Virgin Knight Who Is the Frontier Lord in the Gender Switched World - Chapter 161

Not having money is the same as being hanged.

Being born poor is as good as being dead.

From the moment one is born, one is discriminated based on one’s parents’ status, differentiated by class, and forced to live out such a life.

If born into a miserable station, one must endure being looked down upon and disparaged by all.

One must endure insults, control one’s anger, grit one’s teeth, close one’s eyes tightly, and give up on everything.

Just being born into a different environment earns one blatant insults and malicious persecution from society.

Once—I was.

That was me once.

Though born into the knightly class, indeed, as a legitimate child—but with no castle, nor even a patch of land as big as a cat’s forehead.

Without a lord to make a feudal vow to, let alone a family crest.

Born into a position called a “fighting woman,” a name only for a poor knight, known as the Black Knight.

The Black Knight, who sustains herself as a mercenary and highwayman, is the fruit borne of my mother’s dalliances in a common brothel.

Born of a seed from a man unknown.

One can easily understand the treatment such a person receives from society.

From clergy, merchants, citizens, insults were received from every corner.

I lived a life continuously insulted by society.

Without any means to resist, I gritted my teeth and endured desperately.

Believing that one day, when I grow up and gain strength, I would have my day of reckoning.

Just before I turned 14, my mother died.

She failed while trying to act as a highwayman on her turf and seems to have been killed by the armed merchants she attacked.

Well, I was prepared for it to happen someday.

It’s not an unusual story.

There is a guild among fellow highwaymen, and my mother’s armor, her legacy, wasn’t sold off but was collected with her body and delivered to me.

According to the words of the comrade who delivered it—

“My daughter will soon be of age to become a full-fledged knight. For that, at least, I wanted some money to tidy her appearance.”

Despite warnings from fellow bandit knights that the merchant was armed and tough, she rashly attempted the robbery thinking she must have money.

Foolish.

I held my mother’s hand and shed a single tear.

Paying a greedy cleric a significant sum, I barely managed to hold a funeral, leaving me with no money left.

Just a crudely made armor covered in black rust preventative and a single sword.

That was all the property my mother left me.

That’s all I have left.

So, I decided.

Holding the sword in the home I must leave tomorrow, I will knight myself, tapping my own shoulder with my sword.

As if beheading myself, I will conduct the ceremony.

Loyalty, fairness, courage, valor, love, tolerance, courtesy, service.

I swear allegiance to none of these in the code of chivalry.

“From now on, I swear lifelong loyalty only to violence.”

There is no lord to swear allegiance to, no castle, no land, no subjects. All I have is a single sword and my rudimentary black-painted armor.

There is no one to tap my shoulder with the sword.

Yet, I intend to live as a knight who serves “something,” looking the part.

Because that was the last wish my mother had for me.

Therefore, I will now swear allegiance to violence as my lord and never betray it.

If I were to name my lord, the “super violence” (Super Gewalt) would be its name, my master.

Yes, that was when my life as a bandit knight began.

It was delightful.

Truly enjoyable days, taking revenge on the clergy, merchants, and citizens who had humiliated and scorned me.

As a bandit knight, I laid my turf up to the Gusten Empire, menacing traveling merchants to steadily build capital, eventually forming contracts with other Black Knights and mercenaries to organize a group.

That was good in its way.

It was good to gradually accomplish revenge against society.

But what I wanted to do as a group wasn’t petty violence like pillaging villages or arson.

It was super violence.

Acts like highway robbery were merely ways to earn a starting capital.

The plan I wanted to achieve, the “super violence” I accomplished in my youth, was a lawful plunder (Fehde) against a thriving major city with tens of thousands of residents.

Yes, I wanted to become the organizer of a Fehde, where the bandit knight alliance threatened the city, making the merchants and citizens cough up their amassed wealth.

The city I targeted was under the governance of clergy, all conditions suitable for the revenge I needed to enact.

What was missing was just one reason to challenge the Fehde.

As I accumulated power while waiting for the time, I heard that an insult had been directed at a certain knightly house by a great mercantile house given the role of city councillor.

The son of the knightly house was bought with money and abducted by the heir daughter of the great house.

Well, abducted in the sense of a typical elopement common in such marriages.

Behind the scenes, a substantial sum had already been paid to the knightly house for the marriage.

The truth was that the knightly house later complained, “The money is not enough. Give us more.”

That too is a common story.

I gleefully intervened in the disturbance caused by the knightly house, paid enough money to satisfy its head, and bought the right to threaten the great house.

Of course, things got rough.

The response from the merchant house was this—

“You claim to be a representative, but aren’t you just a stranger in reality? I hear you engage in near loan-sharking everywhere. A lowly bandit knight forms gangs and threatens with force for a huge compensation. Have you no knightly pride? Do not underestimate our house, which serves as a city councillor! We could kill you like any other!!”

Amusing.

What’s wrong with using a bought right to earn money?

Especially when sworn to super violence, a bandit knight shouldn’t bother with pride or such, not worth even a copper coin.

The fire was lit.

All that remained was to let it spread and burn the city down.

I declared.

Since the merchant house serving as city councillor won’t pay, I have no choice but to collect through a Fehde.

Naturally, not just the non-paying merchant house, but all the merchant’s carriages in the city were targeted.

There was no legitimate reason, of course.

But as long as the first spark is ignited, any pretext can be arranged afterward.

In a Fehde, the attack takes precedence over any legitimate reason.

All I wanted was just a slight pretext to start with; there was no problem once I reached this point.

“Your turn, all of you.”

With the full disclosure of this Fehde’s plan and by inducing investments from merchants of other cities, I had amassed hundreds of bandit knights and mercenaries, ready to exhaust their desperate hoards.

I captured over a hundred merchants as hostages and confiscated their carriages, selling everything off.

The city had no means to retaliate.

No, they couldn’t have, even if they wished to.

Their military resources were utterly depleted.

All the Black Knights and mercenaries that the city could have hired for defense had already been employed by me.

Even attempts to hire from afar were foiled, as I simply outbid them to pull these forces to my side.

Certainly, there were knights and soldiers typically employed by the city, but they were led astray by the bishop who governed at that time.

They had heeded a call to arms from Pope Yulia to reclaim the Papal States, leaving most knights absent.

Of course, all moves were made with this knowledge in hand.

The Fehde unfolded precisely as planned.

It seemed inevitable that the city would eventually capitulate and agree to pay a substantial compensation.

The only thing.

If there was one oversight, it was underestimating their desperate resistance.

It was then that I lost my right arm.

In my overzealous pursuit, I chased the transport carriages right up to the city walls, where I was struck by a blast from a mounted cannon, my fingers and palm mutilated beyond recognition.

Perhaps, in hindsight, I should have demanded compensation for that lost arm.

No, I ensured that the city paid up to the very brink of their capability, without causing the councillors and merchants to be slain by the populace.

I had calculated the maximum sum that could be wrung through taxation from the citizens.

More would have been impossible.

Nevertheless, I pushed the city to its absolute limits.

Thus, both parties could clap their hands together in laughter, genuinely pleased with the reconciliation achieved, and I received a vast sum as compensation.

The knightly house from which I had acquired the rights to the Fehde was gruesomely tortured to death by the citizens, but they were to blame for being blinded by short-term gains, so I cared not.

I distributed the compensation I received as rewards to all involved, and paid substantial dividends against the investments from merchants of other cities.

What remained was less than a third of the amount, but it was more than sufficient.

I purchased a rural estate and castle, securing my retirement for the remainder of my life.

Yes, with this, I had completed my revenge against society.

Overturning one’s own status and engaging in Fehde (self-help) felt, perhaps, like the supreme pleasure in this world.

In a way, I consider it a blessing that I was born a poor knight.

Had I been born into a wealthy family, I would never have experienced such pleasure in my lifetime.

I defined a word at that moment.

Giving oneself over to one’s destructive impulses and anger, wielding power as one pleases is merely violence.

It is nothing but a foolish and barbaric rampage.

To save oneself from misery by applying all cunning and effort.

That is what I call super violence (Zūpā Gebalto).

Truly, my great lord.

Ah, yes.

That bishop who governed the bishopric, who desperately returned to her lands but barely made it in time, and whom I reconciled with using my prosthetic iron arm.

I hear she has even risen to become a cardinal now.

Favored by Pope Yulia.

Perhaps out of sympathy for the harm I caused her, the Pope felt awkward and pushed her to cardinal.

I’m greatly thankful for this, and wonder if she might send me some token of goodwill.

Such were the things I boasted about.

The right to boast was the culmination of my life thus far.

Yet…

“I didn’t quite catch that, Your Highness, the Second Princess of the Anhalt Electorate. I must have misheard.”

I deny it.

I denied the words I just heard.

Valiere von Anhalt, standing before me, had not retracted the words she had spoken to this bandit knight just moments ago.

Even though I had mercifully given her the opportunity to correct herself, a mere 14-year-old brat in passing.

She did not retract her words.

“As I was passing through your territory, I happened upon a band of thieves and slaughtered them all. I’m a bit tired, so could I stay in your territory for a while? The brigade I’ve brought along is just over 1000 strong.”

Such were her threatening words.

It was a declaration that could be rephrased as a Fehde.

In noble speech, it translates to “Pay up. Pay me voluntarily, or else I’ll sit on your land with over 1000 troops, and who knows what might happen.”

It was nothing but a declaration of threat.

Who does she think I am?

You, who do you think I am?

A richly born fool daughter of the Elector family demanding what from me!

“My name is—Amelia von Berlichingen.”

I have lived thinking my name was well-known.

Certainly, it might not reach the fame of the heroes of Virendorf like Reckenber, but if one speaks of a bandit knight, everyone should recall my name.

I will go down in imperial history as a bandit knight who carried out a large-scale Fehde, seizing tens of thousands of silver coins.

In that threatened city, just hearing my name would make even children cry and flee in terror.

Against my life’s journey, this foolish girl before me had committed the greatest insult.

To demand payment from me, who had lived by taking everything from the world!

Raised in luxury, pampered and revered as the Second Princess of Anhalt.

A poor knight by birth, insulted by all that is wealthy.

And now Amelia, who has never bowed to anyone but super violence, was being subtly demanded to submit.

“You dare to say you do not know the name of this bandit lord knight, Amelia von Berlichingen! Are you insulting my entire life?!”

I raised my voice in a shout.

Facing the entire world’s resentments, the Anhalt Electorate’s Second Princess Valiere did not even falter in her smile.

I glared at the young girl’s face, furious, pale as wax, even a bit ghostly—but still, her smile did not waver.