What did you do with the dice?

Well, that's okay. It was purely an accident, which is consistent with Sanita's understanding of his brothers.

The boss actually wanted to refuse at first, because he had just agreed to cook for Rusalka for free. Whether it was out of businessman's integrity or his inner persistence, he should insist on not taking Rusalka's money.

But a bowl of cat ears only cost one copper coin, and what he gave was really too much.

Chapter 106: Counterattack Assembly

The next morning, Rusalka heard that a knight wanted to visit him alone.

After inviting the person over to take a closer look, hey, isn't this the guard who emitted magical fluctuations yesterday?

Rusalka: "Baron Capeson, is there anything you want to tell me?"

The guard shook his head and took off his helmet, revealing his short, shaggy blue hair. He knelt on one knee before Rusalka and said, "Respected Lord Pearl Tear, my name is Qingfeng, and I wish to follow you as a knight."

Not to mention Rusalka, even Sanita was dumbfounded. So this is how 20 charms are used?

But every time they met, the other party would do something inexplicable, and anyone would be surprised: "Why?"

Rusalka: (Isn't Sunny Breeze the name of a small village in World of Warcraft? It's also a famous love forum on a shitty porn forum. He should come and help me predict my marriage with Phoenix.)

Sanita: (Asking is to persuade people to break up.)

Qingfeng raised his head and answered in a resounding voice, "Because I want to become stronger. Only real fighting can help me grow faster. And in you, I see endless war."

Not to mention his words that were a perfect combination of middle school and bad mouth, just from looking at his brown eyes, Rusalka felt that there must be many stories behind him.

But he was too lazy to listen to his story, especially since it was almost breakfast time. Phoenix had gotten up early today to bake cookies, and she was a very punctual eater.

In the past, when they were at the Pearl Tear Villa, she would at least pretend to ask Rusalka's opinion and wait until Rusalka finished eating before eating. But now Phoenix doesn't pretend anymore. She calls them to eat at a certain time, and if they don't eat, she will finish her own portion first.

So, missing out on breakfast together would make Rusalka feel very sorry.

Besides, there is indeed a shortage of talents at hand. It would be insincere to say that he doesn't want to recruit. The other party doesn't look like a spy, and there is no point in being a spy. Anyway, Rusalka's talent is there, and no one else in Sanitta's place will believe that he is 100% loyal, so the hero simply doesn't ask about the origin, and asking a few questions is just a process.

But if he just asked for it, he would seem cheap.

Rusalka shouted at the door, "Messenger! Call Custer. Later at breakfast, you will have a duel with my knights and let me see your skills."

So the three of them ate biscuits and drank milk while looking at the wooden fence that was temporarily erected in the open space at the door to limit the scope of the duel, and the large group of soldiers gathered around cheering and gambling, and announced the rules of the game.

"Friendship comes first, competition comes second. Intentional killing of opponents is prohibited. Competition should be stopped to the point. This is just a friendly match. The result will not be used to judge future development, personal honor, or strength. Then leave the field. If you land on one foot, you are out.

However, to prevent people from using flying to exploit loopholes and saying things like you're not out if you don't land, which would affect fairness, I, Rusalka, have the final say. Is there anything else you two don't understand?"

Well, to be honest, everyone understood it well before Rusalka pointed out that flying could be exploited; but after he said that, everyone suddenly felt that they might still be too naive.

Why are you all just knights, and Rusalka the Grand Knight? Apparently, being able to exploit loopholes in the rules is part of one's strength.

"Then both teams will each take five steps forward, back to back. The moment I announce the turn, the match begins. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, turn!"

Almost at the same time, both sides drew out the unsharpened iron swords at their waists, turned around and stepped forward to engage in the most direct sword confrontation.

Custer's hand holding the sword was very steady. He held the long sword with both hands, one forward and one backward, and took the initiative to attack, chopping, stabbing and slashing attacks continuously. Qingfeng was put on the passive side in the early stage of the fight, but he held the sword with only his right hand, and used his left hand as a spare hand, ready to press the sword at any time to assist in defense. For a moment, he actually blocked all of Custer's sword moves.

Caster is a veteran paladin. Although he was abandoned by the Holy Light, his martial arts skills are still there. After interacting with him, other paladins felt that this guy was not as evil as the rumors said, so the soldiers on Esdi's side all cheered for Caster.

As for the Shadow-Ill soldiers on Rusalka's side, they were of course cheering for Custer - if you knew a little about them, you would know that they had been following Rusalka since before he became rich. As a founding hero, who would dare not cheer for him?

After a few moves, Sanitieta saw the trick: (The opponent is quite strong, and his swordsmanship seems to be inherited. Each move is very smooth, and the attack and defense are seamlessly integrated. It is completely different from the scattered sword moves of military swordsmanship that only learn a few killing moves.)

Rusalka: (Even Custer can fight against the enemy, so what's the big deal?)

Sanitta: (As if you could possibly beat Caster in a duel of moves? Don't forget, Caster, at this age, is already a member of the Angel Left Wing Reserve Army, and in a year he'll be a genius who can become a member of the Grand Saint's Guards. Look at how old Sarolt is, and how old he is. Just think about what a master he was before he lost his Holy Light.)

Rusalka: (Fancy ones, not as good as my Rusalka’s three original cuts: splitting the brain, chopping the kidneys, and slicing the beef.)

Sani Tower: (Classic.)

After the two sides exchanged about twenty moves, Rusalka realized that the cookies on her plate were almost finished. She was about to turn around and ask Phoenix if there were any more, but then she saw Phoenix pull her bowl towards her arms.

Just when Rusalka was feeling a little depressed, she heard the audience outside the stadium burst into loud exclamations.

Looking back, he saw that the long sword in Qingfeng's hand was burning with blue flames. He swung it vigorously, turning from defense to offense, forcing Caster, who dared not to fight back, to retreat again and again.

"It's a pure magical enchantment." Sanitieta recalled, then said, "The Battle Mage's Blazing Forge, but this one has a cyan flame, so it should be a special esoteric magic."

Rusalka: (Huh? There are still battle mages in this world?)

Sanitieta thought for a moment and said, "It's a bit strange to call it a Battle Mage. It's actually called a Magic Swordsman, a class similar to Sword Chanter?"

Rusalka: (Okay, Sword Song, right? Pure cheating.)

Sanitta: (But it's not as bad as Sword Chant. Hmm... It's a bit like the magic warrior branch of the warrior class, except that the warriors who can use magic in the rulebook also use the spells in the spell table, but the magic swordsmen in this world have unique spells. They have simple structure and fast casting, but they often require close-range targets such as weapons, armor, or their own flesh to release. They basically don't have the shortcomings of ranged spells.)

Rusalka: (Isn’t that amazing?)

Sanita: (No one says he isn't powerful, Magic Knight, the best knight.)

Rusalka agreed with this point, as he also knew magic - shield magic.

In this way, there was no suspense in the game. Since both sides had similar martial arts skills, one side could use magic, and Custer was ultimately helpless. After several sword fights on the edge, with the iron sword in his hand broken, he could only take a step back and voluntarily withdraw from the range, which was considered a decent admission of defeat.

"Your swordsmanship is truly superior, forcing me to use this un-knightly technique. Thank you for your kindness."

Ever since being "enlightened" by Rusalka once before, Custer has already understood the truth that "one's own strength is the real strength", so he lost very casually: "After all, this is also a part of your strength. I am not as skilled as you, and I lose with all my heart."

So Qingfeng smoothly transferred to Rusalka's team while some people outside the field were happy (winning money due to an upset) and some were sad (losing money).

As for what Capeson thought, it didn't matter anymore. Qingfeng was a lone knight without any territory and no long-term contract, so all his actions were free. Even if Capeson was unwilling, he didn't dare to ask Rusalka for people.

----

After resting for less than a week, thanks to the fact that this world does not have terrible sequelae such as wound infection, the lightly wounded soldiers in the army have basically recovered.

Sanitieta planned to weigh anchor and set sail for the next city to seek support. He believed that the nobles who pretended to let him go were not really blind, but just wanted to take advantage of the situation where both sides were defeated. Now he estimated that the time was almost up. If Mingyue City resisted, it would probably end up in a situation where both sides were defeated. The viscounts did not dare to send troops to support, and the two marquises next door would not necessarily intend to stand by and watch at this time.

In this turbulent time, Sanita is not the only one who wants to take advantage of the chaos to expand. If possible, who wouldn't want to take advantage of the opportunity of reshuffle to gain more territory?

As expected, just as the army packed up their belongings and dry food and prepared to set off under the gaze of Baron Capeson who breathed a sigh of relief, a messenger from the neighboring marquis came to visit Rusalka.

"Marquis Momola and Marquis Allen have assembled an army of 20,000 and are planning to support Mingyue City. Their two sons are leading the troops. You have evacuated from that battlefield and must know more about the enemy. The two marquises would like to invite you to come and provide guidance on the structural diagram of Mingyue City, and lead the troops as a reserve for the counterattack."

These 20,000 troops are very inflated, probably about the same size as an undergraduate thesis. Sani Tieta can bet confidently that if half of them are formal infantry, he will lose. This is the case in the Kingdom of Sinidi, where there is no universal military service. Only by relying on the folk customs and martial arts generated by the knights' questioning can a militia be quickly assembled, and those who survive a battle are considered regular troops.

But the cooperation between the two marquises was indeed a bit deliberate, and the reason for involving Rusalka was also easy to guess - they planned to take advantage of Rusalka's participation in the defense of the city and the counterattack, and his full attendance in the battle, so that they could get a share of the pie in a legitimate way.

After some consideration, Sani Tieta decided to agree to their request. If for no other reason, the army's losses were already high enough. This time, he would go back to serve as a reserve force. Unless the two marquises' troops were all incompetent, they would basically not be used on the front line. This would avoid heavy casualties again. It would be a good choice to share a piece of the pie together and then return to Zhulei Territory to regroup the troops.

So Rusalka ordered the entire army to set out, follow the pace of the Marquis' troops, and continue to serve as his legion commander.

Sarolt had actually recovered his consciousness and ability to move long ago, but he still had hidden injuries in his body, which made it inconvenient for him to use the power of holy light to fight on the front line. Seeing that Rusalka led the team well and everyone called him the captain, Sarolt, who had always thought that Rusalka "should be a knight captain", was very tactful and "kept pretending to be sick".

And in this way, Nicea can stay with him all the time under the pretext of healing, so why not?

----

The movement of the armies on both sides was obvious. Naturally, the army of the El Empire had received the intelligence that support from the Kingdom of Sinidi had arrived. However, the resistance of the defenders of Mingyue City was extremely fierce. Although the outer city wall area had been completely captured, the residents' street fighting in the urban area had not advanced to the city lord's mansion after almost a week.

The main reason may be those damn magic cannons on the clock tower. Since the first elite assassin team of the El Empire was wiped out by Phoenix, Marquis Banner easily occupied the artillery position of the clock tower after returning. In addition, he ruthlessly ordered the bombing of enemy troops in residential areas. This behavior of disregarding civilian casualties directly led to the El Empire's army being unable to quickly win the street fighting.

But even so, the balance of victory continued to tilt towards the El Empire. The sentinels of the Doug tribe and the assassin troops of the Filin tribe cooperated well in the street fighting. The large army only needed to hide at the edge and wait for the signal. When the terrifying Filin assassins were about to break the mental bottom line of every street fighting defender, they would march directly to the front of the city lord's mansion. In this way, even the magic cannon would be unable to fire due to the shooting angle and range problems.

The six-tailed fox priestess asked, "How many days will it take for the enemy's reinforcements to arrive?"

"Report to the Lord, it will take about three days."

"Who leads the army?"

"According to the captured human spies, the two marquises jointly led the army, along with... that Divine Grace Knight."

"Knight of Divine Grace, it's him again? He came alone?"

"No, his army with a large number of paladins is here too."

The 20,000-strong coalition army in front did not shake the six-tailed fox, but the appearance of Rusalka, even with the information of the old troops, made the six-tailed fox a little upset.

She was puzzled. This guy had just escaped not long ago, so how could he be back after only a few weeks? His escape was expected. After all, he and his army were not the defenders here. However, with such a high casualty rate defending the city wall over there, it would be strange if he didn't run away.

But they dared to come back and counterattack within a month? Putting aside the question of whether his army's morale was infinite, did he and his troops really love war so much?

I can no longer figure out which side is the true god of war.

But forget it, it doesn't matter. She didn't plan to lead the army back smoothly this time, or to say, leading the army to capture Mingyue City was just one of the most secondary goals.

In order to achieve that real goal, it is worth sacrificing the entire army.

She thought for a moment and gave the order:

"Let the last remaining cannon fodder work with some of the death squad to guard the gates and city walls. Use the terrain advantage to delay the attack of the human reinforcements as much as possible. On the front battlefield, capture the city lord's mansion before the reinforcements arrive."

"As ordered."

Chapter 107 Supervisory Team

The sky is clear and cloudless, it is a good day for an outing.

Rusalka stood on the hillside with a telescope in her hand. Mingyue City was right in front of her. After more than half a month, she felt very close to the city when she saw it again.

If the defenders on the city wall didn't have ears on top of their heads, he might be happier.

It seems that the city wall has completely fallen, but it doesn’t matter. The Aiur Empire does not have enough military forces to deploy defenses everywhere. According to the rules of "Hearts of Iron 4", places without filling-line troops can be easily breached.

For example, the northwest gate where he was originally stationed had not been filled in by the explosion caused by Long Xin, so he could easily climb over the wall.

Although Rusalka really wanted Sanitieta to cooperate with him this time and shouted, "Captain, lead the brothers to charge again," Sanitieta asked him to take a rest.

Because the two marquis' sons had never intended to let him participate in the war. This kind of battle was obviously a sure win, and it was a good opportunity to grab the credit. How could it be the turn of Rusalka, who was called in by the way, to show off?

Even if they wanted to send Rusalka, Rusalka couldn't rush over alone. In fact, Esdi's soldiers were relatively good. After all, they came in the name of "holy war" and everyone was prepared to sacrifice. However, the morale of the Shadow Army was not really unlimited. Many people had already suffered psychological trauma from the wolf cavalry, and no one actually wanted to face the wolf cavalry again.

As for Rusalka's application to charge alone, it was also rejected by Sanitta: Everyone knows that you are very strong, but it is wrong for you to be arrogant. Don't let others suddenly find out that you are a greater threat than the Grand Duke next door, and end up pushing them into a corner, and call the incarnation of the God of War over just to let you know what it means that the tallest tree in the forest will be destroyed by the wind, and you won't even have a place to cry.

People should be low-key. We are only level 8 now. When you reach level 18 and open your wings, you won't be allowed to be low-key then. Why are you in such a hurry to show off now?

So Sani Tieta fooled him and said: There are reward settlements for such large-scale battles. As long as you "join the battle" here, you will get settlement rewards even if you stay idle.

This statement finally made Rusalka give up on making progress and lie down peacefully.

Rusalka: (You guys fight, I'm sleeping. nmd, wsl.)

Sanitieta was annoyed by him. In order to rest in the rear for the next few days and sort out the battle information and military data instead of listening to Rusalka arguing with him every day, Sanitieta specially applied for a place in the supervision team for the Zhulei Army and nominated Rusalka to go.

Although the two marquis' sons thought it was a bit strange for a great knight to personally supervise the battle, after thinking about it, they could not find any reason to refuse.

You can't stay idle in the rear, and you insist on going to the front line. Who can stop you from committing suicide? Go ahead. As long as you don't lead the army and grab the military merits yourself, the rest is up to you.

So Rusalka happily took the newcomer Harukaze and a small number of Shaddoll soldiers who had been tortured to the point of becoming mentally abnormal by the Overwatch Team and also wanted to experience torturing others, and took the cooperation approval order issued by the Marquis and ran to become Overwatch Team - for the experience, it didn't matter who they killed, their own people were also human beings, and they could gain experience by killing them.

Phoenix followed suit as a matter of course.

As fate would have it, Rusalka, who had just been ordered by Sanitieta not to rush to the front line, now turns around and becomes the one giving the orders.

"Captain Fei, you~can't leave!" Rusalka said seriously, "I believe you, I absolutely believe you will sneak off to the front. You stay right next to me and you're not allowed to go anywhere."

He was like a parent during the college entrance examination period, telling Phoenix not to leave his sight, putting an end to her thoughts of sneaking into the city to continue her revenge, which made Phoenix's eyes and aura clearly reflect a depressed mood.

But although she was unhappy, she did not escape directly into the shadow plane.

In fact, even if Rusalka could attack her across dimensions, it did not mean that he could catch Phoenix, who moved four times faster in the shadow plane. Phoenix was like Dao Zhi in "The Legend of Qin". She wanted to leave, and there were probably few people in the world who could stop her. She was giving Rusalka enough face.

Sanitieta sighed in his heart that there is always someone stronger than you. He never thought that one day Rusalka would be able to teach other people a lesson. This "other person" might even be Phoenix, whom he didn't even dare to say hello to before. It really is true that one should look at someone with new eyes after three days of absence.

It seems that Rusalka's attitude towards Phoenix improved a little too quickly, so quickly that Sanitta couldn't react. After a few battles, Sanitta came to his senses and found that Rusalka had suddenly become like this with Phoenix. He was just short of saying to Phoenix, "Hey, give me some cookies."

As for Phoenix, her condition has been very strange recently. Her behavior matches Rusalka's more and more, and sometimes the two can even chat with each other: when Rusalka talks about random things unilaterally, Phoenix, who used to just listen, now occasionally asks questions instead of ignoring the weird things that come out of Rusalka's mouth from time to time as before.

For example, one time, when Rusalka was having breakfast, she unconsciously said, "I am a security guard and I love to eat bear biscuits." Phoenix asked, "What are bear biscuits?"

After understanding the definition of "bear biscuits", Phoenix actually used his free time and materials to make biscuit molds and changed the shape of the biscuits.

This frightened Sanitta. He was really worried that after spending too much time with Rusalka, she would suddenly say something in Rusalka's style one day: "Brother, you're used to living off her, right?"

Well, one Rusalka is enough. If Phoenix also learns bad things from him, Sanitta feels that he may have to pack his bags and choose to wander the earth.

But brother, I feel like your relationship is not right, right?

Forget it. Seeing Rusalka happily taking Phoenix to the front line to put pressure on his teammates, Sanitieta thought it would be better not to ruin his good mood.

----

It was not until the sunset glowed in the sky and Rusalka wiped the blood off the new sword in her hand that she realized that the problem of the attacking force seemed to be serious.

It was obvious that the enemy's city wall was not well defended and they didn't even know how to operate most of the defense equipment. They relied purely on hand-to-hand combat, cannon fodder, and some simple traps to piece together a line of defense. However, they fought back three concentrated attacks by the troops and even launched a counterattack. A few hundred wolf cavalrymen charged and killed thousands of infantrymen who had crossed the wall on their side, so that they couldn't even find their way home. They escaped through the gate that they had finally broken open, forcing the supervisory team, who originally thought they had nothing to do, to work overtime.