The Lord Just Wants to Have Fun

The lord’s castle of the Viscounty of Mirabeau.

Behind Lord Armand, clad in armor, and his knights, a group of men, bound together like fish strung on a skewer, was being dragged in.

“Welcome back, my lord.”

“Yes. These are the bandits who were pillaging near Gado. Lock them up and have their heads displayed in the square tomorrow morning.”

Returning triumphantly from the bandit subjugation, Armand summoned his Chief Administrator, Herox.

“Still no word from that damned blacksmith baron?”

“Unfortunately, no…”

“Damn it! That brat! How dare he threaten me and not even apologize? Does he really want to do this?!”

Armand ground his teeth in fury.

In truth, he was the instigator of this conflict.

With his sheep population increasing, he had begun coveting the pastures of the Baron Brandel family due to the lack of grazing land.

So, he had deliberately ordered his shepherds to provoke a skirmish.

He had planned to feign ignorance and deny everything if Baron Brandel came to protest.

But when Philip had come a few days ago, an inexplicable wave of irritation and anger surged through him.

As a result, he had lashed out at Philip so harshly that even his retainers had been concerned.

“Hmph, so what? He’s not even a proper noble to begin with.”

Armand, a devoted follower of the great deity Valian, saw no reason to bow down to some apostle of a lowly blacksmith god.

The real problem, however, was Philip’s reaction.

The man, who was rumored to be timid, should have cowered before Armand’s harsh reprimands.

Instead, he had glared at Armand and issued his own threats.

“That insolent bastard! What is he relying on? I even heard Robert gave up on him and left.”

The person who most concerned Armand in the Baron Brandel domain was Viscount Robert.

That arrogant old man would surely use his connections at Socra College to petition the king and the Twelve Great Deities.

But Philip had no such connections.

He had no close allies among the lords, either.

“Looks like he grew a backbone and wanted to act tough. I’ll make sure he regrets it.”

As Armand seethed with anger, the doors to his office suddenly burst open, and a messenger rushed in.

“My lord! A disaster has occurred!”

“A disaster? Did that blacksmith baron dare to launch an attack?”

If that were the case, all the better.

He could declare a territorial war and crush Philip completely.

“No, that’s not it… The orcs of the Prill Mountain Range have attacked the shepherds and raided the ranches near the mountains!”

Over a thousand sheep had been stolen in just two days.

The thought of such a massive loss made Armand dizzy.

“What?! Why are orcs suddenly attacking?”

“It seems the famine has left them with no food in the mountains.”

So that blacksmith baron had been right after all.

Armand’s face twisted in frustration as he asked,

“What about the patrols? How did this happen under their watch?”

“My apologies, my lord. The orcs appeared suddenly and disappeared just as swiftly… However, we are tracking their trail into the mountains.”

“Find them at all costs and bring back what they stole! If you fail, tell the entire patrol they’ll answer to me!”

“Y-yes, sir!”

Once the messenger had left, Armand kicked the table in frustration.

Boom!

His Aura-infused kick shattered the table into pieces.

For decades, the monsters of the Prill Mountain Range had remained quiet.

Occasionally, small groups descended, but the village militias and domain forces had been enough to handle them.

Because of that, the fortress near the mountains had been left nearly empty.

And now, this disaster had struck out of nowhere!

“Damn it! This means I can’t even start a territorial war now.”

When he finally caught those damned orcs, he swore he’d strip their flesh and use it as chicken feed.

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Armand clenched his fists.

*****

The Next Day

The captain of the guards came to see Armand.

But contrary to expectations, they had not caught a single orc.

“My apologies, my lord. We lost their trail at the entrance of the mountain range. The rain washed away their tracks…”

“You Foolish Bastard!”

The ink bottle Armand threw in his rage struck the captain of the guards squarely on the forehead, shattering upon impact.

Blood and ink dripped down his face, yet the captain continued his report.

“But, my lord, something was strange about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“The witnesses claimed that the orcs had unusually slender physiques.”

Orcs were similar in height to humans but had much broader and more muscular builds.

Even if they had been starving due to the famine, they wouldn’t have suddenly become lanky.

“Furthermore, a traveling merchant from Baron Brandel’s territory reported something unusual. He said that the number of sheep in their ranches had noticeably increased—far more than when he last visited a month ago.”

Bang!

Armand slammed his fist onto the desk and shot to his feet.

“That damned brat of a baron has pulled a trick on me!”

“Yes, it’s highly likely that he had his men disguise themselves as orcs to raid our livestock.”

It all made sense.

The orcs of the Prill Mountain Range had been quiet for decades.

And yet, they had suddenly appeared to steal sheep?

At the same time, the number of sheep in Brandel’s territory had surged?

Philip was the obvious culprit.

He had plenty of motivation after being humiliated when he came to complain about the pastures.

Trying to cover his tracks by retreating to the mountains?

A clever move, but he couldn’t erase every trace.

“Send a messenger to Brandel’s domain immediately! Tell them we know what they did—return the stolen sheep now and pay compensation!”

“Yes, my lord!”

That afternoon, the messenger set out for Brandel’s territory.

However, the response he brought back was utterly infuriating.

Philip claimed that the additional sheep were all purchased legally and that if Armand continued provoking conflict, he would file a formal complaint with the royal court.

Reading the letter, Armand’s thick cheeks trembled with rage.

“Damn it! I should have branded those sheep’s butts when I had the chance!”

But it was too late for regrets.

The thought of that smug blacksmith baron laughing at him made his blood boil.

At this point, he didn’t care about justifications anymore.

“Summon the army immediately! I’ll crush that insolent brat and grind him to dust!”

“My lord, please reconsider!”

Herox, his Chief Administrator, urgently tried to stop him.

“As much as this angers us, we have no definitive proof. And even though the Brandel forces are small, they’re fierce warriors. Even if we win, the cost will be severe.”

And what if, after the battle, their weakened forces were attacked by monsters or bandits?

They could end up suffering greater losses instead of gaining vengeance.

“Then what? We just let this go?!”

“No, my lord. We do not need to endure this.”

“…Do you have a plan?”

Armand looked at Herox expectantly.

The administrator was known for his cunning.

“Of course. We shall repay deception with deception.”

There was a saying in the Eastern Continent: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Herox’s plan was simple—disguise their own men as orcs and raid Brandel’s lands in return.

“Not only will we reclaim our sheep, but we’ll also strip their grain reserves and wealth clean!”

“Hmph… Now that you mention it, I heard Philip sold some mysterious technique to an elven merchant for two million dalants…”

“Yes, and we shall take that too!”

“Heh… Heh-heh-heh… Excellent! Gather the troops at once!”

Fueled by revenge and greed, Armand made his decision.

******

Meanwhile, in the Prill Mountain Range

“Chwik! Nothing here either.”

“Same here… This is bad.”

Deep within a valley on the southern side of the Prill Mountain Range, a group of orcs was foraging.

Using sticks, they dug into the ground, searching for wild yams, but the harvest was meager.

The drought had been devastating to the monsters of the mountains as well.

There were barely any berries left, nor could they find roots like arrowroot or yams.

As a result, the number of wild animals had dwindled.

And for monsters that relied on hunting, food had become even scarcer.

Only higher-ranking monsters like ogres and trolls had managed to survive, since they either moved alone or in small family units, making them less affected by the crisis.

For orcs, who lived in tribes numbering at least hundreds, if not thousands, the food crisis was devastating.

Especially for the Gray Fang Tribe, which had been forced to the outskirts of the Prill Mountain Range after losing to rival tribes, the situation was critical.

“The gods are cruel! They want to starve us to death!”

“Fool! The gods made orcs too! Do not curse them!”

Enraged, a few orcs threw rocks toward the sky.

Unfortunately, their stones never reached the heavens.

Instead, they struck the head of their chieftain, who had just returned from an unsuccessful hunt.

Thud!

“Ow! Who threw that?!”

“Not me! It was him!”

“No! I threw it at the gods, but they must have thrown it back at you, Chieftain!”

Infuriated, the Gray Fang chieftain gave the rock-throwers a thorough beating.

Just then, a young orc scout, who had gone south to fetch water, came sprinting toward them.

“Chieftain! I saw orcs herding many sheep toward the forest hunting grounds!”

“Our territory? Did they cross the border?”

“Chwik! Yes! I saw it with my own eyes!”

For orcs, hunting grounds were their lifeline.

The more hunting grounds a tribe controlled, the larger their numbers could grow.

Without enough hunting grounds, a tribe would starve and perish.

The Gray Fang chieftain immediately summoned his warriors.

Scattered hunters and foragers quickly gathered upon hearing the summons.

“Chwik! Chieftain, what’s going on?!”

“Another tribe has trespassed into our hunting grounds!”

“Bastards! We’ll kill them all!”

Fury erupted among the orc warriors, and they rushed toward the intruders’ last known location.

But by the time they arrived, the trespassers were already gone.

“Chwik! Chieftain, the rain last night washed away their tracks!”

“Find them anyway! We must teach them a lesson so they never return!”

The chieftain refused to abandon the chase.

For days, the Gray Fang warriors combed through the southern forest hunting grounds.

And finally, their persistence paid off.

“Chieftain! Over there! Strange ones have appeared!”

When the chieftain arrived, he saw peculiar orcs—or rather, humans poorly disguised as orcs—passing through the forest.

“Hurry the march!”

Armand led his disguised troops through the southern forest of the Prill Mountain Range.

Like the Brandel scum, he wanted to leave as few traces or witnesses as possible.

“My lord, are we truly going to take all 2 million dalants?”

“Of course!”

Armand grinned wickedly at his knight commander’s question.

Those thieving bastards had stolen from him first.

Since there wasn’t enough evidence to declare an official territorial war, he planned to take back several times what was stolen.

For this, he had mobilized 20 knights and 300 soldiers.

“But, my lord, wouldn’t this be too suspicious? Orcs don’t usually steal money.”

“That’s why we’ll make it look like a normal raid—just plundering everything and taking the money along with it. Now, why have we stopped?”

At the front of the group, the rangers guiding them had halted.

They found something off about the forest.

Even though they had been marching for over two hours, they hadn’t encountered a single monster or wild animal.

Armand, eager to pillage Brandel’s territory, was irritated by the delay.

“What’s the holdup? The animals probably migrated elsewhere because they’re starving.”

“But, my lord, we should still be cautious… Huh?!”

Suddenly, a barrage of rocks and throwing spears rained down from the sides.

The Mirabeau soldiers were caught completely off guard.