Berserk: The Prophet

"I am deeply grateful, Lord Laban, the Lord will bless you."

"General Laban is such a good man..."

The sounds of gratitude from the refugees could be heard from both sides of the road. These refugees were mostly thin men, the elderly, women and children.

"Tread" "Tread"

From the castle in the distance, the sound of horses' hooves could be heard, along with shouts for the crowd to make way and the sound of whips lashing flesh.

"Giddy up, giddy up, make way, you lowly commoners!!" The leading knight arrogantly led his men to drive away the refugees, not caring about their lives. After all, he was about to lose his territory, so why should he care about those refugees who could only eat for free?

"Oh dear, I am late in greeting you. I hope General Laban will forgive me. Greetings, Commander Yuris."

The leading knight appeared to be the lord of the castle, and greeted Laban and Yuris with great respect.

"It's alright, let's talk about it after we get into the city."

Laban simply walked silently with the knight into the castle. After passing through the inner fortress of the city, which occupied the hills and other high ground, large siege weapons such as catapults would be unable to play their original role. The city walls were better defended and were the main war fortress. The city walls were wider and thicker, which could accommodate more archers and soldiers. Inside, there were the lord's blacksmith shop and the lord's private kitchen, treasury, granary, stables, church, and two-story blue brick and tile stone houses next to the city walls, as well as other infrastructure.

Then there's the medium-sized fortress where the lord resides, which is also the last line of defense. It's 35 meters high and has four arrow towers on top. The first floor is usually used by the lord to receive guests, while the stone houses outside are large military dormitories. In addition to being used for sentry duty, the arrow towers on the city wall can also accommodate 3 to 4 layers of soldiers, with three or four warriors living on each floor.

Of course, besides the lowest level, there was a main hall and a secure storage room specifically for storing the soldiers' weapons, arrows, and armor. It was also usually reserved for the soldiers to drink and play cards, the only place in the castle to pass the time.

The stone houses, being two-story structures, could each accommodate hundreds of soldiers. Any extra soldiers had to make do with the residents below, as the location near the northern latitude meant that without shelter during the harsh winter, relying solely on campfires made it easy to fall ill.

Green and Bazso, along with a few of the younger ones, were assigned to the stone house, while their squires were placed inside the arrow tower to take turns keeping watch with the guards inside the fortress.

Conditions were poor in winter, and even knights had to squeeze together in one room by the fire.

Perhaps due to the depths of winter, the people of Judas remained calm and did not provoke a war. However, the city was far from peaceful. As more and more refugees poured in, the streets were filled with disheveled refugees and frozen corpses. The vendors who used to be a rare sight had disappeared, and everyone had their doors tightly shut at home.

But after so many days, fewer and fewer people were seen starving to death, and some villagers were even seen gathering together to cook something.

Finally, the food supplies arrived, and Laban ordered the setting up of soup kitchens. Some civilians who had tried to take advantage of the situation were caught and forced to fight. The so-called soup was just a large pot of rye porridge mixed with small stones and scraps, along with a small amount of shredded meat. It was considered good, considering that in this terrible weather, they couldn't even find wild vegetables. Over the past few days, even the trees in sight had been stripped bare. As the refugee population grew larger and larger, the waiting time became longer and there was no guarantee of getting any soup. Gradually, no civilians tried to sneak in to get soup.

Laban could only provide them with tents that could barely keep out the wind. He had no choice but to carefully budget his military funds, as he had already spent a considerable amount of his personal wealth just to ensure these refugees could survive until spring. According to statistics, at least two thousand refugees flooded into the city, cramming the entire area and causing disturbances of varying degrees every day. As a result, the number and scope of patrols had to be increased daily.

As for how to deal with and arrange for those refugees, that's a matter for the noble lords to worry about, and has nothing to do with Green. I heard that under Lord Laban's organization, some nobles have already taken out some funds to help the refugees, mostly to leave a good impression on Laban so that they can get some benefits. After all, these random noble lords are not people who will do anything without a profit.

The rooms where Green lived were dedicated to soldiers. Perhaps because so many troops had never been stationed there before, many of the bunk beds were made on the spot by carpenters. Every morning, the sound of craftsmen rushing to make bed boards could be heard in the castle.

Each stone house has a space of about 100 square meters, which can accommodate about 35 bunk beds. The passageway has about 30cm of space for people to walk around. There is only one stove wall on each floor. Because there are many people, it is sometimes very hot. The smell of stinky feet and sweat often permeates the entire room. As soon as you open the door, the stench hits you right in the face and hits you in the head. It takes a while to get used to it. However, everyone is used to it. After all, people in this era do not bathe. At night, you can often hear people grinding their teeth, farting, snoring, and picking their hair and rubbing off dirt.

Green was different. He couldn't stand the feeling of being buried in filth. Not showering or washing his hair was simply unbearable. Although he wasn't exactly clean, he would at least wipe off the dried sweat and dirt with a towel every two or three days with some cool water. Every week, he would melt the ice water he fetched and put it in a bucket to wash his hair. As for washing his feet, he forgot about it. He didn't care about being smelly.

After wiping himself down, Green greeted Bazso and chatted briefly about what he had accomplished that day before climbing into his bed to rest.

It wasn't time for formal bedtime yet, and the men were still bragging and spouting crude jokes by the firelight from the stove. They talked about how the prostitutes they'd slept with had amazing figures, how they felt to touch them, and what techniques they used to make the prostitutes scream. Far from being offensive, these comments drew more and more men in, and the conversation grew more and more animated, their eyes shining like those of starving wolves. Some talked about going to brothels together on their days off to share their experiences, while others were even hatching wicked plans to scout out a few top-quality prostitutes from among the refugees.

In such a high-pressure life filled with war, men would only be more enthusiastic about things that could bring them pleasure, and feelings would be long forgotten. After all, if you don't have enough material things, who cares about whether you are spiritually fulfilled?

Occasionally, the outrageous things those older guys told were things they'd never even heard of in their previous life's boys' dorm. This made Green and Bazso want to laugh but dare not laugh out loud for fear of being teased as little kids. They could only chuckle and sigh in bed at this bunch of old drivers. Some of the things they heard made Green so uncomfortable that he couldn't sleep, and he couldn't help but rub his proud little bird.

Sigh, the child is too young; it's hard to even take him out for a stroll.