Imperial Crown.

Chapter 71 A Cruel Journey

Raven nodded slightly after hearing this. This solved a puzzle that he had always had - since the Bloody Highlands were full of bandits, who should they rob?

You can't just rob each other, so you have a perpetual motion machine, right?
Now the answer is clear. Where there are settlements, there will naturally be commerce. Where there is commerce, there will be money, which is how so many bandits can be supported.

"It was in the Bilgewater Oasis that I...made my first mistake."

Simon paused, his face a little gloomy: "We shouldn't have gone there, but everyone was too tired, so we stayed at an inn called 'Sand Fox House'."

"We maintained the utmost vigilance, drank our own water and ate our own food, but... accidents still happened."

"There was a kid who looked only about 14 or 15 years old. He took a fancy to Woz's leather armor and said he wanted to take it off as protection money. Of course, Woz ignored him."

"Then, he said he would kill Woz if he didn't give it to him. Woz laughed, and so did we." Simon's mouth twitched, with grief and self-blame in his eyes: "Then... he pierced Woz's heart with a dagger!"

"What!?" Mosingan's face was full of surprise: "How... is this possible? That's really a child, not a dwarf or a dwarf?"

"Nothing surprising." It was Eric who answered him, with a hint of helplessness on his face: "In the environment of Bloody Heights, even a saint would become corrupted, let alone a child who grew up there."

"Yeah, but unfortunately, Woz was already dead when we realized this." Simon sighed. "I killed the little devil myself to avenge Woz, but I stirred up a hornet's nest. Everyone in the tavern stood against us. Fortunately, many of them were drunk, so we formed a formation and fought our way out. We fled on horseback, but we didn't have time to take away three horses."

"Woz's body...wasn't even recovered!"

These words moved Gao Er and the others deeply. As members of the Eagle Army, they could all empathize with the humiliation and unwillingness.

Simon's emotions only intensified, his eyes were slightly red, and the veins in his neck bulged.

He took a deep breath to calm himself, lowered his head, and said in a suppressed voice:

"For the next period of time, we learned our lesson and never approached the settlement again. At the same time, for safety reasons, we chose to hide during the day and move out at night. We continued to survey and map, and gradually expanded the scope of our activities. We surveyed six nests of horse thieves."

"At that time, more than half a month had passed since we climbed the Bloody Heights, and more than two-thirds of our food had been consumed. Without a stable supply, we should have left, but..."

Recalling the scene at that time, Simon's eyes began to become blurred and evasive, with a hint of pain and suffering, but he still clenched his teeth:

“But I made a second mistake.”

"On the way back, when we passed through the Rustwater Oasis, we found... Woz's body, hanging naked on a pillar at the entrance of the oasis!"

"It was very cold at that time. His body was frozen stiff, but he still had a smile on his face. He seemed to have become a target, with wounds all over his body."

"So..." Simon took a deep breath and said, "So, we unanimously decided to take back Woz's body under the cover of night. We thought, at least, he should return to his home."

"But... just as we were approaching the entrance, a lot of horse thieves emerged from the Rustwater Oasis!"

"From their shouting, I knew we were fooled."

Simon sniffed and his body began to tremble. "It turns out that the largest group of horse thieves there, led by 'Sand King Hlati', has already discovered our presence. They hung Woz out just to lure us in!"

"We had no choice but to flee." Simon slowly began to lose control of his excitement, his tone becoming more and more intense: "But there were too many people on the other side... We were all injured to varying degrees. At the critical moment, it was Morway who stood up."

"Morwei!?" Goyle asked in surprise, "Is it the Morwei who is the most timid and hides under the table when there is thunder?"

"Yes, it was him!" Simon bit his lip tightly, with a guilty look on his face: "I scolded him at the time and told him not to be a hero, but he smiled at me."

"He said: Tell my dad I'm not a coward!"

"Then he turned deep into Bloody Heights, shouting 'Here's the map.'"

"Mowei led some of the enemies away..." Simon wiped away the tears from his eyes and continued, "But even so, the enemy still has many more people than us, and the danger is not over yet."

"There are many crisscrossing hills and gullies on the edge of the Bloody Highlands. They are impossible to see under the heavy snow, but I carefully observed them when surveying the map, so I led the team to rush up first, but... the beam road is too narrow."

"Barry and I survived, but Bent, the spare horses we brought, and the horse thieves who were chasing us fell into the snow valley. We took the opportunity to escape."

At this point, Simon could no longer suppress the guilt in his heart. He slid off the bed and knelt on the ground with tears streaming down his face. "My Lord Baron! I was wrong. It was my carelessness that led to Woz's death. And because of my weakness, Morwe and Bent also lost their lives!"

"I'm not a qualified commander!"

Upon hearing this, Raven exchanged glances with Eric and both saw a hint of relief in each other's eyes.

"Get up," Raven said. He looked to the side and saw Volav and Mosingam coming forward to help Simon back.

Simon still knelt on the ground: "But sir, I... I really..."

"War means death," Raven said earnestly, "Instead of meaninglessly remembering them, think about what lesson you have learned."

"If you only know how to dwell on the grief of the past, then the three of them died in vain!"

Simon's pupils shrank, and countless emotions flashed through his eyes, which eventually became clear and firm: "...I understand, sir!"

With the help of Volav and Mosingam, Simon sat back on the bed.

"Then... where are the horses?" Link brought everyone's attention back to the previous topic: "You guys came out on horses, so how come you ended up walking back?"

As if he had untied his knot, Simon's voice was very calm and methodical: "Barry's horse was hit by an arrow, and he died of excessive blood loss before he could run far. We can only ride on one horse two people at a time."

"But doing so would be exhausting the warhorse. It is difficult to supplement its nutrition with just the hay on the roadside. My 'Jasmine'... my warhorse, is losing weight very quickly!"

"Moreover, most of our rations are on the spare warhorse. There is not much food left. If we give her more nutrition, we will not survive."

"So, I killed her."

These words were spoken extremely calmly, but they sounded like needles piercing people's hearts, especially Eric. His face was as gloomy as water no matter what he heard before, but at this moment his eyes turned red and he began to sniffle.

Raven could understand this feeling.

War horses are knights' comrades and friends, just like military dogs are to soldiers. The depth of the relationship between them is difficult for others to understand.

If Simon didn't have deep feelings for a horse, he wouldn't call her "she".

Simon's narration continued: "We drank her blood and cut off her flesh to carry with us, but for ease of movement, we couldn't carry much."

"...Then, we traveled for twenty days straight. The snow on the road was so thick that we got lost twice even with a map. We ran out of food and couldn't even light a fire..."

"After that...everyone knows what happened next."

silence.

There was only silence in the room.

Raven patted the back of Simon's hand and said nothing.

At this moment, Mosingan's eyes suddenly lit up: "Wait, Simon, the map has always been with you, right?"

"That's right," Simon said.

"But, but when you came back, you didn't have a map with you?" Volaf asked.

"Baron, please give me a dagger." Simon looked at Raven.

The latter touched his belt and grabbed an enchanted dagger, then handed it to Simon.

Simon took the dagger respectfully and slashed his thigh hard, cracking his leather armor. A sound of people gasping for air was heard in the room.

A bundle of parchment maps was tied to Simon's dry and thin thighs. The marks from the ropes were so deep that they had embedded into the flesh, and there were black bloodstains on the edges of the ropes.

After cutting the rope and taking down the map, Simon placed the dagger on top and handed it to Raven respectfully: "Baron, Simon has lived up to your command!"

Raven took the map solemnly, a gleam in his eyes: "How is it, can you still move?"

"No problem, sir!" Simon nodded vigorously.

"Very good." Raven turned and walked out: "Volaf, Mosingan, hold Simon tightly, and everyone else, follow me. Let's have a meeting in the conference room!"

……

(End of this chapter)