Raising his head to look at the greenish-grey tower, only to see Academy Head Stevens standing at the balcony, Larne put his hand to his chest gave a deep bow to him before turning and leaving.
The day before, Larne received the academy head's letter that asked him to go to the academy head's office.
When Larne entered the room, Academy Head Stevens behaved politely and courteously towards him. Known that Larne was about to return to his homeland to inherit the dominion, the academy head wished him good fortune and expressed his hopes that Larne would one day become a great leader. After that, he told Larne that the academy had a bunch of old equipment that were gathering dust which he could buy should he need them for the journey.
Thanking the academy head, Larne removed the Dual Grandmaster leveled instructor badge and placed it on the table. Given that he didn't know how long it would take for him to return to Nornak City once again, Larne said that he would forever remember the ten years worth of good times he spent at the Orca Academy.
Holding the badge in his hand for quite a while, the academy head gave it back to Larne and said, "Keep it as a memento. And don't even get started about your resignation. You are our academy's pride and legend. At the very least, you can be the honorary instructor of our academy. The Orca Academy welcomes your return whenever."
After saying his farewells to Academy Head Stevens, Larne went to the armory where the training equipment for the knight and swordsmanship courses were kept. Even the training swords used by Larne's students had to be obtained from the armory before the classes start.
The supervisor of the armory, Kassim, was expecting Larne's arrival. After greeting him, he brought Larne to one of the warehouses which was packed full with various equipment.
"In here is a total of 320 training cavalry spears which will work perfectly well like a normal spear after installing the speartip. There's also 700 training swords which is usable after some sharpening. Aside from those, there are 500 diamond-shaped training shields, 150 crossbows as well as 24 full body knight armors and 220 plate armors used by heavy-armored troops. Oh, and there are also 82 sets of cavalry armor suitable for scouts," said Kassim.
Larne was quite delighted and surprised as all of the items were mostly new and weren't in need of any maintenance. Two days ago before Pella brought Krarft to Port Novo, he reported that there were no issues when he purchased provisions and horse carriages, but it wasn't the case when it came to weapons and equipment. First, the price was rather high. Secondly, most of them were not complete. While they were able to get quite a number of longswords and greatswords, they weren't able to get good armors as most of the protective equipment in the market were leather armors which were usually favored by mercenaries. Metal armors were low in supply and each set cost quite a sum as well. Additionally, there wasn't enough time to order some to be made. Now that Larne had been given access to the academy's armory, this problem was essentially solved.
"Uncle Kassim, why does our academy have so many sets of plate armor? I recall that our academy doesn't train any heavy-armored swordsmen. Also, what's with those cavalry armors? I've never seen anything like it," said Larne.
"Hehe, Landon, have you forgotten that our academy has merged with the bought Academy? These plate armors originally belonged to them. Due to the exceedingly few applicants for the heavy-armored swordsman course, the academy had it cancelled, rendering these equipment useless. They wanted to sell it off at first, but the academy head said that you might have some use for it," explained the old supervisor.
Larne laughed out shyly as he had totally forgotten that the defunct Academy mainly offered training courses for armed guards as well as supervisors. It wouldn't be weird for them to have some plate armor.
"As for these cavalry armor..." Kassim stroked his chin and tried to refresh his memory. "It seems that these were the result of a failed experiment and they have been in the warehouse for more than ten years. But the condition is definitely brand new as they have been well-maintained over the years."
"A failed experiment?"
"That's right, it must have been fifteen years already. At that time, there was a book published about the knight occupation that raised a lot of controversy. The author boldly claimed that the end of heavy-armored knights was coming and that cavalry in the future would be quick, agile and be able to employ hit-and-run tactics from far away, unlike the current fashion of battle which involves two armies charging straight on into each other. The author used the scout as an example. In one of the battles he described, a scout cavalry unit was able to totally dominate the battlefield and far exceed heavy-armored troops in both speed and performance. The author then posed a thought-provoking question: should an army unit be composed entirely of light cavalry that primarily employs hit-and-run harassment tactics on heavy-armored knights, who would win?
"Back then, the arguments between the knight training course instructors about that topic were really heated. The academy administration also got interested in the theory and believed that if they could realize the concepts described by that book, the whole occupation of the knight would change forever and thus grabbed the opportunity to begin research into lightweight cavalry troops. A research budget was then allocated to a professor that specialized in protective equipment to come out with a new type of armor suitable for lightweight cavalry. The original plan was to have 150 sets manufactured for a cavalry company to be formed to carry out the first test drill. However, the Battle of Mount Blanco happened and the 30000 mighty lightweight cavalry troops of the Khastiduna Khanate were totally decimated by the Ironguard Duchy's heavy-armored knights with only less than 4000 of them surviving during the invasion of the Empire seven years ago. As a result, the book was regarded as a huge joke and the academy also stopped the production of the armors midway, leaving the completed ones here ever since," explained Kassim.
"Oh, so that was the case," said Larne as he opened the box and took out a set of lightweight cavalry armor. Upon inspecting it, Larne got a rough idea about it.
The heavy-armored knights that were so popular in armies donned chain mails before wearing full body plate armors and had extremely good defense. Larne has also heard from Instructor Martins once that the city garrison scouts were basically issued a chain mail and a leather armor to wear over it, and the scouts of the different nations on the Elysian Continent were no different.
But the lightweight cavalry armor Larne held in his hand was an amalgamation of a plate armor and a chain mail. The chest and shoulder parts were protected by the breastplate and pauldrons while the arms and lower torso were covered by chain mail. One advantage of this combination was that its defense was superior to the common armors worn by scouts and lighter than the full body armors knights usually wore. The one drawback was that the design was not practical as it was inferior to full-plate armor in terms of defense and another layer of chain mail couldn't be worn with it because it would increase the load borne by the wearer by too much. It's no wonder nobody had found a use for it for the past 10 years. However, Larne didn't mind it and believed that the armor was indeed quite suited for scouting troops.
"Alright, I'll take all of these, Uncle Kassim. How much would all of these be?" Larne asked.
Kassim was momentarily stunned and exclaimed, "You're buying them all?! The academy head was prepared to auction them if you didn't want any, but it seems that he was worried for nothing after all. This will save me a lot of trouble from having too. Wait for a bit, let me give you a figure.
"The grand total for 320 training spears, 700 training swords, 300 training shields, 150 training crossbows, 24 knight training plate armors and 82 lightweight cavalry armors is 3836 gold coins. I've already given you a great discount for the lightweight armors at 10 gold coins each; they cost about 30 gold coins each to make back then." Kassim's arithmetic ability was quite good given the speed at which he got the total cost.
"Oh, that's right. Uncle Kassim, can I have the equipment maintenance facility fix up these items for me? I want the training spears to have the speartips installed, the swords sharpened, the shields coated with a layer of stainless steel and all the armors be engraved with the insignia of my family. I will pay for the extra cost," said Larne thankfully. The price offered by Kassim was already a third of what it would normally cost according to market price.
"Of course. The academy equipment maintainers have nothing better to do anyway and are either gambling or drinking away during the semester break. I'm sure they would be happy to be able to earn some extra cash," said Kassim as he smiled.
"That's great. I'll bring someone over in the afternoon who knows how the insignia is made. I'll also be giving the maintainers a bonus when they complete the work. Also, can I settle the bill 3 days later?" asked Larne.
"Of course, Locke," said Kassim, nodding.
....
Aje!, that fatty only left me with 3000 gold Kans to buy the equipment and weapons we need. The 300-odd weapons and several tens of armors have already cost me about 1000 gold coins.. I guess I have no choice but to sell of that building I just got to be able to afford the costs, thought Larne as he grit his teeth at the thought of having been forced by the fatty to have no choice but to inherit the position of the dominion lord.
That afternoon, Larne brought Sheams to the academy armory and briefed him about the engraving the insignia on the equipment before heading to the La Mesa Inn to see Evans. After a while of waiting, Evans showed up and was surprised to hear that Larne was about to sell off his newly-acquired building and asked him why.
Larne then told him about the situation and Evans asked him to wait before running off somewhere. He returned later with a small box in hand that contained 50 gold coin notes worth 5000 gold Kans in total.
"Brother, this is the entirety of my savings and about half of them came from the betting pool you helped out with. I know you wouldn't accept my money for nothing, so let's consider it a loan with that building as the mortgage. Write up a contract that states that you will transfer the ownership of the building to me should you be unable to pay me back 10 years later. Aside from that, the yearly rent from that building that amounts to 70-odd gold coins will be my interest for the loan. How's that?"
Evans sighed and said, "There's no problem. After all, I don't have anywhere else to spend my money anyway. If I did not have so many attachments over here, I would've loved to follow you to the Northlands, especially after seeing that damned fatty show off in front of me."
He was referring to Pella who came over to the inn two days ago with Krarft and 10 other senior students of the academy who were willing to join the expedition to throw a welcoming party. When Evans arrived, Pella told him this, "From today onward, you shall refer to me as 'Honorable Knight' because I'm now a noble and you're just a commoner. You shall show me respect," which, needless to say, enraged Evans to the max.
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Kassim laughed and said, "And there I thought that you didn't have enough money on hand. It seems that you really need these equipment quite urgently."
Larne gave a bitter laugh and said, "Uncle Kassim, you should know that the trip to the north won't be a peaceful one. Pella intends to form an army to escort the convoy back to the Northlands. It is a huge help for the academy to be able to sell me these equipment."
Kassim gave it some thought before saying, "Then, come with me. There are still two storehouses that I think you should see. Maybe they'll be quite useful to you as well."
He brought Larne to two stone rooms that was situated behind the warehouse and opened the door to one of them. Larne was greeted with a whole pile of scattered equipment that was about half a person tall.
Kassim said, "This is where we store all the broken equipment that are deemed too much of a hassle to repair. We only clean this place up once every few years. Some of them gets recycled while others go to the incinerator. I believe there should be something that you can use here. For example, look at this spear blade here. You can use it as the sharp tip of a javelin. If you need anything from here, Landon, feel free to take it. It's all free. Just tip the maintainers a bit and they'll be happy to fix them up for you."
Larne was exhilarated and he took Kassim's hand and shook it fervently. "Thank you, thank you. Uncle Kassim, you have truly helped me out immensely."
Kassim laughed loudly and said, "Don't shake so hard! This set of old bones won't be able to handle the stress! Here, this is the key for the rooms so that you can have somebody come sort it out later.'
...
After having dinner, Larne asked Rahman and Uriel to go into his study and told them about the storehouses in the armory.
Rahman was excited to hear that. So far, there were 38 senior students of the academy who were willing to join the expedition to the Northlands and Pella and Karrft brought 20 of them to Port Novo some days back. He suggested that Uriel, who was planning to bring a few others to the Kastiduna Plains to purchase some war horses, to leave a few people behind to go sort out the usable items in the storehouses.
Pella had also given Uriel 3000 gold Kans before he left to buy 200 war horses. But the price of one horse in Nornak City was at least 30 gold coins. That was why Uriel planned to go back to his homeland with a few others to purchase the horses from the breeders directly instead of letting the darned horse merchants profit.
Larne was against Uriel bringing lesser people as he would be gone for at least a month. It was safer to go in a larger group just in case something were to happen. He said that he can just hire ten students from the academy part time to clean up the storehouses and mentioned that he would go monitor them personally from time to time since he wasn't going to leave the academy anytime soon.
...