At this point, all of the nobles and common folk in the entire city of Sarus had learned of the Skycourt Kingdom's sinister plot to assassinate the princess and invade the Effer Kingdom, and everyone had been swept up by the heat of war. Of course, everyone's excitement mostly came from the pursuit of wealth and status, rather than an urge to avenge the princess for the political assassination attempt. After all, in the eyes of most people, wars were one of the quickest ways to make vast profits. As was always the case, risk and reward came hand in hand, and wars presented great peril, but also a gold mine of opportunities.

A conscription order was one of the ways through which the Effer Kingdom recruited soldiers from the general public. Furthermore, the spending of mercenary legions was covered by their commanders, rather than the state. However, the legion commanders didn't have to turn in their spoils of war. Instead, they could keep their spoils of war and distribute them as they pleased. Having said that, mercenary legions were still a part of the kingdom's army, and they had to follow the orders of the department of military affairs.

The mercenary legions that performed valiantly during the war had a chance to be integrated into the kingdom's royal legion, and if that were to happen, the leaders of the mercenary legions would also be assigned official roles in the military.

For young nobles like Larwood and Erwin, who were used to a lazy and undisciplined lifestyle, they were leaning more toward assembling their own mercenary legion. As for the reason behind that, the main motivating factor was freedom. They were simply used to living free and unrestrained lives. They harbored ambitions of making significant contributions and earning accolades on the battlefield, but at the same time, they were extremely resistant to the idea of being told what to do. If they were integrated into the kingdom's regular army, that would truly be a tragedy for them. All of their fathers had military backgrounds, so it wouldn't have been an issue at all to arrange duties for them in the royal military, but all of them refused without any hesitation. In their eyes, freedom had to be cherished above all else, and that was what led them to organize their own mercenary legion.

In doing so, they wouldn't have to follow orders from others, and all they would have to do was occasionally send someone to report to the department of military affairs. This was something that Erwin and the others held in very high regard. All of them shared an opportunistic mindset that made them want to try their hand at striking more formidable enemies through their wiles and resourcefulness, and they were genuinely of the opinion that following the regular army would drown out their talents.

Once the conscription order was released, Erwin and his friends held a brief discussion before deciding to pool together all of the money that they had on their hands. They reserved a booth in the Yanler Pub, where they discussed the formation of a mercenary legion.

"Alright, so we have 10,000 from Kaiba, 8,000 from me, 5,000 from Larwood, and 5,000 from Erwin, which amounts to a total of 28,000," Chase declared. "This is all the money that we have to support the expenses of a mercenary legion."

Erwin had received this money from his father. To his surprise, his father didn't denounce him on this occasion. Instead, he was very much in support of Erwin's proposal. 5,000 Loonies was quite a huge sum, and Erwin was expecting a lecture on how many cottages that amount would be able to buy outside the city, so his father's response had come as a massively pleasant surprise.

"If we pay each person one Loony per day, that would amount to 3,000 Loonies for 100 people in a month. How many people do you think we should recruit?" Larwood asked.

"So if we recruit 1,000 people, we don't even have enough money to pay them for an entire month," Erwin sighed with a resigned expression. "If I had known this would happen, I would've stopped going to mansions and saved up more money."

"Indeed, I'm kicking myself when I think back to all the money I squandered," Kaiba sighed. "If I had saved up everything, we would've been able to support a legion of 1,000 mercenaries for at least half a year!"

"What's the point in crying over spilled milk?" Chase asked with an indifferent shrug. "What we have to think about now is how many people we should recruit. Once the war begins, it's definitely not going to end in just a month."

"How about we recruit 1,000 mercenaries, and we'll rely on our spoils of war to pay everyone after the first month," Kaiba suggested.

"If only it were that easy! Do you think all of the Skycourt Kingdom's soldiers go to battle with gold in their pockets? Or are you considering stealing from the common folk of Burmen? If we do that, we'll be executed by the department of military affairs before the troops of the Skycourt Kingdom can even get to us!" Larwood chuckled.

"But we can't recruit too few people. If we do that, we'll get looked down on by everyone else when we go to attend the meetings at the department of military affairs." Chase was very intent on keeping up appearances.

"Then should we recruit 500 people for the first month, then see how it goes from there?" Kaiba suggested.

"Aside from their salaries, we also have to think about food, equipment, and accommodation costs," Erwin cautioned. "It's not going to be cheap to feed, clothe, and house 500 people."

"Equipment?" Larwood was quite taken aback to hear this. "Surely we won't have to prepare equipment for them! That would require a huge sum of money."

"But what if some of them are too poor to afford equipment? They'll just be cannon fodder on the battlefield," Chase said with furrowed brows.

"In that case, we'll have to examine all of our recruits one by one," Kaiba said as a glum look appeared on his face.

"Of course we have to do that! What did you think we were going to do? Just recruit anyone without any discretion?" Larwood asked.

"By the way, where did you guys get the price of one Loony per person per day from?" Erwin suddenly asked. "Even the kingdom's regular army doesn't offer such high salaries. I recall that normal soldiers in the regular army only receive 10 Loonies per month, so what you're proposing is already three times that!"

"That's the salary I see being offered on the recruitment posters of all of the major mercenary legions," Chase replied. "Comparing mercenary legions with the kingdom's regular army is like comparing apples with oranges. In the regular army, if a soldier were to die during battle, the empire would have to give their family compensation payment, whereas if someone dies in a mercenary legion, then that's it. Thus, everyone is putting their lives on the line without the promise of financial compensation for their families if something were to happen to them, so higher salaries will naturally have to be offered."

"Also, in the kingdom's regular army, there are opportunities for career progression. Those who perform well during battles can receive promotions after just a few battles and be rewarded with official military ranks. How many mercenary legions do you think actually end up being integrated into the kingdom's royal military? For mercenary legions of our scale, those who fight under us can only expect to get a share in some spoils of war at the very end of the war," Larwood added. "Besides, soldiers of the kingdom's regular army receive standardized equipment from the department of military affairs, whereas mercenaries in our legion will have to prepare their own equipment, so that's another disadvantage."

Erwin nodded in response as he heaved a faint sigh.

"So how do we examine them?" Kaiba asked with a wry smile. "Should we make it a requirement that martial artists must be able to defeat Larwood and magicians must be able to defeat Erwin?"

"If we go by those standards, then the only magicians that'll fit the bill would be Her Highness and Lana Lazaar," Larwood chuckled.

Everyone aside from Erwin immediately burst into laughter upon hearing this. Erwin also forced a smile onto his own face, but internally, he was feeling quite despondent. He had naturally already heard that Lana had returned to Burmen. As for Princess Onean, she was still recovering from her injuries in the palace, and there was no news of her at all. As such, he couldn't help but be struck by a sense of sorrow at the mention of those two.

"So what do we do now? Should we put up the notice first, then begin our examination once we get enough numbers?" Chase asked.

"So we want 500 people? Is that finalized?" Larwood asked.

"I think that sounds about right. Let's do it," Erwin replied with a nod.

Kaiba had no objections, either.

"Alright, I'll get my servants to put up the recruitment notices today," Chase said.

"Hold on, how are you going to put up the notices when we haven't even decided on a name for our mercenary legion yet?" Erwin reminded.

The four of them fell silent again as they began to think of what name would be appropriate for their mercenary legion.

Thus, a series of names were suggested, such as "Howling Tiger", "Roaring Dragon", and "Heavenly Wolf", but those names had either been taken or were deemed to be too tacky and cliched. The four of them bickered back and forth with one another, and in order to prevent the group from falling apart before the mercenary legion was even established, they decided to name it the Four Winds mercenary legion.

It was a name that was decently imaginative and wasn't overly tacky like the other names that had been suggested.

After finalizing the name for their mercenary legion, Erwin and his friends approached Sherry, who was still working hard at Seaford Academy even though it was the school holidays. Sherry was also very excited to hear that he would be able to go to the front lines with Erwin and his friends.

Not long after the recruitment notices for the Four Winds mercenary legion had been put up, many people came to register that very same afternoon. The designated assembly point was the horse farm owned by Chase's family outside the city, and it didn't take long for several hundred people to gather at the entrance of the horse farm.

Chase had been very crafty in writing up the recruitment notices as he had stated that Larwood was the legion commander, while Erwin was the deputy commander. Even though he and Kaiba were contributing the most money to the cause, he had assigned Larwood and Erwin, who had both put on good showings in the Pillow Sword Tournament, to be the leaders of the legion. His objective was to take advantage of their popularity, particularly Erwin's popularity, which was through the roof at the moment, to recruit some powerful members into their mercenary legion.

As for why Larwood had been assigned as legion commander, while Erwin had been assigned as his deputy, even though Erwin was the far more popular one of the two, that was because Chase felt Larwood to be far more cunning than Erwin, which made him more suited to leading the legion.

Erwin and Sherry were notified by Chase, and as they arrived at the horse farm in the afternoon, they were both quite astonished to see the hundreds of people already gathered.

Just as Chase had anticipated, many of these people had come for Erwin. Even Erwin himself hadn't thought of this method to exploit his own popularity, and he had a great deal of admiration for Chase's thinking and foresight. In contrast with his three friends, Erwin was sometimes made to resemble a blank slate.

In reality, Erwin didn't know the true reason why so many people had come for him. He had always been a dark horse that everyone had looked up to throughout the course of the Pillow Sword Tournament. All of the people gathered here were common folk, and in contrast with the likes of the princess and Prince Lazaar's children, who practically lived in completely different worlds from them, Erwin was far more approachable and relatable. In their eyes, Erwin was like a hero representing the common masses.

Among the large crowd, Erwin suddenly spotted a familiar face. It was one of his opponents during the Pillow Sword Tournament, Lanyon.

"Hey, aren't you that middle-aged man? I didn't expect to see you here!" Erwin was directly referring to Lanyon as he spoke.

Lanyon didn't think that Erwin would still remember him, and he was a little embarrassed. He didn't think that his mature appearance would leave such a lasting impression on Erwin.

Everyone around Lanyon immediately burst into raucous laughter upon hearing Erwin refer to him as a middle-aged man. In their eyes, Erwin's description of Lanyon was very accurate.