Swiss Arms

Swiss Arms

Chapter 117

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

It's been … a few months since I have had any increase in stats. I wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing considering that I had a war coming and no new quests regarding it.

Did the system think that my schemes with Duke Louis was beneath its notice or was there something else here?

[Character Status]

Name: Hans von Fluelaberg

I sniffed as my eyes settled on the INT value.

Nice.

That made me fourteen times stronger than the average person, eleven times tougher, twelve times faster, nine times nimbler, seven times "smarter," and thrice as charismatic. �

It was actually getting harder to keep all of that in check. I can fall from six stories and survive without a single broken bone or damaged internal organ. I can crush rock with my hand alone. Bend castle-forged blades with my fingers.

Training with my rangers became dangerous not for me but for them. If I become careless, then I will accidentally kill someone with the same gesture I might use to brush off dust because what might be enough to keep clothes intact from my rough dusting can still kill a person.

So how was I going to go about solving that?

Simple.

I needed to ingrain self-control into every second of my life. It was probably going to be harder than it sounds, but that's just the price I had to pay in order to possess what I had and not be adversely affected.

That meant I wasn't going to be walking around mindlessly. I needed to watch every step I took, measure each sway of my arms, and readying myself for any sudden changes that might need me to react.

So what did I do?

Martial arts.

Specifically, slow and steady movements of Tai chi.

Now, did I remember much about Tai chi?

No.

But the idea of it was simple. Tense all of the muscles as I moved slowly, keep it as smooth as possible, and exert all of my body as much as I could. If I made any sudden movements, then it would be a failure.

And I would do it while wielding my sword.

Ping!

[New Skill Gained.]

[Tai Chi] LvL. 1

It's a real martial art.

-VB-

Isabella von Fluelaberg

Her husband was doing something new again.

Most of the time anything new he did was something productive and useful.

But sometimes, he would act like a total idiot. Like the time he went "disguised" around town to help the people. Oh, it made the people happy and everyone thought he was just helping out, but Isabella knew that he was "training" his "stealth."

'But my love is not someone who excels at everything.'

Sometimes, he forgot tiny details.

… No, he did that a lot, actually. It was the downside of having too many great ideas and projects. Details tended to slip through his minds until he came face to face with them. Like the fact that while "training" for his stealth, he forgot that he was a rather big man with an unmistakable outline in all of the Compact or that most of the residents of Fluelaberg knew his face.

Or that time when he forgot that dung bombs smelled. A lot. And stored it underneath the castle where the smell could waft up.

But now, she was looking at her husband training, and he forgot once again that he was not normal.

Because no normal person could lift up a sword long and wide enough to serve as a table, if need be, and effortlessly move his arms minutely while performing some kind of a slow dane.

An extremely slow dance.

It took him a full minute to move his sword holding arm - not arms, but an arm - no more than ten degrees of a circular motion.

She would think he was doing some kind of magic trick - a sorcery! - if it wasn't for the fact that everyone knew her husband was unnaturally strong.

Like throwing a spear across the battlefield strong. That was apparently a feat that quite a few denizens of the Compact witnessed because that's how he got his fame first as a mercenary.

She suspected that he's grown stronger with time, not less.

"Hans?"

He stopped and looked at her over his shoulder without moving the rest of his body in that unnatural stillness.

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure you want to show off your strength like that?" she asked him. They were at the ranger's training ground, which wasn't exactly "private."

He paused to think about before relaxing and lowering his sword.

"Probably shouldn't," he grunted. "Thanks for reminding me."

She nodded with a smile. "Now, hurry up and come inside. Lunch is ready."

And like most men, he immediately zero'ed in on the food. "What are we having today?"

"Glazed pork tenderloin with butter stir fried vegetables and rye bread on the side for you and white bread for me."

"Sweet," he grinned as he swiftly walked over to the weapon rack as if he wasn't carrying a sword that weighed in at around 250 pounds, set it down gently but the same speed most rangers would use to drop off their wooden swords, and then joined her inside.

She sighed.

"Oh, speaking of privacy, how well do you feel about taking that plan to the next step?"

She hummed as she walked alongside him. "You mean lecturing the unruly neighbor?"

"Yup."

"We definitely do have to discuss that in private, but I would not be adverse to continue his education. He will most likely be replaced with the idiot, won't he?"

"Most likely," he hummed casually as if they weren't discussing the greater conspiracy to upend the duchy of one of the most important and powerful noble houses of the empire. "And knowing what he knows about the system, he will want to keep quiet about it all and be cordial with us."

"Have you received word from other educators?"

"I have. The minter and merchant are the only ones we really need to make the education work, and I received the minter's letter in the morning."

"You should have told me right then and there."

He chuckled. "Sorry sorry."

"Obviously not."

But she worried. Even if Hans was the strongest and toughest man she knew, death came out of nowhere just like it had for her otherwise healthy father. A battlefield was where someone couldn't control every factor. Hans could mitigate much of it but …

She just worried.

She didn't want to see him hurt. It was just simple as that.

-VB-

Leon of Fluelaberg

The baron published a booklet about what he did for his lady's labor and why he did them. He didn't understand most of it, though his wife seemed to get more than he did, and they started preparing accordingly.

But the mood in the town was uneasy.

Something was going to happen soon. He could just feel it. It felt like this before the siege. Before the battle. Before the festivities that saw the empress herself show up.

Or maybe he was imagining it?

… Probably not, because his friends in the ranger corp (didn't know why it was called that but it was) told him that the baron ordered them to start moving a lot of supplies. Even the new department of information was told to help with supply acquisition by talking to merchants coming by the town.

Supplies being everything from nails and metal ingots to arrows, crossbow bolts, and hardtack.

That sounded like there was another war coming up, but unlike before, the baron was the one striking out first.

… Could he perhaps get his own shot at glory this time? He didn't get quite the achievement he wanted in the battle on the other side of the mountain.

He needed to prepare, which meant that he needed to go and spend more time aiming with his own manual crossbow.

-VB-

Alvia of Fluelaberg

"War?" she asked in surprise.

As one of the longest and trusted "companion" of the baron from before his rise, Alvia knew that she had quite the reputation and soft power within the barony and the Compact. This also meant that she needed to do things that she otherwise would find boring or utterly wasteful.

Like hanging out with the other "ladies" of the barony.

From what she read and heard, a barony was generally not the kind of noble rank that would bring many noble ladies around. While not the lowest of the landed nobility, it was neither high nor rich.

A good example of this was the Bailiwick of Rheintal that Hans got.

Yes, she still called him Hans, a privilege he publicly "gave" to her and Albert.

Anyway, Bailiwick of Rheintal was a huge chunk of land for a peasant girl like her, but when it came to nobles, it was small. There were many landed knights who had that much across the empire, and a landed knight was the lowest landed nobility.

And because of how the Compact was arranged, the more important people of the Compact came to the Barony of Fluelaberg. Its richness also brought other rich people from nearby who hoped to open up a branch of their family business or for the sake of other cities and nobles.

Because that there were noble ladies in the town.

And there were enough of them that Isabella, Hans's wife and someone who Alvia could say was an unconventional friend of hers, had to hold an informal lady's court.

There was the widow from County of Toggenburg, the woman who lost her husband to Hans when he burned their castle down by accident, allegedly. She was here because, as she told Isabella, the Barony of Fluelaberg was the best place for her other children's education that she had access to, and her other kids did go to the "academy" for nobles and merchants, not the "school" for peasants and refugees.

Alvia didn't know much about schools and academies. She was either self-taught or personally tutored by Hans, after all.

There were other ladies also, but they were all not as important as the Widow of Toggenburg, but all of them were more or less trusted to not be spies for neighboring lords and cities.

Alvia sighed. "Lord Hans is making me work on something other than jewelry," she explained but not what she was working on. She also referred to Hans as lord among the nobles; he taught her to not needlessly antagonize people, and ignoring noble titles among nobles was the fastest way to piss them off.

"Oh dear," the Widow hummed. "I knew that it was coming from what my son wrote to me these past few months, but I didn't realize it was coming so soon."

Isabella nodded. "So we must prepare in our own ways to hold the fort down while our men go off to war. Narissa?"

"Y-Yes, milady?"

That was the daughter of some landed knight who got a job as a "secretary of court," which made her the only woman among the three secretaries of court. She suspected that she got that job because Hans wanted the largest land owning knight in Rheintal to be loyal to him.

"Please prepare yourself to take charge of proceedings related to intertown matters."

"Y-Yes, milady!"

Intertown - or unterstadt - was the growing town between Davos and Fluelaberg. At barely a hundred foot wide, most people who lived here lived in slanted multi-story wooden and stone buildings right up against the slope of the mountain because Hans made it so that the small stream that did flow down the valley remained unobstructed with additional ten feet on either side of it to be untouched.

Most of the refugees who couldn't find a place with Fluelaberg itself went there.

But being given the matters of unterstadt was a sign of trust as well. It was the connection between Davos and Fluelaberg, and any disruption to unterstadt was a disruption to Fluelaberg's own livelihood.

But Alvia didn't envy the girl for the task.

Because she didn't want to have to constantly talk to people about not being allowed to do this or that. No, she's perfectly fine in her gemstone lab, even if she did take up a few more tasks and jobs to help Hans around the castle.

Which was also why she was here.

Isabella turned to her.

"Can you set aside time to help me in court?"

"Of course," she replied.

Because in the court, she was Isabella's helper.