Chapter 71: Knight of the Square Banner, Hawkins

Early the next morning, Denice returned to the lord’s manor, this time accompanied by Old Pete, seeking out Leo once again.

Leo produced the map he’d drawn overnight and spread it wide: “Five gold coins.”

Denice’s disappointment was palpable as she gazed at the haphazard map before her. In her mind, a map was an adventurer’s classic tool—a dusty, ancient parchment suffused with mystery, marked with perilous regions and the lairs of mighty beasts, perhaps even a dragon sketched in the margins. What lay before her was nothing more than a scrap of paper, hastily scrawled with a few wavy lines and triangles, the ink barely dry.

Old Pete, silent all the while, took the map from Leo and examined it closely. After a moment, he nodded to Denice.

Without attempting to bargain, Denice immediately handed Leo five gleaming gold coins, her eyes flashing in warning: “You’d better not be deceiving me. I am an experienced adventurer!”

Leo maintained a solemn facade, swearing his honesty, though inwardly he was amused. Your wealth of adventure, he mused, surely comes from bardic tales and adventure novels, not real experience.

In the days that followed, the little adventurer party fell silent. When Leo visited out of curiosity, he found Denice either sitting on a stone by the riverbank, basking in the sunlight and reading, or fishing alongside Old Pete.

Sometimes, she wandered through the Riverbend Territory, helping Old Pete buy provisions, watching villagers build houses, or playing with the village children and kobold pups.

To those little humanoid pups, Denice showed an unusual fondness, eager to purchase one for herself. But when Olivia, troubled by her request, brought her to see the kobold blacksmith in his fierce aspect, Denice’s desire vanished in an instant.

It truly was a countryside outing.

Her gentle demeanor and artistic temperament far outweighed any aura of adventurer—more like a sheltered university student, whose clear eyes betrayed both naïveté and a yearning for adventure.

Her companions, on the other hand, were often nowhere to be seen; perhaps they’d crossed the river to survey the terrain and verify Leo’s map, or maybe they were simply playing around before heading home.

Days passed, and just as Leo thought he’d earned his guide’s fee, Denice returned.

“Your map is accurate, but it’s a bit small and lacks detail,” she said in a professional tone. “We still need a guide. Are you certain you’re the best guide in these parts?”

“Absolutely. Worth every coin!” Leo boasted.

“Good. My previous offer still stands: I can hire you as our guide at one gold coin per day, with five gold up front as a deposit. When we return after this adventure, I’ll pay the remainder. But the lord must serve as guarantor for this transaction.”

“Deal!”

“Prepare yourself. We depart at dawn.”

Whether Denice’s words were her own or coached by her companions, Leo cared little as long as the gold was forthcoming. Even without this adventurer party, he’d intended to scout the northern shore.

Bjorn and his band of wild hunters roamed the forests at the foot of the northern mountains, bringing news from the wilderness, but nothing matched seeing things with his own eyes.

The wildfolk had long been isolated, their Imperial speech awkward and hard to decipher. Leo, a migrant from a thousand miles away, always found communication imperfect. He was keen to avoid another language barrier fiasco like the one with Frisa.

Two ogre man-eaters—what a wild notion!

At dawn, Leo donned the full set of armor he’d scavenged from Lawrence’s armed retainer: a fine chainmail shirt with leather backing, steel pauldrons, iron gauntlets, and a visored steel helm. He strapped a round shield and a yew longbow to his back, buckled on a steel sword and quiver, and appeared before the adventurer party’s camp in full battle gear.

With surplus iron in the territory, Leo had asked Valery to reinforce his double-layer wooden round shield with iron bands and rivets, greatly enhancing its defensive strength. The infantry round shields Ulyan had copied were only thick, lacking the quality of genuine Imperial army shields—heaven and earth apart.

Without proper iron and craftsmanship, the militia shields were little more than lids made from thick wooden planks—fine for fending off arrows and sword blows, but prone to splintering under heavy strikes.

With iron bands and rivets, even the hammer blows of wild boar warriors could be endured several times over.

Indeed, clothes make the man. Leo, already tall and robust, nearly matched the physique of a grown Northerner; only his youthful face betrayed his age, making strangers mistake him for a mere boy.

In this armor, he cut the figure of an elite warrior, radiating a sense of security. The village women, eyes aglow, were transfixed as Leo passed.

His gear weighed seventy or eighty pounds, approaching that of heavily armored elite infantry. Yet Leo, with his brute strength, found it no more cumbersome than an ordinary man might find a bulletproof vest.

Soon, however, he discovered the party leader, Harkins, was even more astonishing.

He wore a full suit of standard knight’s plate armor!

In this world, plate armor truly meant steel plates—not thin iron sheets, but something akin to the armor of a steel-clad hero.

Harkins, leader of the Firefly Adventurer Party, was a middle-aged man of strikingly handsome appearance and refined manners. He cradled his visored knight’s helm in one arm, smiling warmly as Leo reported for duty, extending his hand in greeting.

“I am Harkins, Imperial Banner Knight, and captain of the Firefly Adventurer Party.”

A Banner Knight is both a noble rank and a military title in the Orlantis Empire. Ulyan, for example, is a junior Pioneer Knight, called a Pennant Knight because his family’s banner is triangular.

If his liege, Count Frelov, called a muster and formed an army, Ulyan and his retainers would not carry their own banner in battle. A junior knight commands only a handful of squires, a dozen professional soldiers, and perhaps a few dozen conscripts—barely a hundred men at best. Every flag-bearer takes away a fighter.

Thus, he and his soldiers would be assigned under a Banner Knight, joining other Pennant Knights to form a military unit—a bit like a centurion without a flag, while a thousand-man commander does carry one.

Ulyan’s old commander, Rigolav Petukhov, is such an Imperial Banner Knight. If one day the beastfolk threaten Isenpol, Ulyan will likely serve under Rigolav once more.