Chapter 40: The Requirements for the Chivalrous Expedition

Gelongni, the birthplace of the Chivalrous Expedition to the Chaos Wasteland.

Fighting back the Green Tide took away all the glitz and glamour of the capital of this Knight of the Kingdom. Those great and noble knights sealed their most pristine castles, took their steeds and top-tier squires, and launched a surprise attack toward the Badlands while singing songs of triumph.

The foundation of Bretonnia is the chivalrous spirit of its knights: the strong protect the weak, resisting all dangers and hardships outside the borders of the realm.

But this also means that once the true armies of Bretonnia begin their long journey, the remaining defenders in the Knight of the Kingdom are mostly the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled—knights who are unworthy of the name, who only feel secure when huddled together in groups.

They are not qualified to participate in the war against the Green Tide, yet they style themselves as knights, so they can only patrol within the borders of Bretonnia, soothing the hearts of the people while finding every opportunity to perform their own atonement.

This is what is commonly known in Bretonnia as the Chivalrous Expedition.

Expeditions appearing in the name of knighthood are not only for manifesting one's own chivalry, but also a ladder for advancement in Bretonnia.

Those truly great knights only need to display their brilliance in tournaments and on the battlefield. But the Errantry War filters for those War Knights who can only be born amidst continuous warfare and intense desire.

Therefore, every Chivalrous Expedition sees many lower-tier knights, itching for action, responding to the call.

Although they might be routed in a single blow when facing a formal army of knights wrapped in blessings and glory, their spirit and enthusiasm are never-ending.

No one likes to have the title of coward placed upon their head, and no one wishes for their reputation to fall to such a state. Thus, the Errantry War is often a battlefield that claims countless commoners, serfs, and lower-tier knights.

For a Bretonnia blessed by the Lady of the Lake, even with a ninety percent tax rate, serfs can still provide countless offspring through their resources.

In a sense, this is also the normal metabolism of Bretonnia, a necessary cycle for this realm.

And now, as the Errantry War against the Broken Lands unfolds, heroes from all over are rubbing their hands, arriving in Gelongni with their serfs and supplies, preparing to participate in this Chivalrous Expedition against the Chaos Wasteland.

To crusade against the Witch King of Chaos—the reputation of this Errantry War is no worse than that of fighting the Green Tide. In some respects, this conviction and loyalty even possess greater legitimacy. This has caused the entire Chivalrous Expedition Fleet to seem somewhat abnormally bloated, containing far more than just Bretonnian troops.

Just like now, even some dangerous activities cannot earn the proper rewards within the capital of this Knight of the Kingdom.

"Here, your payment for clearing the contaminated granary outside the city: thirteen silver coins in total."

"Thirteen silver coins?!"

The blood-stained player looked at the pot-bellied merchant in front of him in disbelief, pointed at his own tattered clothes and burn marks, and shouted in front of the shop: "We found a bloodletter with crippled legs in the granary and fought with all our might to defeat it. We lost fourteen brothers just for me to cut off its head, and now you are insulting us with thirteen silver coins?! That is fourteen human lives!"

Pedestrians passing by looked at the filthy, shrilly screaming player and cast dissatisfied glances at the shopkeeper.

That dissatisfaction did not stem from pity or sympathy, but because the boss had not handled the problem well.

Seeing the gazes of the neighbors, the shopkeeper clicked his tongue and held up a finger.

"Then I'll add two more silver coins for you."

"Add one more silver coin and twenty-eight copper coins, otherwise we can't calculate it." "Fine, take it. Get lost quickly."

"You got it. Wishing you prosperous business~"

As if they were completely different people, the guy who had just been kneeling on the ground, wailing miserably as if to show some deep bond of brotherhood, immediately took the money bag thrown by the impatient boss with a grinning face and left happily.

And this kind of thing has gradually become a common occurrence in Gelongni.

Players—these guys who are fearless of death, nimble, yet extremely fragile—somehow learned of the Chivalrous Expedition through their own mysterious channels.

These guys, who are like the Skaven of legend, began to occupy the streets and alleys of Gelongni, asking door-to-door if there was anything that needed help or work to be done. Moreover, although the players' bodies are not great, they are fearless in their work, not afraid of filth or fatigue, and possess considerable subjective initiative.

Therefore, Gelongni did not have many doubts and listed these strange life forms as objects to be treated normally.

After all, there are too many things in this world that look immortal on the surface: undead magic, constructs, elemental creatures, consciousness aggregates, demons, and avatars of nature; one more type of player does not count for much.

And although there are many players, compared to the time of the Element Calamity when the world was full of elemental creatures, the players' performance is a model of the undead. Even if they are slightly dangerous, they are easily suppressed and are considered by the Bretonnians to be a vassal race similar to serfs.

It is just that sometimes they are ungrateful.

However, most of those players would not care about the disgusted expressions of the merchants; instead, they would flick the silver coins, put the copper coins into their pouches, hum a little tune, walk familiarly to a chaotic block, open a secret door, and head down.

Accompanied by the warm, humid air and the noisy, roaring sounds, the gathering place of the players appeared before him, causing a smile to appear on his face.

"Yo, how's business today?"

"Not bad. We ran into a demon bloodletter in the granary. Luckily, it got stuck in the portal, and we piled up our resurrected bodies to kill it. Otherwise, we might have lost money on this event."

The male player, showing no trace of the miserable wailing and angry shouting from just moments ago, counted the fourteen silver coins and handed them to the auditor in front of him without changing his expression.

"Here, fourteen silver coins. There are exactly fourteen of us brothers, one silver coin each; just record it all on the magic bill."

"You intend to scrape together supplies to join the Chivalrous Expedition? A few silver coins won't be enough."

Casually recording in a magic book, the player acting as a bartender glanced at the filthy player in front of him and sneered.

"Supplies have gone up in price again. The guaranteed requirement for a cabin spot on the Chivalrous Expedition has basically risen to seventy-four silver coins, and it may go up further later. Your current guaranteed amount is already a bit insufficient."

"Ah? Why did it go up again? Is a ship spot really that expensive?"

"If you think it's expensive, I think it's expensive too. Don't you think about it? This is the first major event we players have been able to participate in for three years. Everyone pooled their money to buy the ship; how could they let you on without collecting money?"

Looking at the grumbling player, the bartender rolled his eyes and said as a matter of course.

(End of chapter)