Chương 22: 22：Pragmatism Over Chivalry

Half an hour later. The four massive kodo beasts that had been pulling the carts lay collapsed in the mud, their bodies bristling with stray arrows as they let out weak, agonizing whimpers. In front of the two purple-striped supply wagons, the muddy ground had been churned into a thick paste of green blood. The last heavily armored orc sank to his knees. Seventeen broken crossbow bolts were embedded in his heavy chestplate. A thick arrow shaft pierced straight through his throat.

Bloody froth bubbled past his lips with every ragged breath until, finally, his violent twitching ceased. A heavy silence fell over the camp, broken only by the crackle of dying embers and the ragged, exhausted panting of the human soldiers. Soren lowered his longbow and vaulted down from the mud wall. The wet squelch of his military boots stepping through pools of blood echoed sharply in the deathly still camp.

He strolled casually through the carnage, drew the longsword at his waist, and drove it into the back of a goblin's head that was still faintly twitching on the ground. The movement was as effortless and indifferent as crushing a bug.

"Report the numbers, " Soren ordered, not bothering to look back. Kyle knelt in the mud, coughing violently as he clutched his left arm, where a stray halberd strike had sheared off a large chunk of flesh. Beside him, over a dozen slave auxiliaries lay sprawled in the muck, gasping for air, utterly drained of their strength. Hearing the command, Kyle forced himself upright and scanned the battlefield.

"Five dead... They were cut in half by those dual-halberd berserkers who managed to break through our lines."

"The rest of us are all banged up. Three severely wounded, thirty-five with light injuries. Nobody else died." Kyle swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva. He stared at the two heavily guarded supply wagons, then shifted his gaze to the surrounding corpses of the elite black-armored orcs. Five dead. Thirty-eight wounded. In exchange, they had completely annihilated thirty black-armored orc heavy infantry and twenty goblins.

That wasn't even counting the high-tier shaman—a monster capable of single-handedly wiping out a hundred-man company—and the other seventy black-armored heavy infantry. If a general presented this kill-to-death ratio to the Royal Council of the Silvermoon Kingdom, he would be hanged on the spot for falsifying military reports. Without a devastating charge from an order of heavy knights, ordinary human infantry simply couldn't pierce the defenses of orc heavy infantry.

Yet, the impossible had just happened right before their eyes. Every man present understood the truth. Without the terrifying suppressing fire of the heavy repeating crossbows, and without a commander whose every arrow reaped an enemy's life with absolute precision, they would have all been slaughtered. Even if they had brought a hundred—or a thousand—more men, the swamp would have been their grave. Ein secured his longbow and limped over to Soren's side.

As he stared at the hulking corpses, the absolute awe in his eyes practically threatened to spill over. Soren, however, ignored the mountain of dead bodies. He stopped in front of the purple-striped supply wagon and reached out, gripping the carriage's heavy brass lock. His heightened senses had already picked up on the astonishing fluctuations of mana radiating from behind the wooden panels. The lock's internal springs had been fused solid with molten iron—a standard procedure for top-secret escorts.

Soren drew his fine-steel longsword, reversed his grip, and aimed the heavy pommel at the brass shackle. The power of his Son of Titan bloodline surged through his veins, giving him a burst of terrifying strength as he brought his wrist down in a vicious strike. Clang! The brass lock shattered completely. Soren ripped away the heavy, resin-soaked waterproof tarpaulin and kicked the rear doors open. A distinct waft of sulfur, dried herbs, and rich mana rolled out from the darkness within.

Neatly stacked inside the carriage were over fifty moisture-proof wooden crates. Soren casually pried open the lid of the nearest crate. Resting snugly inside was a row of glass vials, the crimson liquid within refracting a faint, magical glow. Mid-tier Recovery Potions. They could stop severe bleeding in less than ten minutes. Soren drew his dagger and quickly popped the lids off a few more crates. Bundles of sun-dried Sunweed, refined Snakebone powder, and high-purity raw mana crystals.

And, most importantly, two entire crates holding over sixty individually sealed battlefield first-aid potions. For Soren, this was exactly what he needed—an absolute godsend. The environment in the Misty Swamp was brutally harsh, and the constant miasma made it incredibly easy for open wounds to fester and rot. Back at their base camp in Greywater Village, they had been relying entirely on a few girls foraging for basic cold-dispelling herbs, crushing them into a paste to act as makeshift fever reducers.

If anyone suffered a major trauma, the only thing they could do was watch helplessly as the soldier slowly died from infection. Now, armed with this stockpile of ready-made mid-tier potions and base alchemical ingredients, everything changed. Even without a certified Alchemist, simply diluting the mixtures at the correct ratios would be enough to reduce severe injuries to minor ones, and pull soldiers back from the brink of certain death. It would drastically plummet their mortality rate.

"Open the second wagon, " Soren ordered, taking a half-step back as Kyle approached. Two auxiliary soldiers worked together to unlatch and pull down the solid oak tailgate of the second wagon. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Instantly, the heavy, mouth-watering scent of animal fat, cured salt, and fermented wheat rolled out over the muddy clearing. The interior was stacked high with sturdy wooden barrels and burlap sacks.

The outermost layer consisted of massive slabs of coarse-salt-cured magic beast jerky, each piece sliced as broad as a knight's shield. Behind the meat were dozens of tightly stitched sacks bulging with wheat flour. In the very back sat over a dozen half-man-tall clay jugs, securely sealed with beeswax. They were packed to the brim with honey-preserved berries. The slave auxiliaries, who had just been slumped in the mud gasping for air, instantly fell dead silent.

Torn stared wide-eyed, the sound of him gulping echoing loudly in the quiet camp. Ever since they had been enslaved at Reed Bay, their daily ration had been a single, meager bowl of rancid rice gruel. Even the militiamen conscripted from the fishermen of Greywater Village couldn't stop themselves from shuffling forward. For years, they had subsisted on rock-hard rye loaves padded out with sawdust. Soren scooped out a handful of sticky, honey-drenched berries and tossed them to Torn.

"Pass out the berries and the syrup first. Nobody touches the dried meat for at least half an hour, and pace yourselves. If you gorge on cured meat after starving for this long, your intestines will literally burst." Those short words were like breaking a magic seal. A low, reverent cheer rippled through the soldiers. They clustered together in small groups, using wooden ladles or simply their cupped hands to catch the syrupy fruit.

The sheer relief of knowing they wouldn't go hungry tonight caused the unit's morale to skyrocket. Leaving them to their feast, Soren turned and walked toward the camp's perimeter to inspect the hidden sentry posts. His men were wounded and exhausted, in no shape to fight another battle. It was up to him to ensure no hostile reinforcements were closing in. A short while later, behind a mud-brick silo, Kyle tore off a strip of coarse linen.

Biting down on one end, he yanked the cloth tight, securing a makeshift bandage over his mangled left arm. Ein, his signature ox-horn longbow slung across his back, sat silently on a nearby wooden stump. As the squad leaders of their respective units, the two had properly acquainted themselves while sharing the spoils. Kyle's gaze drifted past the resting troops, fixing on Soren's back as the commander positioned the new watchmen.

"Ein... have you ever seen anyone fight a battle like that?" Ein shook his head."Back in the village, I only hunted game. I've never been on a real battlefield."

"My grandfather did, " Kyle murmured, looking down at the dirt."Over a century ago, during the meat-grinder battles along the border of the Stormrift Fortress." He scoffed bitterly."Those pampered noble generals sat safely on horseback, clutching their gold-hilted rapiers. They just pointed at the orc shield walls and ordered infantrymen like my grandfather—men who didn't even own a decent set of leather armor—to charge headfirst into the slaughter."

"A hundred men would die just to push the frontline forward a single meter. The nobles called it the honor of sacrifice." Kyle finally looked up, a feverish zeal burning in his eyes.

"But His Lordship is different." He pointed toward a cluster of heavy orc corpses foaming at the mouth. Those were the seventy elites who had been effortlessly dispatched without a single blade being swung, all thanks to a batch of poisoned wine.

"He had the sheer nerve to assassinate an orc centurion completely solo. He stood face-to-face with a High Shaman who specialized in lethal venom magic, and he actually used the Highland Orc dialect to bluff them." Kyle's voice trembled with awe."He tricked them into removing their heavy armor. Tricked them into dropping their guard, and then paralyzed their hearts with poison." Ein's fingers tightened white-knuckled around his longbow as he finished the thought.

"And then, using the thick fog as cover, he had us unleash those seventy heavy repeating crossbows to suppress the surviving thirty-man guard detail. He stood at the absolute front of the vanguard, personally executing those heavily armored brutes one by one. But the most important thing is..." Kyle slammed his fist against his thigh.

The jolt aggravated his wounds, causing him to hiss in pain, but his voice rang out with crystal clarity:"The most important thing is that he absolutely refuses to let us throw our lives away for nothing!"

"He treats us like human beings. He doesn't spout that ridiculous, hypocritical garbage about chivalric spirit. All he cares about is making sure we win the battle—and that we actually stay alive to see the victory." In this chaotic, war-torn era where human lives were reaped as cheaply as weeds, swearing loyalty to a commander who possessed the terrifying martial prowess of a War God—yet still fiercely valued the lives of his men—was the only true path to salvation for bottom-tier soldiers.

Sharing a deeply understanding look, Kyle and Ein both used their weapons to leverage themselves up. Together, they walked toward Soren. From this moment on, if Soren pointed at the mouth of an active volcano and ordered them to jump, they would do so without a second of hesitation.

"My Lord, " Kyle said, coming to a halt at Soren's side and bowing his head deeply."The men have caught their breath. The underground dungeon in this camp hasn't been breached yet. Do we have your permission to open it?" Soren nodded."Take a small squad. Light some torches and head down. Let's see if there's anyone still alive in there."