Alexander Smith
"What do you think Joshua?" Alex asks.
"Nothing good bro. The timing is odd. It hasn't even been a month since we began harvesting the first batch of salt and the pirates have already heard about it? What's the odd of it? News don't spread that fast in this world given how primitive communication technology is. Cultivators are definitely involved for news to travel this fast." Joshua voices his suspicion.
Their barony has been quiet ever since they moved into the barony two and a half Earth months ago. Translated into cultivation world time frame, nothing eventful has happened for two and half years. That is quite a long time of peace and quite and just less than a month after the barony started selling salt to the rest of the kingdom, pirates start knocking at their front door. Alex shares his brother sentiment that this is not a coincidence.
Construction of the salt evaporation fields didn't take long. What took months are the process of evaporating seawater over multiple stages until it turns into brine with sufficient saturation level. It is only when brine has formed that the family can start the process of turning it into salt crystals, make a final round of refinement and harvest the end products for sales. The whole evaporation process to obtain brine would have taken even longer if not for the fact that the entire family have been regularly casting spells to accelerate the whole process.
Alex can guess what attracted the pirates' attention is the quality of the salt they produced. Even when the family has been trying to hold back, the salt produced are still far superior to all other salt produced or imported by the kingdom. Salt with high impurities could potentially lead to health hazard in the long term and he couldn't in good conscience feed his peasants with such inferior products or sell it to others. What they say about selfish people without principles living an easier life is true in this case. He wouldn't have attracted the attention of pirates anytime soon if he could just blend in and produce salt of inferior quality like the rest of the kingdom.
The barony only has a small population of six hundred peasant households. With most of the land being left uncultivated, the barony doesn't depict a place of great prosperity and wealth. With three cultivators in the second major realm protecting the barony, it doesn't seem worth the effort for the pirates to intentionally organize a targeted raid. Salt may be valuable but Alex has been careful enough to control production to less than a quarter of what the dutchies and royal family are able to produce. There is no reason for the three most powerful families in the kingdom to covet the family's business operating at such a small scale after the ridiculous tax rate they ended up paying. The total tax imposed on his family's salt business is a hefty seventy percent tax rate and this was after Alex lobbied for the Duke Of Romana's intervention.
Under normal arrangement, Alex just need to pay his taxes directly to his duke and whatever tax owed to the kingdom is between the dutchy and the royal family. The superior salt he produces somehow attracted the royal tax agent to their door step and demanded a thirty percent tax on all salt produced. There is no way he will stand for such a ludicrous demand. For all the effort put into production, it is daylight robbery that they are only left with twenty percent of their harvest. The whole fiasco has proven that his duke is one sleazy scumbag that can't be trusted. Instead of protecting his vassal, he has the audacity to say that he has managed to reduce the tax to twenty percent and he should pay up to avoid royal displeasure. Another stark reminder of the abuse of power and tyranny by the royal family that is notoriously common during medieval times. Henry even suspects the royal tax collector arrival is instigated by their pompous neighbor, Charles. He is the only one with a sufficient close tie to the royal city to pull off such a stunt. Another supporting reason is he had been ignoring our barony for two and half years labelling us as foreign bumpkins unworthy of his association. All that changes when the superior salt we are selling became famous in the local region. The amount of petty and bogus complains coming from Charles every few days has been frustratingly annoying. If Alex doesn't have to take the Count Of Winsloff into the equation. he would have just invaded Barony Of Milton and solve the problem once and for all.
"At least none of the pirates managed to escape. Edward seems to have a great time taking them down. I suspect this is just a probe and if they have not severely underestimated our strength, they probably would have fled after exchanging blows for a few rounds. My gut is telling me our lovely neighbor is somehow behind this as well." Alex thinks out loud. Not sure if it is plain coincidence, the pirate fleet came from the South West side of the island steering clear of the Barony Of Milton. The fleet consist of three brigantines each captained by a cultivator in the second major realm.
The whole combat didn't last long when Alex managed to ambush the pirate fleet. Thanks to the radar and surveillance equipment installed in the mage tower, the family detected the fleet approach miles before they are even visible on the horizon. Alex, Joshua and Edward managed to sneak up to the fleet with a scroll of invisibility and launched a surprise attack. Each of them used two level three flame strike talismans on their designated captain followed up by an all-out attack that nearly wipe out all the pirate captains. Within a minute, Alex and Joshua took out their target and with their assistance, Edward's target soon perished as well and the rest of the pirate crew quickly surrendered after that. Edward is now on one of the pirate ship overseeing his undead skeletal army chaining up the surrendered captives.
"I wouldn't be surprised that the slimeball has been colluding with pirates. He has been jealously eyeing our salt evaporation fields since we went to his barony to sell salt. With his puny little mind, i can already guest what he is plotting. Pirates for whatever reason once again raided and massacred the entire Barony Of Redshore population. With the barony being left without a lord again, he would happily swooped in and "liberate" the barony from pirate incursion thus becoming its new lord." Joshua adds in. "His idea is so plain obvious that he might as well just come over and declare war. His barony has one of the two minor ports serving the Southern side of the island. The commerce alone generates far more income than our barony. Anyone with a brain can see that any pirate would go after his barony first before coming after ours."
"He is dumb alright but I highly doubt that slimeball will give up after this setback." Alex agrees with his brother before continuing to figure out their next step. "What we need to do now is bring all those captives back to the fortress without anyone the wiser. This should buy us some time before the slimeball realize something went wrong and instigate the pirates to raid us again. We need to drag this out for another two and half years. Once I breakthrough to a Mage, I can deal with any pirates that came our way. It's frustrating that we can't even depend on the royal family or duke to protect us after all the taxes we ended up paying. Bloody thieves! Any bright idea, Joshua?"
"I do have a rough idea in mind and it's going to be expensive. If we are lucky, we probably won't see another pirate fleet for another two or three months. When the pirates come knocking, we should do it openly and above board wiping out the entire fleet in plain view. Since they lost three ships this time, I suspect they will be sending more the next time round. I am thinking we reveal the existence of James and Jane for the next battle. They should wear a mask and after battling whichever pirate captain they are engaged with for a while, they should take their opponent down with a suicide vest. We can pay the sect to revive James and Jane with their cultivation intact. If Edward and you also pretend to be grievously injured, I am quite confident that slimeball won't be able to hold himself back from declaring war on us with some half-ass excuse. A typical barony like us even if we have kept a few powerful cultivators hidden would have at most five second major realm cultivators. Six might be plausible but so what? We have lost two and two others are severely injured. There is no way they could be able to guess that we could revive James and Jane and the barony actually have eight cultivators in the second major realm. Whatever excuses he gave, we should just pretend to submit and drags out the negotiation for as long as we could. That slimeball will then have to muster his army to invade us. If all goes well, that should drag everything along for another four or five months. Winning should be a piece of cake but it is crucial we take Charles and whoever other nobles he ropes in captive. We can then ransom them back to his father and other noble families and drags out the negotiation for another two to three months. If all goes well, that should buy us a year time? We are still one and half year short though."