Chapter 24: Unequal Distribution
"You came to me and without hesitation asked me to give you the gold bar. Judging by the authority Camel commanded at the time, you shouldn't have been so confident." Rolf immediately clarified his question.
Surprised that Rolf could even consider such a complex question, Ian's expression froze for a moment before he slowly spoke: "The reason I was confident in turning Camel's sworn men against him is..."
Ian pondered for a moment before voicing an old principle: "Men don't resent scarcity—they resent inequality."
"Men don't resent scarcity, but inequality?" Rolf repeated Ian's words, clearly not fully grasping their meaning.
"Do you know why I had you throw those eighty gold dragons?" Ian asked.
"You couldn't get too close, or the sellswords would become wary," Rolf speculated.
Ian nodded—Rolf was half right, but he didn't say so aloud. "Because I wanted those sellswords still loyal to Camel to watch their companions dividing the coin, to see those shining gold dragons scattered across the ground.
You see, in the eyes of Camel's sworn men, the sellswords who surrounded me were nothing but turncoats, traitors, and scum.
But it was this group of scum—these former companions who'd been no different from them moments before—who suddenly divided up a fortune of eighty gold dragons.
Camel's men had risked their lives countless times to earn a few silver stags, barely enough to live well for a handful of days. Meanwhile, this lot did nothing. Literally nothing. They simply swore an oath before me. No fighting, no risk, no blood.
These traitors each pocketed over ten gold dragons for nothing, while the loyal men received precisely fuck-all for their honor.
And I made them watch helplessly as the traitors divided the coin. It was killing them inside."
Rolf remained silent, but his expression betrayed his surprise.
"Just as Camel's sworn men were consumed by jealousy and regret," Ian continued, slowing his tone, "I gave them another chance to take the money. But this time I sweetened the pot: the eighty-dragon bounty became one hundred and fifty, and I offered them the possibility of knighthood. And then—crack—their defenses shattered completely."
After absorbing Ian's words, Rolf was silent for a long moment before bowing his head respectfully. "Thank you for the lesson, my lord."
Ian smiled in return, deeply satisfied with the outcome of this conversation.
Despite his eloquent explanation, the truth could be summed up in one sentence: confidence is a product of hindsight.
Because it had already happened, and he'd succeeded, whatever he said now would sound brilliant.
As for his actual confidence in turning Camel's men against him?
Come on, what confidence? He'd simply tried.
If there was any confidence at all, it was merely the confidence to escape if the attempt failed.
As he'd calculated before, Camel only had five horses. If Ian had simply turned and fled, Camel could only have brought four men in pursuit.
With Kevan and Rolf's strength, defeating fifteen sellswords might have been difficult, but handling five would be no problem. After all, they were elite units on par with the Warrior's Sons and the Raven's Teeth!
Rolf and Kevan had confirmed this in battle. The two of them taking on four mounted sellswords, including Camel, had been as easy as butchering chickens.
Of course, he couldn't say any of this to Rolf.
His explanation served simply to build his reputation.
After all, Rolf didn't strike him as an NPC with simple AI, but rather as a normal human with independent thought. With such an NPC, Ian would need to rely on demonstrated competence to maintain their respect and loyalty.
"Rewarded NPCs guarantee absolute loyalty," Annie's voice suddenly echoed in Ian's mind, refuting his assumption.
"Oh? How do you guarantee that?"
"The S-rank NPCs rewarded by the system are religious devotees trained in this world from childhood by the organizers. Their loyalty can even surpass that of the Unsullied."
"Trained by the organizers? No wonder there are long-extinct orders among the options." Ian nodded thoughtfully.
"In their minds," Annie ignored Ian's comment and continued, "the players they're assigned to serve are incarnations of their gods. Therefore, while all reward NPCs are real people with diverse life experiences, they will remain absolutely loyal to their assigned players and won't question any decisions."
"So you're using religious indoctrination to explain away the strange behavior among players?" Ian began to understand. "That way, the core NPCs trusted by players won't be suspicious of eccentric actions or anachronistic knowledge the players might reveal.
But why use native people as NPCs at all? Wouldn't it be simpler to deploy androids modeled on real people and give them AI?"
"Our laws prohibit the deployment of sentient AI in humanoid androids," Annie explained. "In short, using native people from this world as NPCs helps enhance the player's 'immersive experience.'"
Ian scoffed. Only a fool would believe that explanation.
After all, they'd already transported consciousness to a real world. Why would they need to enhance 'immersion'? If they truly wanted immersion, wouldn't it be more effective to simply disable the system interface entirely?
Annie's initial comment about their prohibition on sentient AI better explained this restriction. After all, Ian had long suspected the game's organizers were from some advanced post-scarcity civilization.
(This setting doesn't affect the plot; readers can assume this civilization is our own future, or an alternate timeline where VR technology reached its apex.)
But there was no point dwelling on this. What mattered more was that after confirming the nature of these "religious devotee" NPCs, Ian no longer had to watch his words around them, nor fabricate elaborate stories to cover up his changed identity or future plans, and certainly didn't need to worry about their loyalty.
Gods, how could there be such a perfect reward?
After learning about the religious devotees, Ian's mood brightened considerably, and he looked back at his two new subordinates with fresh appreciation.
"My lord, where do we ride now?" Rolf asked, seeing Ian emerge from his reverie.
As for why Ian had suddenly drifted into silence, neither Rolf nor Kevan expressed confusion. Don't all holy men do such things when communing with the divine?
Ian smiled slightly at that thought. Let them believe what they would.
"We ride south," Ian said finally, his mind already working through the next steps. "We've spilled enough blood in the Riverlands for now. Time to see what opportunities await us elsewhere."
"As you command," both knights replied in unison.
As they mounted their horses and prepared to depart, Ian cast one last look at the salt pans behind them—at the site of his first true test in this world.
He'd passed that test, but at a cost he was still tallying. Not in gold or blood, but in the pieces of himself he'd left behind. The man who'd arrived in Westeros wouldn't have ordered the slaughter of surrendering men. The man he was becoming had done so without hesitation.
This world changes you, Ian thought. The question is how much of yourself you can keep.
He turned his horse south and didn't look back again.
(End of Chapter)
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