NEC Chapter 19: The Mercenary’s Tale  

The wine on the airship came at a steep price. 

Fortunately, Luke’s tastes were modest. A bottle of cheap swill costing fifteen coppers was enough to satisfy him. 

Chen Mo didn’t dare try it. The pungent stench when he uncorked the bottle was enough to make him recoil. 

As for the mid-tier wine at forty coppers a bottle, Luke’s excited expression showed it was a luxury in his world. 

For Luke, taking on the Cloudmist Domain’s guide job meant he couldn’t accept other tasks, but chatting idly while being gifted wine was like stumbling into extra coin for free. 

He held nothing back, spilling all he knew. 

“When I was young, I spent some time in the Silver Alliance. Now that’s a real paradise!” 

“Guess how many local-born folks in the Silver Alliance are registered mercenaries?” 

“Nope, guess again!” 

Seizing the chance to show off, Luke let out a hearty laugh. 

“Haha, you’d never guess, not even if your life depended on it! In the whole Silver Alliance, not a single local works as a mercenary. Every grunt in the guilds, running errands and risking their necks, is an outsider, a penniless drifter!” 

He took a swig of wine, his tone dripping with envy. “They’ve got mines! A nation built on silver mountains, that’s them. Kids there are born with silver trinkets around their necks worth more than I’ve scraped together in half a lifetime!” 

“Jealous? Ha, no use being jealous!” 

Luke hailed from the Mirror Lake Kingdom, the nominal ruler of the land where Black Crow Castle stood. Calling it a kingdom was generous—it was smaller than a single duchy in the neighboring Crescent Moon Dynasty. 

The kingdom’s fertile lands had long been carved away in wars, leaving only barren hills, treacherous swamps, and ferocious beasts. If you didn’t risk your life as a mercenary, what else was there? 

“Look at the kingdoms with the most registered mercenaries. Which ones aren’t constantly at war, barely catching a few years of peace?” Luke wiped the wine from his lips, his voice growing somber. “The scarcer the grain, the cheaper the lives.” 

Chen Mo had pulled out a small notebook at some point, quietly jotting down notes. He looked up and asked, “I heard someone say, ‘A mercenary without a guild is worse than a dog.’ What’s that mean?” 

Luke slapped his thigh. “Oh, kid, you’re lucky you ran into me. Don’t ever say that in front of a mercenary—you’ll get a beating.” 

He glanced around nervously and lowered his voice. “That saying doesn’t just insult mercenaries, it insults guilds too. Whoever told you that is asking for trouble.” 

Chen Mo calmly pointed toward the boarding area. “A centaur said it.” 

“…Well, never mind then!” 

Shaking his head helplessly, Luke began to explain. 

“The saying means two things. First, mercenary guilds are the kingdoms’ dogs. Second, a mercenary without a guild is less than a dog.” 

“Pretty harsh, right?” 

Seeing Chen Mo’s eager expression, Luke uncorked the bottle again, took a small sip, exhaled a cloud of boozy breath, and launched into a detailed explanation for the young mage. 

“Mercenary guilds do the kingdoms’ dirty work.” 

“You think the guild hands out tasks willy-nilly? Not a chance! Every task needs approval from the local guild’s overseers.” 

“Otherwise, some fool might post a job to assassinate a noble, and that’d be chaos.” 

“When a noble wants someone dealt with quietly, mercenaries are the perfect tool. No need to get their hands dirty. Post a task, and mercenaries will scramble to take it.” 

Luke’s explanation was rambling, but Chen Mo, drawing on his modern education, quickly grasped the logic. 

A state is a tool for the ruling class to maintain power. 

To wield that tool effectively, it tightly controls all forces of violence. 

On the Starry Continent, mercenary guilds were a collection of civilian armed forces, inevitably under strict state oversight. No king would tolerate such power existing outside their control. 

To put it bluntly, if a mercenary guild became an untamed force, the kingdom’s ruler might soon find themselves replaced. 

From this angle, mercenary guilds could be loosely seen as state-regulated security associations. 

Their primary role was issuing tasks to meet the needs of the kingdom or its elites—needs unsuited for official forces but perfect for hired muscle. 

Their second role was managing individual mercenaries: registration, advancement, and job changes. This generated revenue while keeping a tight leash on these civilian forces. 

Finally, when needed, the state could directly conscript mercenary forces. 

The continent’s rules were clear: individual mercenaries could roam freely without national allegiance, but guilds had to be registered with a clear homeland, deeply tied to their nation. 

A Sky Empire mercenary might work for Frostfire, but a Sky Empire guild would never turn its weapons on its own country. 

Otherwise, their hard-earned guild credentials, industry reputation, and costly task bonds would vanish in an instant. 

From that perspective, guilds were indeed dogs, no question. 

So why were guildless mercenaries less than dogs? 

If you didn’t join a guild and clearly declare your allegiance, you were barred from lucrative tasks. 

What about the stubborn ones who craved freedom and shunned guilds? 

“They scrape by on guild handouts,” Luke said, patting his chest. “Me and a few old buddies, we’re that kind of free mercenary squad. No backing, just grunts doing the grunt work or cannon fodder if we joined a guild.” 

“Better to go it alone. It’s tougher, sure, but there are always tasks the big guilds don’t want. Big guilds pass them to smaller guilds, smaller guilds to unregistered adventurer bands, and those bands toss the scraps to lone wolves like us.” 

Talk about subcontracting… 

Chen Mo scribbled notes furiously and raised another question. “Uncle Luke, I’m still curious. 

Why take tasks the guilds don’t want? Can’t they just refuse?” 

The question seemed to hit a nerve. Luke took a big gulp of wine and stared at Chen Mo. 

“Kid, how are you this naive…” 

“Didn’t I tell you? Guilds are dogs. Dogs don’t get to pick what they do.” 

“You’re told to lick a plate, you lick the plate. Told to lick a ditch, you lick the ditch!” He shook the bottle hard, its base thumping the deck with a dull thud. “Take our Mirror Lake Kingdom. Every guild gets a yearly quota of supply transport tasks. Grueling work, pitiful pay. 

No big guild wants it.” 

“But dare you refuse? Try it, and you’ll be dealt with. So those hot potatoes get passed down, layer by layer, until they land on the heads of bottom-feeders like us.” 

Chen Mo got it. Tasks were mandatory, divvied up like quotas. 

From kingdom to guild to mercenary to adventurer, the control system was airtight. 

This was the real world. 

Meanwhile, Luke, after another swig, let loose completely. 

Muttering and sighing, his words grew slurred. 

“Damn… freedom!” 

“No strength… no freedom. No backer… no strength!” 

“Kid… the mercenaries who call the shots… just a handful of big shots. The rest of us… just scraping by… all wretched souls…” 

Luke’s voice faded, growing fainter until it was replaced by heavy snores. 

Chen Mo quietly picked up Luke’s tattered cloak and draped it over his curled-up form. Looking up at the darkening sky, he saw a river of stars. 

>>> NEXT CHAPTER