Because Lucian had yet to find a way to make the ferals stay loyal for longer than a few days, he had to tag along with them, and make sure they stayed in line until he found a way to make their obedience permanent.
He could order them to listen to his Vices, but yet again, only a few days at best.
'She better take care of our child and not get into trouble,' Lucian had no choice but to neglect their child.
The only thing that kept him sane was knowing that she would never allow anything bad to happen to the child, and even though he hated to admit it, she could protect herself better than he could.
Currently, a group of ten ferals ran out of a forest and attacked the unsuspecting supply of ten wagons of the passing merchants.
The merchants, who came from the north to do business in the south, had no idea what was going on.
"Aaarrrgh!" one of them screamed in fear as the ferals attacked them, ordering the mercenary escorts to attack, "Save us!"
"Run! We must run!"
"Kill them!" The sounds of fists clashing filled the air.
Lucian, the man behind this attack, stood on top of a hill overlooking the scene, watching the events unfold through his binoculars.
The camouflage net before him allowed him to blend in with his surroundings, hiding him from sight.
Lucian had ordered his feral soldiers to ruthlessly ambush the Northern merchants' supply wagons, camps, and warehouses across the Southern Alliance.
Because the attackers appear to be wild, untamed beasts, the Northern Merchant Guild would blame the harsh Southern environment and feral outbreaks. This would destroy his rivals' logistics while granting Lucian perfect plausible deniability.
Lucian was not observing the scene alone. Accompanied by the rest of his Vices, they grouped up together, standing around him.
"The southern weather is truly something," Cansan fanned himself, his shirt unbuttoned to let the wind caress his skin.
"I still feel like a roasted pig even when the sun is hiding in the clouds," Lord As, the newly assigned Vice, said. The hat on his head was large enough to hide his entire face.
As the only northerner with a knight rank in their group, he started working as Cansan's bodyguard. A copper rank was still high enough compared to commoners, so nobody complained.
The Mad Hatter's son proved himself useful in ship building and had some experience in trading. His father went missing and he was terrified of meeting the same fate, begging Lucian to take him in his ranks.
He earned his Vice title because of his luck and the fact that he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. It became a running joke between the members to be at the opposite side of the battlefield as him.
He could play for both sides, accepting bribes from Lucian's enemies, and selling them false information. He had the face of a scumbag that would do anything to save his own ass, and the fact that Lucian was giving him a Vice title only helped strengthen his position as a double spy.
One would wonder how Lucian kept him on a leash, but it was simple, truly.
Lucian handed him a vial with an antidote for the poison that was already spreading in his body.
Lord As quickly gulped down the contents and sighed in relief. It was just a safety measure, which he believed in.
"Any new ideas on how to make this operation go smoother?" Lucian asked his Vices, keeping an eye on the battle from afar.
"..." The silence from his Vices was deafening.
"Nobody?"
"..." Another round of silence.
They were on their way to take control of the gold mines, and they needed to come up with a strategy to sustain its operation. Which included, but was not limited to, finding a way to keep it safe, a way to transport the gold, and a way to sell it.
Lucian had no time to deal with every little detail himself, so how to sustain his army of ferals became his vices' responsibility.
He just gave them four hundred new mouths to feed.
Four. Hundred. Including the mines' workers.
As if the work pilling on their shoulders was not enough.
They were currently following Lucian's orders, attacking their targets, but what was going to happen after that?
Were they going to be released back in the wild?
They were not.
They needed a long term solution.
The first to answer was Cansan, the smartest among them. But he was a northerner who had little to no knowledge of how the South worked, despite having a wife from the south.
Lucian waved away the idea as soon as Cansan finished talking.
"We can plant and harvest our own food," Goblin suggested, "The demand for gardeners in the north is going to drop soon due to the war, and they'll be willing to work in the south as long as the pay is right."
"What food?" Lucian didn't shrug off his idea as quickly. Southerners depended mostly on animal products to sustain their lifestyle, "We are not planting a potato field and waiting for it to grow while our people die of hunger."
"If we can build greenhouses for cold climates, we can build ones for hot climates, too. I've been thinking about it for a while. They will be cheaper and faster to build," Goblin explained his idea further.
It would be like a large shade canopy that would block the heat from reaching the crops and protect them from drought and harsh sunlight. Since he worked on building and managing the greenhouses, it was obviously the first idea he thought of.
Lucian didn't really like the idea, so he waited for another Vice to speak up.
"Women will be handling most of the logistics during war, we can take advantage of that," Mumbai spoke up next, her voice low, "Shipping them ingredients for preparing long lasting rations and collecting them will be cheaper and more effective than processing our own food."
The Glory in the south were experts in moving and transporting goods, not food production. Mumbai's idea was much closer to their expertise.
The idea would also serve Lucian's plan of gaining some military contribution points to his name. Helping sustain an army would be enough proof that he had contributed to their victory.
Weapons were a no go, because that would show his support for "violence" in the eyes of the public, and his position as a neutral party would be compromised.
He couldn't depend on the previous system the gold mine had, which would highly be affected by the war.
"Can you handle the local transport and storage?" Lucian asked her, and she nodded, "Then it is settled. I'll be relying on you."
"W-wait," Cansan was about to protest, hugging Mumbai protectively to his side.