Swiss Arms 191 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 191

-VB-

Hans 

1311

After completing a tour of my new lands, I had a general gist of the situation.

This was further accompanied by my own Gamer system telling me the changes selling off a vassal had done for me.

[Cohesion] County.Fluelaberg\Cohesion\Data\Factors

Bureaucracy: C+

Centralization: B

Count vs. Vassal Balance: C+

Corruption: C

Employment: D- → D

Internal Trade: B

Internal Politics: B- → B

External Networking: B

International Recognition: B+

Language Cohesion: B

Law Enforcement: C → C+

Legitimacy: B-

Loyalty (average): C- → C

Power Balance: B-

Prosperity: D+ → C-

Religious Unity: B

Safety (general): C

Strength of Count’s Military to Vassals: A- 

Strength of Individual Vassals (average): B+

(30+)

Internal Politics, Employment, Law Enforcement, Loyalty, and Prosperity had all improved just from selling off the vassalage of the abbey. 

Which was … It said a lot of stuff about the abbey’s circumstances. 

Weren’t abbeys supposed to be some of the best places to be post-viking era Medieval Europe? 

What concerned me actually was the improvement in Employment. 

The Einsiedeln Abbey consisted of less than ten percent of my county’s total size. If I wanted to be specific, they were barely three percent of the total size. But dropping them led to a whole letter grade upgrade to my Employment status. 

That … spoke of either a significant overpopulation and not enough work or a sudden refugee crisis that has not been solved yet. 

I think the latter was the most likely problem the abbey had. 

Which made little sense to me. 

If that was exactly what happened, then why was the Abbess so against me? If anything, she should have been begging me for help. As an abbess, her duty wasn’t just to God and Christ but also to the people who came to her abbey for help. 

If there truly was an extended refugee crisis haunting the abbey and the surrounding lands, then why did she react so defiantly against me? 

It couldn’t have been that she was just so angry that she reacted so negatively, right? Even though I wasn’t the one who started the war? 

… I supposed that unless I asked, I wouldn’t ever know, and I wasn’t curious enough to ask someone who wasn’t even my vassal anymore. 

Nah, I had better things to do. 

“So is it working?” Isabella asked as she looked over my shoulder and laid her chin down on it. 

I grunted as sweat dripped down my brows and off my chin. 

In front of me was a sedated puppy that one of the guards found earlier last week. 

The puppy was sick. Deformed. Weak. 

Under most circumstances, this dog was not going to survive. 

However, I took it in for a few reasons, one of which was happening right now. 

My mana seeped deep into the dog’s body as I tried to map it faster than before. 

And when I completed it, I let my control of the mana go and it all dispersed faster than cockroaches would scatter from a disturbance. 

“11 seconds,” I grunted. “Not quick enough for what I want.”

“You are trying to do the impossible, honey,” she giggled. “But then again, you do the impossible every other day, don’t you?” 

I hummed before glancing at the floating screens in front of me. 

[Soul of Mana] LvL 10, passive

[External Mana Control] LvL 3, active

Sometimes, you must take control of the mystical to ensure reality remains sensible.

Allows the user to control mana around them, including mana that isn’t theirs. Higher mana cost the longer and/or further the target is. 

[Mana Sonar] LvL 1, active

I See You.

The user sends out a burst of mana in all directions to determine the location of all things around them. Only captures a single moment that the mana passes through something. Mana cost is variable depending on the fidelity the user wants. 

Base Mana Cost: 10 mana per use

Mana Sonar was what I was using repeatedly right now, and with it, I was trying to do the mana equivalent of an MRI with the sleeping dog in front of me. 

But it was taking me 11 seconds to grasp a complete picture of the dog’s condition.

And what was its condition? 

It wasn’t caused by any infection or the like; its vital signs were normal compared to that of other dogs its age and size. But its heart and legs were too weak. Eating took time. 

The most likely cause? A muscle wasting disease. Mostly likely hereditary. At least, it wasn’t painful for the dog.

And I was using the Mana Sonar to track its … degeneration over the last month since I have returned from my tour. 

It was deteriorating quickly. It won’t live longer than a week at this rate. 

… My son loved this dog. 

Louis was going to cry a lot. 

With a sigh, I covered up the shivering dog and picked it up. 

Isabella, sensing something from my actions, pulled back. It didn’t take my smart wife from grasping the situation. 

“He’s dying.”

“Yes,” I replied as I looked down at the swaddled dog. 

“... Louis is going to be sad.”

I snorted. “That’s what I thought, too.”

Louis was now six years old, just old enough to understand the concept of death and the like. The fact that it was most likely to go involve this dog was a blessing. 

-VB-

From the autobiography of Count Louis I von Fluelaberg

Page 4

When I first gained awareness of who and what I was, or “consciousness” as father liked to say, I stood in front of a small grave outside of Fluelaberg with my hands dirty from burying a dog.

I remember crying a lot as I kept calling for a dog whose name I still don’t remember. Maybe the dog didn’t have a name. Maybe it did. Father did tell me later that it was just a dog some of the guards took in during a patrol shift and that it had ended up with our family because the guard’s wife didn’t want a dog in the house. Which is fair; most dogs were communal dogs, after all. 

… But I think this memory was a good thing for me. It got me used to death. Sure, there were funerals and the like that I attended because a lot of important people died in the city. Sometimes, it was a friend who died. 

Those memories, though, trained me for what was to come. It didn’t break me like it broke many of my subjects and peers. Or was I not sympathetic enough? Was I simply duller? Maybe it was because Father had warned me after the first rumor had reached us? 

Whatever it was, I understood death from a young age. Accepted it. 

Even when Annalise died.