Chapter 73: Act 9 – The First Day
The refugees traveling with Brendel fled into Silver Sparrow Mountain before dawn. As Brendel had expected, after they defeated the undead scout cavalry, the Undead Army did not pursue them. Brendel guessed that since the low-level undead and vampires would suffer a significant decline in combat effectiveness during daylight, they wouldn’t advance with a horde of skeletons under the sun until they completely wiped out the White-Maned Swordsmen.
However, after the undead occupied several cemeteries in Ridenburg, their numbers would surely swell. It was said that when Tagus arrived at Dragus to the north, their strength had already ballooned to over one hundred thousand, five times that of the Golan-Elsen region.
The number of refugees had grown to around four or five hundred. The long line was interspersed with carts and heavily laden mules, stretching half a mile through Silver Sparrow Mountain. Some people were looking for family members lost during the night, making the group seem a bit more lively.
The Merchant Miss sneaked down from her cart during the day and was now sitting on a fully loaded flat cart with her precious bag, telling stories to a few young kids—she told them in such a captivating way that the little ones listened, wide-eyed and entranced.
She was in the midst of a tale about how Brendel remained calm, wise, and heroic, when she suddenly spotted a man and a woman riding up from behind. Startled, her face changed, and she instinctively lowered her head.
Brendel had probably only slept for three hours; it was the only restful moment he had in recent days. However, thinking about the Madara army, he hadn’t slept well. He quickly regained his composure. After confirming that the sneaky girl was indeed Romaine, he couldn’t help but smile and shake his head:
“How did you sneak out?”
“I was bored,” the Merchant Miss replied obediently.
“It’s very dangerous out here, Romaine,” Freya said, frowning at her best friend with concern. “If something happens to you, how am I supposed to explain it to Aunt Jennie?”
“There’s nothing dangerous. I’m telling them a story,” Romaine said, immediately brightening at the mention of her tale.
The kids hurriedly nodded in agreement.
“We’re not debating what you’re doing,” Freya sighed. “Do you even realize how tense things are right now?”
Brendel couldn’t help but chuckle at Romaine. “What story are you telling?”
“About Brendel!” she exclaimed.
Brendel waved for her to come over. The Merchant Miss hesitated briefly but ran to the edge of the cart, only to be caught by the young man who pinched her cheek and rubbed it, saying, “—You need to listen to Freya, focus on your safety, understand?”
Romaine gasped and whimpered, hurriedly trying to push Brendel away, raising her little eyebrows, “I… ugh… got it, let go!”
She quickly retreated to the other corner of the cart, watching Brendel warily, patting her chest, looking a bit frightened.
Brendel smiled to himself; it felt nice to tease her. But when he turned around, he saw that Freya was watching him with envy. The ponytailed girl’s face immediately flushed, and she turned away, exclaiming loudly, “Shameless! I won’t bother with you two…”
With that, she ran away, leaving Brendel dazed—wondering how he ended up provoking this young lady once again. While he was lost in thought, Mano and Retao approached him.
They were looking for him to recruit manpower from among the refugees to form a self-defense team. In fact, ever since the refugees entered Silver Sparrow Mountain, the surrounding terrain had become complex, with vast areas of fir forests in the hilly landscape, making visibility poor from the start. They not only had to guard against potential undead scouts from Madara but also against bears and maned wolves in the forest. Moreover, the refugee numbers were continually increasing. Even if Brendel threw in all thirty of his horsemen, it wouldn’t make a splash.
He had also sent the horsemen ahead to scout the area, further straining his available manpower.
Fortunately, Erluin still had many men who had undergone comprehensive militia training and were willing to fight. Brendel had just over thirty black grim longswords confiscated from the skeletal riders, and distributing them would allow him to arm around forty or fifty people without any issue.
Retao and Mano placed these people on the sides and rear, assigning them to patrol and maintain order and security among the refugee group. However, while this might sound simple, organizing it was quite troublesome; they spent half the morning on this task, and Retao had only come to report their progress.
Mano had another purpose. He, along with Charles, organized the pieces of armor collected from the undead scout cavalry the previous night and handed them to Brendel for examination.
Most were broken metal rings, with only a few metal pieces remaining. Brendel picked each one up, inspecting them in the sunlight and running his fingers along the inner side of the metal rings. He soon found the familiar emblem: an eye.
Brendel handed the armor scraps back to Mano and replied, “It looks like the Dead Maggots’ troops are following us, just like in history—”
He then noticed Mano looking at him suspiciously and quickly coughed, “The Dead Maggots’ Magus, he is a half-zombie. Among the military leaders of Madara, he is particularly adept at concentrating numerical advantages, but he prefers to march at night. When that happens, you’ll be able to see a sea of zombies.”
Brendel’s words made Retao and Mano exchange glances. They weren’t sure why Brendel knew so much about Madara, but he didn’t seem to be bragging. Moreover, this young man had no need to boast; after the battle the night before, he had already won the hearts of these old mercenaries.
However, Brendel paused, lifting his head to glance at the sky. There were a few dark dots in the distant southeast, uncertain if they were hawks from the mountains or the skeletal vultures of Madara. But he quickly dismissed the thought; as standard scouts for Madara, those skeletal vultures were unpredictable—they had excellent vision, allowing undead wizards to monitor every move on the battlefield.
In the last few years of the First Era, particularly between the years 421 (Year of Lush Vegetation) and 426 (Year of Celestial Signs), during several battles, especially the Slanted Forest Battle of Siphai, the skeletal vultures were indeed swarming; players deployed dragoon cavalry to disperse them but couldn’t keep up. That was Madara at its peak, almost pushing the maritime warfare strategy to its limit.
Yet, over years of combat, they had figured out some methods. For instance, in such densely forested and steep mountainous terrain, the skeletal vultures were severely diminished; their monotonous coloring made it hard to distinguish the complex environments of battle. Not to mention, whether it was Brendel’s four to five hundred men or even a couple of thousand moving through the Deer Hunt Hills, it would be like tossing a stone into the ocean—vanishing without a trace.
This was why Brendel insisted on entering Silver Sparrow Mountain, rather than following the bulk of the refugees into the easier-to-navigate Sharp Stone Valley. He didn’t say this out loud, fearing the seasoned mercenaries would have ulterior motives. Although he preferred to believe these people were still full of zeal, caution was always necessary.
Brendel thought for a moment and continued, “Magus likes to march at night, but he won’t idle away the entire day. He’ll use his elite ghouls and wights to drive away the refugees. But now his first priority should be to crush the White-Maned Swordsmen. I just wonder where Lukesons is right now.”
In reality, Brendel was most afraid of being spotted by the bone dragons. He knew Tagus should have three bone dragons at his disposal, and if they were spotted in an open area like the valley, it would truly be a disaster. However, Tagus would likely take some time to recuperate in Ridenburg, and after occupying the cemetery there, he should focus on expanding his forces, especially after removing the biggest obstacle—there were no hindrances between Ridenburg and Dragus through the Sharp Stone Valley.
As Brendel spoke, he couldn’t help but glance towards the valley. During this time, Retao and Mano gazed at him as if he had already become a young commander or a rising star, with their looks toward him shifting ever so slightly.
Though they were mercenaries, they couldn’t help but harbor thoughts of becoming noble retainers. However, only heaven knew that Brendel was just a pretender to nobility—despite the young man having tried to correct Charles’s form of address once, hearing the latter call him ‘Master’ with a serious tone made him feel a chill, preferring the current term of address.
Considering this matter, he could only blame it on the ‘factory settings’ not being set correctly.
After finishing the morning’s tasks, the entire morning passed without incident, but the refugee group continued to swell. Besides a detachment of refugees that caught up from behind, more had escaped from the valley and mingled within. They brought news from that direction; Brendel’s predictions proved accurate, as Magus’s ghouls, wights, and three of Cabais’s skeleton armies were engaged in fierce combat with the White-Maned Legion, with a decisive outcome expected by evening.
The refugee group had expanded to around a thousand people. Brendel had them stop, using the time to cook some food. Fortunately, since Madara attacked the northwest and southwest districts when entering the city yesterday, most of those fleeing from the north had ample time to bring some essential supplies, so Brendel didn’t have to worry about food for now.
Yet, the young man wasn’t unprepared. To him, the Deer Hunt Forest was a natural food reserve. The forest teemed with various animals; besides the aggressive bears and maned wolves, there were wild boars, deer, badgers, and hares, along with plenty of pine nuts to gather, and mushrooms and wild vegetables in the woods. As long as one was willing, sustaining one or two thousand people was not too difficult to ensure their basic needs were met.
Around three in the afternoon, the horsemen sent out earlier finally brought back the first piece of news for Brendel. Interestingly, this news wasn’t about Madara—
But rather that someone wished to meet him.
…
(PS: At the last moment, I finally caught up. I was supposed to finish this chapter in the afternoon, but who knew I got a bit too happy returning home for New Year and ended up overeating, then had a stomachache until the evening before feeling a bit better. One should avoid binge eating! =__=!
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