LotM: Surviving as a Marionette

The soldiers of the Loen Kingdom stationed at the border, apart from their daily training and patrol duties, spent the vast majority of their time sleeping, drinking in taverns, and in the beds of courtesans.

To be honest, the Loen Kingdom was not harsh toward the soldiers stationed at the border. Many children from ordinary families, as long as they met the requirements, would be sent by their families to join the army.

This was not only because the state would fund the raising of these soldiers sent to the military, but also because even if they died in battle, the state would still provide the family of the fallen soldier with a compensation payment.

Even though this compensation was not generous—perhaps only enough to feed a family of three for a week—it could still give many families some breathing room, no longer needing to keep their minds constantly tense...

Yet unable to even feed themselves while persisting in having children—helpless, pitiful, yet realistic.

If one achieved merit on the battlefield and earned honors, becoming an honorary knight and receiving a title, this was similarly one of the few ways these ordinary bottom-tier soldiers could cross class barriers—when one person achieved success, the whole family would benefit.

As long as one person received honors, the entire family could transcend a certain social stratum, no longer living like corpses, at least maintaining some human dignity.

But such people were few and far between.

There were quite a few people in the military who wanted to climb upward through effort, but ordinary people were just ordinary people. Without background, without opportunities or exceptional abilities, in the military's harsh internal class system where power flowed to power and wealth flowed to wealth, the Loen nobles naturally enjoyed various privileges that ordinary people could hardly reach. Without outstanding talent, they still firmly controlled this channel, limiting the possibility for the vast majority of people to strive upward.

Those who remained accomplished nothing, and perhaps one day they would leave the military because they could no longer wield sword and spear. But more people couldn't even last until that day—they would die in some conflict, some assassination, their bodies settled by border churches, never to return to their hometowns.

Saga Fort City, as Loen's frontline fortress in the Orkney Highlands, contained mostly military buildings internally, but the most numerous were taverns, inns, and various shops selling food and cloth.

The soldiers would send part of their savings through the state to their families far away in their hometowns, and spend the remaining portion in these places.

After all, no one knew whether the future or tomorrow would arrive first.

In Saga Fort City, at a rather secluded tavern.

Taverns were one of the favorite locations for numerous Loen soldiers, bards, passing merchants, and nightclub ladies. Cheap alcohol numbed everyone's nerves, and through brief pleasures, they could temporarily forget the unpleasant things of daily life.

Excessive pressure with no way to relieve it could easily cause the lower-class masses to completely explode at some moment. Small-scale brawls were not uncommon in Saga Fort City, and as long as they didn't produce overly serious consequences, the military's upper echelons wouldn't care.

This secluded tavern was similarly one of the numerous taverns in Saga Fort City that were cheap and catered to bottom-tier soldiers.

Here, the smell of foot odor and body odor, combined with the smell of alcohol and some indescribable odors, formed a unique scent in the not-so-large, poorly ventilated tavern.

Amidst the clinking of glasses and toasts, men wearing swords and armor laughed and joked with each other, while bards and merchants drank and made merry together. Some ladies occasionally moved between the various drinking tables, delivering the region's special alcoholic beverages with playful laughter, and would sometimes be invited by drunken gentlemen to spend the night on the tavern's second floor.

Among them, a man in the corner stood out particularly—he was solidly built with well-defined muscles, had short black hair and brown eyes, bronze-colored skin, was tall in stature, and carried a broadsword on his back.

"Hey, Lamud, if you keep refusing like this, you'll really break that young lady's heart," said a companion nearby, lifting a jug of wine and laughing while drinking large gulps from the jug.

"Be careful that young lady really runs off with someone else—then you won't even have a place to cry," someone teased.

Having ability, decent looks, and being appreciated by superiors—in the border regions where there wasn't much entertainment, such qualities would more or less attract attention from the military and various forces with backing stationed behind Saga Fort City.

When such a person appeared, while not exactly the center of attention, they were still one-in-a-hundred talents.

The Loen military forces were not lacking in people with keen eyes for talent, and other soldiers were also happy to befriend such people. After all, having one more friend was much better than having one more enemy.

Moreover, there might be a chance to catch a ride on their success—this kind of thing had more benefits than drawbacks, and no one would be foolish enough to offend such a person.

"Look, Miss Liliana is here to find you again."

Following the not-entirely-pure gazes of a group of drunk soldiers, Owen looked toward the tavern entrance. There stood a woman wearing a linen-colored long dress, with beautiful long hair pinned up, who was overly pure and excessively beautiful, standing outside the door and looking at him with shy timidity.

In the chaotic tavern, she was like a butterfly that had fallen into the ocean, making it difficult for people to suppress the desire in their hearts.

Such an appearance in such a place was quite dangerous.

The surrounding soldiers made a commotion, urging Owen to go forward quickly, but Owen only felt a headache coming on.

"Honestly, having caught Colonel Bernstein's eye, the path you want to take will be much smoother. After all, promotion quotas are limited, aren't they, Lamud?" someone nearby kindly planned for him. Owen frowned and was about to say something when he felt his Spirit Body Threads move.

Owen: ???

Marionettist?

In this kind of place, encountering a Sequence 5 expert from the Seer pathway?

He instinctively became alert, thinking this was either the military testing him or his enemies trying to eliminate him... Feeling his Spirit Body Threads being grasped and his body about to stiffen under control—damn it, he hadn't brought out that demigod-level armor today!

But after a while, he didn't feel himself becoming a marionette... Wait, this feeling, this motion of casually trying to tie a death knot in his Spirit Body Threads—to be honest, he wasn't unfamiliar with it...

Owen's mouth twitched as he stood up and walked outside.

Ignoring the jeering and laughing sounds behind him, he walked outside the tavern. His overly tall frame always gave people a sense of oppression, but the girl in front of him raised her head, her eyes sparkling with brilliant light, seeming to focus wholeheartedly on the man before her, showing no sign of timidity or fear.

"So beautiful..." Owen sighed silently in his heart.

Then he spoke righteously with a stern face to the several bodyguards who had followed behind the girl.

"Miss Bernstein, you should go back. Staying here so late, your father will worry too."

Owen: She's so beautiful...

Don: Haha, hilarious.

(End of Chapter)