Berserk: The Prophet

.........

dawn.

"Ah sneeze!!"

Early in the morning, sneezing could be heard from the army. Spending the night in the cold snow was a very painful thing.

Because many tents had been destroyed last time, Green and his companions shared a tent with the other two pageboys. Although they managed to light a fire in the tent and changed into rawhide coats, their hands and feet were still freezing. After all, it was deep winter, and no one could sleep at night wearing armor that felt like a block of ice. In fact, it was best to wear leather gloves and warm the armor in the sun before putting it on.

Since the last oversight, the scouts have been rotating every hour at night, and there are soldiers specifically assigned to keep watch to confirm if it is the person in question. It was a peaceful night.

And Cardi has been much quieter lately. The scouts who were replaced were Judas, not Cardi's confidants. It's the old rule to assign the right task to the right person.

It was not surprising that Qiu Daren did not care about his life or death. After all, it was just a matter of mutual exploitation. For Qiu Daren, his death would only mean the loss of a relatively good spy captain, which was not as important as the army.

But what they didn't know was that Kadi would love for them to fight for hundreds more years; he certainly wouldn't give up easily.

Since the tent was destroyed, Green and Bazso had been resting in a tent with a group of people. After putting on their gear, wearing two layers of wool socks, thick animal skin boots, and a rawhide coat over their armor, Bazso and Green were wrapped up like balls. They ate some frozen, dried meat that would break their teeth. Sure enough, Green broke a baby tooth early in the morning.

"Gada"

"Hey, it hurts."

Green took out the baby tooth embedded in the dried meat and looked at it. There were still traces of blood on it. He felt like he could hear the wind leaking out when he opened his mouth to speak. He took a breath of cold air and felt that his teeth and tongue were freezing. He obediently closed his mouth and followed the army on their way.

............

The group finally caught sight of the fortress standing in the distance around noon, and only upon closer inspection could they appreciate its unique medieval charm, though it was not as magnificent as the royal castle of Wyndam.

The outer walls alone are nearly 30 meters high, and the moat is well maintained. Soldiers can only be transported to the walls by using catapults to break a large gap and a sophisticated siege tower, or by spending a lot of time and effort to blast a gap in the walls. The arrow towers and firing ports around the walls are also very dense, some of which are equipped with small catapults and crossbows, as well as two primitive black iron cannons.

Firearms had been introduced from distant Eastern empires, but they were not the mainstream weapon of this era. Moreover, the use of gunpowder was not a reliable weapon in the current war because the proportions of gunpowder varied. It was fortunate if it did not ignite, and it could not be used continuously. Otherwise, the high temperature of the cannon barrel could cause it to explode. Not only would the slag in the cannon barrel have to be emptied, but the gunpowder would also have to be refilled, which wasted a lot of time. Moreover, before any effective damage could be done to the enemy, they would be at your doorstep.

However, it is quite useful for countering siege engines and attacking castles. But it is not very effective against castles on high mountains. First, the cannons cannot fire shells at an upward angle because the recoil is unbearable for humans and is quite easy to accidentally injure friendly forces. Second, although the current shells can explode, the blast radius is too small to have much effect on the mountain.

As for why it didn't develop further? The answer is simple: nobles were more enthusiastic about and admired knights on horseback wielding lances. Furthermore, gunpowder was difficult to preserve in the humid maritime climate, easily becoming damp. In war, aside from its advantage in capturing small to medium-sized castles, it didn't demonstrate any significant role. No lord or nation was willing to invest heavily in firearms. Add to that the influence of the Church, and the development of firearms made little progress; only cannons were invented, while matchlock muskets remained completely undeveloped. Perhaps the only advantage was that it prevented several large-scale battles involving more than ten thousand people from occurring in this already sparsely populated world.

In conclusion, this was still an era dominated by cold weapons, where class was predetermined at birth, and ordinary people could hardly change their status quo.

Upon entering the fortress, the roadsides are lined with the houses of the fortress inhabitants. Due to the impact of the war, the residents who can live in the castle are already very lucky. It is now the dead of winter, and every household has its small stove lit and its doors tightly closed. Some taverns have simply closed down, and the inns are also deserted. Only a few butchers are selling small pieces of cured meat and other items on the streets at noon, while keeping an eye on the refugees and beggars who have flocked to the streets due to the war.

Aal Castle has a long history, so it's not surprising that some small towns have formed around it. Many villages trade goods here, and although there are far fewer shops than in Wyndam, it has a unique small-town feel. Most of the houses have thatched roofs and mud walls, and few chimneys are burning.

Almost everywhere you look, you can see homeless refugees and vagrants. Seeing this, Laban could only sigh and shake his head, believing that the situation was the same in Rhineburg.

In the depths of winter, countless refugees die of hunger and cold every day. Although many serfs would starve and freeze to death in the winter, the sheer number of refugees who had become homeless to escape the war meant that even more would die. Many of them were residents of villages in the surrounding area that had been harassed by the Judas, as well as survivors from villages around the Vidas fortress.

"Lord Laban..."

Please give us some food...

"Lord Laban... isn't that the White Dragon Knights? General Yuris! Please, give us some food..."

Among the refugees were clearly some educated people who immediately recognized the White Dragon Knights' emblem. As he spoke, more refugees poured into both sides of the street and knelt before Laban and Yuris.

"this..."

Yuris had been frowning ever since he entered the city. He hadn't expected that a fortress on the frontier would be in such a state. It was truly miserable. It was a pity that they hadn't brought much food with them.

"Please be patient, everyone. Once the supplies arrive, we will set up soup kitchens and shelters in each area."

Laban raised his left hand. Years of experience fighting on the frontier had taught him how to handle such situations. The only thing he could do was to calm them down and prevent a large-scale riot. The Hundred Years' War had left Midland with little financial resources to help these refugees. Even with soup kitchens, they could barely keep them from starving. In this weather, people would freeze to death every day, and others would be unable to bear the hunger and cold and would choose to return to their villages to see if there was any food left. Usually, these people's villages had been looted to varying degrees before they chose to leave their homes. Where would they find any food left?

In such weather, besides choosing to freeze or starve to death in the castle, even if you have some food on you, you have to live cautiously and be careful not to cause trouble unintentionally. If you don't have the help of relatives and friends in the city, you might freeze to death by accident. Otherwise, you can only wash your neck in the village and wait to be robbed and starved to death by the Judas or be humiliated and killed.

Given the current conditions where both serfs and free peasants are either freezing or starving to death, it will be difficult to maintain the autumn harvest and income next year.

Clearly, the governor here hadn't considered these things at all, or rather, he was simply too incapable of taking care of them. Even now, he remained indifferent to these refugees and seemed more like someone who, after the fall of Vidas Fortress, was terrified of the Judas's attack every day, frantically accumulating wealth to recruit soldiers, including the seemingly decent able-bodied men among the refugees.