Chapter 44 (1/2)
Night fell, and the bustling htingales occasionally whispered in the tranquil woods The moon shi+ned a layer of silver across the entire sky, but the light gradually became dimmer as it traveled across the hills and trees, with only a few pale white rocks reflecting the diht
The battlefield was co had happened there during the day The strong stench of blood attracted all the beasts in thescent of fresh blood, the beasts were afraid to get too close to the woods They kept peering in and out of the surrounding forest, terrified of the bonfires, and of these huerous than hunters
The Narcissus Knights lit a few bonfires in the forest, and the fires were in contrast to the entire field of slaughter The woods had been ruined There were lots of fallen trees and so unsteadily fro them were innumerable crosses, with a dead body crucified on each cross
Despite all the scars on these bodies, there was only one deadly wound, which was a neat cut of the throat These were the masterpieces of the First Lieutenant Chief Arden of the Narcissus Knights Even though Arden had just been promoted to First Lieutenant, he felt that it was not worth his excitement Not when there were only a few officers left alive in the team
Although the Narcissus Knights did not like to torture their captives, they were not too bothered about their principles this tihts never had any happy ending anyway Often they treated enemy prisoners with intense measures, so now they were naturally not courteous while dealing with these enemies of no clear status Since they dared to attack the Andrew family within the territory of the empire, they should be prepared to accept the consequences and punishments
In the afternoon, Colonel Kaanized the ranks of the troops All the Narcissus Knights ere able to ride were sent to the hills on both sides of the forest They were responsible for taking care of anyone or anything that they felt was a threat to the troops within a two-kilo around the mountains
Regarding those Imperial Guards, the colonel had them for The Imperial Guards were not cowards, they had proved their worth during the fighting earlier that day However, the colonel thought they still lacked the courage to fully co themselves into the battlefield
One small team inspected and cleaned up every nook and cranny of the woods and all the bandits ere injured or unable to roup of Imperial Guards turned into carpenters They chopped down the trees across the woodland for the whole afternoon, and finally, they ed to produce a total of 176 crucifixes
The knights faithfully executed the orders of the prince They sent the begging bandits up to the crucifixes, and the sound of sharpened wooden stakes piercing into hu melody The screa battle The scene reseenerates The colonel invited all the woh they did not witness it with their own eyes, the htened At this est son was extreed-up Oscar juhts ways to perform executions
The I like that The earth-shattering fight earlier today had already made them uncomfortable, but this abusive task that the prince and colonel assigned to the was too simply an easy task, and to watch so
The Imperial Guards clu the orders of the prince They first crushed the limbs of the uards were forroups of four, where one was responsible to tie up the enemy captives on the crosses, while the other three nailed the wooden stakes
It was not until late afternoon that all the captives were taken care of, and the worn-out guards finally could take a rest to admire their cruel masterpieces The hills were decorated with crosses, which each hung a painful soul Although they had already becoles and cries seemed to still be iered in the ears of the guards and could not be dismissed no matter how hard they tried
Blood poured into pools under each of the inverted crosses, and they quickly seeped into the soil The bad stench spread around the compound, which attracted swarms of flies to fly around the corpses The Ier interested in their hard work after their initial glances It was at this e - the best eneh the ene more wonderful than a view like this
The Imperial Guards had set up a simple campsite at the foot of the mountain which was only four or five hundred meters away fro Narcissus Knights would return to the ca more dead bodies, and the number of inverted crosses would increase to thirty ht fell
Several key figures of the troops gathered in a large tent It was originally a tent for His Royal Highness the Prince, the only one that had not been das
Dinnertih they all had no appetites, they knew they had to th They had come to a consensus that those bandits retreated voluntarily fro their unsuccessful attempt at assassination That was to say that they still had the power to fight again, hence no one could really predict ould happen next
Oscar was the first one to gobble down all the food served on his plate His wounds still hurt from time to time, but Percy had him take a couple of Dolantin, which had indeed relieved the prince fro He sat quietly and decided to take forty winks
Oscar who appeared to be deep asleep suddenly opened his eyes sharply At this action, the wo Footsteps were heard approaching the tent, and Oscar reflexively placed his hand around his machete handle
”Your Highness, Kamille is here to report to you” The footsteps halted in front of the door
”Come on in!” Lady duchess Celia replied to the colonel She saw her youngest son had already closed his eyes again, but his hand was still holding the machete
Her Royal Highness Princess, the Lady duchess, the Young Lady, and Annie all stood up to greet the few people who came into the tent Kamille was not alone, behind hi of Sins The two giants Godot and Ferry were outside too, but they did not co watch outside the tent since the end of the chaotic afternoon
”Take a seat, all of you Look at thereeted them with a warreet the men, but the people in the room knew that if it were not for the colonel and the two ht have all been dead and discarded in some barren hills
”How is the condition out there, Kaht?” Celia reluctantly played the role of a host Her youngest son was resting, while the other ladies also appeared to be unwilling to speak
”Please rest assured lady, our knights are the most determined soldiers Despite their heavy casualties, their roup leaders of the Narcissus Knights have already been discussing the possibility of annihilating the enehts were in fact not well, especially those who had been sacrificed
”Loss statistics?” Celia then asked She saw Sasha lower her head in silence Obviously, the young lady eventually did not have the courage to coned to her
”Statistics” Colonel let out a heavy sigh He stood up from his seat and stood respectfully before the Lady duchess The wound on his shoulder was still bleeding ”At noon today, the troop was aainst the eneihts reports a total of 91 sacrificed, 41 seriously injured, 5people, minor injuries were not calculated The First Squadron of the Third Regiment of the Sixth Cavalry Division of the Third Military Corps of the Eleventh troop of the Imperial Army reports a total of 141 sacrificed, 69 seriously injured, minor injuries were not calculated At present, the actual coarrison troop is 245 people The financial situation and other personnel losses were not countedII am finished ”
”It's not your fault, Kamille,” Celia comforted the paladin ”That's not too bad of a situation, for noe could possibly also get help froarrison”
”Lady, indeed, I found the o seek for help, butyou know, those gangsters will have surely set numerous obstacles on the way to the army station That is to say, at the moment, we cannot expect any help from others”
”Sit down, Kahed Even she could not think of other alternatives
Kamille took his seat and also lowered his head At this crucial h the enemy lost a total of 479 dead bodies and over 200 captives were slaughtered, he believed that these guys still had enough strength and hts and arrison, the paladin could not think of any possible plan of offense against the eneressive assault like how they did at noon anymore
”Who are those guys?”
Ka Only a hness Prince when he wobbly sat up from the soft bed
”I reot any results?” Oscar wobbly stood up Antonia, as beside him, quickly helped steady the prince
”I'hness, ation Teauys that you asked for separately, but I still have yet to interrogate them,” replied Kamille
”Doramy, what do you think?”
The King of Sins stood up and pretentiously bowed to the ladies
”Your Highness, I did a quick check and figured that they should not have been a regular army It can be seen from their equipment because they had a cos, but they did not have core weapons such as the heavy crossbow or repeating crossbow So, uess is that they were possibly just mercenaries, perhaps from Italia, Faran, Malton, or Slovenia” Doramy knew a little about er
”What about the few assassins who attacked me and the princess? They wore the uniform of the Imperial Guards Why was that?” The prince subconsciously laid his hand on his ain It see impression on him, and was still on his mind
”Your Highness!” Kaain, and his action seemed a little strenuous because of the wound on his shoulder ”Your Highness, I did some research on the Imperial Guards, and some people could prove that they started the journey with the troop, but they were only added to the troop as suppleuards before we left for the journey None of our knights knew about their backgrounds I only learned that they were a total of six people, in which you had slaughtered two and the paladins of the princess had killed three Unfortunately, the two paladins were sacrificed, and the last of the six was also killed by Your Highness”
Oscar's head ached even more severely He knew that the side effect of Dolatin had started to take place ”Well, this is a good enough explanation Ourroute, the camp layout, the distribution of soldiers, the composition of our defense, all our actions were revealed to the eneain as he could not stand the pain of the raine
”Kaather here today! If it was not for your strict defense, I ah the enemy had help from the inside, they couldn't find a proper opportunity Their assassination today thus was executed out of frustration Despite our heavy losses, and speaking fro but dead bodies! Oh yeah! They got irls, and I will definitely collect this debt from them!”
Kaain, he did not want to ns of inflahness, this is ence that brought upon us this situation we encountered today I did not realize that our enemy had planted their men within our troop As the commander, I should have considered the probability Even until now I am still not sure if the troop is completely without the threat of internal spies”
”No, Kamille, these are inevitable, and it is not possible for us to identify them one by one What I auy anted to murder h aet rid of hness Princess! This is the part of the equation I can't fathom I understand that many people want me dead, but Alanis?” he turned and looked at the princess
”Alanis did not offend anyone, on the contrary, everyone in the ehness Princess, I want to apologize to you Snowstor us both, but I disregarded his warning I really cannot figure out who the culprit would be ”
”Oscar, you should not say that You saved my life and Emory's, I will not allow you to blame yourself anymore,” the princess said sternly
The young man waved his hand nonchalantly That hat he should do If any misfortune really happened to Alanis, he believed Alfa III would never ever let him off the hook
”Kamille, what's your opinion on our next uy who planned all this in the shadows at this point, but he had already narrowed down the possible scope of the target The bastard could undetectably put six assassins aroup, this was definitely only the ability of an important person
”Your Highness, I do not know I really have no idea As Sir Doran itimate reasons to enter the territory of titan If they did not, the garrison and border guards here are all under suspicion so it is not advisable to even count on the help of the uard and Sir Drosha return ”
”Where did they go?” Oscar wondered
”I also did not know they left initially, I only found out that the two gentle the nu of assassins and the paladin chasing after the enemy deserters, and there was no more news of them after this”
”Hahahaha! Really? This is true? Ferry indeed saw all this?” Oscar was elated at the news
”Yes, Ferry swore he was not mistaken”
”Great! This is great! Perhaps the two guys will bring back soo, my paladin You ation experts for now? Haha, I figured it out We have myself, Doramy, plus a doctor who can make a man experience so h?
The woods becarass and shrubsbeast Not far from the campsite burned several bonfires, butaround actively within the caures advanced in and out of the tents, and whenever a tent opened, the angry swears of men and the women's screams of pain would spread across far into the deep forests
”What should we do?” Sarlat Drosha clenched his fist around his sword For the past few days, he had been sharing the sairls of the prince, and he adored the girls They were the purest group of teenagers, who affectionately called him Uncle Drosha
Snowstorot acquainted” with ten years ago to cease hiirls, but as the King of assassins, he would not allow hied froht into a different role
”What do you want to do? Rush in and kill all of them? They have more than 500 people in there How many can you kill?”
”No! I can't bear to hear these voices anyht be nailed to the mountain with arrows even before I can enter the cauilty” Sarlat Drosha freed hirip
”Hey!” Snowstorain, but this time the paladin was prepared, he held his rapier at the throat of the King of assassins
”Do not stop me!” Sarlat threatened his old friend, with clenched teeth The deafening waves of wails caain
”Sarlat, they are finished! Do you understand? They are already dead! Keep this life of yours to seek revenge later!” Snowstorently moved the rapier a little to the side ”Your task now is to ht you earlier It iselse, to explain the situation over here after you return to the prince”
More rustling cairl from one tent to another Sarlat could not see who it was, but he knew that the girl would not have the chance to see daylight
”What are you going to do?” The paladin sheathed his rapier He wanted to get out of this hell as soon as possible
”I aive their sentries a little surprise If the prince decides to risk attacking this ca I can reanizing his equipment He threw out all the tools that could create noise that would expose hiround In the end, he had only one short pocketknife in his hand
”Are you sure you want to do that? Thatis that a fruit knife?” Sarlat asked Paul with suspicion
”You are doubting the ability of your old friend” Snowstorm waved the small knife in his hand, ”Maybe to you this is a toy to cut fruit, but in my hands, it is a deadly weapon I have yet to remove the traps and dispatch the sentries, so do not waste any more time, you knohat to do!”
As the paladin silently slid into the woods, he glanced back once, but the King of assassins had already disappeared, and in the htly