Warhammer

The weather-beaten face reveals a temperament called fortitude.

Al raised his hand to him and said, "Go ahead. In the face of a common enemy, we are allies."

The knight nodded slightly, "We have a group of refugees fleeing, including women, children, the elderly and the young, probably several thousand people, who need relief."

"Of course, this trip is specifically to gather the people. They will be properly settled in Weiling, and then retreat to the north."

You're lying. Ai'er was planning to delay the time as much as possible. Then, he would use the excuse that the greenskins and pirates had blocked the trails to move the Vilings to the Pina Forest, disperse them among the tribes, and bring them to the influence of the Four Gods' Blessing. Then, he would try to annex and integrate the Estalia.

The knight leader nodded and retreated back to the group.

That’s all you have to say?

Al was stunned.

He thought this would be a meeting that could preliminarily determine the direction of cooperation between the two sides, or at least establish a friendly foundation for both sides.

But the knights looked like they didn't want to talk about sex, or at all?

So he had to find some topics to talk about. Otherwise, if a group of guests came, talked for a few words, and then sat down to eat their own food, it would be too embarrassing.

"What about you?"

“We’re going to go somewhere else.”

The Knight Leader said:

"The Estalia are not part of our oath, and we need do no more to protect them."

From the knowledge given by the omniscient mother, Al learned that the oath that the knight mentioned was a kind of "rule" implemented after the establishment of the Carcassonne Round Table Council.

There are no nobles or lords there, and the only people who can be called "rulers" are a very small number of administrators and the Round Table Council who are in contact with the outside world, and the latter are very reluctant to take charge.

Farmers live a self-sufficient life without constraints or help.

They spontaneously - really spontaneously - provided for any knight in need, and the identity of this old era in Carcassonne was reshaped, because anyone could choose to embark on the path of "knight" and become a knight.

And when everyone does this, they must first swear an oath: not to refuse any reasonable request made by the people of Carcassonne!

This reasonable range is confirmed by the Axioms and the Round Table Council. Civilians can deliver supplies and beg a passing knight-errant to drive out a group of corrupt beasts in the forest for them. Most of the time, the knight who is asked for help will gladly go even if he knows he cannot win, and then die gloriously in battle.

Sometimes I refuse those little things that seem to be easy and insignificant.

This rule was set by the Holy Grail Knights who came out of the mountains. It is an absolute correction to the balance of the "serfs provide support - lords provide protection" relationship during the old Kingdom of Bretonnia.

The people provided for it on their own initiative, and the knights guarded it on their own initiative.

Everything is fair, and nothing is forced by force or rules.

Carcassonne thus became a secluded country protected by the powerful military force and fog of the Round Table, a perfect pastoral utopia imagined by many imperial literati.

There are even elves who are fed up with the quarrelsome atmosphere of Ossuun and the bustling city and cross the sea to live in seclusion in Carcassonne. No one will care about them anyway. Commoners will be curious about these pointed ears, but the knights don't care as long as the elves don't harm others.

"Warriors of Bretonnia, the Estalia people will be grateful to all friends for their help in this disaster. I sincerely invite you to go to Vering, where you will be well entertained."

An Estalia officer who El liked stepped forward and seemed to see that El wanted to win over this group of knights, so he took the initiative to invite them.

The Red Stripe Knight shook his head, finished his rations in a few bites, then put on his helmet again and said goodbye to Al.

"Sorry, we're busy."

Al hesitated for a moment before waving goodbye to this group of mysterious knights from Bretonnia.

Afterwards, the Estalia team dispersed and joined the tribe. The Barto knights took the expeditionary force and the centaurs to meet the refugees, then gathered and left to the south.

Some young men who had participated in the battle before were very excited and patted their chests, hoping to get a horse and were willing to follow the knights south.

They believed that these Knights of Barto must have come to support the Estalia, and having tasted victory in previous battles, they hoped that they would immediately turn around and join the battle to recapture and defend their homeland.

But the Barto knights all refused and left in silence.

El rode on the horse girl's back, looking at the silent gray, white and black knight expeditionary force leaving from afar, feeling a little depressed.

They are even unwilling to communicate with the outside world. How can Al trick them into joining his camp through sweet words?

And I feel a little sad. Who could have expected that those once noble, arrogant, and virtuous knights would...

Knights who demanded those they swore to protect step forward, faced dangers and the enemies of humanity to die, and then stepped over their corpses to achieve glorious victory.

One hundred and fifty years after the end, it will turn into the cold steel it is today.

Atonement?

Al didn't believe that was the whole reason.

Chapter 98: Marus

Al wanted to know the secrets of the knights, but the all-knowing mother did not tell the boy all the secrets of the mortal world.

Sometimes, knowledge itself means power, which needs to be discovered by oneself, and it is bound to be accompanied by many dangers.

The knights' receding figures disappeared at the end of the horizon, and the rangers were running back and forth on both wings, maintaining order in the team.

Al received the report and went on to reach the coastline.

He led the Beastmen and the expeditionary force westward, and although a week of searching and fighting slowed down their progress, they still covered a long enough distance.

The search mission was a complete success. Al did not have a detailed statistics, but a rough estimate was that in the past few days, the main force led by him alone had gathered nearly 3,000 refugees, most of whom were from Marus.

Al didn't know the situation of other detachments for the time being. Through the blessing of omniscience, he could barely observe that they were basically advancing steadily without too many casualties.

If he goes further south, he will face a very important problem.

Should we save Marus?

According to the information brought by the latest batch of refugees, the siege there seems to be still going on in a difficult but still tenacious manner.

The fleet's desperate charge defeated the pirate fleet and bought the city a chance to catch its breath.

But this gap only brought a few days of relief to Marus. They sent out more people without combat capabilities and accepted more refugees from the surrounding areas and the sea. Then they sent them to the north along the previous route. It was unknown how many of them could survive.

Most of the men who were still able to fight were left behind, and after a vote, the Marus City Council decided to keep fighting and wait for reinforcements from Weiling and Daimonteri.

They drove out the pirate envoys sent by the greenskins, blocked the port, and summoned all the capable men in the city, intending to fight a decisive battle with the invaders.

The closest force to them now is the Beastman Legion led by El.

Although Marus was heavily besieged before, the distance was close after all, so they could still get some information from the outside world, including the Siege of Wei Ling—and the reinforcements coming out of the Pina Forest.

They naturally didn't care whether the so-called "tribe" was beastmen or orcs. They just wanted to know that Wei Ling had been rescued and had the strength to rescue them.

The expectation of reinforcements and the passion to resist the invaders are the two main pillars that support the Marus people to continue their resistance. It can be said that the loss of either side will inevitably lead to the fall of the city.

Now the only person who can decide the fate of Marus is:

The Eunuch, the Death of the Beast, the Greenskin Butcher, the Griffin Rider, the Commander of the Beast Army, the Giant Hunter, the Chief of the Chiefs (King of Kings), the Follower of the Expeditionary Force, the Protector of Refugees, the Savior of the Vering, the Estalia, the Great Man from Heaven, the Perfect Man of All Time———

Tribal leader:

Al!

A dignified person!

He thought about it and felt that if Marus could be saved, it would be of great value to the Estalia people's united front.

And its geographical location is also very important. It controls the western gate of central China and is also a port city.

But that is for the future. For the tribe whose only surface force now is the canoe parked on the lake, there is no way they can compete with the coalition of green-skinned pirates for control of the sea. Even if they get close to the coastline, they have to be prepared for ambushes.

but......

Al was in a dilemma: should he save Marus?

Although there would be many benefits if he could defeat the greenskin army heading north, his presence would be too obvious and ostentatious, which would conflict with his strategy of two tigers fighting each other and the fisherman taking the profit.

When the time comes, the greenskins will be hurt and will first go into the woods to trouble him, or they will not go north and stay in the south to wreak havoc;

He took advantage of the fact that the greenskins were heading north and Estalia was in a precarious situation, and led his army south to open up a second battlefield, and then annex the southern kingdom in one fell swoop. If that didn't work, his idea of ​​absorbing a large population would be shattered.

The greenskins are now in a state of rapid advance, coming in with great force, attacking cities and strongholds, but the damage to production resources and population has not been too great. Once they stop and disperse into the wilderness in search of targets, they will slaughter four villages today and burn eight strongholds tomorrow.

By then, the entire south would be left with only a vast expanse of white land. Even if he beat all the beastmen in the Pina Forest into submission to the Four Mothers and strengthened his headquarters, what would be the point?

Are we going to become a nomadic war gang with families to support?

But if I don't save him, firstly, if I just stand by and watch, the people of Estalia will be worried, which won't diminish the gratitude for saving his life, but it's still not satisfactory.

Moreover, Marus was a large city, at least much larger than Viling, which, together with refugees and defeated soldiers, had a population of nearly 100,000 before the siege.

The vast majority of them are women, children, the elderly and the young.

The population of Marus is definitely much larger in comparison. The distance is about the same. Going to a more famous city that is close to the sea and has a port with ships to take is definitely more attractive than going to a little-known city that even many Estalia people have little impression of.

At its peak, the population of Marus Port, which used to be around 60,000 to 70,000, now reached nearly 300,000. Although most of them fled to the north by ship before the blockade, there were still 150,000 who did not have time to leave. As a result of receiving refugees, Marus's food reserves were on the verge of exhaustion.

Hundreds of thousands of lives...

El sighed and pressed his body against the horse girl's back, breathing against the cold armor with his face.

Although I have repeatedly warned myself that if I cannot do this I will become a murderous tyrant and be cruel when necessary, this is a war hammer without equal morality or universal values.

He still couldn't bear to do it.

El thought for a while, and the nun quickly ran to the side of the horse girl.

"The Estalian troops hope to return to Vering and gather their forces to rescue Marus."

She said to Al, the Centaur did not stop and continued to move forward, and the nun could only run beside it.

"It will take quite some time, and I may not be able to catch up."

The wisent staff said that these beastmen, who like to make all kinds of plans but are indeed wiser than ordinary people, are the brains of the future kingdom of El.

He is also a major pillar of the legion.

So Al deliberately brought them along, to cultivate their abilities as advisers and legion mages in advance.

"If Marus has fallen, both the Legion and the Verin will be threatened."

They are very good at guessing the intentions of their superiors. Through Al's expression and demeanor, they guessed what confused the Chosen One, but they did not dare to interfere and could only play a supporting role and echo the Chosen One's thoughts.

Of course, not all sapiens have this kind of personality. Only the more active ones are like this. There are also many who are scholars and thinkers. They either don’t like to talk or like to talk very much. In short, they are not very popular and are not as good as the shamans who worship the benevolent Earth Mother.

The elder sister naturally knew these problems, but the purpose of her coming was already obvious.

Even if she believed in evil gods (which was probably the case in the mortal world), she chose this path in pursuit of her true beliefs.

That’s over a hundred thousand people.

The real life is not the consumables that cannot even leave behind specific numbers (complaining about GW's mathematics) because those emperors, generals, dukes and nobles died after launching an expedition or losing a battle.

Al high-fived.

The scouts brought new news.

"The entire army should accelerate northward, join up with the detachment, and rescue the refugees!"

"After this battle, return to Weiling and gather the troops. We will set out to rescue Marus!"

I want to go, but it’s not easy.

If you don't go, you have to go.

Let's just compromise and hope that the Estalia goddess Myrmidia will bless them this time.

Chapter 99: Praise the Loving Mother and the Savior

The Eternal Chosen got a good opportunity in the dilemma, so he chose to lead his legion north and let the Marus people roll the dice of fate themselves.

Ai'er led the Beastmen and the expeditionary force and hurried north to eliminate several large greenskin war groups, and finally gathered a group of refugees and returned east to Viling.

Escape is shameful, but useful.

Sister Helen also went through a period of deep contemplation and mutual discussions with the Chosen One himself, and she came up with a general plan for her own path and future, which was initially perfected.

She compiled her past experiences, her observations during her missionary travels, her thoughts and perceptions, and her deconstruction of the sacred, just, and noble elements of the empire and church traditions into a small book.

Al was her first reader. He was impressed that the nun seemed to be born with certain abilities. She was not good at using fancy words and grammar, but used simple and straightforward words to vividly describe many things and things she wanted readers to think about, and then penetrate into their hearts.

Watch along the way.

Then fell into deep thought.

The legion also stopped halfway.