Imperial Crown.

Chapter 455 The Value of Merit

Chapter 481 The Value of Merit

The low houses, messy fences, and short farm tools piled randomly in the corners all indicate that this is a village of goblins.

The flames licked the dry grass and the black smoke drifted over the village.

At the entrance of the village, the "wolf-hearted iron man" Ma Ge, former leader of an A-class mercenary group and now commander of the 1rd Battalion of the 3st Extra-Regular Corps of the Eagle Army, was waving his sword and guarding the entrance of the village.

The burning village, the screaming green beasts, all of this was too familiar to him.

The only thing that was a bit unusual was that in the past it was the goblins who set fires in the village and blocked roads, but today, he played the villain in this classic story.

In front of him was a group of goblins wearing simple animal skin armor, holding pitchforks and hoes. Their thin arms were like wooden sticks. They stared with their big bloodshot eyes and cursed in words that Magog could not understand.

"Wah-lul-la--" the leading green-skinned man yelled and rushed forward waving a pitchfork in his hand.

Magog twitched his eyelids, unfastened the leather buckle at his waist with his left hand, and grasped the hammer handle with his right hand and swung the warhammer!
Straighten your left foot, and the force fed back from the ground is transmitted to the waist, and then transmitted to the shoulders and arms with the waist as the axis.

He delivered the blow with great skill and without any fuss.

There was no need to use fighting spirit. The war hammer, lifted up by the surging power, whistled in the air, the hammer handle knocked the hayfork away, and the hammer head smashed into the greenskin's head. A slight sense of obstruction came along the hammer handle.

The green-skinned man's eyeballs jumped out of their sockets, and before he could even scream, his entire head split open like a watermelon.

The hammer continued to sweep across, breaking the neck of the second greenskin, smashing the chest of the third greenskin, and only stopped after smashing the fourth greenskin in half.

The remaining three greenskins were stunned by the bloody scene. They dropped their weapons, turned around and ran away while howling.

"That's why I hate smart monsters." Magog cursed in a low voice, stepped forward quickly, and killed the remaining greenskins in no time.

When he was a mercenary leader in the past, low-end creatures like goblins were not worth even a glance from him. Killing them would make his hammer dirty.

But now, not only did Magog not mind the dirt, he also pulled out the enchanted dagger for self-defense from his waist, carefully cut off the goblin's right ear, froze it with ice qi, and put it in the small pocket on his waist.

"23, 24...27!" After counting them carefully, Mag put them away cautiously, fearing that they would be damaged by rough movements.

These are all merits!
Merit is a new system announced and implemented by the Eagle Army after entering the Orc Empire. It applies to both the Eagle Army itself and these non-staff legionaries.

1点功勋，可以换来1枚金币；100点功勋可以换到一套全身板甲；150点功勋可以换到一件1阶附魔武器；500点功勋，就可以换一个见习骑士的爵位！

One right ear represents one goblin head; eight right ears can be exchanged for one merit point.

To be honest, although the conditions were quite stingy compared to what Raven offered when recruiting soldiers, once this rule came out, it actually made former mercenaries like Mag feel much more at ease.

After all, the previous conditions were too tempting, so tempting that they seemed unreal, which made these mercenaries who came for the title very suspicious that Raven wanted to use them as pawns and cannon fodder.

But although this change made Raven seem a little stingy, it also made the mercenaries feel that Count Raven really wanted to fulfill his promise.

Especially when the mercenaries saw that many people exchanged 8 goblin ears for 1 merit point and 1 gold coin from the quartermaster, the mercenaries' morale was aroused.

This merit can really be exchanged for money!

And although it takes 8 goblins to exchange for 1 merit point, if you kill a bugbear, one head is 1 merit point; if it is a super goblin, the value of one head soars to 50 merit points.

On the other hand, this is only the price for the goblins; other orcs have different offers.

比如3颗猪人的脑袋，值1点功勋；2颗虎人的脑袋，值1点功勋；鹰人更是1颗脑袋就能换来1点功勋。

Extraordinary heads have a different price.

"Boss, no, sir, we have finished cleaning up." A young mercenary came up with a smile: "No one from the whole village is left alive!"

Gran nodded: "How many ears did you take?"

The young man smiled awkwardly and covered his waist: "No, not much..."

"Looking at your behavior, how can I steal your things?" Ge Lang rolled his eyes at him, feeling a little sour for a moment.

When he was a mercenary in the past, if he wanted any spoils of war, his subordinates had no choice but to agree.

But now it’s no longer possible, I can’t even get the ears of a few goblins.

Because the Eagle Army strictly enforces military law, anyone who privately oppresses soldiers will be severely punished.

Moreover, goblin ears are in short supply, and Gran couldn't buy them even if he wanted to.

Nowadays everyone attaches great importance to merit.

Indeed, a title of 500 merits is out of reach for most people. Intellectually speaking, the greatest value of merits is to exchange them for gold coins at a 1:1 ratio from the quartermaster.

But this does not mean that 1 point of merit is only worth 1 gold coin.

You know, the full body plate armor exchanged for 100 merits is well-made and is worth at least 200 gold coins on the market; the enchanted weapon exchanged for 200 merits is worth 5 or 600 gold coins on the market.

For most people, an enchanted weapon or a set of full body plate armor are treasures that can be passed down from generation to generation.

Even if I can't exchange it for a title, I can at least exchange it for these things, right?
Therefore, the current price of merit points has been bid down to 1.79 gold coins per point, and there are many bids but few sales. Many people regretted their sales immediately after selling them.

It's not like there are no more orcs to kill. When there are no more merits to be gained, the price will definitely go up.

Gold coins may drop in value, but titles will never lose value.

"Gather all the people and clear out two more villages before it gets dark!" Mago gave a loud order.

Those dispatched this time included two non-staff legions composed of mercenaries, and the 5th and 6th Legions of the Eagle Army, which were basically composed of newcomers.

After all, Goblins are unlikely to pose an effective threat to well-trained soldiers unless they have an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

These soldiers fought fiercely, harvesting goblin ears in exchange for merit, and were extremely happy.

But Eric was not one of them, in fact he was in a pretty bad mood.

In front of him, two armies, one black and one red, were fighting desperately.

The red side is large in number but relatively weak in physique; the black side is strong in physique but relatively fewer in number.

The battle lines were intertwined, the ground was littered with the broken bodies of soldiers from both sides, and the battle situation was as tense as a pot of mess.

Eric finally couldn't help but speak: "How stupid! Go around to the flank, don't you have more people?!"

Maybe he was too angry, and the words he said brought up a strong wind that blew up the dust and sand. The two waves of ants that were fighting fiercely on the ground were suddenly stunned.

"..."

Feeling that his behavior was a bit boring, Eric picked up the focus of the fight between the two groups of ants - a small piece of bread he had thrown down, and threw it into the lake next to him.

The two groups of ants that had lost their target turned around a few times, leaving behind a pile of broken ant corpses before returning to their nests.

"Ugh……"

Eric let out a long sigh and yawned in boredom.

In fact, by now, Eric could more or less understand why Raven wanted to attack the goblins.

Use war as training and to temper new recruits.

But at least he should be allowed to lead the troops out to support the battle, right?
If things go on like this, Eric will get sick from being idle!

Looking at Raven's chariot not far away, Eric couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

"My Lord Earl, is there any deeper meaning behind this?"

……

Chapter 482: Raven Lying Down
The Blood Roar Province is located in the south of the Miracle Mountains. Although it is not as densely covered with water as the Ever Summer Province of the Keynes Empire, it also has abundant rainfall and various lakes are not uncommon.

At this time, the Eagle Army was camping by the lake.

The lake is as wide as the sea, and under the sunlight it presents a warm green color that is soothing to the body and mind. The waves beat against the lakeside, pushing up layers of white sand.

River gulls and forest birds flapped their wings, skimmed over the water, and chirped happily.

If there were a few more coconut trees, it would be no different from a beach. At this moment, Raven's sedan chair stopped by the lake.

He ordered the craftsmen in the auxiliary troops to build this using a kind of hardwood that was a local product here. It has a gorgeous appearance and a huge scale.

The space is wide enough to accommodate two dancing elephants.

At this moment, there was a sound of water coming from the sedan chair.

Puff, wave.

"You really are...!" Lux's face turned red with shame, but she couldn't bear Raven's urging. She picked up a grape with her delicate fingers, opened it, and put it to Raven's mouth.

Raven opened his mouth, rolled the crystal grapes into his mouth with his tongue, and then lightly swept Lux's index finger.

Lux couldn't help but give Raven a slight look.

If people from the Church of Light saw this scene, they would be shocked, because Lux has always given the outside world the impression of being holy and noble, and she would never be polite to any man.

Of course, the person resting his head on Raven's knees is Lux. If it were anyone else, no matter how high or low his status was, what he would be treated to would not be grapes, but a solid scepter.

A divine magician is not only good at casting spells.

Raven swallowed the juicy grapes, then rubbed Lux's thighs to adjust his posture from lying flat to lying on his side.

The breeze from the lake blew past, lifting Raven's open shirt. The cool feeling made Raven sigh leisurely:

"what……"

I haven't felt this relaxed in years.

It’s a pity that there were no women accompanying the army, and the local female goblins were not worth looking at, otherwise Raven would have wanted to organize a group of dancers.

Days like this are what life is all about.

That guy Silvermane was obviously forcing Raven to fight a decisive battle, but Raven didn't think so.

decisive battle?

No dogs will be beaten!

Lux wiped her fingers clean and gently kneaded Raven's forehead. "I thought we would face a series of fierce battles in the Orc Empire. Now it seems that I was worried for nothing."

"Different wars have different ways of fighting." Raven closed his eyes and enjoyed Lux's massage. "For the lords of Cairns, I just need to enter the Orc Empire and fight a few battles to give an explanation."

"And to the Orc Empire, I am just an insignificant little shrimp. As long as I don't make too much trouble, they won't mobilize the whole country to attack me."

"So, killing the goblins will give us an explanation both internally and externally, isn't that great?"

Lux smiled and said, "Whatever you say makes sense. Then I would like to ask, why did you use the merit points to overturn your previous promise?"

“That’s a lot to consider…” Raven muttered, yawning and closing his eyes.

In fact, Raven had already prepared for the promulgation of the merit point policy, and the announcement issued when recruiting mercenaries was a prototype of it.

The reason why it was not announced immediately at that time was because Raven wanted to make adjustments based on the actual situation after entering the Orc Empire.

Fortunately, Raven braked at that time.

Because the merit point exchange plan and the calculation method of merit points announced now are very different from what Raven expected at the beginning.

Although Raven had thought out the current strategy by then and had a certain understanding of the general distribution of power in Bloodroar Province, he had no intuitive concept of the specific combat effectiveness of each type of orc.

Therefore, when recruiting mercenaries, the standards were relaxed from one legion to two legions.

This is to be prepared for any eventuality. At the critical moment, these non-staff troops can be sacrificed to gain the initiative for the Eagle Army.

But after actually encountering the goblins, Raven realized that he was careless.

There are too many goblins, and their individual strength is weaker than expected.

If we really follow the previous standard of 10 orc heads for one apprentice knight, it won’t be long before Ryan will have hundreds or thousands of knights under his command.

If this really happens, the devaluation of the knight's title will be secondary, and Raven will become a laughing stock among the nobles of the entire human world.

That's why Raven set the rule of 8 goblins for 1 point of merit.

In this case, Raven predicted that when the conflict with the goblins ended, with 1/3 of the merit points concentrated in a few people, about 3-5 apprentice knights would be born.

As for the bounties for tiger men, boar men, and eagle men, Raven deliberately lowered the ratio to leave room for future adjustments.

After all, if the price is set low, it can be raised to a higher price later; if the price is set high, it will not be easy to lower it.

Especially since Raven has a history of going back on his word.

"Stingy is stingy, what do you mean by 'it's a long story'?" Lux's words were teasing, but her tone was not sarcastic.

Because she approved of Raven's approach.

Over the past few years, Lux has been in charge of the management of the Holy Sisters for a long time and has accumulated a lot of management experience.

If we really calculate military merits in the same way as before, then it won't take long -

In as short as half a year or as long as a year, Raven would have a large number of nobles under his command.

There may be hundreds or thousands of knights, and even several barons.

A title of this magnitude is beyond Raven's current ability to fulfill.

The final outcome is that either Lei Wen will personally destroy this group of upstarts in order to resolve the hidden danger; or this group of upstarts will take the initiative to attack Lei Wen in order to force him to submit.

Either outcome would cause the Eagle Army to split from within, leading to unstoppable bloodshed.

It would deal a heavy blow to Raven's reputation and the power of the Griffith family.

It would be better to have the current merit point system, which retains the promotion channel for the strong and also allows the weak to have a share of it.

Ta-da!

Hyena boarded the sedan chair and was a little embarrassed when he saw the scene in front of him: "My Lord Earl, the scouts reported..."

Raven didn't even bother to open his eyes: "Read."

"Yes!" Hyena unfolded the letter and said, "The main city of the Goblin Territory, 'Kezan City', launched a mobilization yesterday afternoon. Currently, a large number of goblin troops are heading to Kezan City to gather."

"According to the announcement that the scouts got from the messenger, the goblin leader Jiujiulinga seems to be preparing to gather the main force of the goblins and launch an attack on our army within 15 days!"

"Tsk!"

Raven frowned slightly. "Why is this Jijilinga so ungrateful? I just killed some goblins!"

"I was forced by the king to do some performance to fool people. There was no one behind him forcing me."

"It would be great if I could act together, but you had to cause trouble and keep me from lying down."

After listening to Raven's complaints, the hyena raised his head and asked cautiously, "Then, sir, how should we deal with this?"

"Trouble..." Raven scratched his ear: "Let me sleep first."

The hyena thought it was a joke and lowered his head, waiting for Raven's next instruction.

As I waited, I heard a faint snoring sound.

The hyena looked up in surprise, only to see Raven resting his head on Lux's lap with his mouth slightly open.

Really fell asleep! ?

……

(End of this chapter)