Felimta didn't have much of an understanding at all when it came to religions, so she didn't offer any of her opinions for fear of being denounced by Sanfesa.

"Then again, even if there is some type of connection between the two of them, they won't be able to amount to anything anyway," Sanfesa said with a faint smile after a moment of contemplation. "The Universal Church will never change. Those lowly commoners can do whatever they want, but they'll never be able to amount to anything significant."

"I heard that the Farody Family is quite close with the Universal Church," Felimta cautioned.

A hint of undisguised derision appeared on Sanfesa's face upon hearing this. "That old fart is a decent businessman, but that's the extent of it. He has a great deal of wealth in his grasp, but when it comes to planning and scheming, he's completely out of his depth. Besides, what are they even trying to accomplish by approaching the Universal Church? The Universal Church has nothing but a bunch of useless clergymen. If a battle really does break out between Zans and Tellier, are they expecting the Universal Church's pastors to preach the enemy to death?"

Sanfesa couldn't help but chuckle at her own joke.

"My cousin isn't very ambitious, but he's certainly no idiot, and that niece of mine is even more troublesome to deal with," Sanfesa said. "If Count Onen and the Farody Family really do turn on each other, neither side will be able to get anything positive out of it."

"As usual, your analysis of the situation is exceptional," Felimta praised in a timely fashion.

"I have a decent grasp on everyone else, but this Erwin is someone I've still yet to meet," Sanfesa said. "I can't help but feel a little uneasy given that he's a complete mystery to me. For some reason, I have a bad feeling about someone like him suddenly popping up out of nowhere at a time like this. I can't shake the feeling that something is about to happen in the Boll Dukedom. In any case, that man is definitely someone I have to be careful of."

"Is this coming from your woman's intuition?" Felimta asked with a curious expression.

This was why Felimta had been able to remain by Sanfesa's side for so long. She always knew when it was appropriate to say something, and when it was inappropriate to say something. She wasn't a brainless lackey that did nothing but suck up to Sanfesa all day long, and she occasionally joked around with Sanfesa as if they were equals.

Felimta knew that if she wanted to serve as Sanfesa's right-hand woman, not only did she have to be capable of carrying out the tasks assigned to her, she also had to possess inferior looks and intelligence to Sanfesa. After all, no women harbored any fondness toward women who were more beautiful and more intelligent than themselves.

Sanfesa couldn't help but burst into laughter upon hearing this. "Perhaps. My instincts have always been very accurate, particularly toward men."

"But you only heard a very brief description from me," Felimta chuckled.

"I'm trusting my instincts here, so I don't think there's a problem with extrapolating and forming an opinion on someone based on your words," Sanfesa replied with a faint smile. "That's why instinct and intuition are things that can only be described, but can never be taught."

"If your intuition is correct, then should we wait and see what happens or seize the initiative and do something?" Felimta asked.

"These are the internal affairs of the Boll Dukedom, so it would be inappropriate for us to get involved for now," Sanfesa replied with a shake of her head. "At the very least, I don't want my cousin to misunderstand my intentions."

"Alright, I understand. The next time I go to the Boll Dukedom, I'll pay extra attention to that artist," Felimta said.

Sanfesa nodded in response. "Alright, you can go now. I have to bathe and get changed."

Sanfesa did as she was told and departed.

Prior to entering the luxury bathroom that neighbored this room, Sanfesa took off his gown, then picked up the bottle of red wine on the floor before pouring all of the remaining wine in the bottle over her own body. It was as if she had been entirely immersed in dark purple blood.

She had done this because she was disgusted by the smell of the man's sweat on her body, and she didn't want to contaminate her bathwater, which was covered in a layer of floating flower petals.

"Where did this Erwin pop up from?" Sanfesa murmured to herself as she made her way into the fragrant bathtub.

...

On the way from Zans to Lomu.

Erwin was leading from the front on horseback, followed by Shiba and around a dozen more people.

This naturally wasn't the entire Monge Riders mercenary legion. Instead, they were Shiba's closest subordinates. In total, the Monge Riders mercenary legion had around 200 to 300 mercenaries.

This morning, Erwin had paid a visit to the pub where Shiba was. As soon as he entered the pub, he took a cold glance at all of the alert and wary people inside, then instructed in an indifferent voice, "Come with me."

Shiba knew that it was unwise to go against Erwin's orders, so he immediately gathered everyone together. Seeing as he had already laid down his own pride, he no longer felt any resistance to serving Erwin. During these past couple of days, he had been repeatedly thinking about Erwin's "trust me, this could be the smartest decision that you ever make", and in the face of such a declaration, he seemed to have lost all courage to resist.

Erwin's brows furrowed slightly at the sight of all of the people in the pub standing up to come with him, and he turned to Shiba before instructing, "Get them to leave the pub in groups. We have to avoid attracting attention as much as possible."

Shiba nodded in response, then relayed Erwin's instructions to his subordinates before departing with around a dozen of his most trusted subordinates.

It didn't take long for them to reach the town of Lomu, and Erwin didn't reveal anything to Shiba along the way.

Upon reaching the town, Erwin immediately spotted all of the recruitment posters for the Four Winds mercenary legion plastered everywhere. However, the town only had a population of several thousand people, so it was yet to be seen how many mercenaries could be recruited from here.

However, the queue of people lining up for recruitment was quite long, so it was clear that the compensation that Erwin was offering was very alluring.

Sherry and Lanyon were dutifully running all the applicants through the selection process, and the two of them immediately approached Erwin with elated expressions upon seeing his arrival.

"Greetings, Commander." Sherry had made an effort to remember not to refer to Erwin as Master Erwin anymore.

Erwin nodded in response, then looked around in search for Georgina, but was unable to spot him, so he asked, "Where's Georgina? Don't tell me he's still sleeping."

"He wouldn't dare to shirk his duties like that," Lanyon replied with a smile. "He's already waiting for you on the airship."

"I see. Alright, continue with what you're doing, I still have other things to take care of," Erwin instructed while making a subtle gesture toward Shiba and the others, who were standing behind him.

Sherry and Lanyon nodded in response.

This was the first meeting between Erwin's new and old subordinates, and both sides were sizing each other up.

Erwin merely pretended not to have noticed this.

After that, he led Shiba to the mountain behind the town, and even from a long distance away, they could already see the airship parked in a spacious area on the mountain with plenty of shade.

As soon as Erwin got down from his horse, Christine was already waiting happily at him from the deck of the airship.

Georgina was also waiting on the deck.

Given that Erwin was being accompanied by all these strangers, Christine knew that it would be inappropriate to get too intimate with Erwin. Thus, she resisted the urge to run into his arms.

"Christine, we have to discuss some things here," Erwin said as he cast his gaze toward Christine after stepping onto the airship's deck.

"No problem. Brother Georgina and I are the only two people on the airship right now," Christine replied.

Erwin nodded in response with a faint smile.

Shiba had never seen an airship before, and he didn't think much of it while looking at it from afar, but after stepping onto the deck of the airship, he couldn't help but be amazed at how spacious and luxurious it was.

His subordinates were even more amazed than he was, and as soon as they stepped onto the deck, they began to look around in marvel like children in a candy shop.

Christine knew that Erwin had some things to discuss with these people, so she returned to her room at the back of the airship.

Shiba could see that Erwin was ready to talk, so he hurriedly cleared his throat to attract the attention of all of his subordinates.

"I recall I told you two days ago that I'll be making use of you soon," Erwin said as he looked at the people gathered before him, and Georgina was standing beside him.

Erwin pulled a sheepskin map out of his sleeve as he spoke, then laid it out before everyone as he said, "I have a mission for you right now."

"Please go ahead," Shiba prompted as he extended a slight bow.

With their leader making his attitude clear, all of Shiba's subordinates also put on serious expressions.

Erwin pointed at the city of Tellier on the map. "I need you to go and rob the Tellier Wine Trade Guild's convoy."

"... That's it?" Shiba turned to Erwin with a surprised expression. "The trade guild's convoys will be accompanied by some guards, but there's no way they'll pose any resistance to us!"

"I'm not telling you to rob their convoy once. I'm telling you to rob them every single time. No matter how much stock they try to transport, seize all of it," Erwin said as he turned to Shiba. "Get all of your brothers involved in this."

A concerned look appeared on Shiba's face upon hearing this. "But if we do that, it won't be long before they send out large units of troops to hunt us down."

"This here is Georgina. He's extremely adept at scouting and tracking," Erwin said as he patted Georgina on the shoulder. "With him accompanying you, you'll always be able to know what your enemies are doing in advance. Depending on the situation, I'll leave it up to you to decide whether you continue or retreat."

Shiba nodded in response. "Master Erwin, may I ask what the purpose of this is supposed to be?"

He was naturally aware that there was no way Erwin was doing this solely for the wine.

"What's the purpose of this?" A smile appeared on Erwin's face upon hearing this question, and he pretended to think carefully about this before replying, "The objective is to make the head of the Farody Family think that you were hired by Count Onen to do this."

Shiba was immediately enlightened upon hearing this.

"But you can't make it too obvious and openly declare that you were hired by Count Onen. You have to set it up so that they find out in a way that they believe to be organic. Otherwise, it'll defeat the purpose. It's the same idea as dividing your people up into groups to travel here from Zans so as to attract as little attention as possible. If you make something too obvious, no one will believe it. You have to slowly lure them into arriving at the desired conclusion in order to make things believable," Erwin said.

Shiba and his subordinates nodded in response. They understood what Erwin was saying, but as for exactly how they were going to accomplish this, they didn't have much of a clue.

Looking at the troubled expression on Shiba's face, Erwin shook his head with a faint sigh, then whispered something into his ear to provide him with some guidance.

After hearing what Erwin had to say, Shiba nodded eagerly with an enlightened expression.

"Once all of your people arrive, you can go directly to Tellier," Erwin instructed. "All of the stock that you take from the convoy will go solely to you, I don't want any of it. In fact, if you can complete this mission well, then I can reward you with an additional 10,000 Loonies."

10,000 Loonies was a huge sum of money, averaging out to several dozen Loonies per person.

Right at this moment, one of Shiba's subordinates stepped forward, then said in a vehement voice, "Master Erwin, we've decided to follow you, so all of us will serve you wholeheartedly. With that in mind, all of the stock that we take from the convoys naturally has to be shared among everyone. As for the additional reward, our brothers don't care about that, and we're not following you for that."