the ones who are about to charge forward!

Chapter 580 Army and Mercenaries

The iron hooves of sixteen hunting horses thundered against the stone bricks, and the riders' scimitars flashed with silver arcs as they charged.

Their formation was a standard wedge shape, neither particularly striking nor revealing many weaknesses. When the female officer saw that Raslaufer not only didn't flinch but instead went straight to meet her, a delighted and excited smile even appeared on her face.

Professional training is completely different from that of these peasants—even these Duples! All it takes is to lure those battle commanders who can no longer fight with small rewards, and they will pour out all their life experience to scholars to summarize and compile, so that new officers like her can learn from it.

How could a disorganized mercenary force possibly withstand such a professionally constructed army?

Ordinary mercenaries would indeed be unable to withstand him, but Raslaufer is no ordinary mercenary, nor even an ordinary Doppler.

The 100-meter distance passed in an instant as both sides charged simultaneously. But as the female officer and her flanks wielded their knives, the imagined scene of heads flying into the air appeared as expected, only this time it was their own heads that flew up!

The thin, standard-issue scimitar was no match for the black flame greatsword crafted by the dwarven artisans. It was deflected and sent flying in a single exchange. A rider who had already passed Dubler tried to take advantage of the opportunity to attack him from behind, but was instead stopped by two mercenaries behind Raslauver. Raslauver then turned and swung his sword, slicing half of Dubler's body in half.

And this rider's death was just the beginning.

"Reslaufer! Do you really dare to declare war on the entire Ironforge?!" The female officer, who had just finished charging, had lost her smile, replaced by cold sweat streaming down her face from her temples to her chin. "You are now wanted criminals!"

“As if this is your first time,” Leslaufer swung his sword back, wiping the blood off it. “Still planning to charge? Come on.”

He and the people behind him were almost unharmed, but of the original sixteen riders, only twelve remained.

"...Change formation!" Faced with such contempt, the officer gritted his teeth and gave the order fiercely. As a result, all of them abandoned their scimitars and instead raised the short sticks that had been hanging on their sides.

The short sticks looked unremarkable, thicker at the front and narrower at the back, except for a dark hole at the top, which appeared hollow. This part was well hidden, but it was wishful thinking to think it could escape the eyes of Leslaufer and his men.

“Old Lei, be careful. These can all be considered magical items,” Daisy quickly reminded him from behind. “They should just be ordinary props, but we should still be careful with this kind of mass production.”

"Reslaufer, you must understand, the era of mercenaries running rampant is over!" The riders didn't immediately activate their short clubs, but instead charged forward again in formation. The four riders who had been forming the first tier of the spearhead had all perished, and their formation was now significantly smaller.

But the danger has actually increased.

“You two get out of the way,” Leslaufer turned and glanced at the two mercenaries behind him. “This scoundrel sent you to deliver a message, not to send you to your deaths.”

"Daisy, prepare magical support. Anne and Mary, you two go to the flanks."

His companions quickly rearranged their positions as instructed, and the bard's magic, flowing with the music of the mattour, poured into Reslaufer's body, further amplifying the already imposing size of Doppel. When the foremost rider charged again, Reslaufer had to bend over to deflect his opponent with the flat of his sword!

"set fire!"

At the same time, the officer's order rang out, and the short sticks that had previously caused no pain to Reslaufer suddenly spewed out fierce tongues of fire, sweeping and burning towards Reslaufer. The officer who had positioned himself in the center of the group also had an ochre-colored ball in his hand, which he smashed towards Reslaufer's face without saying a word!

Raslaufer instinctively reached out to block, but unexpectedly, the sphere was no ordinary projectile. The moment it touched the gauntlet, it burst into a huge roar and flames under the pressure and impact of the external force, almost engulfing Raslaufer's entire upper body!

"It's tobacco powder!"

Angelita was immediately alarmed. She had been using the dwarf's pistol for quite some time, so how could she not know what substance caused the explosion? At that moment, she could no longer care about anything else. The rider on the flank only saw a blur before the girl leaped over his head. Suddenly, a flap on the shoulder armor of her balanced breastplate opened, and three magical missiles flashing with dangerous red light flew directly over the crowd, as if they had eyes, and smashed towards the face of the female officer who had launched the sneak attack.

In her hands, Shouzhi Changshi unleashed a thunderous roar, tearing half of the rider's body apart as it struck his shoulder. The startled hunting horse dragged the rider's scattered entrails for dozens of meters before finally reacting.

Daisy's piano music suddenly turned melodious, rapidly healing all possible injuries on Raslaufer's body.

"Not bad." Under the effect of the giantification spell, Dople, who was like a real giant, roared in mid-air. His face was blackened by the explosion. Although the injury was not light, it was not a big deal with Daisy's treatment and the self-healing ability from Purgatory. The greatsword did not stop for a moment and slashed down again. In front of the city gate, the remains of horses and men were completely mixed into a pool of blood, making the surrounding area look like a real purgatory!

The officer was a fairly skilled horseman; even in this situation, he managed to maneuver his horse to the side, dodging Reslaufer's deadly attack. However, while Dopler's greatsword missed its mark, Angelita's magical missiles, triggered by her breastplate, refused to interfere. The three missiles, as if guided by eyes, struck her firmly in the lower back, penetrating her armor and causing her to cough up blood.

But this is far from over!

The officer immediately reached for her belt, where two vials of healing potions lay—this was the source of her confidence as a professional officer! Resources flowing from the treasuries of the city lord and nobles would fully arm them, granting them combat power far exceeding that of ordinary mercenaries…

Her fingers landed deftly on the belt, but where the medicine bottle should have been, there was only a sharp shard of glass and the dampness that proved the medicine had once been there.

...Where's the medicine?

In another direction, Angelita, having already felled another rider, naturally withdrew her gaze from the corner of her eye. There were three magic missiles, but only one hit the target; the reason wasn't that she had all three missiles attack the same spot.

In an empire that had long since completed the assimilation of magic, although there were few so-called professional armies under the command of lords at various levels, Her Highness had seen plenty of the Imperial Guard under the Emperor's command.

Chapter 581 Choking

"Let me go! I order you to let me go!"

Even if Daisy canceled the giant transformation spell, it wouldn't have been much harder for Raslaufer to capture an ordinary officer than to catch a chick. Taking advantage of the officer's momentary daze as he failed to receive timely treatment, Raslaufer stretched out his arm and easily grabbed the man's belt, pulling him off his horse.

The officer tried to retaliate with a short baton that could breathe fire, but before she could raise it, there was a "crack" and her right arm bent in the opposite direction.

"Ah!" The intense pain made her scream, but she still refused to give in. "You dare touch me?! I am—"

She ultimately didn't utter her harsh words. The man with the blunt, protruding gauntlets clenched his fist and flattened her originally well-defined features with a single blow.

Raslaw retracted his fist, his other hand still gripping her throat, lifting her into the air: "I thought that the death of those fools who went down this path and colluded with demons would make you give up, but it seems you're all just as uniformly stupid."

“Scharnheig was framed by you!” The officer’s voice was hoarse as he futilely pried open Reslaufer’s hand with his other hand. “You…you dare swear in the name of the God of War?!”

"Come on! Kill me! Even if you kill me, there will be thousands upon thousands of others like me who will stand up. You can't defy the course of history. You lawless mercenaries are destined to be swept into the dustbin of garbage! Without you, everything will be better!"

She roared as if shouting a slogan, but Leslaufer had already lost interest in her. With a slight exertion of his hand, a muffled thud was heard, and her once proud head immediately lost its support, collapsing to the ground along with her body.

"Whose house is this? Does anyone know it?"

Reslaufer turned around expressionlessly and looked at the two mercenaries.

“It must be the eldest daughter of the Smerian family,” Dobler’s question was answered immediately. “After that Shai Helig died, she and six other young masters and ladies picked up the mess again. Not only that, they also got the city lord and the council to recognize their legal status. That’s the ‘Cold Iron Guard’ she just shouted about—look at the insignia on her shoulder.”

Compared to his companion who spoke first, the other mercenary was a bit more astute: "Lord Raslaufer, do you think this is why Boss Duncan sent you here? To be honest, they have indeed taken a lot of our work, and they often do so in the name of the city lord, leaving us no way to argue back."

Stealing someone's livelihood is no small matter. The mercenaries assumed Duncan's entourage was due to this, but Raslaw thought of the Ampiri pirates who had suddenly sailed south.

“If it’s just this, it’s not a big deal. Duncan can handle it himself,” Leslaw snorted. “These kids have a lot of good stuff on them, and they have men backing them up, but when it comes to a real fight, they’re nothing special.”

Moreover, these people are likely from noble families, both high and low. They are indeed hot-blooded, but they will also be afraid and back down once they actually see blood. Furthermore, their numbers are limited. If they want to continue to grow, they will have to recruit from the lower-class commoners. At that point, the difference in treatment between noble soldiers and commoner soldiers could even cause them to fight each other.

Raslaufer had traveled extensively and had seen similar situations before. Many small city-states without much money would adopt similar methods, but in the end, they all fizzled out: the nobles would retain their titles as commanders but leave behind only a bunch of suckers who were barely better than conscripted militia. When a real crisis came, they would still have to sell everything they owned to hire more people.

But what if this time, the nobles of Ironforge don't intend to use local commoners?

The nobles, though limited in number and strength, were all of high status, yet they were supported and provided for by their lords; the pirates from the north, though powerful, were outsiders with no local foothold.

If these two things really do merge...

A group of extremely well-equipped Amprii barbarians? How could he have such a dream?

"What's this woman's status in their gang?" Mary had already helped open the city gate. Raslaufer casually picked up the officer's body, which was still warm, and asked while urging everyone to continue forward.

"Out of the seven people... she should be fourth, but some people say she might be second—they don't swear brotherhood, there's no such thing," the mercenary replied. "The former is ranked according to the families behind them, and the latter, it's said that she slept with their current leader."

"Nobody has ever seen it, but that's what everyone's saying."

“If anyone sees them, they’ll be utterly disgraced,” Leslaufer said, pursing his lips. “Who’s the leader, and what’s his name?”

This question is much simpler than the previous one. In an organization, you might not be able to distinguish between the second and third in command, but the leader is obvious: "Lovisa Richter, that bitch was Scheinhailig's lackey back then, she's rotten to the core! Ever since she took over and applied for that piece of crap that is the garrison, let alone patrolling the streets and guarding the city, she's even taken over menial tasks like rescuing cats for old ladies!"

Raslaufer paused in his steps toward the Mercenary Guild: "You take on these kinds of errands? What about the adventurers?"

"What else can they do? Choose sides."

Iron Fortress is a fairly large city, and while there's a fair amount of work, it's not a huge problem either. Even if all the old ladies' cats climbed trees and couldn't get down, there's still a limit. If some people do more work, others have to do less; if everyone wants to do more, then inevitably some people will have nothing to do.

You either have to give up being a half-baked adventurer, or you have to join one of them—a mercenary, a garrison, or…

Go be a mouse.

"Oh, look who's here!"

As soon as Raslaufer stepped into the guild's gate, Tifflin, wearing a cat-face mask, stood up lightly. She still had that short, silver-white hair, and her tail was casually wrapped around her left thigh. But Angrita noticed that, unlike when they first met, Kalistella's alien weapon, which should be called the "Lantern Shield," was bound to her right upper arm like armor.

Although she concealed it well, Angelita could see that beneath the shield were bloodstained bandages.

“Calistella,” Leslaufer nodded to the acquaintance, but noticed something amiss as they shook hands, his brow furrowing immediately. “Your hand, what’s going on?”

“It was blown up, what else could it be?” Tiflin shrugged casually, her face mask obscuring her expression. “But none of that matters, right? You dragged this little bitch through the streets like a dead dog, and my revenge is complete.”

Chapter 582 Cliff

"She's the one who blew you up?"

Completely disregarding the stares of others, Raslaufer casually tossed the corpse in his hand in front of him: "I really didn't expect this. Weren't you hiding it so well before?"

"Hmph, the new broom can sweep the floor now," Kalista said with a gloomy tone. "A while ago, a large group of Northlanders came over, including quite a few homeless children. Some of them were absorbed into my rat swarm. Many of them were quite clever and quick-witted. I thought I had struck gold."

"There was one little thing among them who had all my big rat kings running around in circles, reporting to me every day on the latest movements of the garrison. The last time I thought I had seized the opportunity, I personally led my men out, but, well, that was it."

She raised her right arm slightly, but didn't lift it: "The smoke bomb is quite powerful, even after using two bottles of healing potion."

“However,” Tifflin suddenly smiled slyly, releasing his tail and poking the corpse on the ground with its tip, “this time I’ll give you an eye for an eye and spread the news of your arrival. Now we’re even.”

One is dead and the other is alive; objectively speaking, this can't be called "evening out," but both Caristella and Leslaufer deeply agree with this.

However, not everyone in the mercenary guild agrees with this approach.

“You’ve gotten your revenge, but this will definitely provoke them.” A man crossed his arms disapprovingly, glancing at Raslaufer and Caristella with a mixture of disdain and fear.

Leslaufer was also sizing up the man. Although the man didn't bring his horse into the house, his riding boots gave him away.

"Stop talking nonsense, Cliff," Doppler said, though no one else would speak, but someone else would chime in for him. "You think you can stay out of this? They've already equipped themselves with cavalry. How long do you think your Bonecrusher Legion can keep up?"

“So comfortable you’d be overgrown with weeds on your graves,” the chapter commander named Cliff retorted with a sneer. “A bunch of young punks can only ride hunting horses. Most of those Northmen don’t even have stirrups. Their best tactic is to charge in a single file—you call that cavalry? What a bunch of country bumpkins!”

"The Shattered Bone Legion," Reslaufer nodded. Now he knew who they were. It was a legion composed entirely of heavy cavalry, very small in number, but the elite of the elite: that was evident from its price, several times that of other legions.

Although Reslaufer didn't like this guy, he had to admit that it would take a considerable amount of time for those men to form a well-organized heavy cavalry unit. Personnel, resources, training, maintenance, and so on were all challenges.

"If you really think these things have nothing to do with you, you are free to leave, as if I never invited you."

As everyone was making a fuss, the door behind them was pushed open, and Duncan, just like the last time they met, was pushed in a wheelchair and slowly walked through the crowd, finally stopping at the end of a long table on the other side.

"Since you're all here, come sit down. I don't want to listen to you arguing; it doesn't help at all and it just gives me a headache."

Most people then fell silent. Even Cliff only grunted and stopped talking. Instead, he walked straight to the seat next to Duncan, pulled out a chair, and prepared to sit down.

“Don’t sit down yet, Cliff,” Kalista suddenly stepped forward and hooked her toe on the chair leg. “Even though you’re the leader of a chapter, there are still some rules to follow here.”

Cliff's eyes flashed, and he secretly exerted force in his hand, but the chair seemed to be rooted to the ground, not moving an inch.

“If this were just a meeting of the chapter commanders, I wouldn’t hold it against you,” Duncan took a deep drag on his cigarette, his tone like a dying sigh, yet it reached Cliff’s ears clearly. “But since a cripple like me dares to sit in this position, you should understand.”

“I won’t accept a woman from the gutter sitting on me,” Cliff said, somewhat annoyed. “Not even this cat!”

“Oh, oh, we’ve angered him, haven’t we?” Kalista raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, but the pressure on her feet didn’t lessen in the slightest. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that as the local host, I have to help maintain the rules. After all, our Mr. Duncan can’t personally ‘take action’.”

A burst of laughter erupted from the crowd, but even this laughter had to follow the "rules." Some people had to laugh even if they didn't find it funny, while others had to hold back even if they really wanted to laugh.

Raslaufer slowly wiped the smile off his face. Looking around, he saw no trace of the beast—this guy seemed determined to clear his name.

Under Skadi... it's a good outcome for him, so let it be.

Seeing Cliff reluctantly release his grip, Raslaufer tossed the officer's body onto the floor and walked over. Callistra pulled out a chair so Raslaufer could sit down.

“Of those who were first given nicknames back then, none of them are left,” Duncan sighed again. “Alright, everyone sit down—the girls come too, but be warned, there probably won’t be any seats for you near Leslaufer.”

There may be no space at the very beginning, but there must always be a space in the middle—even if there isn't one.

After a burst of chaotic noise, Duncan's pale pupils slowly swept over the mercenaries on either side. These were all prominent figures from Eastern Inassia, and he had summoned them here today for only one reason:

"Sinking Iron Fortress needs a new owner."

These words were like a boulder thrown into stagnant water, and the people at the table immediately erupted in uproar.