Chapter 2255: The Puppet King (6)

An hour later.

"Hmm------" Verne tilted his head with his arms crossed, looking at Arthur who was preparing in bewilderment.

"I can't believe the Duke would agree to your request. Are you a wizard or something, what spell did you cast on the duke?" he asked.

"Nonsense. Arthur glanced at Verne, and at the same time put the things in his bag one by one: "Don't guess about the business of adults and children." The Duke of Cirnant would agree to let you be my lieutenant, and there must be a reason for him. Just obey you. ＂

Of course, the Duke of Hillant had his reasons, and Arthur was just deliberately not poking everything out in front of this little imp. Verne was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Hirnantes, so he had never received formal knightly training since he was a child, lest the child become powerful in the future, and he would also accumulate merit, and he would have the capital to compete with the children of the main family for the title. Still, the Duke probably thought it would be good to let the kid go out with Arthur to gain some combat experience. Otherwise, the duke's illegitimate son has been kept in the castle as an idler, and this kid will become a waste when he grows up in the future, and will be criticized, and there will be no place for him in the castle------ so it is very bad to evolve like this.

The Duke had his ideas, and Arthur certainly had them. Although the other knights that the Duke had assigned to Arthur might have been better, those men were the Duke's subordinates after all, and they were placed by Arthur's side to keep an eye on him. But Verne, a little ghost, although he is the illegitimate son of the duke, has not yet had the wit of adults, and I am afraid that he will not be able to do such a thing as "spying" Arthur. With this little imp as an adjutant, Arthur will be much freer in his actions.

He dropped a light cuirass and* on the table, as well as a quiver with dozens of crossbow arrows. These are specially tailored for Verne's figure.

"At least put on the cuirass. Otherwise, the enemy will kill you with a single arrow, and I will not be responsible. Arthur said.

"It's heavy. Verne stuck out his tongue. But he also knew that it was not a joke, and he still honestly put the cuirass on his body. Even with the tightest strap on his armor, he still looked a little loose and ridiculous when he put it on.

The cuirass is a mixture of light metal and leather that resembles a plate, but is of course a far cry from a real knight's plate, and only protects against the most basic arrow damage. In order to reduce its weight, the metal plates on its chest and abdomen are actually very thin, and even a more powerful arrow can shoot through the armor. However, the armor near the heart of the chest has been reinforced with thicker metal plates, acting like heart guards, effectively preventing the wearer from being pierced through the heart by an arrow. This design is quite reasonable, if the chest and abdomen are shot by arrows, even if the armor can't completely block the arrows, it will inevitably weaken the power of the arrows by half, and the wearer will receive much less damage------ and even if the arrows are hit, at least not so deadly. The heart should be tightly guarded. However, no matter how elaborate the armor is, it can only protect against long-range attacks, and it will still kill you if you are slashed twice by an opponent at close range.

"Anyway, don't you use that newly invented heavy crossbow?" asked Arthur in passing as Verne picked up the light*. He had also heard that the heavy crossbow invented by England in modern times was very powerful, and it was this heavy crossbow that caused the French to suffer greatly when Britain and France were at war in the past, leading to a series of victories in the English invasion of France.

But that was before Joan of Arc came along.

"Heavy crossbows, it's so heavy that an untrained knight can't hold it. It's useless to hold it, the recoil is too great, and a single shot can make people roll over. Verne took the unattached* and aimed it on the left and right to try his hand, and said in pieces: "If I had to put an arrow on the back of the great wolfdog, this would be the only crossbow that could be wielded." ＂

"Yes. Whatever you want. Arthur didn't bother to argue with Verne about anything, so he did as the kid pleased. He was secretly surprised in his heart, Verne knew that he was going to follow Arthur to suppress the bandits, but he seemed to be very calm, and he was not afraid at all? Is it because this little ghost's nerves are so big, or is it because he has absolute confidence in his own strength, and he is not afraid that he may die in battle?

In any case, since Verne was not afraid, he saved Arthur a lot of lips and tongues, which helped a lot.

"So," Arthur saw that everything was almost ready, so he got up with his bags and said, "Let's go." The next step is to go to the mercenary guild to hire a few mercenaries. The Duke of Hillant has said that he will introduce me to a few good mercenaries, and I hope that the people he introduces will really work. ＂

"Mercenaries...... They're all money-eyed guys. Verne also picked up his luggage and followed Arthur: "Wow, it's heavy...... ＂

"Just get used to it. Arthur replied casually. He didn't wear heavy armor himself, but also wore a light armor and cloth coat, and at most he wore a highly lightweight arm armor. In fact, the arm armor doesn't even need to be worn, but Arthur is going to rush in front and slash each other with the opponent's sword, no matter how agile he is, the arm is scratched by the opponent will affect the ability to continue fighting, so he still reluctantly put on a little protection. The Seraphic Sword in Arthur's hand only has maximum attack power when it is unsheathed (unfolded in the form of a lightsaber), and it is usually just a silver sword without a blade. This weapon is an excellent weapon for both demons and monsters, but it is used to cut people, but it is not enough, and it has to be replaced with other weapons. So when Arthur was not half reliable in the "war against people", he knew about it himself, and he was not very sure. The shortcomings of the human warfare part, in addition to relying on Verne's long-range bow and crossbow to support the firepower, depend on those mercenaries.

Two teenagers and a wolf, after leaving Fort Hillnant, wandered around the city, attracting a lot of strange eyes along the way (most of them were paying attention to Bediwell, after all, such a big white wolf walked the street), and soon arrived at the mercenary union.

"Little ghost, you are here ------" The guard at the gate of the union was about to say something, Arthur had already handed over a letter of introduction from the Duke of Sylnant. The guard glanced at the Duke's exclusive fire paint seal on the letter, choked back the words he had just spoken, and said with a smile: "Understood, let's go in." The head of the union is waiting for you. ＂

Arthur nodded in acknowledgment, and led his entourage and the wolf into the union hall. Before they came here, the duke's side should have sent someone to contact the mercenary union, so it was not surprising that Arthur and his party would have been unimpeded all the way.

He felt quite new, just from this lobby, he could see that the scale of the mercenary union was larger than he imagined, and the service desk at the end of the lobby had a total of ten service windows, and there were permanent staff to deal with the hiring of mercenaries and the registration of mercenaries returning from their tasks. On both sides of the lobby are neatly arranged dozens of rows of billboards, which are plastered with various notices, which should be tasks that those free mercenaries can take at any time.

"Lord Aslan?" Of course, everything in the lobby has nothing to do with Arthur, as soon as he stepped into the lobby, there was a well-dressed union leader waiting in the center of the lobby, "Are you here to talk about hiring mercenaries? There are already several groups of suitable candidates, and you can choose for yourself. ＂

Not only have they been chosen, but there are also several groups, let Arthur choose. The Knight King couldn't help but feel a little angry in his heart, the influence of the Duke of Cirnant is really not small. And having informed the union in advance really gave Arthur a lot of face.

No, did it give Verne a lot of face? The mercenaries prepared for Arthur this time were ostensibly to help Arthur, but in fact to protect the child Verne. After all, this little imp is the illegitimate son of the Duke of Sylnant.

Arthur and his party were ushered into a VIP room in the guild, which was luxuriously decorated and had a comfortable sofa to sit on. Then the head of the union brought several stacks of heavy documents, which should be the information of each group of mercenaries.

Arthur glanced at the information slightly, and his head began to hurt. In their time, technology was very backward, and of course there were no cameras, and since there were no cameras, of course, there could be no photos of the mercenaries. As a result, the so-called information is a variety of dense text descriptions, tables and other contents are still drawn by hand. It can be seen that the information of the mercenaries has been sorted out as briefly as possible, but they are still stacked and stacked, and it is estimated that the life deeds of the mercenaries have been sorted into the document, and the more brilliant the mercenary group, of course, the thicker the information.

If you want to read all these purely handwritten and textual descriptions, it is estimated that it will be dark. Arthur scratched his head irritably and asked casually, "First of all, I want to know one thing: do these mercenaries all act in teams??"

"There are many excellent mercenaries in the union who like to work alone, and some mercenaries do not have a fixed team, and they can temporarily team up with other mercenaries. But if you want to talk about excellent mercenary groups, you have to count more than a dozen [Crescent Mercenary Group], [Blood Seal Mercenary Group], [Welgaard Mercenary Group] and so on. Because they always act in a fixed team and have a better tacit understanding with each other, the number and degree of completion of their tasks are much more and higher than those of other mercenaries who work alone. ＂

"Oooh. Arthur nodded perfunctorily.

"I have already eliminated the information of those mercenary groups that already have a mission. The information in front of you is a mercenary group that has not received a task for the time being and can act with you. Prices have also been negotiated and are all affordable. Is there a mercenary group that you particularly like, Lord Aslan?"

"Hmm...... Arthur looked back and forth among several documents, and couldn't make up his mind for a while, but he accidentally caught a glimpse of the name on a certain document, and suddenly snorted: "Found it, this one." Hmm, [Crescent Mercenary Regiment]?"

"[New Moon]...... The expression of the person in charge changed subtly for a moment: "Understood, Lord Aslan, I'll arrange it." Note, however, that [Crescent] is the top three trump cards in the union, and they also have the right to choose their employer. I'll make arrangements, and it's better for you and the two of you to meet in person this afternoon, so that the head of the regiment over there can also get to know Your Excellency. If the other party refuses your commission, please don't be angry, okay?"

"Of course. Arthur replied without emotion, "That's perfectly fair." ＂