Idric felt very troubled. To be fair, if he had a choice, he would not be willing to go on this mission. He was caught between the two thoughts of a legal challenge, the illusion of achieving great achievements, and the imminent attack on the royal territory, which was tantamount to rebellion.
Know if you really should take action.
If there was a military conflict between Duke Bato and other nobles, he would definitely cut off the sword in his hand without hesitation, but when the opponent is the royal family that has ruled Casa for hundreds of years, please allow me to think twice.
Although the confrontation between the two forces has been going on for a long time, and this is not the first time that armed confrontation has occurred, everyone is fighting and killing in private, and there is still harmony on the stage.
After all, the current ruling policy of the royal family believes in quietness and inaction. In other words, it is very unsatisfactory. Although the results are not very good, at least there is no boiling public dissatisfaction. There has never been a war, and the tax rate is not high.
He also did not dictate all the governance implemented in Baator territory.
All in all, the presence is not strong.
At least it's not very hateful.
So even though this kind of challenge has legal support, he still feels quite conflicted in his heart. It seems unnecessary?
"At least we can't act in the name of the Fifth Knights of Casadoria, right? Should we change our name to another one?"
He thought silently in his heart, walked out of the room and came to the hotel lobby, which was already occupied by them and used as a headquarters.
"There's no order to attack today, right? Where's the declaration of war?"
A man sitting at a long table eating breakfast swallowed the food in his mouth and answered him.
"No, no, there is no messenger today, and no magic communication has been received."
"It's fine if you don't."
Idric breathed a sigh of relief.
This reaction made the person who answered the question laugh: "Are you still thinking about your question?"
"Yeah, no matter how much I think about it, it doesn't feel right."
"Didn't the old scholar explain this to us before we set off? Although it's awkward, it's legal."
"I remember that as long as the Duke issued a document of challenge before attacking, it must be legal, but I always felt something was wrong."
"It's a bit awkward, but since it's legal, if the order to attack comes, will your knights carry it out?"
Idric hesitated for a moment, as if to emphasize to himself, and nodded heavily: "Since it is a legal challenge, I will still implement it."
"You knights just think too much. After all, you are the ones who swore the oath. We never think about it. We will fight whoever the Duke tells us to fight!"
Another man lying on a lounge chair in the corner raised his body half up and took up the conversation.
"Then why were you complaining yesterday that you didn't want to go out and wanted to go home?"
"Ha, don't you want to go home? I'm willing to kill the Duke, but I also want to go home. Is there any conflict?"
A man suddenly opened the door and walked in. He had an incredible look on his face: "It's strange that our grain truck didn't come. It should have arrived yesterday. Although there is quite a lot of reserves, we are not in a hurry, but we haven't arrived yet."
It’s not appropriate to be late when you get up for food.”
No one seemed to be in a hurry:
"Let's wait a little longer. We might be delayed on the road. We haven't declared war yet, and the royal family can't take action first. We're still marching inside, so there's nothing to worry about for the time being."
So this person also joined the chatting army, and until lunch time, the convoy of grain transporters did not come.
The uneasiness in Idric's heart gradually grew, and he dropped the bread in his hand: "The situation is not right, no matter how much delay it is, it shouldn't be delayed for so long. This kind of thing has never happened before. Please inform me, the whole army is on standby, you can take care of it."
My own people. I’ll take the scout knight over to see what’s going on with the food!”
Soon, Idric led a group of knights, fully armed, mounted their horses and ran towards the path where the grain cart must pass.
The risk of traveling far away these days is too high for most people to bear, so there are very few pedestrians on the road. It is normal to walk along the way, but there is no trace of the grain truck. It was not until the next day that Idric noticed something very strange.
Abnormal situation.
At first there were just one or two, but as the road progressed, more and more farmers and citizens in ordinary clothes gradually appeared. They had large bags and small bags, some were pushing small carts, and some were simply empty-handed, with faces on their faces.
With an expression of panic, he walked quickly.
Children were held or carried on their mothers' backs, and men carried their luggage until their faces turned pale. Some people even had white bubbles flowing from the corners of their mouths but they still didn't stop.
They saw Idric and his men riding horses galloping from the other end of the road, and hurriedly avoided the roadside.
"Stop! Stop!"
Idric raised his hand and controlled the team to stop slowly in front of the crowd. He felt strange that he had never heard of a beast tide breaking out in the Bator territory. There had been no floods recently, and it was not a drought season. What were they running from?
?
He cracked his whip, looked carefully, and pointed at a person in the crowd who looked a little more decently dressed: "You come to answer. What's the situation? What's wrong with you? Why did you suddenly flee? You know that the people are on their own
Do you have to be whipped 50 times if you are caught while fleeing?"
The man shrank his neck, but did not kneel down as Idric expected. Instead, he looked back at the direction they came from:
"Sir Knight, we are from Toseka Town. They are from Shanmu Village, on the mountain south of Bato. They came to the town empty-handed the night before, with expressions on their faces that they were scared out of their wits.
They said that some big men were killing people in Bator. I didn’t believe it, so I went over to take a look. Before I even climbed to the top of the mountain, I could see flames shooting into the sky in the direction of Bator. The sounds of killing and screams could be heard from this side of the mountain.
, I was also frightened, so I called the townspeople when I came back, cleaned up and ran away."
"Fart! How could Bator be breached so easily!?"
Idric was furious and kicked him down into the dirt.
"Let's go! Let's go back and take a look!"
"What about the offense?"
"What other attacks are there? Didn't you hear that Bato was attacked? Go back and figure out the situation first! Who the hell is this? A big guy?"
He pondered slowly on his horse, going back and forth over possible enemies.
"Big man, big man, orc or giant? But wasn't the Fourth Regiment stuck at the Jemanazha Pass, and they just broke in? Even if they were to catch 200 pigs, they couldn't catch them all in one night, right? One of them ran back to report the news.
None? It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t.”
Before running very far, they met a group of people wearing the uniforms of the 7th Infantry Regiment, which was newly recruited to replace the infantry regiments left to defend Bato after the departure of the two veteran infantry regiments. They had empty hands and no weapons on their bodies.
Armor, just let go of your hands and run wildly.
The anger in Idrick's heart suddenly surged.
"Stop them!"
He whipped up the whip in his hand and rushed towards the fleeing people.
"Are you deserters? Huh? Where are you going?"
The screams were accompanied by the whirring of the whip and the sound of being slapped on the flesh.
After he had a good vent, he took a deep breath and asked the deserters who had been beaten up as calmly as possible:
"What happened? What happened? Who attacked us!"
"It's Nazwa! We saw giants and ogres!"
"Where is the Duke? Where is the Fourth Knights? Where is the Sixth Infantry Regiment? Where is your Seventh Infantry Regiment? What are you doing?"
"Many giants rushed in with ogres and bugbears, beating them from the city gate to the castle. They were dead, dead. Almost all our people were dead!"
"How did you rush in! What happened!"
"Nazwa's people suddenly knocked down the city gate one night. When they opened the city gate, the monsters outside the city rushed in! We couldn't defeat them at all!"
Idric felt dizzy after hearing the news. Without fortifications and machinery, how could ordinary human soldiers fight against those three-story monsters? What if they really rushed in?
Those wastes were really stolen by a three-story-tall giant who could be seen from several kilometers away?
"Where's the mage tower? Where's the Duke!"
"Sir, you don't know the situation of the Mage Tower. It has been surrounded by the nobles' gardens for a long time. There are houses on all sides. What kind of spell can they cast? The giant approached the Mage Tower through the nobles' sturdy houses and just hit it.
It was dug down within a few moments! The Duke didn’t know it, but the fire started from the Duke’s castle!”
"So you abandoned your lord and fled for your life before you even knew whether the Duke was alive or dead?"
Idric drew the sword from his waist.
"You run away from the battle and abandon your lord. In the name of Bashkolto, I sentence you to death!"