I was excommunicated from the Holy Knights

81 – The good, the bad, the traitor 3

A mountain of wheat sacks piled up before my eyes.

A deep smile began to form on his lips as he stood in front of them.

With shaggy brown hair, a high nose, and a sly look,

At the same time, a man with sharp eyes that can feel the power of a great wizard.

Mansfeld Ernst was slowly nodding his head while looking at his performance this time.

This time, through a deal with Spinola, he obtained a huge amount of food for himself.

As long as he had this, he wouldn’t have to worry much about managing the mercenary corps for a while, and he was genuinely happy that he had relieved the headaches he had to carry around all the time.

“Good work. Feed the soldiers and let you rest too. I made quite a bit of money on this one, so I won’t be worried for a while.”

“Yes, chief.”

After completing one round of work like that, Mansfeld moves to let his subordinates rest and himself to rest.

In his head, the image of the world for him to unfold in the future was automatically drawn.

Mansfeld, nicknamed the Mercenary King

up to 15,000.

An existence that leads a mercenary corps with an enormous force, which can be said to be the largest on the continent.

15,000 here

2000 wizards and 13,000 armed soldiers, it meant only troops capable of fighting purely,

In fact, within this huge crowd, the families of 15,000 mercenaries, their servants, and the merchants who dealt with them included an enormous group of nearly 4 to 5 thousand in terms of pure numbers.

In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that it is a small country in motion, a huge group of mercenaries from Mansfeld.

And as the ‘king’ of them, Mansfeld needed to decide his next move.

Unlike cities that operate based on food and goods, Mansfeld’s mercenaries run on funds earned through contracts with employers.

They buy food from nearby cities with the money they earn, or fight to take it from them if that is not possible.

There was always room for a hungry mercenary group to become a huge band of bandits, and in that respect, a mercenary group of 15,000 had the risk of transforming into a disaster like a locust that devours everything around it in the worst case.

Of course, if he chose the wrong opponent, this side could be annihilated, so Manspelt was well aware of this nature of the mercenaries and was adjusting the pace appropriately.

Betrayal is standard, and with appropriate negotiations, threats, and, if necessary, real threats,

Mansfeld, who has pursued only the maximum benefit that he and his subordinates can obtain.

For him, this transaction was a very profitable one,

Mansfeld went into his tent in a high spirited mood.

The largest and most splendid residence of Mansfeld in the mercenary camp.

There, the beautiful women he had prepared in advance were waiting for him.

“Welcome, Mr. Mansfeld.”

“I was waiting.”

Women bowing their heads respectfully towards themselves.

Seeing them with voluptuous bodies with enough flesh to suit his taste, Mansfeld automatically began to raise the corners of his mouth.

“You’ve gained a lot of weight today as well, so come here, where you guys can satisfy this body with your lascivious body.

“hehehe.. I will do as you command, Mr. Mansfeld.”

“Please enjoy the girls’ bodies to your heart’s content today.”

Following Mansfeld’s words, the two began to take off the clothes they were wearing.

Then, lying comfortably among them, indulging in the pleasure of eating a fat pig, Mansfeld began to fully enjoy the joy of his ‘victory’.

There was no damage to his army, and rather, he was able to obtain more funds than was promised.

On the other hand, Elector Frederick, who left Bohemia, lost his home base, the Palatinate, and the emperor who won the Palatinate suffered a crushing defeat in Bohemia.

In other words, among his two ‘customers’ who are bursting with anger in any way, only Mansfeld can laugh innocently at this time.

Knowing this very well, Mansfeld was proud of himself as the winner of this war.

Of course, at this moment, other people…

In particular, the residents and nobles of the Palatinate would still be pouring out hateful words that he would not last long, condemning his actions in striking the back of his employer with splendor.

however,

Mansfeld paid no attention to such accusations, and he knew perfectly well that there was no need for them.

It wasn’t simply because he was a person who didn’t care about the criticism of others.

Although he had a cunning and selfish personality, Mansfeld was by no means a narrow-minded person.

A person who knows how to read the trend of the times and can also think long-term.

For him, this betrayal was not simply an impulsive result, but proceeded according to the result of accurately reading the future trend.

‘It’s a very happy thing from my point of view that the war is getting longer. In a chaotic world, military power is power, and the longer this chaos lasts, the more my value will inevitably rise.’

Although the Palatinate fell because of his betrayal, Mansfeld was well aware that the war was only just beginning.

Immediately with the fall of the Palatinate, King Moritz of Lorenz accepted Friedrich’s family and set out to actively support them.

In addition, as Frederick’s wife, who had evacuated to Lorenz, was a princess of the Kingdom of Britain, there was a very high possibility that her father, King Jim I of Britain, would also start an intervention.

In addition, the aftermath of the capture of the Palatinate would undoubtedly stimulate other lords of the nearby Holy Empire as well.

And in this situation,

Whether they like it or not, they had no choice but to reach out to themselves, who had the most powerful single power among those who hung the sign of heresy in the empire.

People are surprisingly simple, and once you see a benefit in front of your eyes, you have no choice but to bite it.

Even though they know that their credibility is low, rather than immediately converting their people and territories into an army for an expedition by spending a lot of time and huge funds,

He always had trained elite soldiers, and he had no choice but to calculate that it would be much more profitable to move Manspelt and his mercenaries, which were huge in scale.

Even if they knew it was a poisoned apple, a person in the agony of hunger would have no choice but to swallow it.

It is much better to die after doing something than to die sitting there doing nothing right now.

As far as I know,

Mansfeld was only concentrating on taking advantage of this chaotic situation to the fullest.

‘People talk about trust and loyalty with their mouths, but in the end, they are just beings that move with a difference of one coin. Even the lords who are talking about the cause of heresy right now can tell just by looking at them that they let go until the Palatinate was completely captured. It would be absolutely impossible for them to kick away the benefits they can get through my existence.’

In this way, through this incident, Mansfeld was once again convinced that things like honor and credit were nothing more than mere façades.

And indeed, as he expected, before long another employer appeared to Mansfeld and began asking him for help, so Mansfeld gladly began to march with his army toward the customer’s location.

In this ‘transaction’, he and his subordinates had high expectations of what other benefits they could get…