Throne of the North.

Chapter 537: Advising Gerald

Finally, it was someone else's turn to worry about food.

Count Mo Tong saw the message left by Ryan after the knight returned to his manor. The manor had been looted by Ryan, and in the chaos no servant dared to enter the knight's room, so he waited until now.

"He's willing to sell us food?"

Zeton Gerald, Earl Mo Tong frowned, because the information was very simple, with only a Rhino Horn Mountain logo and a line of words on it.

The emblem of Rhino Horn Mountain proved that the letter came from Ryan, and the line of words only said one thing, which was to ask the earl whether he was willing to buy food. If so, he would send a team of knights to somewhere outside the southern edge of the territory.

"What does he want to do?"

Count Mo Tong's pupils are deep black, representing the pupils of one of the two noble ancestors of this ancient bloodline.

He couldn't figure out Ryan's intention, because the time given was this evening.

Time is running out, but if we sell the food so quickly, won’t the war never end?
That's right, without food, he has decided to give up the war. Failure is terrible, but it would be even more difficult to accept if too many followers died at the same time as failure.

But now...

"The people of the Empire are greedy."

Count Mo Tong summoned ten knights without any hesitation and asked them to ride at full speed to a big tree in the south.

……

"They're coming."

Fox-skin Brune Migis looked at the horses and knights galloping in the distance from the treetops and said:
"The number is about right, not too much."

The ten knights of Earl Mo Tong's territory had just come down from the battlefield, and fatigue was still on their faces. After circling the edge of the forest, they finally stopped in front of the thickest tree. It was obvious that the tree had been through a lot of wind and frost.

"What about people?"

They looked around and saw that the fox skin had silently fallen from the tree and gently patted a knight's shoulder.

rub!
The knight was extremely nervous as he drew his sword, for he knew that he was facing the enemy from the west, but Foxpelt had already retreated several meters.

"Don't be nervous. Did Earl Gerald send you here?"

The coat of arms of the two Earls of Gerald are identical and indistinguishable.

"Yes, soldiers from the Tundra Territory?"

The knight also looked at Fox Fur and looked around him, and there seemed to be no one else.

"It seems that your earl has made his choice, so now it's time to sign the contract."

Fox Skin took out a scroll and spread it out. At the bottom of the contract there was the emblem of Rhino Horn Mountain, and another space was left empty, which was reserved for Gerald.

"I didn't say... to sign a contract."

The leading golden knight hesitated; he couldn't make the decision.

Fox Fur looked at him in confusion.

"Isn't the Gerald bloodline an ancient noble? Doesn't your earl know the rules of nobility?"

"How can we trust you without signing a contract? After all, this is not a deal where our Lord Baron and your Lord Earl meet in person. A contract is essential."

"waste time."

Fox Fur said dissatisfiedly that if the knight in front of him was not qualified, then there was no need for both parties to continue talking.

"Signing the contract represents the friendship between the two nobles. We will give you the food, and when the time is right, you need to send the money to buy the food."

"Originally, the payment should be made and the goods should be delivered, but considering the war that is currently breaking out between us, our Lord Baron has allowed you to delay the delivery."

“That was originally our food!”

Behind the knight, another knight spoke angrily. Bruneggis looked at him and understood.

"It seems that Earl Gerald still knows the rules. Are you the one who can make the decision?"

"Kermon Gerald."

The knight's voice still sounded childish, and he looked at the leading knight.

"Teacher Forle, kill him and we can get the food back."

According to the ancient etiquette of knights and kings, every monarch had a knight teacher when he was young.

They are teacher and student, monarch and subject, friends, and sometimes even like father and son. This is the ancient romance of knights and nobility.

The knight did not move, he kept his eyes on the enemy covered in animal fur.

"If we kill him, we won't know where the food is."

The transaction was to sell them food, but there was only one person coming now. There might be others, but definitely not many. It was impossible for such a small number of people to transport food.

"Your food? It comes from the south, and it doesn't belong to you."

"Make a decision."

Bruneggis was a very patient man because he was a hunter, but now he was getting a little impatient. This matter did not require so much communication. When these knights arrived here in the exact number on time, it meant that the deal between the earl and the baron was reached.

None of them here are qualified to sway this deal.

This Kemon Gerald is too young and too eager to show off. I wonder if he is the successor to the earl.

"Master Kemon, please sign the contract. You are here on behalf of your father."

Knight Fol reminded his students that he did not want to have too much communication with the enemies of the empire, as this would make him feel that the war on the battlefield yesterday was too unbelievable.

As Gerald's badge fell, Foxpelt put away the contract scroll.

"The Baron sends his regards to your Count."

"Besides, the food you want is over there."

Bruneggis pointed to the opposite side of these people. At the end of the field of vision there was a manor that belonged to a knight in the earldom.

"Bex Knights' Headquarters?"

Kemon frowned and said angrily:

"He betrayed my father and joined you?"

The Knight Foul next to him reminded:

"Knight Bex died in the war, on the first day of the war with the kingdom."

Judging from the time, it was impossible for the other party to contact Ryan before he died.

Foxpelt also refuted the young and showy knight.

"Yes, their knight master is dead, so the knights' children and slaves have no courage to resist us."

"We have stored some of the food in their warehouses and rooms. Now that the deal is done, you can send people to deliver the food. You have been hungry for a few days, right?"

These people also followed the old knightly creed of loyalty, so they weren't having a very good time either.

Watching the ten knights go away, until they disappeared from sight, the beasts around Bruneggis began to gather around, and the ferocious wolf in the lead turned into a human form.

Wolfskin Ulf looked at the knight's manor with grim eyes.

"The two earls have completed the transaction. Should we go back and tell Lord Ryan?"

"Not yet. We have to see how they react."

"What Lord Ryan needs is not for them to make a choice, but for them to choose the answer Lord Ryan gives them little by little."

On the other side, on the land called the Knight's Manor of Becks, both the knight's family and other slaves have been looking around with fear in the past few days. They don't even dare to go out to work.

They neither labor nor lack food, for their storehouses and houses are filled with food.

All the livestock were driven to the farthest place, but even so, Knight Bex's relatives could not help but doubt every cattle and sheep around them.

"The food is here with you, why don't you tell the Count?!"

"Damn it! I knew their cavalry army couldn't possibly carry away enough food to last half a year!"

"I didn't expect them to be hiding in the Earldom!"

As a golden knight, Knight Forle had such explosive power that ordinary people were like little chickens in front of him. The owners of the Knight Becks Manor were all trembling in fear, and it took them a long time to dare to refute after hearing his questioning.

"We, we don't dare, Master Ke Meng."

"Those imperial men, no, those scary guys, they can turn into wild beasts. They have been watching us all the time and don't allow any of us to leave the manor or the farm. They turn into all kinds of wild beasts, and we are terrified."

The people here with Knight Bex also have their own troubles. They have been in fear for several days. When they see non-humans moving around them, they feel that they are transformed from those terrible people. They have all seen with their own eyes how those beasts turn into humans and then turn into beasts again.

"Becoming a monster?"

Knight Fore frowned, he was also stumped. The extraordinary people in this world have only begun to flourish in the past hundred years, but the rules in Earl Gerald's territory have always been ancient and traditional. He has not seen too many extraordinary paths.

But he was not incomprehensible. "Druid?"

This place is very close to the [Forest] where druids live, and he has communicated with those guys before.

On the side, Kemon Gerald's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Could the other food also be hidden in the knight's manor?"

There is a lot of food here, enough for them to sustain the war for ten days, but it is obviously not all that is transported from the south to the north.

Someone was sent to report to the Earl, and the food here would naturally be transported to the Earl's location. For and Kemon took the rest of the people and began to rush to other knights' manors, but contrary to expectations, no more food appeared, and people in those places were even asking Kemon for food.

The young man's face turned red. He looked at his teacher. It was obvious that he really wanted to distribute some food to these slaves who were starving like monsters.

The latter shook his head silently.

……

Food. At this point in the war, nothing else matters anymore. Food has become a concern for everyone.

Even Pastor Yawen couldn't help but ask the two earls several times.

In order for the faith of our Lord to spread, we must win this war, at all costs.

Yawen feared the judgment given by the Pope. If he failed to take back the religious land of the Andara Kingdom, he would be punished again and would not be able to enter the eternal heaven.

For the sake of his faith in the Lord, he could endure pain that ordinary people could hardly bear, and even go into the abyss to fight with those demons, just to atone his sins and return to the starting point of a believer of the Dawn.

And the end of everything is to enter the eternal kingdom of heaven and serve at the feet of the Lord forever.

Just like a mute ascetic, in order to become an angel, he gave up everything, including human thoughts and speech qualifications.

He was afraid of this, so he was also nervous about the war with the kingdom.

However, without food, even he himself realized the trouble of this matter.

After several exchanges, Pastor Yawen finally became anxious and took a group of people, especially the two legends, to chase after the Moonlight Knight. He wanted to know how long the food could last.

"I'm sorry, Pastor Yawen, our food supply was intercepted by the cavalry corps in the southern plains, and we don't have much food left."

"But the troops I sent to the south successfully snatched back a batch of food from them."

At the meeting, Earl Mo Tong said this.

"But the food I can provide now can only last for seven days at most..."

"Seven days..."

Pastor Yawen looked grim. He was not very clear, but having only seven days of rations left was obviously not what was needed in a war.

"In seven days, we won't be able to capture the territories of the Andara Kingdom that store grain."

Count Melan Gerald of Golden Eyes glanced at his nephew.

Although the two earls of Gerald are from the same family, they are in competition with each other. Whoever can achieve the final success will be the real master of Gerald, King Gerald.

So, those who understand each other are each other.

Food? Where does the food come from?
"Golden Eye Territory can also provide five days of food. I sent people to the southern plains to collect this."

Count Gold Eyes also said, which surprised Count Black Eyes, that they knew each other best.

Gerald was also eager to win the war against the Andara Kingdom, not only because of the faith of Dawn and the Pope's orders, but also because if they lost the war they would lose everything.

Therefore, both earls knew that neither of them had any spare energy to deal with this matter.

and so……

The two earls and their nephew looked at each other and remained silent.

"About ten days?"

Pastor Yawen frowned. This was not the desired result, but at least it was better than having no food to eat now.

At least it gave him time to prepare. If there was no food after ten days, he could launch an all-out attack on the ninth or tenth day.

"Then please transport the food here. We will once again launch an attack on the army of the Andara Kingdom."

On the other side of the battlefield.

Count Pascal looked at the army that had once again gathered together with an expressionless face.

"They have food again, and the war will continue because of it."

"Where do they get the food? Hidden by the two earls? Or harvested from the manors or farms of the knights?"

Grand Duke Leta was surprised, as he thought the war was over.

"It seems that those two earls are more capable than we thought, don't they?"

Ryan laughed, but after Grand Duke Leta left, Count Pascal became nervous.

"Have they agreed?"

"Agree to what?"

Ryan was puzzled, then he reacted and laughed:
"How could you agree just for these grains? Lord Earl, if during this war, the other side suddenly gave you a secret letter from the Pope, saying that as long as you betrayed the empire, he would help you kill Pastor Yawen, would you agree?"

Count Pascal hesitated, but quickly shook his head.

"I don't believe him."

"Yeah, so Gerald won't believe us, and it's even more impossible for him to backstab Pastor Yawen just because of what I said."

"I didn't tell him anything that required him to cooperate with us."

"Selling them food is just a test, to test Gerald's descendants, how much honor, dignity, and ancient Gerald romance they still have, to try their best to achieve the impossible goal of returning to their homeland."

"It seems that Gerald is still the same Gerald he was more than a hundred years ago. I really admire them."

Ryan's sigh came from a sense of urgency. The North has covered the northern two-thirds of the world for hundreds of years. Everyone in the southern land has accepted this fact and has come to realize that the south of the world is warm and the north is extremely cold.

But Gerald has not forgotten for hundreds of years. They want to go back. The king will take his loyal knights and rush to the land of their ancestors to establish the kingdom of Gerald's bloodline.

The Earl is like this, as is the Moonlight Knight, as are many of the knights under him, and possibly even the slaves.

"What we need is not for them to make a choice, but for them to bide their time, a time when they are not qualified to make a choice."

"They will soon no longer be in a position to deny us."

Can the grain that Ryan sold to the two earls really sustain the war for ten days?
On the first day of the new war, the Crusaders consumed five days' worth of food.

There is no way. They have been hungry once. How can they suppress their desires when they see food? They are not good people. How can they hesitate when they see others eating?

As a group of extraordinary legion soldiers who are on the verge of life and death every day, they can eat a lot of food.

Do the knights of Earl Gerald dare to intervene? They did, but they couldn't defeat them, so they couldn't intervene.

Moreover, the Crusaders had to distribute their own food, and Gerald's slaves could only deliver large amounts of food to these hungry wolves with glowing eyes.

By the time Pastor Yawen reacted, five days' worth of food had disappeared.

"The food supply will not last for ten days."

Pastor Yawen looked grim, but he had only one solution.

"I need more food."

This was all he could say to Earl Gerald and the other two. As a penitent, his only chance to make a request to the Holy See was gone. All the things that the Pope had reluctantly sent to him were snatched away by that damned imperial cavalry.

The problem was given to the two earls. Do the two earls have any solution to the problem?
The answer is no.

"Obviously, we don't have any more food to sell you."

Still standing in front of the big tree that had experienced many vicissitudes of life, the fox-skinned Brune Migis looked at the two groups of people in front of him. These two earls actually recognized each other. Are their relations so good?

"Then why did you ask us to come?"

Kemon was a little dissatisfied. They were called over again, and it was the family of the unlucky Knight Bex. They saw a bear break into their bedroom while they were sleeping, which might leave a shadow on their lives.

"Our Lord Baron Ryan has thought of a solution for your Lord Earl."

"Keep writing letters. Write to the nobles in the south and tell them that Dawn's war of faith is about to fail because of food. Also write to the Holy See and tell them how urgent the matter is. Ask them to quickly deliver food from the south."

"This is your only chance. Your food should last about ten days, right?"

"In ten days, the southern nobles who are closer to here will be able to send enough food."

"If you are not anxious and don't make the matter more serious, they will be even less anxious."

"If the nobles in the south don't hurry, your war will surely be lost."

(End of this chapter)