Chương 120: Merchants' Federation

With the information Sian had received from Charlotte, he knew that although the leaders of the noble houses had been killed, many nobles were still alive. Several of them had been taken to the royal capital, where they were being sold. Since Illianna wanted people with a reasonable education, they fit perfectly.

To save time, Illianna wanted Sian to take them there with his space magic, but although he had visited that kingdom before, he had never been to the capital. So after going to the nearest place to the capital, Sian took them the rest of the way by making short teleports within sight.

Given their speed, it only took a few minutes for them to finally arrive in front of the wide, blood-covered gate.

"How can people do something so barbaric?" Illianna looked disturbed at the scene before her eyes.

As if they were decorations, several heads were nailed on iron spikes to the wooden gate. In the center of the gate, two of them, a woman and a man, still held their crowns. Beside these two heads, there were more heads of some children and women. Even without asking, these were obviously the king, queen, concubine and children of the king.

Around the heads that belonged to royalty, there were numerous others, and most of them were full of worms. Since there were some that had not yet begun to decompose, it was obvious that heads were constantly being added there.

"That's war," Sian said. "Nailing your enemies' heads on stakes is not an uncommon practice."

"Don't you feel even a little sympathy for these people? Even after they were dead, they had their bodies desecrated and displayed like this."

"Though I feel a little sorry for the kids, I don't give a shit about the rest," Sian shrugged. "The position of power comes with risks, they should have expected that this could happen."

"Identify yourselves!"

A shout came from over the stone wall. Lined up were several men in leather armor aiming their bows at Sian and Illianna.

"Identify yourselves!" The guard who seemed to be in charge shouted. "I'm not going to repeat it a third time!"

Before the man said anything else, Sian teleported into the walls while dragging Illianna along. In order to avoid conflict with the guards, he took them to a place away from the gate.

It was a narrow alley in a clay street between two stone and wooden houses. Although the streets were empty, a few seconds after they got there, they were surrounded by seven men who came out of a house.

Unlike the standardized iron and leather armor that the soldiers on the wall wore, each of these men is wearing leather armor of a different design. Some of them are not even wearing armor, and even their swords do not follow a pattern in appearance.

"If you don't want to get hurt, surrender peacefully," a muscular man said while pointing his sword.

Although these men looked considerably strong compared to the soldiers from before, they posed no threat to Sian. Using the superiority of his magic power, he pinned them in place and stretched his right arm with an open hand towards the muscular man.

Being pulled against his will by the invisible magical power, the muscular man could not resist as he got dragged to Sian, who grabbed his neck.

"I have a few questions and if you answer them, I'll let you go alive," Sian said quietly.

"Fuck you, you filthy usurpers!" Speaking with difficulty, the man said, "I will never betray my allies!"

"You seem to have the wrong idea about my identity, I'm not who you think I am," Sian said. "Look, normally I would torture you, but I'm having a lot of self-control lately, so I'll give you another chance."

Despite the threat, the man remained silent.

"If it's the hard way you want it, then let's get started."

Grabbing the man's right arm with his left, Sian pulled it. With his right hand, he pressed firmly on the man's neck while pushing on the opposite side of his left arm.

"I will count to three and then pull hard and separate your limbs. If you're lucky, your arm will be torn off and you'll still have a chance to answer me. But if you're unlucky," grinning mischievously, Sian continued, "well, I still have six of your friends to try my luck on."

From the terrified look on the man's face, he seemed not to doubt Sian's words.

"I will... Cooperate..." struggling to breathe, the man almost failed to complete his sentence.

Loosening his grip, Sian said, "You should have said that from the beginning. Now then, you'd better answer all my questions sincerely."

***

According to the muscular man, they thought that Sian and Illianna were mercenaries hired by the merchant coalition. Although Sian had no interest in what had happened in the kingdom, Illianna wanted information about it, so he interrogated them.

All seven men who surrounded them were part of the former king's royal guard. They are part of the resistance that continues to fight for the restoration of the kingdom and the sovereignty of the nobles.

It seems that the current leaders of the kingdom believe that keeping someone in power just because they have noble blood is wrong. Therefore, they have started a revolution to change the entire structure of the kingdom.

Presently they had installed a regime which they called federative. In this regime, they divided the whole kingdom, now called the merchants' federation, into smaller and autonomous parts.

However, all of the territories that made up the kingdom had a ruler who was elected by the rulers of those territories. Although the soldier couldn't explain the role of this ruler, he didn't seem to have as much power as a king.

The coalition of merchants took control not only of the capital, but of the entire kingdom in less than four days.

Excluding the destruction caused by dragons, this may have been the fastest fall of a kingdom in history. All of this is due to the fact that it was a carefully planned scheme that went on for years.

The one who led the merchants' revolt and who is also the current leader of the federation was a close friend of the king. Taking advantage of his trust, he betrayed the king and stabbed him in the back.

Not only the king, but all those who held positions of importance were killed within a short period of a day. Without heads to control the key positions, the kingdom was like a headless snake that was easily captured.

During the revolt, the coalition of merchants gave the nobles only one option, to strip themselves of their nobility and surrender. Those who did so, lost all their wealth, but received complete amnesty and kept their lives.

For the overwhelming majority of nobles, the option of losing everything was not even considered. But all who resisted or tried to flee to another kingdom were killed or turned into slaves.

As for the members of the royal family, they did not even have the option of becoming slaves. Except for the fourth and fifth princes who were outside the kingdom during the revolt, all of them were killed.

Because the leader of the kingdom was not a descendant of the previous king, the federation was not yet officially recognized as a nation. Therefore, they sent representatives with lavish gifts to the surrounding kingdoms, asking them to recognize them as a legitimate nation.

Unaware of the whereabouts of the living princes, the flame of resistance was all but dead. But as if as a sign from the gods in repudiation of the merchant coalition's action, a horde of monsters had formed on the outskirts of the capital.

Seizing the opportunity they were given, the resistance was planning a counter-attack to regain control. To increase their chances of success, they recruited peasants, but this turned out to be a shot in the foot.

By making use of beautiful and deceptive words, the coalition won over the masses, causing them to turn against the resistance. To break the resistance's chances of victory once and for all, the federation soldiers who were supposed to fight the horde of monsters went nowhere.

Currently, all entrances and exits of the capital are sealed off, with soldiers everywhere searching and eliminating resistance members and all their supporters. During the soldiers' search, anyone who leaves their house is considered suspicious, so no one has dared to leave.

For his last question, Sian asked for the location of a slave merchant and also got a map of the city.

Leaving the remaining soldiers of the old kingdom behind, Sian and Illianna donned hooded cloaks as they walked through the empty streets.

On their way to the slave merchant, the story they had been told was confirmed by their own eyes. They did not meet a single person on the street and before they could reach their goal, they came across federation soldiers who were searching a house.

"Show your faces and identify yourselves!"

A soldier wielding a spear shouted. Behind him were two others, also armed with spears and wearing leather and metal armor.

"We're just travelers who got stuck here when the walls were sealed," Illianna said.

"We are currently dealing with rebels," the soldier replied. "If you do not do as I say, we will be forced to use force."

With the raising of a hand from the soldier in front, the other two aimed their spears.

"I thought we could walk peacefully, but it looks like it won't happen," Sian muttered as he prepared to deal with the soldiers.

Being well acquainted with Sian's personality, Illianna touched his arm before he did anything.

"All right, we'll take the hoods off."

Although Sian wanted to teach a lesson to those subjects who dared to threaten him, he followed Illianna's actions and lowered his hood.

"E-er, that-"

For a brief moment, the soldiers were surprised and speechless. Sian thought this was normal, as many who see Illianna for the first time have a similar reaction.

However, he couldn't have been more wrong. Although the soldiers looked at Illianna, their gaze was eventually locked on Sian.

While the soldier who was in command of the other two seemed unsure what to say, another began to stutter.

"Him! It's-it's him!"

Dropping his spear to the ground, the soldier raised his hands in the air as his legs shook like a leaf.

Following suit, the other soldier also raised his hands in the air, "Ple-please don't kill me! I have a family to support!"

"Looks like there are pictures of you scattered around here," Illianna teased.

"In the end, it ended as I expected," Sian said. "That's why I like to use force first."

"Better not kill them indiscriminately, as they are in a state of alert, it might cause a bigger uproar."

"I know what I'm doing."

Using his magic power, Sian exerted an overwhelming pressure on the three, causing them to lose consciousness. This was a trick taught to him by Ayze, it is extremely convenient when he needs to deal with small, weak crowds.

Walking over to the three fallen on the ground, Sian kicked them into an alley with poor visibility and turned the hay wagon he had on the side on top of them.

"Done." wiping his hands, he said, "Let's go."

***

Apparently, the hoodies that were supposed to not attract unwanted attention turned out to be even more eye-catching. Without a single living soul on the streets, they ended up being even more suspicious.

During their way, they came across soldiers several times, but before the soldiers would speak, Sian would make them faint and then throw them into alleys. After the third time, he no longer bothered to look for where to hide them and just continued on his way.

After going through the setbacks, they finally got to where they wanted to be, the slave merchant. But as it turns out, today was not their lucky day.