I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 537 Falling out
As spring arrives and the people of Bagnia are busy tilling their fields and sowing seeds, a negotiation concerning the fate of both countries is taking place in the meeting room of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Votradnoi.

"Your esteemed representative..."

Ambassador Alvarez, dressed in a black fine wool suit with only a griffin emblem pinned to his chest and sweat beading on his forehead, leaned slightly forward and spoke urgently to the group of people sitting opposite him in a pleading and sincere tone.

"We are well aware of the mistakes we made in the previous winter negotiations. It was by no means a sign of our disrespect for the Bagnian warriors, but simply... simply some delays in domestic procedures."

We now come with the utmost sincerity, and are willing to pay far more than the previously agreed-upon hiring fee, and fill your ship's hold with gold coins.

Moreover, we are willing to dedicate a piece of coastal land with a natural harbor on Casarina Island, our rich colonial jewel, to Bagnia as your permanent territory and right of use, which is sufficient to demonstrate our friendship and respect..."

He emphasized the word "friendship" and looked expectantly at the people opposite him, eager to see the expressions he wanted to see... but there were none.

Player Lynch, the Minister of Commerce of the Kingdom of Bagnia, was staring expressionlessly at Ambassador Alvarez.

He felt that today's negotiation meeting was a real waste of his precious working time.

But there was no other way. Even though he knew it was a waste of time, Lin Qi had to come because it was his job.

Lynch turned to look at the faces of his colleagues. Mr. Sterling, who was from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the representative from the Ministry of Military Affairs were sitting upright, their faces expressionless.

Lin Qi then realized that their thoughts were the same as his own.

Thinking of this, Lynch gently tapped the smooth tabletop, producing a crisp sound that interrupted Ambassador Alvarez's attempt to formulate more earnest words.

"Mr. Ambassador of the Macon Union".

Lynch's voice was calm and emotionless, as if he were reciting a dry inventory report.

"Regarding your country's request to hire the third batch of Bagnian mercenaries, after careful evaluation, our conclusion is consistent with that of the winter: it is not approved."

Ambassador Alvarez's facial muscles twitched suddenly, and he leaned forward urgently, almost stepping over the negotiating table.

"Lord Lynch, Mr. Horn, please reconsider. The price... we can raise it further! The terms for the cession of Casarina Island can also be detailed, guaranteeing that your country will independently construct the port's depth and fortifications. We are doing this with the utmost friendship and sincerity..."

"friendship?"

This time it was Sterling who spoke. His voice was even lower than Lynch's, with a deliberate sarcasm. His gray eyes were fixed sharply on Alvarez, catching the latter's words in his throat.

"Ambassador Alvarez."

Sterling spoke slowly, with utmost solemnity and seriousness.

"I think it's necessary for us to clarify a basic understanding: the relationship between the Kingdom of Bagnia and the Union of Macon is a transactional one based on clear terms and equivalent exchange."

In the past, we provided military services, and your country paid us. It was a simple transaction, nothing more.

He paused slightly to make sure the other person heard and fully understood what he was saying before continuing.

"The friendship you repeatedly mention is a subjective and unstable emotional bond that has never been written into any treaty between our two countries, nor has it ever been valued in past transactions."

The last time your country rejected our reasonable offer based on market principles during the winter, citing domestic procedures, you must have been adhering to the same trading principles.

Now, please understand our decision in the same way as a transaction… Based on the Kingdom's current overall strategy and risk assessment, this transaction is no longer in our interest.”

“No, that’s not the case!

Ambassador Alvarez's face turned pale, and his voice trembled with a hint of despair.

"What happened before was a misunderstanding, a delay. Our sincerity now is as clear as day! Considering the good cooperation between our two countries in the past, and considering..."

"What are you looking at?"

Lin Qi interrupted impatiently, unable to bear this pointless entanglement any longer.

"For the sake of the money you paid us to help you fight in the past?"
That wasn't friendship, Mr. Ambassador; it was a transaction, and now, the transaction is over.

"But the more than two thousand of your country's soldiers on the island..."

"They will fulfill their contracts and complete their missions, or they will all die on the island."

After finishing speaking, Lin Qi stood up, straightened his expensive business minister's suit, specially made by a royal tailor, and his movements exuded a cold and indifferent aura.

Lin Qi is just a player. If more than two thousand players die, they die. Anyway, they can be resurrected. Why should he care about them?

"Regarding the renewal of other trade agreements that your country is interested in, my subordinates will contact you according to procedure. As for military employment..."

As Lynch finished speaking, he glanced at Sterling and the military representative once more, and then the three of them nodded slightly almost simultaneously, indicating that the three departments were in agreement.

"That's it."

After saying that, Lynch ignored Ambassador Alvarez, who was frozen in place with a deathly pale face, and walked straight out of the conference hall.

Sterling and the military representatives then stood up without any further pleasantries, as if the meeting that had just ended was merely an insignificant routine meeting.

Ambassador Alvarez stood alone in the ornately decorated yet cold and empty conference hall, the other party's resolute rejection echoing in his ears.

Alvarez's promise of high wages and maps of ceded territory was a huge irony. He had thought these would be enough to impress any country, but to his surprise, they didn't even cause a ripple in the hearts of the Bagnians.

They didn't even bother with pretense, bluntly declaring: Between us, there was only a cold, hard transaction, and that transaction is over.

An unprecedented sense of powerlessness and chill swept over Ambassador Alvarez... Without reinforcements, Casarina Island was doomed.

The war between the Macon Union and the Retalia Empire continues. Although it has deteriorated to a stalemate, the Macon Union still cannot spare troops to support Casarina Island, a colony far from the main continent.

There are just too many fishmen surging towards the island from the sea. Too few reinforcements would be suicide missions, while too many would not only pose a transportation problem but also weaken the main force of the Macon Alliance.

As a country whose economy is mainly based on maritime trade, the army of the Confederacy of Makon is not strong.

……

The stone walls of the town of Casarina trembled violently in the pre-dawn darkness, as if some enormous thing was constantly pounding against its foundations.

But this was not a human battering ram; it was a slimy, foul-smelling wave... a living tidal wave composed of countless merfolk.

"Hold your ground! Melee fighters in the front, hold the line! Musketeers, open fire! Don't let these slippery bastards climb up!"

Olaf stood behind a relatively intact crenellation in the city wall and roared at the top of his lungs.

He roared as he swung a double-edged axe, each swing sending a merman who tried to climb him sprawling and crashing to the ground.

Yes, smash, not chop, simply because Olaf's axe was already dulled, making it no different from a hammer.

The battle has progressed to a point where it is no longer a traditional siege.

The number of fishmen was suffocating. Unlike human armies that follow formations and tactics, they fought like a real tidal wave, surging in wave after wave over three months, overwhelming everything with sheer numbers.

They tore at the walls with sharp claws and teeth, attacked the city walls with crude bone forks and hurled stones, and some even rode strong sea monsters in an attempt to ram open the iron-clad wooden city gates with their bodies.

The moat beneath the city walls was already filled with the corpses of the fishmen and their foul-smelling slime, and newcomers climbed upwards by stepping on the remains of their companions.

"Fuck it, there are just too many of these monstrous, mutated fish..."

A player standing behind the parapet wielding a halberd smashed a murloc that had just emerged from below, along with half a brick, splattering his face with foul-smelling blood.

"Fire, fire!"

Behind the city walls, on a higher tower, intermittent gunfire could be heard. The Macon Alliance musketeers were hiding up there, firing their matchlock muskets and flintlock pistols at the players on the city walls.

After three months of fighting, all the island's outposts, except for the town, the docks, the lumber mills, the logging camps deeper into the island, and the mercenary camps that the first wave of mercenary players had defended, have fallen.

With only one stronghold remaining, the gunfire from the town towers sounded so sparse amidst the murlocs' shrill screams and the rumble of the city walls.

Humanity's ammunition for defense is already scarce, and every lead bullet must be used sparingly.

In defending a city, the defenders relied more on cold weapons, rolling logs and stones, as well as the players' superhuman physical strength and fearlessness.

In order to hold out longer and defend the town, Olaf and the rest of the players, except for a very few with exceptional marksmanship, abandoned firearms and chose to kill the murlocs with melee weapons.

In the heat of battle, a Macon officer stumbled and charged toward Olaf.

"Sir, the left side... the breach on the left is about to collapse!"

The officer shouted hoarsely.

Olaf turned his head to the left and saw murlocs pouring out from behind that section of the city wall. Yesterday, the murlocs had used some kind of huge, bone-armored sea beast to ram open a gap in the wall, which the players had barely managed to plug up with sandbags and wood last night. Now, it was clear that the murlocs were crawling out of the gap.

"Squad up, follow me!"

Olaf roared, kicking aside a murloc that had just climbed onto the rampart, and shouted at several players nearby who were still fighting hard. The latter quickly finished their battles and followed him.

He led seven players down the steps inside the city wall and headed towards the crumbling breach.

Even before getting close, you can smell a stench of blood and decay that is even stronger than that of a battlefield.

The debris blocking the gap was being pushed over, sandbags were being torn apart by sharp claws, and the timber groaned under the weight. Behind them were countless eyes that gleamed with an eerie green or pale light in the darkness, accompanied by a chilling hissing sound.

Without a word, Olaf rushed over, first swinging his axe to chop open the head of a murloc, its brains splattering everywhere. Almost reflexively, he kicked the murloc blocking his way away and successfully reached the gap.

"Kill them!"

Olaf roared and shoved aside a strong murloc trying to squeeze in with his shoulder. He then swung his chamfered battle axe down, cleaving half of the murloc's shoulder and webbed claws in two.

The foul-smelling blood spurted out, but he didn't care, standing firmly like a rock at the front of the breach.

Other players roared and followed suit, wielding swords and warhammers, smashing them down on the murlocs that kept pouring in through the gap.

This is a primal, bloody brawl, with no way out but a fight to the death.

The gap instantly turned into a meat grinder.

The roars of players, the shrieks of murlocs, the dull thuds of weapons clashing against bones, and the wails of the dying mingled together to create a symphony of despair.

Olaf and the others transformed into eight of the hardest rocks, blocking the gap. The fishmen outside seemed endless, but only four or five could squeeze through every ten seconds. As a result, the narrow opening actually limited the fishmen's most terrifying numerical advantage.

This is precisely why Olaf chose to lead his men to hold this position.

No one among the players blocking the way could keep track of how long the battle lasted. Olaf only knew that when no more murlocs emerged from the gap in front of him, he put down his battle axe and looked around to see only devastation and carnage.

The gap was filled with the twisted and broken corpses of fishmen, and thick, foul-smelling blood and unidentified bodily fluids soaked into every inch of the ground, almost reaching above the ankles.

Of the seven players who charged down with him, only four remained standing, leaning on their weapons and panting heavily, as if they had just been pulled out of a pool of blood.

As for the remaining three... well, Olaf and his men searched under the fishman's corpse and found them.

Of the three, two were already dead. They did not have any fatal wounds; they all died from excessive bleeding due to various minor injuries.

One person survived, but was severely injured and unable to move. Olaf had no choice but to summon an NPC medic to drag the person away.

Whether he can be saved is unknown, but Olaf knows that there are not many medicines and clean bandages left in the town.

The battle on the city walls has ended, and the players and NPCs have once again completed their routine city defense battle for the day. But how long can they hold out?
Olaf was unaware and didn't care. When he climbed the city wall again, an officer from the Macon League ran over to report the situation to him.

"Sir..."

How many people died today?

The officer's face was a mixture of exhaustion, fear, and a hint of relief at surviving a close call. His voice was so hoarse that he could barely speak. He took several deep breaths before managing to speak.

"Sir...we have 37 dead, more than 60 seriously wounded and incapacitated, and 19 mercenaries have been killed."

Olaf nodded silently.

The number of NPC soldiers killed is alarming, which means that the town's available defenses have been further weakened.

The fact that nineteen players died today is quite serious, because after three months of fighting, more than two thousand players have been reduced to about four hundred. Two hundred of them were away, and now nineteen have died, which means that there are less than two hundred usable combat forces left in the city.

"Where's the ammunition?"

Olaf asked the most crucial question.

The officer's face grew even more ashen.

"The musketeer company has only three basic sets of lead bullets left, and the gunpowder stockpile is almost empty, with only three barrels of black powder left. The heavy crossbow bolts and stone bullets used for city defense have run out. We...we may not be able to withstand the next large-scale attack."

Okay, looks like we're almost at the end.

Olaf stopped talking. As for the food and medicine, there was no need to ask. He knew better than anyone how much was left... because he slept in the warehouse at night.

Just then, a series of hurried and slightly excited footsteps came from the steps leading into the city.

Olaf and the officer turned their heads at the same time and saw three players rushing up the city wall. They were also covered in blood and mud, but their eyes shone with a light that was out of place with the surrounding deathly silence.

"Great news!"

Olaf immediately recognized the three as one of the two hundred people who had gone out, and he remembered his arrangements from the previous two days.

"found it?"

"found it!"

The leading player nodded vigorously.

"We found the escape ship left behind by that fat governor... Good heavens, this ship is a full six hundred tons! It was moored in a natural harbor thirty kilometers away. Although it had been occupied by the fishmen, we took it back."

Upon hearing this, Olaf's brow immediately relaxed.

"That's fucking great... Where's the ship?"

"More than fifty brothers took it away to sea, leaving it in the port. We can't hold onto it!"

The three players said smugly.

"Boss, we'll take our men to the dock, and the brothers on the ship will naturally bring the boat over to pick them up."

A glint flashed in Olaf's eyes, and the news seemed to dispel some of his fatigue.

This is really good news.

Governor Almeida is still alive. In fact, he only learned of the ship's existence five days ago when he came to Olaf and told him.

Why would he say that?

Of course, it's to escape.

Governor Almeida knew he had no chance of escaping alone, so he approached Olaf and told him about his treasured escape tools, hoping to win him over and his Bagnian mercenaries so they would protect him as he left.

So Olaf sent men to find the ship.

Olaf was overjoyed to have found the ship.

However, the four people present were not happy for long. One of the three hesitated and asked a question.

"However, although that ship is very big, it seems there isn't enough space to take all of us with it."

Olaf turned to look at the officer beside him, who hesitated for a moment before nodding vigorously.

"That ship should be a galleon, and at 600 tons... even under the most extreme circumstances, it can only hold 600 people."

At this time, within the town, including both civilians and us, there were at least a thousand people.

The officer looked bitter; he seemed to have guessed what Olaf was going to do... nothing more than abandon the civilians and leave with the Bagnian mercenaries and the remaining Macon soldiers.

"us……"

"The ship has enough space. A 600-ton vessel, by jettisoning cannons and excess equipment and carrying only a small amount of food and clean water, can return to Bagnia."

Olaf paused, looking at the officer's pale face, and said, word by word.

“You only need to throw away a little trash… like Governor Almeida and his personal guards, and you will be able to board the ship.”

Upon hearing this, the officer's expression changed drastically, first with confusion, then with struggle and a hint of barely concealed desire.

Upon hearing this, Olaf nodded in satisfaction and patted the officer's shoulder forcefully.

"That's settled then. We'll set off tonight. Before that, let's clean up the trash..."

(End of this chapter)