Berserk, Total War: Second Son of Nobles

Autumn 1445

John led an advance force of 10,000 troops to the Counties of Franche-Comté.

"Don't attack the towns and castles first. Occupy the surrounding villages first, and then surround these towns and castles." On the border, John marked the villages that each unit was going to attack. Many of these villages had been reduced to rubble by the Yodas and bandits, and the rest were basically controlled by the bandits, forcing the local villagers to work as slaves, and they would be whipped if they were not careful.

"They dare to do this kind of thing on my land. Today they must be made to eat and vomit. Okay, everyone act according to the plan." John gave the order, and the entire army was divided into three groups and advanced towards the earldom.

Northern County of Franche-Comté

"Wow, wow..."

Thousands of men in chains worked in the quarries outside the village, guarded by various bandits.

After the people of Midlan and Yoda left, this place, like other earldoms on the border, became a lawless area. All kinds of monsters and demons that appeared out of nowhere began to occupy this place. Deserters, bandits, and cultists controlled this land and enslaved and imprisoned the people living on this land. They had to do a lot of work every day, but the food they could get was the worst. But this was already the best. If they were in the cultists' territory, they would directly sacrifice these people with all kinds of cruel acts and perform their meaningless rituals.

"Someone is here to take over, you guys go down." The bandit nearby hurried back to the house after hearing the message of taking over.

"Sweet, it's so hot, I don't want to stay here for even a second longer." said a bandit.

"Why do we have to mine so many stones? These stones can't be eaten or sold. Why do we mine so many?" another bandit complained.

"Oh, you don't know this. The man who occupied the Earl's castle made himself an Earl, and then made our boss a Baron. Now they are short of stones to build the castle, so the boss tried to curry favor with them and asked us to lead this group of slaves to mine more stones and transport them over." The bandit next to him explained.

"If he wants to curry favor with him, let him do it himself. Why make us work so hard? I thought I could exchange money with him, but it turns out I can't earn a penny. What's the point of currying favor with him? Can he give us food or drink?" A scarred bandit cursed.

"Don't be anxious, don't be anxious. According to the gossip I heard, this earl is very powerful. Hundreds of people can't beat him. Moreover, he has a group of armored soldiers and is in league with cultists. Who knows if those crazy people know any secret skills?" said the bandit who explained just now.

"What's the use? He has the ability but he doesn't even give us brothers who work for him a little bit of benefit. We are bandits just to eat meat, make money and live a carefree life. Why should we suffer this from him?" Scarface said angrily, gritting his teeth.

"It's probably our boss who fought with him, but he lost, so he just admitted defeat. We are much better off now than before. We used to live in a small mountain valley, but now at least we have so much hard work to provide us with food and drink."

"That's right, let's continue drinking..."

Unlike drinking and eating meat in the house, in the quarry there were all kinds of sounds of whips, chains, begging for mercy and scolding.

All the slaves worked under the scorching sun, and everyone did their work very carefully. If one was careless and slow, he would be whipped.

Of course, it is not possible for everyone to mine stones. Mainly young and strong men go to mine stones, while the old, weak, women and children are responsible for polishing the stones before they can be loaded onto the carriages, which shows that slaves cannot be idle.

Vala, who had just turned ten, was one of the slaves. In his impression, his hometown had always been a place of war. Nobles came to collect taxes, and the Yoda people came to collect taxes. Until the bandits came, they stopped collecting taxes and started arresting people instead. They directly took the entire village to work in the quarry.

From time to time, Vala saw slaves who wanted to escape being caught and beheaded, with their heads stuck on a spear and stuck in the ground. At first, Vala was very scared, but now he is not so scared anymore, he is used to it.

The sun slowly set, and it was finally time for the slaves to eat. The food was mainly guarded by the bandits. As long as there was food, the slaves could not run away.

Wala followed his family with a bowl in hand, waiting for his share. Today, as always, it was porridge made from some grains and a bunch of rotten vegetables.

The other team was serving meals to the middle-aged laborers who were quarrying. In addition to porridge, they also ate various leftovers from the bandits. After adding water and stewing them, no one knew what it was, but it was oily and much better than what he was eating now.

After dinner, everyone was driven into a camp consisting of a group of tents, and now many people could go about their own business.

The old priest in the village inevitably had to go out to work. When he came back and saw these children who had suffered from the war at a young age, he told them stories every day so that they could have hope for the future.

"A long, long time ago, the whole earth was ruled by demons. The demons enslaved people to cut trees, mine mines, and build all kinds of large buildings for their enjoyment. Just when people were suffering, the God of Light sent angels to the world to eradicate the demons. With the unremitting efforts of the angels and people, the demons were beaten back to hell, and the angels returned to heaven." The old priest told the children a story that he had no idea where he got the idea from.

"Then Father, how can we summon angels again?" said a child.

The priest took out a white jar with gold-rimmed patterns and a pile of pebbles in it, then held the jar and said:

"This angel in the bottle is for mankind. As long as you keep throwing a small stone into the jar every day, when the jar is full, the God of Light will sense your piety and send an angel to the world. You see, this jar is almost full."

The children were also attracted by the priest's words because they had suffered since birth and were eager to live a beautiful life like in the story. The priest was the most educated person in the whole village, and what he said must be right.

"What a bullshit God of Light!" A voice suddenly came from the side, and then a bandit came over. He lost money in gambling today and had no place to vent his anger, so he came here to vent his anger on someone.

"I believed in the God of Light so much before, why didn't I win a few times by gambling?"

"You didn't earn the money from gambling through your own labor, so of course you can't get the blessing of the God of Light." The priest said tremblingly.

"I spent time and money on gambling, so how can this not be called my own labor? You old thing, you play tricks every day." The bandit slapped the old priest in the face and knocked him to the ground.

"You are lying. The priest is the most knowledgeable person here. He can't be wrong," said little Wala.

"A well-educated person won't say the wrong thing, but he can lie. If you want to know if this old man is right, just give it a try and you'll know." The bandit picked up the priest's jar and threw it directly to the ground. The bottle instantly broke into pieces, and the stones inside also scattered on the ground.

"Look, where is the God of Light, where are the angels? I smashed his jar, why doesn't he come to catch me?" The bandit said proudly. After all, he broke the rumors about the old priest, which made him have the illusion that he was more cultured than these cultured people.

Woohoo~~

Suddenly a horn sounded in the distance, and then the earth shook with the sound of horses' hooves.

"Enemy attack, everyone come quickly!"