Chapter 182: Reaching an Agreement

Before this, the knights had also made many attempts at expansion, the most famous of which was the expedition to Araby.

One thousand years ago, the Knight King of that time sent troops south to Estalia to assist the local army in resisting the invasion of the Araby Sultan Jafar. After a brutal and bloody battle, the Sultan was defeated and eventually driven back to Araby.

However, the knights would not give up; they formed a coalition with the Empire of Man, crossed the ocean, and arrived at Araby, located south of the Old World on the edge of the Land of the Dead, Nehekhara.

After another series of great battles, they beheaded Sultan Jafar and subsequently controlled several cities and strongholds in Araby under the names of "Crusader Army" and "Expeditionary Force"; these were the Bretonnia factions that appeared on the Eye of the Vortex map.

However, water from afar cannot quench a thirst nearby; the natural environment of Araby was already harsh, and apart from limited oases, it was covered by yellow sand and difficult to develop. It was precisely because of this that the Sultan himself had to expand toward the Old World!

The thirst for land even caused friction between the various duchies within Bretonnia. As for Bastonne itself, the neighboring Mengtefute Gongguo, whose territory stretched along the Grey Mountains, narrow and barren, would from time to time want to cross the border and occupy some lush pastures.

Sinuoli deployed his diplomatic skills, which far exceeded those of his kin, and after analyzing the pros and cons, reached a verbal agreement with Duke Fengdaiyike to send troops to the Badlands in the future to recover Karak Eight Peaks, and subsequently jointly develop the Badlands.

The Duke could not think of a reason to refuse, as doing so could solve his two major problems at once. There was no lack of wealth in the Dwarf Shanbao, and Sinuoli gave a verbal promise to share the spoils of war with the knights, though the specific amount would depend on the situation.

As for the land, although the Badlands were named for being "bad," it depended on what one compared them to; compared to Araby, which was even further away and had deserts that stretched as far as the eye could see, calling them a treasure land was not an exaggeration.

If one could work hand-in-glove with the Dwarfs and fully control that land, dividing it into any number of knightly fiefs was entirely possible.

Both sides were very satisfied with this verbal agreement, although Sinuoli knew that he was still a long way from recovering Eight Peaks, and as of now, he did not even have a base of his own!

But as a transmigrator who understood the course of history, he also knew that the knights could not find a better solution, and Duke Fengdaiyike, as an extraordinary being who had drunk the Grail Water, had a longer lifespan than ordinary people and, still in his prime, could afford to wait.

In the Duke's own view, the Dwarf before him had received the favor and decree of the gods, his desire to recover that whatever-mountain was intense, his motivation was sufficient, and the probability of success did not seem to exist only in theory.

And the Dwarfs were an orderly race that kept their promises, so there was no fear of being stabbed in the back during cooperation; more importantly, he did not need to pay anything now, so why not agree?

With both host and guest enjoying themselves, the Dwarfs left the castle and returned to the settlement area to rest; given the choice, it was still more comfortable to live in the dwellings of one's own kin.

When they set off early the next morning, Sinuoli's team had an additional one hundred and twenty local Dwarfs; Sinuoli had no way to refuse these enthusiastic clansmen, although there had been a bit of selection—but based on the premise that each family sent at least one, their equipment was still uneven.

Relatively wealthy clansmen brought out their Exquisite Quality heirlooms from the bottom of their chests, swearing to achieve the victory in the oracle under the witness of their ancestors. While the relatively poor clansmen joined the team carrying only their daily labor tools.

Sinuoli found it difficult to break them up and incorporate them into the existing troop formations due to their different equipment, so he could only list them separately as a detachment to command.

The Dwarf legion continued forward, and they spent another day marching. This time there were no suitable strongholds for the large army to rest; it was better not to stay in those villages with only simple wooden walls, as it would inevitably end up with the question of who was protecting whom being reversed.

In order to enter the territory of Bordeleaux at noon, they set off again at the crack of dawn. The border between these two friendly duchies was just a trimmed forest belt, with a Kingdom Knight fief divided on each side to ensure that the peasants would not run back and forth to avoid taxes.

"Our first stop is a Viscount's castle; he should have absorbed the surrounding peasants back. So we have no supply points along the way, but I'm not sure what the specific situation is there!" Having returned to his own homeland, Kangsitanting's state was clearly more serious.

"I understand! Exposing the peasants to the lack of protection against those bastards who desecrate corpses is simply providing them with fresh recruits!" Sinuoli sat on a Rock Sheep and nodded; the Vampire's cannon fodder troops were mainly composed of skeleton warriors made of bones and zombies obtained from fresh corpses.

These things were clumsy and fragile, shattering almost at a touch, but they had the advantage of low cost and sufficient quantity. More importantly, if the peasants suffered heavy casualties, it would be difficult to develop for a long time to come.

It was currently winter, and it was not difficult to relocate peasants during the slack farming season. After passing an empty village that seemed not to have been disturbed, the army arrived at a town at Twilight.

"My Lord! You've finally returned!" Seeing Sinuoli's troops approaching from afar, a knight and a middle-aged man dressed as a steward quickly opened the gate and rushed out; they rushed to the front of Kangsitanting's horse as if they had seen a savior.

"Where is Uncle Minaithir?" Kangsitanting's expression changed drastically as he looked at the people rushing out.

"Viscount, the Viscount he..." The steward began to ramble incoherently.

"What happened to him?"

"Viscount Minaithir left the city early yesterday morning and has not returned yet!" The knight was quite calm; he knew he had to let the regent who brought back reinforcements grasp the situation as soon as possible.

"Why didn't an albatross peck his head off? I specifically warned him before I left! Do not leave the city, do not leave the city!" Kangsitanting was furious, partly because of the Viscount's foolish behavior, and partly because his authority had been questioned. It was clear that the Viscount had not taken his orders to heart.

"Speak right here! Where did he go, and why?" In his own territory, Kangsitanting exercised his regency power.

"The village to the south!"

"Lady Manet said there was a holy relic in the Grail Church of that village that was not taken out by the retreating villagers, and she did not want that thing to be, to be desecrated by the blood kin."

"So? Uncle Minaithir took his few men and went?" The steward and the knight were singing in harmony, and Kangsitanting interrupted them directly.

"A holy relic in the village, what kind of stinking shell could there be in a village?" The regent muttered, but he could not sit by and watch a tragic ending happen.