4 Chapter 4

Roland woke up, feeling refreshed. He knew he was in great shape for the duel later today. He had a plan and if eveything went as he expected it to, he could speed up the production of his army. He went to the dining room and ate breakfeast. After he found out 2 weeks ago that the maid who bumped into him was a great cook, he put her in charge of all his meals. He also found out her name was Alice. While he was eating, he asked the AI chip to display some weapons he could make for his personal safety. Roland knew he could win the duel and had great bodyguards in the Swordbots, but he wanted something he could use himself, in case something unexpected happened. The AI chip came up with some great ideas for the current him.

[Vibrating Steel Longsword (needs 0.5Ag to function): A sword that uses vibration to make it easier to cut through a variety of materials. Able to cut through a 1cm thick steel plate. Needed: 15kg of iron ore.]

[Lenka 9mm Handgun: A standard military handgun used in the 23th century. Needed: 7kg of iron ore.]

[Lenka 9mm Standard Bullet: The standard bullet for the Lenka 9mm Handgun. Needed: 1kg of iron ore and 0.5kg of sand for 1 magazine of 20 bullets.]

[Lenka 9mm AP Bullet: Armor piercing bullet for the Lenka 9mm Handgun. Needed 1.2kg of iron ore, 0.8kg of sand for 1 magazine of 16 bullets.]

He ordered the Builderbots to make a Vibrating Steel Longsword, a Lenka 9mm Handgun, 3 magazines of Standard Bullets and 1 magazine of AP Bullets. When everything was done, Roland took his new weapons and went back to Rowe Castle. The duel was going to take place at the training yard of the castle. When he arrived, Clyde, Albert and his father, Anton, had already arrived. Roland went and greeted his father and the guests.

"Greetings, father. Viscount Carmen. Clyde."

"Let's just start with the duel. You lost once, and you will again." Said Clyde, making it obvious he didn't put Roland in his eyes.

"Fine." Roland agreed, because he too wanted to end this quickly.

Roland and Clyde went to the middle of the training yard and then Anton drew a circle around them, using chalk. Stepping out of the circle, being knocked out or dying meant losing the duel. They both drew their sword, took a combat stance and waited for the starting signal. Then Anton shouted "Start!". And the fight started. Everyone was expecting Clyde to defeat Roland easily once again. However Roland merely swung his sword once and decapitated Clyde. The fight ended in less than 10 seconds. His father started laughing and his father's retainers were cheering for his win. Until they saw viscount Albert Carmen rushing at Roland, sword drawn, ready to avenge his son. He was screaming while madly rushing at Roland. In the Rowe barony, no one could stop a Level 3 Knight and everyone once again thought that Roland was going to die. That was until... BANG! They heard a loud noise and then Albert looked like he'd run into a wall and collapsed to the ground, blood coming out of his head.

Roland had loaded his gun with the AP Bulllets, just to be safe, and shot Albert in the head. Everything went according to his plans. He would first kill Clyde and then Albert would try to take vengeance. Although he didn't expect Albert to immediately attack, he expected Albert would try to do something a bit more sneaky. Regardless of the outcome, you can't hold a grudge or take revenge because of a duel. Doing so would break the rules of aristocracy. So the fact that Albert directly attacked him made his plans much more easy. It could be used as justification to occupy the Carmen family's viscounty, which he was planning to do. He told his father about what he was going to do and rushed off before his father could object. While running, he ordered his Swordbots to meet him on the way to the Carmen viscounty. He could order al his Bots through his AI chip, regardless of distance.

On the border between the barony and the viscounty, Albert had placed almost all of his family's troops, wanting to take over the barony after the duel. About 100 swordsmen, 250 spearmen, 50 archers, 12 various Level Apprentice Knights and 5 Level 1 Knights. They were waiting for further orders, when Roland and his Swordbots arrived. They came closer and the commander of these troops shouted for them to stop. Roland ignored him, took out his Lenka 9mm and shot the commander. He then ordered his Swordbots to kill them all. The soldiers tried to put up some resistance, but it was futile. Arrows bounced off of the Swordbots and the Level 1 knights couldn't even cut through them with their swords, let alone the sword- and spearmen. It was a complete massacre, cut off limbs and blood flying everywhere. 10 minutes later everything became quiet. All the Carmen family's troops were dead. The last obstacle between him and a viscounty full of resources was gone. The biggest reason he wanted to obtain the Carmen family's assets, was because they had 5 private iron mines and 2 private copper mines. If he had those, his army could be built much faster. They moved on and soon came to the Carmen family castle. Roland ordered for everyone inside to be killed, removing future troubles. The rest of the viscounty surrendered after that.

He had already occupied the Carmen viscounty, now he needed to find a way to keep it. Roland wrote a letter to King Francois Hildegard, detailing what happened and asked if he could be conferred as the new viscount. The king would most likely agree, he already killed off the Carmen family and occupied their fief with a just cause. After sending the letter, he went out to inspect his new fief.