Chương 212: 212：The Miracle of Zero Casualties

Backed by Greywater Village's currently abundant reserves of food and coin, Soren turned to face the hundreds of elite soldiers standing at attention in the square. Raising his voice, he declared:"From this day forth, should any soldier under the banner of Greywater Village fall in battle, the entire army shall don mourning white to bring their remains home for a proper burial! As for their widows, aging parents, and young children, Greywater Village will draw from the public treasury to provide for them."

"Furthermore, their families' ration stipends will be distributed at ten percent higher than even our active frontline troops!" At these words, several grizzled veterans who had lived their lives on the edge of a blade couldn't help but bite their lips, fighting back their emotions. Soren didn't stop there. His voice rose even higher:"As for our wounded, we will spare no expense to heal you! Those who make a full recovery may take up their weapons and return to the vanguard.

For those who are unfortunately crippled or lose their ability to fight, we will never abandon you! You may voluntarily transfer to the rear logistics to live out your days in peace!"

"And if any brother fights for Greywater Village and permanently loses his mobility..." Soren drew his longsword, the steel ringing out with a crisp shing.

"He shall forever be a hero of Greywater Village! He will never have to farm, nor will he ever be subjected to hard labor. The territory will provide for him for the rest of his life, until his dying day!" Soren's resounding oath sent a shockwave of absolute fervor through the ranks, violently surging the army's morale. Every soldier—whether a half-elf or a human refugee—dropped to one knee in the mud.

They slammed their right fists against their breastplates, their roaring war cries of absolute loyalty echoing endlessly through the air. Eventually, the crowd dispersed. Inside the main medical tent, the air was thick with the pungent, bitter scent of medicinal herbs. An hour later, the heavy curtain of the Village Chief's command cabin was pushed aside. Fina, her face flushed with excitement and her hands clutching a thick parchment ledger, hurried inside alongside Kyle.

"My Lord... the audits are complete." Soren, who was currently inspecting the fletching of the arrows in his quiver by candlelight, looked up.

"Read it. Give it to me straight." Kyle took a deep breath, speaking up before Fina could.

"My Lord, I'll be honest with you. When I first started tallying our casualties, my hands were shaking."

"Dozens of the half-elf brothers who led the charge in Broken Spine Canyon suffered fractures and internal bleeding. Scores of them had their armor cleaved entirely in half, their chests practically split open..."

"Heavy casualties, then." Soren frowned.

"Heavy! Unbelievably heavy!" Kyle's thick beard trembled before splitting into a wide, reassuring grin.

"But My Lord... it's a bloody miracle. After wading through a battlefield swarming with inhuman monsters and making it back... out of all the brothers from Greywater Village who marched to war... we didn't suffer a single fatality!" Even Lyra, who had been standing to the side resting with her eyes closed, snapped her eyes open in sheer astonishment. To execute a penetration maneuver of that scale against hundreds of iron-clad orcs and merely emerge victorious was already an incredible feat of arms.

But to do so with zero fatalities? That was entirely unheard of. Fina swallowed hard before explaining the root cause of this miracle.

"This is entirely thanks to your foresight, My Lord. It was the [Minor Life Recovery Potions] and [Battlefield First-Aid Potions] we looted previously." In this primitive world, alchemical potions were as rare as phoenix feathers. A single vial capable of stabilizing the vitals of a dying man could fetch enough coin on the black market to buy ten strapping half-orc slaves—with plenty of change to spare.

Typically, when the high nobility marched to war, only their core, high-ranking knights would be issued a single vial as a life-saving measure. Even within the deeply-pocketed regular armies of the kingdoms, severely wounded soldiers usually had to grit their teeth and rely on mundane herbs; whether they lived or died was entirely up to the grace of the Lord. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. But what had Soren done?

Prior to the battle, he had taken these priceless, exorbitant potions and distributed them in massive quantities, holding absolutely nothing back! He had even given Ilya absolute orders: the moment a man went down, they were to dump the potions directly onto the wounds! They were not to hold onto a single drop out of frugality! This extravagant consumption of potions was only the first step.

During the retreat, Chief Mage Victor had unhesitatingly overdrawn his own mana to cast vast, wide-scale Healing Hydrotherapy spells over every single wounded soldier. Finally, upon returning to camp, Kyle utilized his uncanny [Herb Mastery] talent to meticulously apply potent poultices to their injuries. This three-tiered, premium medical safety net had forcefully snatched dozens of critically wounded brothers straight from the jaws of death!

"Give them a month or two of bed rest, and they won't even suffer any permanent disabilities. They'll be right back on their feet, holding their spears as fiercely as ever," Kyle concluded.

"If we run out of potions, we can always raid the orcs' storehouses for more. But if our men die, I'll be out of brothers I can entrust my back to." Soren hung his longbow back on the wall, his expression finally softening into one of relief.

"Go on, then. Don't be stingy with the meat and ale we looted. Make sure the brothers who bled on the front lines get a hot meal by the braziers. And pass down the order: absolutely no loud noise around the intensive care tents."

"As you command, My Lord!" Kyle and Fina bowed and backed out of the cabin, heading off to manage the colossal task of inventorying the spoils. When the heavy wooden door clicked shut, cutting off the joyous laughter and celebrations from outside, Soren slowly closed his eyes. Within his mind, the Warlord System finally finalized its post-battle calculations. [Ding! Campaign Evaluation Complete.] [The Host has successfully annihilated an elite military formation of the Blood Province utilizing a vastly inferior force.] [Decapitation Target Eliminated: Provincial Oracle.] [Special Achievement Unlocked: Slain Key Figure - Mogg, Blood Nephew of the Provincial Governor.] Soren felt a deep wave of satisfaction. This was the ultimate payoff for risking his life, venturing personally into the Soulsever Gorge to butcher that extravagantly dressed inspection delegation. [Issuing Highest Tier Reward...] [Target Locked: Greywater Village Territorial Infrastructure - Volcanic Geothermal Blacksmith Forge.] [Commencing Upgrade.] In that very instant, Soren's keen senses picked up an incredibly subtle tremor rippling through the soles of his boots! He abruptly stood up and pushed the window open. He could clearly see the eastern side of the village, halfway up the slopes of the dormant volcano.

From the direction of the blacksmith's forge—where previously only a few rudimentary clay blast furnaces stood—an intense, brilliant burst of dark-cyan light erupted into the night sky!

"What's going on?! An earthquake? No, wait... by the gods!" Just as Soren was preparing to head out and investigate, the grating, hoarse shrieks of the hobgoblin Luger echoed from outside. Greywater Village's Chief Master of Mechanics and Arsenal Director hadn't even bothered to put on his helmet. His bald, gleaming green head bobbed wildly as he crashed right through Soren's door, flailing his arms in absolute hysteria.

"Boss! A miracle! It's a bloody miracle!" Luger was so violently excited that his green skin had flushed to a deep, bruised purple. He gestured frantically in the air with both hands.

"I was just up at the crater taking inventory of those newly hauled-in Black Iron ingots, and in the blink of an eye, our blast furnaces were completely encased in solid obsidian slabs!"

"And that's not all! The bases of the furnaces have been tethered directly to a magma vein surging straight from the planet's core!"

"The furnace temperatures have spiked by at least several thousand degrees! Even our manual bellows have been transmuted into semi-automatic Runic Air-Blowers!" Watching the wildly incoherent Luger, Soren glanced at the detailed upgrade specifications that had just popped up in his mind's eye. Chuckling softly, Soren patted the hobgoblin on the shoulder and firmly pressed him down into a chair.

"Calm down, Luger. It's not a miracle. It's just a minor upgrade I arranged for your workspace." Soren poured a mug of ale and handed it to the trembling hobgoblin.

"From today onward, that new blast furnace won't just be smelting ordinary scrap iron," Soren said smoothly.

"You now possess the capability to smelt and forge [Black Steel Equipment]." Clatter! The wooden mug slipped right out of Luger's grip, spilling ale all over his lap. The hobgoblin didn't even notice. His eyes bulged so far out of his skull they looked ready to pop. Black Steel! Even the lowliest street beggar knew the sheer value of those two words when it came to warfare! Black Iron was merely the baseline standard for heavy infantry.

While hard, it was notoriously bulky and incredibly prone to brittle fracturing when subjected to massive, blunt-force impacts. But Black Steel was an entirely different beast! It was a high-tier metal born from a thousand foldings and hammerings, fundamentally purged of all its impurities! Its defensive capabilities and structural integrity vastly eclipsed that of Black Iron, all while weighing only about seventy percent as much!

"Boss... you aren't messing with me, are you?" Luger swallowed hard, his voice trembling violently.

"If we forge [Black Steel Equipment] into full-plate heavy armor and weaponry, and issue it to our vanguard elites... Boss, their survivability against ordinary orcs would be like wearing five extra layers of chainmail! In single combat, our boys would absolutely steamroll them on every conceivable front!" Soren walked over to his desk and unrolled a parchment drafted with the territory's resource logs, beginning his strategic calculations.

"A long time ago, we managed to loot a hundred sets of Black Steel armor. I've always been hindered by our insufficient furnace temperatures, so they've just been gathering dust in the storehouse."

"And this time, during our ambush of the inspection delegation in the Soulsever Gorge, we fully stripped another hundred sets of intact Black Steel armor off their dead Black Steel Guards!"

"Just counting ready-made gear, we're sitting on an inventory of exactly two hundred sets of Black Steel!"

"With this upgraded Black Steel blast furnace, Luger, your first job is to melt down and reforge these sets."

"Furthermore, you can take the tens of thousands of pounds of Black Iron ingots we just hauled back and begin continuously purifying and refining them."

"Using this new furnace, roughly the weight of five sets of Orcish Black Iron armor, after being subjected to deep-refinement, can be purified and compressed down to yield one complete, human-sized set of [Black Steel Armor]!"