“That’s right. This way, their defensive lines will be rendered useless.” said the last person. She seemed to be the youngest person in this trio, appearing to be around her early thirties and also the only woman within the three archbishops. “Their standing army of more than 5,000 well-equipped and well-trained soldiers and also nearly a thousand knights were immediately taken out of the picture. They will need four to five years to rebuild their troops. Ah …” She let out a moan, and happily continued, “It’s really such a wonderful day.”
“But in order to achieve this purpose, we had to sacrifice many of our own soldiers, they were the backbone of the Church,” Mayne sighed, “If this wasn’t the fastest plan to achieve our desired goal, I really didn’t want to sent all of our soldiers into this purgatory.”
The old man stroked his beard thoughtfully and then said, “We had no other choice, the wild beasts had appeared, which was described in the Holy Book. Following the descriptions in the book, there is not much time left. So, if we do not unify the entire continent and force all the Kingdom under one rule, only death will await us.”
“Destruction is actually nothing bad.” said the woman while laughing frivolously, “Humans are always greedy, have malicious intent, and only see nothing but personal profit. Under the name and banner of righteousness they do much worse things than even the demonic beasts, maybe even the devil from hell would treat us better than we humans each other.”
“Heather!” shouted the man angrily while pulling his beard, “Your comments can be counted as treason and heresy against the will of God, do you want to die?!”
“You don’t need to take it to your heart, Tayfun,” Heather shrugged disregarding, her face full of disapproval, “The person in charge of this tribunal is me, not you. Besides, do you really think that it’s important to God whether we survive or not? How do you know that he is more caring than the devil?”
“You …!”
“Enough! Tayfun! Heather!” shouted Mayne in displeasure, “That is enough for today. I need to report to the Pope, you both will go now and complete the mission.”
……
After they left, Mayne stood in front of the window overlooking the north — with the Mountain of despair in the background, a never ending snow-covered winter land, and in the west, laid the barbarian territory. There laid the beginning of everything.
He knew that Bishop Tayfun was right, the soldiers in the God’s Army of Punishment were too precious. To join, one not only needed to be faithful but also a strong willpower to survive the transformation afterwards. After nearly a century of accumulation, the Church was only able to save one thousand soldiers. If they wanted to fight the demons, this number was not enough.
But the North could only support so many warriors. If they wanted more warriors, they had no other choice than to unify the continent.
Of course, Bishop Heather was also correct. She served as the Church’s judge, holding trials for thousands of witches. Whether they were good or bad witches, they were all gathered and killed with the most savage methods.
The higher your position was within the church, the more you could clearly feel, God wasn’t good but he also wasn’t bad.
“How do you know that he cares more for us than the devil?” When he thought about Heather’s words, Mayne couldn’t help himself from laughing out aloud. I am afraid that only she has the talent to annoy Tayfun until he has nothing left to say. God didn’t bless the world, nor did he show concern and care for the devil.
God will only love the winning party.
Chapter 68 Funeral
The funeral was held within an area south of Border Town, on the edge of the wasteland.
To call it a wasteland wasn’t correct. Van’er didn’t know when, but one day someone had built a small stone fence around this area. Since then, no one showed any interest in the piece of land. The wall was covered with thick snow, and when observed from afar it looked like it laid under a coat of silver. Although the wall wasn’t high, it was easy to step over it. Whenever Van’er saw this wall, he couldn’t help himself from thinking about the city wall — they both had the same color and shape.
Until now, he had only heard from the traveling merchants about such a ritual. When an important member of the aristocracy or royal family died, the deceased’s family would go to the
cemetery together. There they would play some sad music, and everyone would be
allowed to mourn the dead until the coffin was buried underground. The greater the deceased’s noble status was, the greater the funeral would be.
Even after their deaths, they still get better treatment than us commoners, thought Van’er enviously. He asked himself, what will happen to my body after my death? Will they just dig a hole at the edge of the forest and throw me into it? Also, no one knows when the Months of the Demons will end, so there will be no guarantee that no demonic beast will come and dig out my body to eat it.
To the people of Border Town, death wasn’t something unknown. In particular, each winter when they were forced to live in Longsong Stronghold as refugees and live in shacks, many of them died of hunger and cold or died of diseases and injuries. That was already the norm. Nobody had the time and power to grieve for the deceased, the question of where to get the next piece of bread to eat was much more important.
But today, His Highness actually wanted to hold a funeral for a soldier!
I heard he unfortunately fell during the pursuit of the mixed species, his head was bitten off along with half of his body.
Van’er knew this unlucky guy, he could be considered as one of the known faces of the old district. No one knew his real name, everyone just called him Ali. Van’er knew that Ali left behind a wife and two children; the older one was around six and the younger one had just learned to walk.
Under normal circumstances, the family would be finished now. The widow could still find a new man to live with, but what man would also take in the two stepchildren? Because of this,
many children were thrown on the street to let them fend for themselves. Most of these children would then go to a bar to attract customers and sell their flesh and die from strange diseases in the end.
But His Highness really seems intent on honoring the promises he gave during the militia recruitment. When a soldier falls during the war, his family wouldn’t only get his full payment, but also extra compensation. What had His Highness called it? Van’er had to think for a moment.Ah … yes, he had called it a pension. And the money his wife gets is He had seen how His Highness had given the money to the Chief Knight, who later gave the money to Ali’s wife.
actually five gold royals! In addition, His Highness will provide them with enough food and charcoal every month, which means that even if his wife doesn’t go to work, she will have enough to care for herself and her children. Well, it could be that these are only empty promises, but at least the gold royals are real.
Hell, could it be that I’m a little envious of Ali? No, no. Van’er shook his head again and again, trying to expel this stupid thought. With my talent I don’t have to sell myself so cheaply to care for my wife … after all, it is most likely that she will become someone else’s wife then.
After giving out the money, His Highness gave a short but captivating speech. In particular, the phrase “while protecting his loved ones and the innocent, we will always remember him,” made the blood burn hotter within him. So that was the way it was, he thought, no wonder that in the recent days apart from bread and silver royals, I always thought to follow a greater goal — at least during this winter, we will be able to survive by relying on our own power instead of hoping for the Longsong Stronghold’s charity.