Reincarnated to the Past 33: Good and Bad (1) (Patreon)

Reincarnated to the Past
Chapter 33: Good and Bad (1)

-VB-

The tribe met our flute-whistling and loudly cheering returning march of victory (something I hadn’t known we had until others told me about it) with their own cheers.

It wasn’t until rather that I truly understood the enormity of my accomplishment, but that was for later.

Right now, I had a bigger fish to fry… or rather, I had a bigger fish to appease.

“W-Wait, wait, wait!” I yelped as my pregnant wife slapped me.

“Why did you bring more slaves, huh?! Don’t you know how hard it is to manage what we have right now?!”

All the while I was trying to tell Ureya that I brought them over to bolster the tribe, the tribe in question laughed at our married couple antics.

“Men! You just drop everything and went on a goddamn war! Do you know how hard it was to keep your people from running around like beheaded warriors?!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

A war hero, I was.

Still a woman’s man, I am.

She finally calmed down a bit after venting at me for half an hour.

“... Sorry. Welcome home, dear.”

I laughed without taking her rant too seriously. “I’m back. I got some shiny jewels for you, if you want?”

She made a disgusted face at that. “Keep those icky weird things away from me. Get me food instead.”

I snorted. “As you wish.”

It wasn’t long before the tribe hosted a feast to celebrate the victory.

Things were looking up.

-VB-

Things weren’t looking good.

Now, he found that being in charge of a city was very similar to being in charge of the tribe like his father had shown and taught him. Sure, he didn’t get most of the lessons, but he’d understood some, and put them to use now. Though he was loathed to do so at the start, he made friends with the new king of Istria to make this occupation-thing easier on him.

To his surprise, Renius agreed to try reconciliation.

“I see, so that’s how we ended up in a war,” he grunted in irritation after listening to his new advisor’s side of the story on how their two people had come to war. “To think that this was caused by a single family…”

“Yes,” Renius, the current king of Istria, gritted as he clenched his fists. “And we don’t even know the extent of what he's done to the city’s reputation.”

That worried him, but Johaken was sure that no one as great as his brother-in-law would assault the city. They still had food and weapons, so they could outlast any siege should it come down to it, especially so considering that his brother-in-law was to come back within the month.

“I… expected worse from your people.”

Johaken snorted. “I did, too. It was Alan who talked us out of it.”

“Really? The man who nearly burned our city to the ground?”

“He said it is all fair in war until there is a surrender.”

“Hmm. A merciful man.”

“You have no idea.”

And then that man got him to agree to a marriage with his sister.

“M-master J-jo-!” the girl, Renius’s sister Regia, writhed under him as he made her his. Despite being only few years younger than him, she was a beauty that had somehow not been claimed or had gone off to choose a man of her own.

Her plump breasts jumped up and down as he ravaged her womanhood with his manhood, holding her down by her wrists. Her wet brown hair clung around like the halo of the sun at dawn. Her wet eyes sparkled like morning river streams, and her pink lips just brought out … that intense desire in him.

Despite the fact that they only had a single candle to light this room this night, he could see all of her soft and glistening skin.

This was their wedding night, and he was still not sure how it came to this.

But having a beautiful woman underneath him? A woman who was now his wife and would carry his children?

He wasn’t going to regret it.

Their flesh clapped with each of his thrust, and she mewled out in ecstasy.

It wasn’t long before he held her and shot his seeds into her.

It had been great, in fact. His first wife treated him well, and he did his best to treat her well. He made sure his warriors didn’t needlessly hurt any Istrians as they were now his people-by-marriage. No one made too much of a fuss… well, except for the very few warriors who didn’t get themselves local lonely women to spend the night with.

Then it happened.

Two weeks after his brother-in-law had left to carry the news of victory and the reparations paid by the city of Istria to the tribe, the warriors stationed at the city with him had alerted him to the movement of a large body of men to the south. He came to the walls just as the sun reached its peak, and what he saw made him grimace.

Away from the Lower River Kettin tribe and the heartland of the Kettins, Johaken found himself stuck in a situation that he hadn’t predicted, foreseen, or discussed.

Another army.

He watched them come to the city’s southern gate, and then a messenger rode out.

The messenger (or was it the commander) had more decorations than actual armor. Actually, no, this couldn’t be a messenger. This had to be some pompous noble.

“I am from the city of Lygos! I bring with me two thousand soldiers to honor the alliance! Open the gate so that we may talk with the King of Istria!”

Johaken didn’t even consider it. From the battlement, he spoke down to them. “The city of Istria is no longer an independent city! It has been conquered by the Lower River Kettins! Turn and go back to your city, the war is already over! The Istrians have surrendered!”

There was a pause before the commander/noble(?) spoke up, this time rather angrily. “We too have issues with Istria like you did, Gatae! I did not think that it would be so easily conquered!”

… Ah, the fucking diplomat. This was his fault, wasn’t it? Johaken hoped to the gods that Alan and the rest of the tribe would make that bastard suffer.

“We want the king and his family! We demand justice for what they subjected us to! That is all we require!”

“I cannot follow through with your request, Lygosian!”

“... Then we will break through the gates and make you suffer.”

They weren’t even going to try and negotiate? Damnation, they really came here to burn the city down, didn’t they?

“You are welcome to try!” he spat back.

The commander rode back to the army of two thousand.

Two fucking thousand!

“Fuck…” he hissed as their archers stepped up. He turned to his warriors and the city’s native defenders. “Shields up!”

-VB-

A/N:

*Lygos is the name of Thracian city that existed before the Greek colony of Byzantion, which later became Constantinople.