Chapter 1686 - 234 - The Duchy of Lerbia (2)

"How so?" I asked while turning my attention toward her.

"If the Mermaid Kingdom falls, they could potentially surround us completely," she explained. "The biggest thing preventing either of them from doing that right now is the existence of the underwater kingdom itself."

She continued speaking while keeping her attention focused on the battlefield ahead of us.

"Even if they use boats or flying vehicles, crossing the territory controlled by the Mermaid Kingdom wouldn't be easy, especially when the entire area is effectively controlled by people who are perfectly comfortable fighting underwater."

She had a point.

There might have been special cases where a flying vehicle could somehow fly over the territory controlled by the Mermaid Kingdom, but I couldn't imagine that being an especially easy task.

The ocean itself was already dangerous enough without having an entire underwater kingdom controlling it, and trying to cross their territory while they were actively hostile would probably be an excellent way to turn an expensive vehicle into underwater decoration.

Traveling by boat would probably be even worse.

Mermaids were known for dragging people into the depths of the ocean after luring them in with their beauty, which was probably one of those stories that sounded completely ridiculous until you remembered that mermaids actually existed.

I had no idea what was happening over there right now, but from a strategic standpoint, I thought establishing some kind of relationship with the Mermaid Kingdom would be a very good idea.

Having another potential ally in the region could prove extremely useful, especially if either the Republic or the Empire decided to expand their operations toward us.

A friendly underwater kingdom would also provide us with options that we simply didn't have at the moment, and having more options during a war was always preferable to discovering that your only plan involved praying for the enemy to suddenly become stupid.

Before doing that, though...

There was something else I needed to take care of first.

I needed to go to the Duchy of Lerbia.

***

The Duchy of Lerbia was one of the smallest countries on the continent, and compared to the larger nations surrounding it, calling it a proper country almost felt like being generous with the terminology.

Roughly ten thousand citizens lived there, and their primary source of income came from trading agricultural goods with the surrounding regions.

The region was particularly well known for its agriculture, to the point that a significant portion of its entire economy revolved around farming and the trade of whatever its people managed to produce.

That was partly because the duchy had a large number of farmers, but the land itself was also exceptionally fertile, which made their situation considerably better than it could have been.

The soil was healthy enough for crops to grow easily, which naturally meant that the plants produced there were plentiful, healthy, and suitable for both harvesting and trade.

Unfortunately, Lerbia was also one of the most corrupt countries in the region, which was rather impressive considering how much corruption seemed to exist throughout the continent already.

Its current Duke was infamous for excessively taxing the people who lived within the duchy while showing absolutely no interest in their wellbeing.

He simply wanted to live comfortably off the money that was supposed to belong to his own citizens, apparently believing that being born into a position of power meant everyone else existed primarily to fund his lifestyle.

Unfortunately, the people couldn't do much about it.

They were mostly farmers, and they didn't have the training, weapons, or resources necessary to fight back against the Duke's forces.

Starting a rebellion sounded easy when discussed in theory, but the reality was considerably different when the people attempting it were farmers facing trained soldiers and mercenaries.

They couldn't simply rise up against the Duke when they had no realistic way of winning the fight, especially when the people protecting him were considerably stronger than the average citizen.

That was the main reason the bastard had been able to maintain his rule for so long.

The Duke also had an incredibly powerful bodyguard protecting him, which made challenging his authority even more difficult than it already was.

The man wasn't even a citizen of Lerbia, since he had been hired as a mercenary, and apparently that gave him the freedom to do pretty much whatever the hell he wanted without worrying about consequences.

He pillaged the duchy, abused the people, and generally committed all kinds of fuckery whenever he felt like it, treating the citizens like they were nothing more than obstacles standing between him and whatever he wanted.

The Duke never bothered stopping him.

Honestly, that part alone was pretty fucked up if you asked me, because a ruler allowing his own hired mercenary to terrorize the people under his protection was practically an admission that he didn't care about them at all.

That was exactly why I had decided to come here myself.

"W-What the fuck are you doing?!" the Duke shouted at me while staring at the scene in front of him.

He looked absolutely terrified, and judging by the way his entire body was trembling, he was finally beginning to understand that the authority he had relied on for so long wasn't going to protect him anymore.

I couldn't exactly blame him for being afraid.

In my hand, I was holding the hair of the mercenary he had hired, whose head had already been severed completely from his body.

Blood was still dripping from the stump of his neck, staining the floor beneath us while the Duke stared at the corpse in absolute horror.

He looked like someone who had suddenly realized that the monster he had been using to scare everyone else had just been killed by something considerably worse.

"Eliminating scum," I said while looking directly at him.

I killed him as well, leaving the corrupt Duke to finally face the same consequence that he had spent so long making everyone else suffer.