I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 377 The Black and White Bear's Encounters

The black and white bear was alone in the territory of the Kingdom of Minicia, heading north by itself.

He was in no hurry.

Although this was a main quest, and although other players were already rushing towards the northern region two hundred kilometers away, Monokuma was in no hurry.

He wore a tattered linen cloak over a double-layered, meticulously crafted chainmail with six layers of armor and one layer of steel, a one-and-a-half-hand sword at his waist, and a pair of old leather boots. He set off leisurely, looking like a down-on-his-luck knight.

Because he was traveling alone, Monokuma's progress was slower than other players. While the others were galloping at full speed, he was robbed by bandits on the road.

They called them bandits, but in reality, it was just a few pathetic bastards with hoes and sickles blocking the road.

Looking at their emaciated bodies, the black and white bear suddenly felt a surge of compassion, sighed, and then... drew his half-sword and killed all the starving farmers.

Poor fellows. Looking at their red eyes and the black bloodstains on their hoes and sickles, they must have killed and eaten people.

Rather than letting these two-legged beasts continue to live and be tormented by this cruel world, it would be better to let them die a quick death.

Having traveled through Minicia for only five days, killed more than a dozen bandits, witnessed several farces, and directed many hungry and pitiful people to Bagnia in search of food, the black and white bear quickly discovered that the country was in chaos.

Soon, Monokuma confirmed that the country, at least its rural areas, was doomed.

The fields lie barren, the villages are silent, and no smoke rises from the chimneys. The order of agricultural production has long been shattered.

Hungry farmers, like ants whose nests have been disturbed, either blindly flocked to cities rumored to have food, dragging their families along, or huddled behind collapsed mud walls, numbly awaiting the harvest of death's scythe.

Cities in Minicia?
Oh, this isn't good either, but it's not the worst... at least not in Monokuma's limited observations.

On the fifth day, he arrived at a fortress called White Rock City.

The city walls stand tall, built of a ghastly white mass of stone that reflects a blinding light in the sunlight, like a giant tombstone planted on the parched earth.

Beneath the city walls lay another scene: a "camp" composed of despair, filth, and the stench of death.

Tens of thousands of refugees, like herded livestock, crowded together in an open space some distance from the city walls, using tattered cloth and branches to build makeshift shelters to barely cover themselves.

The air was filled with the stench of excrement, the pus from wounds, and a deeper, more profound scent that belonged to death itself.

The nobles or rulers in the city still had some conscience, and every day at noon a team would go out of the city to distribute food to the refugees outside the city.

Monokuma went over to take a look.

There were two kinds of food. One was black bread with lots of sawdust on it. It was so hard that the soldiers distributing the food had to chop it with axes to get a piece off... The sound of the axe chopping it was really close to the sound of chopping wood.

Another type was porridge made from various grains. Whether it tasted good or not, Monokuma didn't know, and he didn't go up to get any. But even from a distance, he could see the soldiers' spoons rising and falling, and the porridge, which wasn't very thick, didn't seem very filling.

Well, it seems that not many of the officials in the city have much conscience.

When Monokuma found the black market in the refugee camp and bought enough rations from the black market merchant to continue his journey, he also got some information from the merchant.

Minicia had food supplies; if the locals ran out, foreign countries did. The Minician royal fleet and the private fleets of the nobles, while not entirely unscathed in the war, were relatively safe and sound.

Therefore, while food supplies ran out in the rural areas of Minicia, the nobles did not go hungry. On the one hand, they could organize ships to go out to sea to fish, and on the other hand, they could go south, bypassing the virtually fictitious sea lanes blocked by the Retalian Empire, to purchase grain from the southern countries—the Macon Union and the Pomeranian Union.

Because of the cheapness of sea freight and the availability of multiple grain suppliers, the cost of grain for Miniseyan merchants is not high... In other words, the officials are capable of providing disaster relief.

But they just wouldn't do it.

What can Monokuma say about this?

He just can't understand it.

Monokuma couldn't understand the mentality of the nobles, nor could he comprehend the thoughts of the refugees. The former were not afraid of rebellion by their people, while the latter were starving to the point of exhaustion and still hadn't rebelled!
Faced with such a strange situation, Monokuma could only take his own provisions and leave White Rock City on the sixth day, continuing his journey north.

On the eighth day, a small skirmish broke out on a relatively open wasteland.

On one side was the local garrison of Miniscia, whose private army belonged to some unknown lord. They numbered about thirty or forty men, dressed in a mix of leather and chainmail armor of the kingdom's standard, neither new nor old, and carrying spears, swords, and kite shields.

Their formation became somewhat scattered under the enemy's onslaught, but they still maintained a basic square formation and their discipline was decent, making them passable soldiers.

Meanwhile, on the other side, charging towards this shield wall and forest of spears, were other players who were "riding at full speed".

There were only seven or eight players.

But each one was like a beast unleashed from its cage, their equipment dazzlingly sophisticated: scale armor, mountain armor, plate armor, flintlock muskets, crossbows, spears, and greatswords, a complete mix of ranged and melee weapons. Among them were even two cavalrymen, making them extremely aggressive.

When Monokuma discovered the skirmish, the battle had already reached a fever pitch.

More than a dozen corpses lay scattered on the ground, all wearing tattered garrison uniforms. Blood soaked the dry earth, forming pools of dark red mud.

Severed limbs, broken shields, and dulled weapons were scattered everywhere.

The players' maniacal laughter and shouts mingled with the desperate roars and dying groans of the defending soldiers, creating a savage symphony.

"Hold on for Minicia!"

An officer who looked like a captain had his helmet off, and a deep, bone-revealing knife wound on his face. He was still brandishing his longsword and roaring, trying to regain his footing, but the next second, he was shot dead by a lead bullet.

The commander's death plunged the remaining garrison soldiers into despair, and they scattered and fled after a shout. Monokuma stopped and stood at the edge of the earthen mound, calmly surveying the carnage below. The shadow of his hood obscured most of his face, making his expression unreadable.

Should we run away now?

Monokuma shook his head, turned and left, no longer watching the remaining slaughter.

He recalled the three provinces occupied by the Kingdom of Bagnia, and thought about what he had seen and heard on his journey. Black and White Bear had an idea.

A rough, perhaps unfeasible, idea.

On the ninth day, the rugged mountain path finally led the black and white bear to the entrance of a valley surrounded by low hills. The hideout of the Tia family, marked on the map, was located deep within these mountains.

However, the scene before him made Monokuma stop in his tracks.

At the entrance to the valley was a relatively open slope, but at this moment, the slope was occupied by a dense crowd of people and rudimentary fortifications.

Hundreds of soldiers, clearly privately assembled by a nobleman based on their equipment and flags, were forming a tight blockade using hastily erected earthen walls, sharpened wooden stakes, and a few dilapidated carriages serving as makeshift cover.

Through his binoculars, Monokuma could see that the Miniese soldiers opposite him looked exhausted, their eyes a mixture of vigilance and numbness, clearly indicating that they had been stationed there for some time.

Behind the blockade line was the only decent road leading into the deep mountains, which meandered and disappeared into the dense, dark forest.

The steep, densely wooded slopes on both sides of the road are difficult to climb, so the black and white bear obviously cannot easily bypass it.

"Tsk..."

Monokuma clicked his tongue softly, his brows furrowing slightly beneath his hood. He shook his head, then, like an inconspicuous rock, quietly disappeared into the shadow of a sparse shrub by the roadside, observing silently.

A direct assault would be unwise; he needs chaos, he needs an opportunity.

How to do?
Before the black and white bear could come up with a solution, a muffled horn sound suddenly tore through the silence of the valley, followed by the thunderous roar of hooves approaching from afar!
"Enemy attack..."

The Minisian soldiers behind the blockade line erupted in chaos at the sound of bugles, a cacophony of officers' shouts, soldiers' cries, and the clanging of weapons clashing together.

The archers hastily pointed their arrows toward the source of the sound, while the spearmen nervously leveled their spears, trying to regain their footing.

In the next instant, a cavalry squad, like an iron torrent, charged out from the bend in the mountain road. More than ten warhorses clad in half-body armor carried player knights in full plate armor, wielding lances, like two red-hot daggers, slowly pressing towards the defensive line.

The horses' hooves kicked up clouds of dust.

The achievements of the Crisleso Reteria Empire are showcased here, allowing players to easily assemble their own heavy cavalry squads.

Following closely behind were more players charging on foot, their figures appearing and disappearing in the dust, but the glare from their equipment was dazzling.

The first explosion came from the flintlock muskets behind the players, filling the air with smoke. Several bursts of blood and debris erupted from the earthen walls of the blockade. With an even deeper bang, an armor-piercing arrowhead whistled through the air and precisely pierced the chest of an officer attempting to organize a counterattack, briefly disrupting the Minisian command behind the defensive line.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the heavy cavalry launched a charge, crashing into the undefended flank of the Minieses and crushing the poor spearmen who were only wearing leather armor.

"For the spoils, for the experience!"

The players' excited roars drowned out the defenders' screams.

"The tiger, it's Chris's tiger!"

In the chaos, some Miniese soldiers recognized the black and white tiger descending the mountain in the player's hand with horror, which immediately intensified their fear.

The battle instantly became intense.

The players' attacks were fierce and efficient, and their overwhelming advantage in equipment and combat skills created a terrifying breakthrough in certain areas.

Although the Minesian private army had a numerical advantage, their formation was torn apart by the heavy cavalry charging at high speed from the flanks, and their ranged firepower was suppressed by the player's flintlock muskets and crossbows, leading to localized chaos as each soldier fought his own battle.

The ear-piercing sounds of clashing swords, the muffled thuds of lead bullets piercing flesh, the dying screams, and the excited shouts of players... all combined to create a savage and cruel symphony.

Monokuma patiently lay in wait, scanning the entire battlefield, searching for an opportunity.

His goal wasn't to kill the enemy, but rather the entrance to the road leading into the deep mountains. If waiting would provide an opportunity, Black Bear wouldn't mind if the Mountain Tiger Squad wiped out the enemy before they went out.

However, the chaos created by the players was like a boulder thrown into water; the ripples spread rapidly, and the entire blockade line churned up like boiling water. Most of the soldiers' attention was drawn to the fierce battles on the front and flanks.

Okay, obviously there's no need to wait any longer.

Just as a player cavalryman used his lance to lift a Miniese officer high into the air, causing a panic commotion among the defenders, Black and White Bear stood up and left his hiding place.

Instead of charging into the main battlefield, he slowly and calmly made his way along the edge of the battlefield towards the road entrance behind the blockade line, using the bushes and terrain for cover.

Monokuma chose the perfect moment, when the defenders were most on edge and their attention was completely absorbed by the bloody scene.

A Minisian sentry guarding the inner side of the road entrance, slightly detached from the main battlefield, spotted him—this strange man who walked over from the edge of the battlefield but did not participate in the fighting.

Monokuma waved at him and continued walking, ignoring the sentry's screams.

Why bother with this poor man? If he doesn't escape, he'll die here. All the talk of discovery and hiding is meaningless now.

(End of this chapter)