After resolving the dispute between the three, another person entered the lord's hall. Wearing a short-sleeved tunic, he claimed to be an envoy from a tribe in Pomerania, requesting the demarcation of borders between their two lands.
"Please wait in the adjacent room."
Having sent the envoy away, Niels delivered a piece of bad news to Princess Eve. "Young Erik heard you were here and specifically wrote to me, asking me to send you back."
In the letter, the reason Young Erik provided was that the old king missed his daughter. Niels did not believe a single word of this nonsense.
The more likely scenario was that Young Erik worried his sister Eve would marry Niels, and any offspring from their union would possess a claim to the Norwegian crown. Moreover, Eve was fiercely ambitious and thirsty for power; there was no telling if she might one day incite Niels to attack Oslo, threatening his own rule.
To persuade Niels to return Eve, Young Erik subtly mentioned in the letter that once his sister safely returned home, he would withdraw the garrison from Zealand and hand over control of the region.
"Zealand."
According to their previous agreement, Zealand was to be granted to the surrendered noble, Farvel. This man had been pestering Niels lately, demanding his fiefdom almost every single day. His constant complaining was unsettling the remaining local nobles, making them doubt whether Niels genuinely accepted their surrender.
'I cannot delay this any longer. I need to get rid of this chattering raven as soon as possible!'
Making up his mind, Niels summoned one of his personal guards. "Select a sturdy and durable longship to escort the princess back to Oslo."
Turning his head, he looked at the panicked Eve. "Relax, kinslaying is despised by the gods. Young Erik will not kill you. Instead, he will send you into the temple to serve as a shaman. Ah, you will never have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of your life, staying far away from slaughter and backbreaking labor. This is a good life that the common folk can only dream of."
"No, I refuse to paint those ridiculous patterns on my face, and I do not want to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms!" Eve threw herself in front of Niels, clutching the hem of his clothes and weeping uncontrollably. "Do you still remember the words you said back then?"
"Of course. You truly held a place in my heart, but that was just the foolish delusion of a pitiful farmer. It has long dissipated with the passage of time."
Saying this, Niels pulled the woman's arms away and signaled his guards to take her away. "We are both nobles of status now. Calm down and stop making a scene in public, lest you make a laughingstock of us before our subordinates."
Realizing the situation was irreversible, Eve's spirit suddenly broke. She stumbled two steps back in a daze, tears falling uncontrollably. "You are right. I only have myself to blame. I misjudged you."
"No, you did not misjudge me; you simply chose the wrong time. Back then, the young raider Niels would have given everything for you. But over a decade has flashed by. The current Lord of Denmark, Niels, is already married and has much more important matters to attend to."
Taking one last look at the princess, Niels felt not a shred of affection left in his heart. Instead, a wave of regret washed over him. How incredibly foolish he had been in his youth, wasting so much energy on such trivial matters.
'Indulging in sentimentality is exactly why I fell behind Ivar, Viggo, and Gunnar. Those three were ruthless enough to focus entirely on expanding their power, becoming illustrious dukes. In comparison, my past self was stupider than a pig. I truly want to slap that version of me across the face.'
Having severed his past, Niels received a satisfactory reward: Zealand. He immediately urged Farvel to clear out and claim his fief, lest he continue to agitate the people in Schleswig.
By August, the situation in Denmark had yet to stabilize. Niels was overwhelmed, frantically dealing with rebellions both large and small. In particular, some Viking farmers discovered that their lords were actually Angles, causing their resentment to skyrocket. "In the past, it was always the Vikings raiding the Angles of Britannia. But now, we have Angles acting as tyrants over us! What is the meaning of this? Revolt!"
In response, Niels's stance was one of resolute suppression. He had brought one thousand five hundred Angle militiamen from Nottingham, and roughly one thousand two hundred still remained. More than a dozen leaders had become earls and barons, while the rest became knights, retainers, and minor landowners, forming Niels's core faction.
In his eyes, these Angle militiamen were in a foreign land and could only rely on him, making their loyalty far surpass that of the raiders and sailors.
'These damn Viking barbarians! On the surface, they oppose the Angle lords, but in reality, they are pointing their spears at me. I must strike back hard and teach them a lesson they will never forget!'
While Niels was flipping through his ledgers and busy preparing supplies, a subordinate from the Royal Guard sought him out. "General, I have finally found you! For the sake of our past camaraderie, please lend your brothers a hand. Our rations are running dangerously low."
'What?'
'I conquered Denmark with just over two thousand militiamen. You had one thousand five hundred armored soldiers, along with hundreds of berserkers from the Swords of the North, and you still managed to lose?'
Utterly speechless, Niels asked his old subordinate to explain their situation.
"...Gothenburg has fallen, and we had nowhere else to go. We forcibly breached the palisades of Kalmar, but unfortunately, the defenders took all the ships when they fled. Everyone had to start building ships from scratch. As soon as the first one was finished, they sent me here to ask for reinforcements."
Well, he was genuinely appalled by the incompetence of these fools. Even if it were one thousand five hundred wild boars clad in iron armor, they probably could have bulldozed their way through all of Sweden.
Leaning back in his chair, Niels pondered for a long time. Ultimately, he decided to help this detachment of the Royal Guard, if only to give Ragnar a symbolic explanation.
Taking out what little remained of his grain reserves, Niels led five hundred men on ships heading north. They hugged the coastline until they reached the homeland he had been away from for years—he, Ragnar, and Gunnar had once been mere rural farmers in the Kalmar region.
Upon meeting again and seeing the grain loaded on the longships, "White Hair" Oleg reverted to his former title of address. "Your Excellency, General, you have finally arrived."
"What else could I do? Sit back and watch the Royal Guard be entirely annihilated, letting one thousand five hundred sets of iron armor fall into the hands of the Allied Forces?"
Niels's gaze swept over the mid-level officers before he took the lead, striding toward the towering lord's longhouse. The others followed closely behind, tacitly acknowledging his return to command.
After entering the building, he spent half an hour understanding the situation and calculating the disparity in strength between the enemy and themselves. He decided to simply abandon the idea of reclaiming Gothenburg and instead lead the army straight north toward Stockholm.
Niels provided the following reasons:
"Grain. Denmark has suffered from the ravages of war, and we cannot find much food in the storehouses. Gothenburg and Kalmar have both been reduced to battlefields and are equally incapable of supporting this army. Our only viable plan now is to head north and attack Stockholm, gathering rations along the way. If we fail to capture it, the worst-case scenario is that we commandeer whatever food we find and return to Denmark. At the very least, we will be able to survive this year."
This proposal received unanimous approval from the Royal Guard. Halfdan had recently been intentionally or unintentionally marginalized by the others, reducing his say in matters to almost zero. He silently obeyed the order.
The next day, two thousand five hundred soldiers packed up all their remaining grain and departed from Kalmar. They marched north along the Swedish East Coast, plundering grain and livestock along the way. Traveling in a start-and-stop manner, they managed to arrive in Stockholm by late August.