Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 103: Before the Mad Earl

CH103 Before the Mad Earl

***

The look Earl Drake gave Alex was the kind that said, ”I’ve already told you the answer; you just weren’t listening.”

He hadn’t said it outright, but the meaning had already been conveyed.

It took Alex a moment, but a thought struck him. Still, he wanted to confirm it.

”Why do they call you the Mad Earl?” he asked.

Without missing a beat, Earl Drake replied, ”Oh, that’s because I led my mercenary corps—just a hundred or so men—to attack an Earl family. My current noble title came from wiping that family out.”

Alex’s brows furrowed.

Indeed, attacking an Earl family, which would have boasted thousands of professional soldiers, with only a handful of mercenaries, was the very definition of madness—never mind actually winning and wiping out the noble line entirely.

Still, there had to be more to the story. No sane man would lead such a suicidal charge without reason.

He looked to his father with a silent request: Tell me the whole story.

Fortunately, the Earl obliged.

”Before you were born... before I ever became a noble... I was the Commander of a mercenary corps called the Wolves of War. We were a small band—just a hundred men and women. We travelled all across the Arun Continent, doing whatever earned us coin. Over time, we built a solid reputation.”

Alex’s eyes widened slightly.

He hadn’t known that.

”Amelia... your mother, Jared, Norton, Diana, and even Kara’s parents—they were all part of the corps,” the Earl continued.

”One day, we got a commission from the heir of the Schaumer Earl Family. I won’t bore you with all the details. All that matters is that it was a trap. The Schaumer heir used us as bait while he chased after his real objective. Thanks to him, our numbers dropped from a hundred... to fifty.”

Alex clenched his fist. He already didn’t like where this was going.

”When we went to request our rightful compensation, the Schaumers spat in our faces. They invoked the prestige and protection of nobility, claiming they owed us nothing.”

Earl Drake’s voice grew colder, more intense.

”I had two choices: swallow the insult... or retaliate.”

He looked at Alex, eyes gleaming faintly crimson.

”You know how our Furor bloodline works. You already know the choice I made.”

Alex nodded silently.

”After letting the gravely injured leave, those of us who remained began a guerrilla campaign. We harassed the Schaumer troops, targeting their supply lines, ambushing patrols, spreading chaos. We bled them, slowly but surely.”

His voice lowered, intense and solemn.

”We hurt them so badly that they had to recall their troops from outer-plane campaigns just to deal with us.”

A crooked smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

”The Wolves of War were small in number, yes... but we made up for it in strength. The weakest among us was a Veteran Warrior or Great Mage. Most were Saint-ranked warriors and Grand Mages.”

Alex’s eyes widened further. That level of power in a mercenary group...

”The Schaumers refused all talks of ending the war. They believed their strength—especially their two Legends—would be enough to destroy us.”

There was a strong gleam of madness in Earl Drake’s smile now.

”Yes, Legends are strong. But they forgot the one truth of the battlefield: If it bleeds, it can die.”

He leaned forward slightly, voice now barely above a whisper.

”I led a strike team of Saint Warriors and Grand Mages. We ambushed the weaker of the two Legends and brought him down. In that battle, I pushed myself past the limit... and broke through to the Legendary realm myself.”

Alex’s heart pounded in his chest.

”And using that momentum,” Earl Drake continued, ”I challenged and killed the second Legend. But I sustained grievous wounds—wounds that should’ve killed me.”

His expression softened for the first time in the story.

”I only survived... thanks to your mother.”

”Your mother was our group’s main healer, while I—being a Berserker—was the one always getting injured. That brought us close.”

He stared off slightly, as if seeing someone far away.

”After stabilising my condition, I claimed the Schaumer fiefdom as my spoils. I couldn’t let the sacrifices made to defeat them go to waste. Your mother... she overdrafted herself just to keep me alive. It caused great damage to her foundation.”

He sighed.

”And of the fifty or so Wolves who survived the initial betrayal, only about twenty remained after the campaign—most of them seriously injured.”

The look on his face turned nostalgic.

”After killing two Legends in one day, I became infamous. People started calling me the Mad Wolf. Then, once I claimed the fiefdom, the name changed. I became known as the Mad Earl.”

Alex paused for a long moment, processing the heavy tale his father had just shared.

Then, a realisation struck him.

”Did the Schaumer family answer to a higher noble house? Is that why you needed the aid of the Holt Marquisate?” he asked.

Earl Drake smiled with open approval.

”Indeed,” he said with a nod. ”The Schaumers were related by marriage to the Reichert Duchy. Though the tie was to a collateral branch of the Reicherts, it gave the Duchy the perfect excuse to extend its reach from their North-Eastern tributaries into the North-West—our territory.”

He leaned back slightly.

”At the time, the Fury family was barely at the level of an Earldom. I had no strength left to both stabilise the fiefdom and face off against a Duchy. Especially not in my injured state.”

He paused.

”So, when the Holt Marquisate reached out with a marriage alliance, I accepted. Not for myself, but for the sake of the family... and the comrades who had bled for me.”

He looked at Alex with an even gaze.

”As you know, the Holts serve as the vanguard—the hands and legs—of the Machholt Grand Duchy. Their involvement meant the Machholts were watching as well. And when that connection became apparent, the Reicherts pulled out.”

There was a long moment of silence.

”Your mother became my first wife,” the Earl continued. ”Joselin Holt, my second. I had to make concessions for dragging the family into a near-extinction crisis, so I married two more women from within the family. But because I was a newly minted Legendary and an Earl, I had my pick.”

He smiled faintly.

”And the rest, as they say, is history.”

Alex let his father’s words settle in his mind. Slowly, piece by piece, the puzzle began to form.

His original question had been simple—does Earl Drake still need the Holts or the Machholts? But rather than answer directly, his father had responded with a philosophical question: ”Which is more important, strength or intelligence?”

Then he had shown Alex that his power had long surpassed that of a Marquis—he was effectively a Margrave in all but name.

When all the pieces clicked, the answer was clear.

Earl Drake no longer needed the Holts.

And the Machholt Grand Duchy? They were too far away, entangled with problems at the centre of the large territory, which was the Virellian Empire. Even if they wanted to do something, they couldn’t. Their rivals wouldn’t let them.

Alex’s mind ran through the implications.

His father had seen through the Holts and the Machholts from the very beginning. He had understood that the marriage alliance was a poisoned chalice. The goal was never simply support—it was domination through blood ties. A slow but steady annexation of the Fury family through soft power and subtle control.

They had hoped Earl Drake would lean on them.

They had hoped Joselin would act as a subtle knife within the family.

But they had made a critical mistake—a mistake many nobles made when dealing with the Fury family.

They assumed that just because the Furies were a martial family, they were muscle-headed brutes who knew nothing of politics, nothing of subtlety, nothing of grand designs.

Alex narrowed his eyes, a quiet flame kindling behind them.

’They couldn’t have been more wrong.’

**