You were made to farm, and now you're the emperor of an empire?

Chapter 204 Devastated
What is war?
Was it a bloodbath between the two armies?

Yes, but more than that.

The greatest impact of war is not the brutal battlefield, but the countless families.

Some Arctic pirates then ventured inland along the river.

Pirates' advantage lies in their exceptional mobility.

Some villagers discovered their longship, but it was too late. In an era when communication relied entirely on shouting, it was impossible for those who discovered the pirates to notify all the villagers.

Therefore, the pirate crew of about twenty people quickly landed.

Carrying axes and shields, they flexed their wrists and strode towards the farmland. Then, raising their axes, they swung them down without hesitation at the somewhat stunned farmer.

Summer harvest time has arrived.

They were harvesting wheat, while the pirates were harvesting their lives.

In an instant, fear and trembling seized their souls.

All the farmers screamed in terror and turned to run.

The pirates pursued them, using bows and arrows and throwing axes to attack the fleeing farmers from a distance.

People kept falling, wounded by arrows; their bodies crushed the sparse wheat, and the flowing blood soaked the wheat roots.

The hastily assembled militia consisted of about fifty people.

They clashed with the Arctic pirates and were defeated in less than half a minute.

After that, all the villagers became lambs to the slaughter.

……

When Nathan arrived at the village, he saw a scene of utter devastation.

Most of the houses were burned down, and corpses were everywhere. Some people were taken away, and some were killed—guards and farmers died on the ground, women died on tables, and babies died in their beds.

The once peaceful and impoverished village now presents a desolate scene.

As he rode by, he could not hear a sound at all.

News was so blocked in this era that Nathan was shocked to discover just how fierce the pirate invasion was.

This place was far from the coastline, and as a result, it was looted and massacred.

If this is the case here, what about Thales County, which is closer to the coast?

Nathan had a bad feeling.

He rode at breakneck speed, traveling day and night.

More and more tragic scenes came into his view.

The houses turned to ashes

Livestock were slaughtered

The dead were silent.

The living have no end to their days.

Those scenes resonated with him deeply, weighed heavily on his heart, and made him want to scream in anguish.

Nathan drove silently all the way to Thaler County.

A year later, he returned to this land.

The organization of this land had completely collapsed. He passed through the largest market in Thales County, but all he saw was ruins, broken walls and rubble, the prosperity and liveliness gone.

Some refugees were rummaging through the ruins for something.

During his midday break, Nathan learned that Thaler County had been attacked by pirates a month earlier.

The lord's castle was breached under cover of night by a powerful pirate crew. The pirate leader, along with ten or twenty pirates, insulted the lord's wife, female relatives, and maids inside the castle.

Nathan had seen that haughty lord when he was a conscript in Thalershire, but the lord was bound hand and foot and could only stand by and watch.

They all died afterwards, and the lord's head was hung on the castle.

Thales County became a place ravaged by pirates.

Nathan's heart grew heavier.

An overwhelming fear surged through him, leaving his hands and feet ice-cold.

His mind was in turmoil, filled with various speculations, yet he refused to believe them. But when he arrived at Machao Village, the sight before him made his head spin, his mind went blank, as if he had been struck by a sledgehammer.

He didn't know how he dismounted, and looked at the black ruins in front of him. The walls had collapsed, and the burnt wood lay there haphazardly, the earthen buildings turned to black ash.

The smell of smoke had long since dissipated, and I had no idea how much time had passed.

He arrived at his former home like a walking corpse—only half a mud wall remained standing before him, just the remains of a burned building, and no one knew what it used to look like.

Only Nathan knew the home he longed for, the house he had built himself from mud and wood.

All the worries and fears came true.

The burly man stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly let out a heart-wrenching wail, tears streaming down his face.

For some reason, he started pacing back and forth in front of his former home, but dared not step inside.

I had imagined him coming home countless times over the past year, but this is how it ended.

"I'm late! I'm late! My Aina!! My Will!!" Like a wounded beast, he suddenly slapped his face with his heavy palms, tore at his hair, took off his helmet, and smashed it hard against his head.

"Captain! Don't do this!" The two soldiers behind him grabbed his arms to stop him from self-harming, and they were also in great pain.

Their superior, a taciturn and tough guy, has now turned out like this.

“Waaah…” Nathan cried bitterly. He spun around in circles and finally squatted down on the ground, finding himself with nowhere to go.

"I'm going to kill them! I'm going to kill them!!" he said, tears streaming down his face, his expression filled with grief.

"Together!" shouted two soldiers. They were elite soldiers of the Third Battalion, one named Es and the other named Lotte, both of whom had received Nathan's care.

The two men draped Nathan in heavy armor.

Pirates were rampant and widespread in this land. In the past, they would never provoke trouble unless they encountered them head-on.

The pirates marched south and launched a massive attack. Their main force alone numbered ten thousand, along with numerous servants and slaves.

Instead of engaging the Armored Alliance in direct combat, they used their superior mobility to spread out in various locations, burning, killing, looting, and cutting off their supplies.

But they actively seek out the pirates' trail, just so he can vent his frustrations.

Before long, Nathan and his men saw black smoke rising ten miles away and immediately rode off at full speed.

Upon arriving at the destination, they witnessed pirates slaughtering refugees. It was likely that the refugees were trying to secretly harvest some wheat, but they just happened to run into the pirates.

There were about twenty pirates, but Nathan was blinded by rage.

He rode up on his horse.

The pirates were shocked, never expecting that there would still be knights fighting on this ravaged land.

Nathan swung his heavy spear, the sharp tip of which was half a meter long and gleaming with a cold light, and immediately killed five or six pirates as he charged forward.

The remaining pirates swarmed forward, but Nathan alone killed five or six of them.

Two elite soldiers charged from both sides on horseback, forming an encirclement. Together with Nathan, they killed all the pirates in one fell swoop.

Only two pirate scouts, being some distance away, looked at the berserker in fear and turned to flee.

Nathan was still not satisfied. He took down his heavy axe and, with bloodshot eyes, continued to hack at the pirate's corpse, letting out a miserable roar with each strike.

"You...you're Nathan, the 'loudmouth' from Manger Village?"

The refugees had gathered around at some point. They were also natives of this land, but had become refugees after the pirates burned down the village.

Nathan, panting heavily, looked at the refugees with bloodshot eyes. He found them somewhat familiar; they must be villagers from the neighborhood whom he had seen before.

“It’s me,” he said.

"Weren't you captured by pirates...? Why...? Why didn't you go to the woods? Where are the people from Manger Village hiding?"

He couldn't stand still any longer and rushed over, shouting frantically, "Where's Aina! Where's Will! Are they alright! Are they still alive?!"

Nathan was clad in heavy armor, towering and imposing, and covered in blood from whipping the corpse, making him incredibly terrifying.

The refugees were terrified and speechless, as if they had seen a ferocious beast.

The height matches, and the voice matches too.

But they couldn't understand why the once honest and kind-hearted strong man had returned in this attire.

What kind of magical plot is this, where a farmer transforms into a knight?

Those tall, magnificent horses are not something ordinary people can obtain.

(End of this chapter)