Chapter 146: Simulation of the Continent of Calradia (Part 1)

Given the current road conditions, the time required to set out from Wilderness Town at full speed toward Rivendell is approximately ten days to half a month. This is only because Allen led troops to clear the canyon at High Pass, which significantly reduced the time needed; if one were to pass through the upper level of High Pass, merely crossing the rugged mountains of the Misty Mountains would take at least half a month or more.

Carrying Allen's wishes, Abinas hurriedly left the flower-blooming Wilderness Town on horseback; he needed to bring the news back as quickly as possible so that the treasures of the Kingdom of Arnor could be retrieved as soon as possible.

In the days that followed, Allen began to busy himself with his own affairs; aside from the various matters in Wilderness Town, things within the Simulator also gradually increased.

The other scripts were fine, as Allen could artificially control their progress, and Wincode Castle, his fief located on the continent of Calradia, had been relatively peaceful for the past year or two. Every month, it steadily provided Allen with an income of several thousand Dinar in the Simulator's treasury, and this money was used by Allen to purchase a large quantity of Leather Armor to arm the conscripted militia in various parts of his fief. As for weapons, they were relatively simpler; the hundreds of blacksmiths under Allen's command could forge them themselves, and the development of Stier Mining Town also solved Allen's problem of insufficient iron ore.

In addition to providing a stable income, the location of this castle was also excellent; it was right next to Uxhal. Under the protection of the family, there were almost no troubles to bother Allen in ordinary times, unless it was a large-scale war between countries, but recently, things had been somewhat unsettled.

In previous days, every time Allen entered the simulation, he would always lead troops to help his cheap father, Count Delinard, clear out the Greenwood Bandits near Uxhal, as well as small groups of deserters fleeing from the Nord Kingdom. Through these small-scale battles, the combat proficiency of the Wincode Castle soldiers became higher and higher.

Allen took a portion of the Dinar from the script's income, added the weapons, equipment, and horses rewarded by his cheap old man, and armed his soldiers. At this time, Wincode Castle already had twenty-six Heavy Cavalry, one hundred and thirteen Heavy Infantry, and fewer than fifty Elite Crossbowmen. Of course, there were also more than a thousand ordinary subjects supporting these soldiers; from among them, Allen could recruit hundreds more Serf Soldiers, though Allen had never thought of sending them to the front lines. Even if they were to go, he would provide them with basic training and prepare certain weapons and equipment.

At this time, the war between the Vigia Kingdom and the Nord Kingdom had reached a fever pitch. Among the nobility of Swadia, proposals to attack the Nord Kingdom gradually appeared, and the clamor was extremely high, receiving the support of many nobles. In particular, Allen's cheap relative, Count Haringoth, had his spit almost spraying onto King Harlaus's face while roaring during the noble council, but King Harlaus seemed to have other plans and did not accept this proposal in the council.

However, not long after the noble council ended, an unknown Mercenary Group actually robbed a merchant caravan belonging to King Ragnar within the territory of Sunor, and generously declared that they had been hired by the nobles of the Kingdom of Swadia.

Soon, a sternly worded Letter of condemnation was sent from the staff of King Ragnar to the King's study in Praven. No matter how many precious decorations King Harlaus smashed in his rage, only two paths remained before him. One was to apologize for the incident and compensate King Ragnar for his losses, which could effectively eliminate the friction between the two countries and restore the brief friendship of the past, but King Harlaus's prestige would also plummet.

【Currently, the most comprehensive and easy-to-use app for listening to books, integrating 4 major speech synthesis engines, over 100 timbres, and a source-switching artifact that supports offline reading, huanyuanapp source-switching app】

The other path was simpler: to go to war. In his last simulation, Allen had been fully preparing for war within his own fief. He knew that given King Harlaus's personality, it was impossible for him to choose to apologize and pay compensation, so war was imminent. Thus, Allen would have to spend a long time in the next simulation in Calradia.

Even if Allen did not participate, the Simulator would complete this war for him as time passed. However, by then, the losses of Wincode Castle and his own personal safety would depend on whether the Simulator's command was effective. Regarding this point, Allen felt it was better to operate it himself.

Soon, King Harlaus issued a conscription order to all the nobles of the country. Nobles like Allen who owned a castle and guarded a trade route were required to recruit at least ten heavy armored cavalry, fifty Heavy Infantry, twenty Elite Archers, and two hundred serfs to fulfill their oath to the King.

Of course, King Harlaus was also very reasonable; if a noble was willing to pay money or provide more elite soldiers or a larger number of people, it would also count as completing the task of this conscription. Allen used the provision of one hundred Armored Militia as a reason to offset those two hundred serfs; Allen felt that population was more important to him.

In just a few months, the nobles of Swadia gathered thousands of regular troops on the plains near Dherim, as well as several times that number of serfs. One must know that they had just ended their battle with the Rhodok a few years ago and had suffered not insignificant losses in that battle. Yet, to be able to gather such a massive army at this time, one could only say that Swadia, with its fertile land and mostly plains, was very wealthy, and its war potential was far stronger than other countries.

As a noble of the country's second tier, Allen followed the various elders of his family and arrived near Dherim early. At the same time, together with the wealthy old men in the family, they scattered handful after handful of Dinar, sweeping up the wheat near Dherim, forcibly raising the price of grain by more than three times. Soon, more and more people were doing this, because all the nobles had a premonition that the war had begun. At this time, grain was the most needed hard currency; the more one kept in hand, the better. As for Dinar, as long as the war was won, there would be plenty.

Even though Dherim was rich in wheat, it could not withstand the purchases of more than half the nobles in the country. Soon, those late-arriving nobles discovered that the subordinates they sent could not purchase grain from the local farmers of Dherim. Even with all the gold in the world, these simple yet cunning old farmers knew to keep enough grain for themselves to last until the next season. Having potentially experienced more than a dozen wars in their lives, they were extremely experienced in these matters. However, at this moment, most of them, having earned large sums of money, cheered for the start of this war.

At this time, Allen and other nobles who had arrived in Dherim early made a killing with the large amount of wheat in their hands. Even King Harlaus's envoy could only obtain a discounted price, but even with the discount, it was six or seven times higher than the original. Under the protection of Count Klauss, those nobles leading troops could not resort to looting. One must know that the villages in Dherim and the surrounding areas were all the property of Count Klauss's family. Possessing such vast lands also made Count Klauss the strongest noble in the country, with personal strength second only to King Harlaus, and he was also a loyal subject of King Harlaus; the two's friendship could even be traced back to their childhood.

Allen did not know how others fared, but he had harvested several thousand Dinar in this grain scramble, equivalent to two months of income for Wincode Castle. He did not know who had come up with this idea, but after discovering this trend, he contacted the elders in his family at the first opportunity and participated in it.

On the continent of Calradia, such calculations and infighting among nobles were countless; this was not a major event. Those who made money were naturally smug, and those who lost money would gnash their teeth in secret, trying to find ways to get it back in the days to come. But this did not affect the war. Once the conflict between countries broke out, everyone's spearheads would generally be directed outward; this was the consensus of all nobles. Of course, sometimes for the sake of their own interests, there would always be traitors; this was an unavoidable matter.

When all the nobles gathered in King Harlaus's tent for a meeting, it was as if countless ducks were quacking in such a small space. Most nobles felt they had the right to speak first, all wanting to make a splash before their King and colleagues to gain more attention, among whom Count Haringoth's voice was the loudest.

Allen could not stand this environment at all; his subordinates had never been so rude in a meeting. However, he found that King Harlaus, who was listening carefully, seemed to have long been accustomed to this scene; he seemed able to extract the information he wanted in such a noisy environment.

Finally, most of the nobles shouted until they were tired and their throats were hoarse, and the tent gradually quieted down. At this moment, King Harlaus spoke, his aged and majestic voice filling the entire tent.

"For this war, I plan to arrange for two armies to launch an attack on the Nord barbarians. One route will be under my direct command; I will lead the majority of the Cavalry to cross Rudburg directly and intercept any reinforcements that might come for the enemy."

Rudburg was one of the gateways for the Nord Kingdom to defend against Swadia. Its south faced Derchios Castle directly, and further south was Dherim, while the north and east were lush forests that could guard against cavalry raids. The west was a continuous mountain range, but there were large plains between the mountains and Rudburg. Every time Swadia attacked the Nord, this was one of the necessary routes, and also one of the easiest to travel.

"Count Klauss will act as my deputy and lead two thousand Elite Infantry to besiege Rudburg. As long as we can take this castle, the vast and fertile land behind it will belong to us. By then, every family that has rendered meritorious service in this battle can mark a spot on this map to secure a piece of land for their descendants, and the wealth piled up inside the castle will also be distributed to everyone according to their merits. I think no one has any objections to this, right?"

As soon as King Harlaus's voice fell, the tent became lively again. Some people were not satisfied with this plan, such as Count Haringoth, who shouted loudly that he should be the one to lead the troops to besiege Rudburg. Some were excited and shouting because they heard they could be enfeoffed with land, while more minor nobles were expressing their loyalty to their King, saying they would definitely do their utmost to deal with this battle. As for Allen, he watched this farce quietly, listening to King Harlaus's arrangements, and had some rather bad premonitions.

And this time, King Harlaus did not have the patience to listen further, instead raising both hands to suppress the noise in the tent.

"My loyal subjects, there is another matter I have not finished speaking about, and that is that Jelbegi Castle requires us to send troops to guard it. The experience of the last failed war tells me that the enemy will definitely send an army out of Jelbegi Castle to raid our territory along the way and harass our rear. Therefore, we must send more troops to guard against them coming out of that canyon. I think Count Delinard is very suitable for this task. By the way, Count Haringoth will also act as a deputy to assist Marshal Delinard."

The location of Jelbegi Castle was in a canyon between two mountain ranges. The Nords built this castle to guard against Swadian cavalry using this road to attack their rear. Relying on the mountains on both sides, this castle was easy to defend and difficult to attack; its difficulty of capture was no less than that of the Rhodok's Grunwalder Castle. To this day, no Swadian noble had been able to lead troops to step across this canyon.

Such an arrangement was, of course, unfair. Everyone knew that while besieging Rudburg might be more arduous, it was easier to obtain merit and also easier to loot the land of the Nord barbarians, which had few soldiers, at the first opportunity. As for guarding against the enemy at Jelbegi Castle, although the difficulty and risk were not very high, even if one did a good job, it was only hard labor; without the heads of enemy soldiers, one could not be allocated any land at all.

Count Haringoth stood up in anger upon hearing this. He had done his utmost to support this war at the meeting, not for a little bit of hard labor. But before his rebuttal could be spoken, he found that the smile on Harlaus's face had disappeared and he was looking at him coldly. Meanwhile, the lord of Dherim, Count Klauss, and the lord of Sunor, Count Craggs, were also staring at him, and most of the minor nobles in the tent were also scanning the heads of their own families with the same gaze.

Even the hot-tempered Haringoth knew that this situation was extremely abnormal. It was a very common behavior for nobles to fight for their own interests at meetings, and they could even come to blows at banquets for this; never before had there been a situation where the majority of nobles targeted one person.

"Your Majesty, I think Count Craggs seems more suitable for this task. After all, Sunor is closer to Jelberg."

Count Delinard seemed to have been prepared for this, and he proposed a seemingly more reasonable suggestion to his King, which also gave Haringoth a way out and eased the atmosphere in the tent somewhat.

"That's right, let Craggs do it; he is more suitable." As he spoke, Haringoth sat down with an extremely unnatural expression, while frowning, seemingly thinking about something.

"Count Craggs also has a very important task. He will lead his family's soldiers to Tirburg Castle to stand guard. We must be wary of the Nords crossing the territory of the Vigia to attack our lands directly from there."

Hearing this, even Allen gave King Harlaus a big middle finger in his heart. Everyone knew that Ragnar was currently leading the Nord Kingdom's army, pulling back and forth with the Vigia army near Bruga Castle. The Nord had spent a great deal of time in this war and finally captured a castle; they would absolutely not give it up at this moment. Moreover, how could the Vigia watch the enemy cross most of their kingdom? Allen felt that this old man had even lost his face in order to target his family.

"Since that is the case, I gladly accept His Majesty's arrangement."

Seeing that his proposal did not move the King, Delinard knew that his attempt had failed and that the matter had reached a point of no return. He stood up slowly, a trace of sadness appearing on his face, and said to King Harlaus: "I will obey your command. Now I think I need to take my leave. Soon, I will lead the army to Jelbegi Castle."

At this time, King Harlaus smiled, nodded, and said: "I believe the heroic Count Delinard will definitely complete this task. In addition, I think your son Davis is very outstanding. Would you be willing to leave him by my side to assist me for a period of time?"

Count Delinard's eyes narrowed, and he turned to look at Allen. Afterward, his expression relaxed, and he said with a smile: "Of course, but please allow me to speak a few words with my son in private before parting. After all, this is his first time leading troops to fight as a lord, and I also have some things to hand over to him."

"Go ahead." King Harlaus waved his hand to signal that Allen and Delinard could leave.

Afterward, Allen followed his cheap old man and left the place in a strange atmosphere. Not long after walking out, cheers came from the tent again. Clearly, King Harlaus was currently doing pre-war encouragement and promising the post-war cake. Allen just wanted to look back when he heard his cheap old man's voice: "No need to look; those things have nothing to do with us anymore."

Through the meeting just now, Allen naturally knew that things might not be simple, but he also knew that this was not the time to ask questions, so he followed his "father" with his head down all the way back to their family camp and entered Delinard's tent.

After entering the tent, Delinard signaled Allen to sit opposite him with a serious expression, and personally poured a glass of Wine for Allen, then said: "Actually, King Ragnar's merchant caravan was something I arranged for your eldest brother Rafad to rob."

"What?" Allen looked at his cheap old man with a face full of surprise. In his heart, he had always thought that this matter was done by the hot-tempered Haringoth; he was capable of doing such a thing to start a war. But he never expected that the one who did this was actually Delinard, who had a reputation for integrity.

"No need to be surprised, it was me."

Delinard nodded with a calm expression.