Chương 88: 88：Logistics Dictate the War

There, a tall wooden platform had already been erected. Resting upon it were two coffins, hastily nailed together overnight from freshly felled pine. All 598 residents of the village—save for the sentries on duty and the goblins working the blast furnaces—had gathered spontaneously around the square. Frontline soldiers, elderly farmers, and even toddlers barely old enough to walk stood together. No one spoke. The only sound was the crackling and popping of burning torches.

Soren dismounted his horse and ascended the platform, step by heavy step. He stopped before the two coffins. Inside lay the fragmented bones of Old Tom, retrieved from a totem pole in the Withered Bone Heights, alongside a blood-soaked linen shirt that had belonged to Little Jack. For any human killed by an orc, an intact corpse was an impossible luxury. Soren turned around, looking down at the hundreds of tear-filled eyes staring back at him from the square.

"Renn."

"Sir!" The burly monk, Renn, strode onto the platform. In his grip was a burlap sack, still dripping with fresh, watery blood. Renn grabbed the bottom of the sack and gave it a violent shake. Thud. Roll. A hideous, severed head tumbled out, coming to a halt directly in front of the two coffins! Its eyes were wide open, the single remaining eye frozen in terror. It belonged to none other than Gul, the bandit chieftain who had ravaged the Withered Bone Heights for years! Gasp!

A collective intake of breath swept across the square. Many of the newly sheltered commoners covered their mouths, their legs trembling uncontrollably. This was the legendary orc who loved to eat humans alive! And now, his head had been tossed away like a ragged ball by their Lord, dumped unceremoniously before the coffins of two ordinary villagers! Soren spoke, his voice slow and resonant:"A total of two hundred and fifteen orc heads were left on that mountain!"

"And this one, belongs to their leader." Old Tom's widow, a white-haired crone, felt her knees buckle upon hearing this. She collapsed heavily into the mud and began kowtowing toward Soren on the platform.

"My Lord... those were just two worthless lives! How could you... how could you do all this just for us..." The old woman sobbed uncontrollably, and countless villagers around her felt their own eyes redden with tears. On the continent of Erysia, a commoner's life wasn't even worth a single copper coin. Drunken noble lords could trample a dozen serfs to death under their horses' hooves without batting an eye.

Yet the Lord before them—just because one old man and one little boy from his territory had been murdered—had not hesitated to mobilize his core elites. He had paid whatever price was necessary to uproot a formidable orc tribe of over two hundred warriors!

"Stand up! I forbid you to kneel!" Soren barked, his brow furrowing. His murderous shout made the few commoners who had just fallen to their knees tremble violently. They hastily helped each other back to their feet. He despised it when commoners knelt. A person accustomed to groveling for too long would lose the very bloodlust needed to grip a blade and fight for their life when facing a strong enemy. Soren drew his longsword and roared:"Remember who you are now!

You are no longer helpless refugees waiting to be slaughtered in the Misty Swamps. You are my people! You are the people of Soren!"

"As long as you clear the land, plant the fields, and toil for this territory, I will enforce my iron law!"

"As long as I draw breath, any greenskin bastard—or anything else—that dares to extend its claws toward Greywater Village will share the fate of the Withered Bone Heights!"

"Even if I have to chase them to the depths of the Abyss, I will chop off their heads and give them to you as chamber pots!"

"Under my protection, your only duty is to strive to live! To eat your fill! Keep your backs straight!"

"We pledge our lives to the Lord!" Led by Gary and Ein, sixty-four elite frontline soldiers slammed their fists against their black iron breastplates in unison. Bang! Bang! Bang! The feverish fervor instantly infected the entire crowd. Whether frontline or reserve soldiers, the two hundred elderly and weak logistics workers, or even the green-skinned goblins holding short blowdarts—everyone waved their arms with all their might. A wildfire of fanaticism burned in their eyes. The funeral concluded.

The crowd dispersed, newly energized. With Soren's promise, even knowing the thick fog outside was teeming with venomous snakes and vicious beasts, they felt this village, ringed only by simple wooden chevaux-de-frise, was the safest fortress in the world. Fina Hawthorne, tasked with managing the territory's internal affairs, finances, and rations, quietly observed it all. The former noble lady stood holding a thick parchment ledger.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Its pages were densely packed with records of the staggering wealth hauled back during the night. Stacks of Imperial military longbows, tens of thousands of armor-piercing arrows, large quantities of marching wheat, and iron chests brimming with gold and silver coins. Yet Fina's focus was not on the treasure, but on Soren. As he stepped down from the platform, she approached him, her eyes filled with awe.

"My Lord," Fina said, offering a slight bow and lowering her voice.

"Your speech just now was incredible."

"Across this continent, I have seen countless nobles send thousands of serfs to die for a few inches of land. But I have never seen a commander actively risk his own life just to win the gratitude of commoners who can't even lift a halberd."

"In the high society of the Silvermoon Kingdom, the adoration of the common folk is considered utterly worthless. It might even be mocked as a sign of weakness."

"But the devotion you commanded today... it shocks even someone like me, who spent a decade studying Noble Command Theory."

"With the look in their eyes, if you gave the word, they would charge headlong into heavily armored orcs armed with nothing but farming hoes." Soren stopped and turned to his Minister of Internal Affairs.

"Weakness?" He let out a cold laugh. Possessing a modern mindset, his perspective on warfare was separated by entire generational gaps from the rigid, archaic nobles of this era.

"Fina, you only saw me deploying troops to avenge two commoners. You've failed to see the true essence of war."

"It doesn't matter how much Troll Serum my frontline elites have consumed, or how many special tactics I teach them. If their bellies are empty, or if their swords shatter without replacements, the orcs will eventually grind them down into dust."

"True strength is never just about how sharp a weapon is, or how much muscle a few dozen men possess. It's about this." Soren tapped his boot heavily against the dirt of Greywater Village.

"Old Cook's geothermal blast furnaces cannot stop. It takes over a hundred able-bodied men a day just to pump the bellows and smelt the black iron we capture."

"The Swamp Tubers fields need constant weeding and patrolling. We need the elderly, the women, and the children to harvest them."

"When our soldiers are wounded, we rely on the women to stitch their wounds, wash their bandages, and brew their medicinal herbs." Soren looked up, his gaze profound as he stared at a stunned Fina. Logistics precede the march! Every gleaming warblade on the frontline, every bowl of hot soup—they are all built upon the foundation of logistics! If he wanted the people of his territory to willingly sweat over blast furnaces and plant potatoes, the most unbreakable foundation he could give them was security!

To achieve great things, the hearts of the people were paramount. Fina was an exceptionally brilliant woman. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her mind, instantly illuminating Soren's theory that 'logistics dictate the war.' She took a sharp intake of breath. The lingering traces of her noble pride vanished, replaced entirely by profound reverence.

"I understand, My Lord!"

"Your foresight... it far exceeds even the Royal Generals of the Silvermoon Kingdom."

"I will immediately see to the seventeen women we recently took in. By tomorrow at the latest, they will be fully integrated into our textile logistics division." Soren nodded in satisfaction.

"Go. And while you're at it, inform our Logistics Chief, Kyle. Tell him to assemble every single spearman from the reserve defense force and bring them to me!" Half an hour later. The southwest corner of Greywater Village. Under Kyle's command, one hundred and one reserve spear-and-shield soldiers stood in strict formation. They were clad in iron half-plate, each wielding a three-meter-long black iron spear. In the wide clearing directly ahead of them, over a dozen reinforced oak chests had been pried open.

Inside lay exactly one hundred neatly stacked military longbows. Piled into a mountain beside them were crates upon crates of triangular, armor-piercing heavy arrows! The sharpshooter, Ein, was lovingly stroking the belly of one of the longbows. His breathing had grown heavy with pure excitement. Before today, Greywater Village had severely lacked ranged units.

When dealing with enemies, they had been forced to rely on the pathetic, low-damage blowdarts of the green-skinned goblins, or resort to throwing short spears—a tactic that drained massive amounts of stamina. If an enemy was more than thirty paces away, they had been forced to helplessly stare at them. As for their crude, homemade hunting bows, they lacked draw weight. Even if an arrow found its mark, it couldn't pierce thick orc skin! But now... everything was different.