Chương 138: 138：Rejecting Steel for Cotton

At the base of Lone Cliff, the pungent stench of blood and the acrid smoke of charred pitch still drifted through the air. The battle had officially ended, but the chilling, murderous aura of the slaughter still hung heavy over everyone's hearts. A few regular infantrymen from Ironwood Fortress stood on the far periphery, staring at Soren's encampment with shifting, complicated expressions.

There, the sixty-three frontline elites of Greywater Village were quietly and systematically organizing their spoils in the deep mud. There was no cheering, no boasting. Just absolute, disciplined silence. Suddenly, the frantic splashing of footsteps shattered the quiet. Three mud-caked pack beasts trudged heavily through the acidic puddles, coming to a halt just outside the camp perimeter.

The actual administrator of Lone Cliff, the merchant Thomas, practically tumbled off the back of his mount, slipping and sliding until his guards caught him. This was a man accustomed to walking on the softest imported wool carpets. Now, his expensive linen undershirt was caked in foul-smelling black sludge, and his massive belly heaved violently with every ragged breath.

"Out of my way... let me through! I need to see Lord Soren!" Soren was currently sitting on a collapsed wooden barricade.

"My Lord, that fat merchant from Lone Cliff is here," Gary, the Captain of the Trappers, reported in a low voice as he approached. Soren didn't even look up.

"Let him through." Thomas was escorted before Soren. When the merchant saw the young warlord's eerily calm profile—and the massive, uncoagulated puddle of dark green orc blood pooling near his boots—every eloquent speech he had prepared on the ride over instantly died in his throat. Thud. Thomas dropped heavily to one knee right into the freezing muck. Pressing his right hand firmly over his heart, he bowed his head deeply—a head that normally only ever bowed to gold coins.

"Lord Soren... No, esteemed Lord," Thomas stammered, his voice trembling with a mixture of overwhelming excitement and lingering, visceral terror.

"On behalf of the civilians of Lone Cliff, as well as the dozens of tons of wheat and five thousand pounds of high-tier alchemical herbs sitting in our storehouses, I offer you my absolute highest respect and deepest gratitude!" Thomas looked up. The rims of his beady, triangular eyes were bloodshot. He was genuinely terrified of what could have been.

"If your Wolf Riders hadn't risked their lives to deliver the warning... if you hadn't stood here and broken that tide of greenskins..." Thomas's lips quivered.

"Lone Cliff would already be a dead zone. My two-hundred-pound carcass would have been chewed to pieces between orc fangs by now. You didn't just save the goods, my Lord. You saved my entire life, and everything I own!" Faced with this tearful, snot-nosed display of gratitude, Soren spoke, his tone flat.

"I secured Lone Cliff for my own tactical necessities, not entirely for your sake. You listened to my warning, evacuated early, and saved your supplies. That just means it wasn't your time to die." Rather than feeling slighted by these dismissive words, Thomas actually felt his reverence deepen. To the merchant, it only made this young Vanguard Captain seem even more unfathomable and majestic.

"Even if my bones were ground to dust, I could not repay your grace, my Lord." Thomas took a deep breath, his expression suddenly shifting to one of utmost solemnity. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a parchment scroll sealed with waterproof oil-wax, raising it high above his head with both hands.

"But before anything else, this lowly one bears a crucial military mandate that must be relayed to you immediately." Standing a short distance away, Ironwood Fortress's commanders, Galahad and Gabriel, instinctively took a half-step closer upon hearing this. Thomas looked around before raising his voice, declaring every word with ringing clarity:"This is the absolute highest directive, transmitted directly via the mercury arcane array mere moments ago!"

"From the Supreme Commander of the Borderlands of the Holy Halycon Empire, Grand Duke Valentine!"

"His Grace has heard of your unprecedented battle record. He has issued a formal, official summons for you!"

"The Grand Duke requests that as soon as your local defenses are secured, you are to depart immediately for the imperial border stronghold, Megalith Fortress!"

"The Grand Duke will personally host a grand banquet to speak with you face-to-face!" The moment those words left his mouth, the air in the camp seemed to freeze solid. General Galahad's face paled in sheer horror, and he subconsciously sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. Gabriel felt a sudden spell of dizziness, the palms gripping his rapier instantly slick with sweat. A personal summons from Grand Duke Valentine! What kind of unfathomable honor was this?!

Across the entire Northern Defense Line, the words of Grand Duke Valentine carried the same weight as a royal decree from the King himself—in the military, they held even more absolute authority. How many generals from prestigious noble houses had bled on the borders for decades, yet never even earned the right to step near the edges of the Grand Duke's command tent?

And yet, the Grand Duke, famous for his ruthless, iron-blooded strictness, had proactively offered to host a grand banquet just to await a Vanguard Captain who, until today, had been completely unknown? Galahad looked at Soren with a gaze bordering on religious pilgrimage. In the old general's mind, no matter how stoic Soren was, he should be dropping to one knee right now, bowing deeply toward the direction of Megalith Fortress. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

However. Soren remained firmly seated on his broken log. His expression didn't change a fraction. There was no wild ecstasy, no overwhelming trepidation.

"Oh? Grand Duke Valentine?" Soren casually brushed a speck of mud off his boot, accepting the news with an offhand nod. He looked like he had just been told the farmer in the next village over was inviting him for a pint of cheap ale. That's his reaction?! Gabriel swallowed hard, watching from the sidelines. Is this guy's brain wired backwards, or does he genuinely not give a single damn about Grand Duke Valentine?! Gabriel screamed internally. Soren adjusted his posture and looked back at Thomas.

"Understood. I will go." This absolute, immovable composure—like a mountain could collapse in front of him and he wouldn't even blink—elevated Thomas's awe for Soren to an entirely new stratosphere. The merchant hurriedly stowed the parchment scroll and immediately plastered a flattering, ingratiating smile back onto his face.

"Lord Soren, the Grand Duke's summons is a glory belonging entirely to you. But I, Thomas, owe you my life, and I cannot leave such a debt unpaid!"

"Though I am but a humble merchant, here at Lone Cliff, I hold the highest clearance for deploying Imperial-allocated supplies." He patted his chest, speaking with booming generosity.

"Raising an army out here in the Misty Swamp... you must be starved for provisions and gear. You name it! Do you want Imperial-issue refined steel longswords? Wagon-loads of smoked meats and premium ale? Or perhaps Silvermoon Gold Coins? Just give the word, and even if I have to empty my personal vaults, I'll have it delivered to your camp!" Soren didn't answer immediately. He slowly looked Thomas up and down. The wind was picking up.

The damp, biting chill of the Misty Swamp pierced right through their clothes, sinking into their very bones. Soren noticed something. Despite being caked in mud, a layer of greyish-white fabric poked out from the collar of Thomas's shirt. It was a thick, padded cotton garment—something quite rare among the commoners of this world, who relied primarily on animal furs to fend off the cold. Cotton.

"I will definitely take the smoked meat and the gold coins," Soren said, slowly rising to his feet. He pointed directly at Thomas's collar.

"But I want to ask you for something much more unremarkable. As much of it as you have."

"Name it, my Lord!"

"Cotton," Soren said, holding his gaze.

"A massive amount of raw, unspun cotton. It doesn't need to be dyed, and it doesn't need to be tailored into clothes. Just bundle it by the dozen and load it into my wagons." The request caught Thomas completely off guard. His face twisted in confusion.

"Cotton? My Lord... aside from stuffing it inside blankets for warmth, you can't eat it, and you certainly can't kill orcs with it."

"We do have several dozen wagons of raw material in the Lone Cliff storehouses, originally meant for the frontline's winter garments, but... isn't that a bit too cheap of a reward?" Off to the side, the Monk, Renn, and the Trapper Captain, Gary, exchanged bewildered glances, scratching their heads. If the Lord is cold, he could just ask the fat merchant for premium bear-hide coats. Why ask for raw cotton?

Soren didn't bother explaining himself to his subordinates, but his mind was running sharper than anyone else's. In this world, the armor available to human soldiers was incredibly polarized. You either wore dirt-poor stiffened leather armor, which a spear could punch through like paper, or you wore astronomically expensive chainmail or steel plate. As for the hundreds of sets of black iron heavy armor he had just captured?

Their defensive properties were indeed staggering, but they were only suitable for monsters who had chugged Basic Troll Serum, like his frontline elites. For his second-line and third-line militias—who lacked superhuman strength—putting on black iron armor would root them to the ground. They wouldn't even be able to walk. Furthermore, when solid iron armor took a hit from a massive blunt weapon, the concussive force would transfer perfectly into the wearer's organs, causing catastrophic internal bleeding.

But cotton? That was the single most vastly underestimated armor material in the history of cold-weapon warfare on Earth. Padded Armor / Gambesons. By soaking raw cotton in water, repeatedly folding it, beating it, and compressing it under heavy weights until it was as dense as cardboard, and finally stitching it tightly together with thick hemp thread, you created a miracle of low-cost warfare.

Cotton armor crafted this way weighed less than a third of chainmail, meaning it wouldn't hinder a soldier's mobility during long forced marches. And yet, its defensive properties were terrifying. The dense, tightly packed layers of cotton could bite firmly onto slashing blades, granting immense resistance against swords and sabers. Against long-range arrow volleys, the arrowhead's kinetic energy would be rapidly sapped as it tried to punch through the incredibly tough, resilient cotton fibers.

It wouldn't even pierce the flesh. Furthermore, if he had his frontline elites wear this cotton armor underneath their black iron plating, it wouldn't just keep them warm—it would serve as the perfect shock absorber to nullify the blunt-force trauma of heavy impacts. In Soren's hands, dirt-cheap cotton wasn't just clothing. It was the key to a massive, across-the-board defense upgrade for his entire army!