The aftermath of the raid on [Mazen] took several days to clean up and for the land to be blessed, but it’s effects on the hearts of the people who had seen it would never subside.

If it had been a slaughter perpetrated by the River Trolls or other monsters, although they would still feel the hate and pain of the tragedy, the Vaegir people could at least understand it and move on.

But, when the Knights and Sword Sisters saw the ritual sacrifices, and saw the blood-soaked ground, and saw the mutilated victims, and knew it to be caused by man, naturally, their shock and disbelief turned to a level of righteous furry that would prime them to be able to justify any retaliation.

In fact, it had taken an active set of orders on Peter’s part to stop them from directly killing the few captives they had taken.

Besides the changes that happened in the minds of the people who had to clean up the scene of the crime, other more material changes had happened too, and it was only several days after the whirlwind of activity that Peter was able to sit down and materially assess his new position.

First and foremost were the effects of the [Mount and Blade] System almost directly after the battle.

In addition to the hundreds of Footmen and Huntress settlers being killed, they had lost an astounding 35 Knights and 40 Marksmen in the span of a few hours.

[Active Forces: 534

Vaegir Marksmen - 15

Vaegir Horsemen - 2

Vaegir Knights – 323

Sword Sisters – 194]

To lose 75 of their most highly trained military personnel available in a single night would be painful for even large nations, and even for Peter who had the System it was still a huge loss!

It was no wonder why civilized people had given up on settling these lands!

Like with the Greenskin army, the weapons and armor of the Aesling had all been sold to the System. The difference being that where the Greenskin weaponry was sold because it was mostly trash, the Aesling’s armor and weapons had been sold on Father Anderson’s insistence that it had been ‘tainted by dark powers’.

Surprisingly to Peter, it was an insistence that Professor Helsing was also in agreement with.

“We can not know how the worships of demons affect this material world, and as we currently find it outside our abilities to smelt the steel down back to its base form, it’s better not to trivialize it.” The Professor had said.

Though the System hadn’t signified any of the mundane axes or equipment to be magical, Peter didn’t argue back with his advisors and directly sold over 400 weapons of various sizes and shapes, 200 chainmail or partial plate armors of various sizes and qualities, and 300 pieces of battered leather which were oddly used as armor.

Compared to the Greenskin army, the values of the Aesling gear were much higher, but besides one giant exception, it wasn’t so much more valuable that Peter took particular notice of it.

On average, the gear of Goblin was worth about 20 Denar.

The average gear for an Orc Boy was worth about 50 Denar.

The average Aesling Marauder’s gear sold for about 250 Denar.

Then, there was the armor and weapons worn by the armored giant man who Peter himself had killed.

[Ding!]

[Congratulations User: Peter Ivankov on acquiring a magic weapon.]

[Magical Equipment can be sold for a premium!]

[Heavy Blood Mace]

[Sell – 50,000 Denars]

[Sacramental Armor of Karnath (unfavored)]

[Sell – 250,000 Denars]

This would have been enough for Peter to be satisfied with, but when the System rang again, he had to pause and think.

[Ding!]

[Multiple Magical Equipment Detected!]

[Sell – (2/2) – +1 Companion Slot!]

[Sell – (2/50) – Permanent Store Access!]

[Sell – (2/1000) – Unlock Faction!]

Naturally, having more [Companions] would allow Peter to be able to ‘Level Up’ others, and the ability to do that would be extremely powerful.

However, the price point to gain a Companion Slot had doubled from that last time, and if that trend continued, then it was probably never going to be feasible for him to have a lot of people empowered by the [Mount and Blade] System.

If the price doubled each time, that would mean that having 10 Companions would cost 1,024 pieces of Magical Equipment, and after that, the number would just grow exponentially.

There was also the fact that the System seemed to treat the 2 magical artifacts the same, even though one was clearly more valuable than the other.

‘There must be a bottom line though…’ Peter thought to himself. After all, the [Mount and Blade] System may be incredibly helpful, but it wasn’t going to be easy to exploit.

In the end, Peter sold the mundane and Magical equipment for Denars, and by the time all the Loot had been sold, his [Mount and Blade] System page read:

[User – Peter Ivankov

Current Denars – 485,784 (-18,383/Wk)

Recruit – Vaegir, Mercenary

Active Forces – 534

Villages – 2

Castles – 0

Towns – 0

Caravans – 0

Inventory – 15/60 Slots

Ransom – 18 Prisoners

Sell Loot/Cargo

Recruit Companion – 1/1]

485k Denars was far more than what Peter had envisioned having anytime soon, but he cooled his expectations when he figured that 300k had come from the two pieces of magical equipment alone.

The mundane gear of the raiders had sold for barely more than 55k.

Besides the armors and weapons, they were still left with the 6 long ships, which Peter insisted on keeping, pushing back on Anderson’s desire to cleanse them with the ‘holy fires of god’.

Of course, they had no trained sailors – the Vaegir themselves were not mariners like the Nords – but for Peter it would have been too much of a waste to let the ships be burned.

Peter’s feelings could be summed up by what he had said a few days after the raid when he and a few dozen knights went to the shore.

‘I was told we don’t have sailors? Well, we have ships, so get on board Boys!’

Then, after an afternoon of sailing up and down the River – and only encountering a couple of River Trolls – Peter decided that even if the Vaegir people would never become the greatest seafarers on the planet, they were humans who were obviously capable of handling ships.

And the value of forming a navy this early, no matter how small, was simply too beneficial to pass on. Though, it would be a long time, Peter thought, before this kind of training would pay off.

While Mazen was being reorganized, and the preparations to lead a force across the river in retaliation were being planned out, none of this was hidden from their Dwarf guest.

Firstly, the ruckus on the night of the raid was impossible to even try and hide.

Then secondly, [Marek Vikramson] knew the language of the Aesling and so was naturally key to the interrogation being carried out by Professor Helsing.

Though it had been a comically short period of time, after 2 and a half weeks with the dwarf Peter could speak a bit of Kislevite.

Of course, he would not be confused with a native speaker, but Peter was already at the point where he could hear actual words and syntax when the dwarf spoke, instead of just intelligible sounds.

Interactions with Marek warmed the more they could speak to each other, and Peter was surprised to hear the short-bearded dwarf claim that it had been they who first taught language to man.

“Me’elder brudder thinks it a sacred duty for the Dawi to give the Umgi language. An’as long as the Umgi don’t worship the ruinous ones, us’Dawi will perform the task.”

And even though Marek was open about thinking that Peter and the Vaegir people were strange, he was sure they didn’t follow the ‘ruinous ones’.

In a lot of ways, Peter thought, the Norse Dwarves culture was a lot like a mix of the Danish and the stereotypical ‘Dwarves’ that anyone would imagine.

It was such an obvious blend that when he decided to use the [Fate Casino] to purchase information on them, he was shocked to discover just how much the information cost!

Having 470,000FC remaining, Peter had intended to save them for emergencies – since the Fate Casino had literally everything in it – and to avoid tempting himself, he simply didn’t look.

But who would have thought that he barely had enough FC to buy a couple books about the world he was currently in?!

The breakdown was something like this.

[Lord of the Rings Trilogy – .01FC]

[Marvel Comics Issues 1-100 – .01FC]

[Percy Jackson: The Omnibus – .01FC]

[Warhammer Fantasy Gotrek & Felix: The First Omnibus – 80,000FC]

[Warhammer Fantasy Elves: The Omnibus – 120,000FC]

And if that wasn’t a lot, for the actual codex’s it was a lot more…

[Warhammer Fantasy Armies: Skaven – 1,500,000FC]

Surely, Peter understood the rationale for the high costs of books which could essentially be likened to fortune telling tomes, but in the back of his mind he always had considered the possibility of buying the books to be a trump card.

‘Well, that’s not happening…’ he had told himself, and then focused on more material matters.

Those earthlier matters were the rebuilding of Mazen, the continued construction of Rivacheg, and the plans to build a bridge wide enough to cross the river and tall enough to allow the ships to pass underneath.

Already, they had widened the patrols around the 2 settlements, and finding themselves surrounded on 3 sides by the river Peter was determined to at least clear out the local area from terrestrial monsters.

Stationing a patrol in each village consisting of 120 Knights and 60 Sword Sisters, they combed the rivers shore to the north and west of Rivacheg and Mazen before traveling down south and east for tens of miles every day.

Surely, the patrols themselves were not large enough to defend a settlement from a major enemy army, but never again would a raid of a few hundred Marauders do so much damage.

As for when it was time to start their counterattack, Peter had plenty of Denars to raise an appropriate army.

But in the meantime, with food streaming coming in from the patrols which hunted every deer and giant boar they came across, he [Recruited] several hundred more people to not only replace the Knights and Sword Sisters who had been working in construction, but also to speed up the building projects they had already started.

[Recruit 500 Vaegir Footmen (-30,000 Denar) y/n?]

[Recruit 500 Huntress (-33,000 Denar) y/n?]

These numbers practically doubled the total population, but with the clay bricks having dried enough to start being fired, Rivacheg would experience an incredible building spree.

And Mazen, though not on the same scale as Rivacheg was no different.

After all, even though it had suffered a terrible tragedy, the solid stone from its quarries was needed to build permanent walls, roadways, and a number of other things that weren’t ideally suited for bricks.

Of course, this was also impossible to hide from Marek, and when the dwarf guest asked where the people had come from, Peter decided not to lie – but not telling the whole truth – he simply replied with a shrug: “From Calradia.”

Little did Peter know at that time, as a result of that simple shrug, he and his people would forever more be known as [Calradians] to the Norse Dwarves, and through the Dwarves, the great majority of the traders they dealt with would call this new land of the monotheists ‘Calradia’.

And by the time he understood this, the Kislevites would call him the ‘King of Calradia.’

But all of that was in the future, for now he had more pressing concerns.

It was decided that the conquest of the Aesling territory would be put off for a single year, until then they would redouble their efforts in cultivating the lands on their side of the river and continue to build closer relations to the Norse Dwarves.

As long as they could feed them Peter would Recruit more and more [Footmen] and [Huntresses], so that by the time next spring came, thousands of Vaegir’s would have settled in permanent homes and the industry of civilization would start to reclaim the wild lands of Troll Country.

2 weeks after the Mazen Massacre, as it had come to be called, working sunup to sundown, thousands of hands working together had noticeably changed Rivacheg and the surrounding area.

Though he knew some of their people were still in the hands of the Aesling, at this point nothing could be done for them.

But even now late into the afternoon, as Peter watched fires from the giant kilns baking red bricks, he continued to think about them.

After all, even if the people here had come from the [Mount and Blade] System, they were still living and breathing people with their own names and ambitions who he was responsible for.

Hearing footsteps coming softly from behind him, he turned his head slightly and realized it was Anna, but turning his head back to the fires he had a lot to think about.

In a few days Peter would be traveling with Marek to his home of [Raven's Roost Hold], it had been over a month since the guest had come to Rivacheg and now he needed to go report on his findings.

Although he felt anxious about leaving his fledgling settlements, Peter trusted Anderson and Professor Helsing to run Rivacheg and knew that Alayen had intensified his efforts as Mayor of Mazen.

Thinking about what he would need to do, his Advisor-turned-Mistress nudged him, and smiling he asked her ‘what?’

Her response blew his other considerations away.

Smiling sheepishly, she said: “Lord Ivankov, it seems… I’m with child.”