Being a knight is not easy

Chapter 219 Barbarians
On the night of the new moon a month later, a blizzard concealed the traces of evil.

Thirty western border guards were drunk by their commander; their armor was still neatly hung in their tents, while the border gates were already wide open.

There were no footprints on the snow. The barbarian warriors, riding on specially made wolf-claw sleds, glided across the warning zone like ghosts.

The leading shaman wore nine skulls around his neck, which were the nine knight heads he had personally sacrificed.

"Blood, still warm." The shaman licked his bone knife and pointed to the dimly lit village to the south.

That was the northernmost wool distribution center in the western border, and the villagers were immersed in the celebration of the harvest festival, completely unaware that death was approaching.

As the first rocket struck the barn, the nobles of the West were raising their glasses in their warm castles.

"For tradition!" Earl with the goatee laughed and clinked glasses.

But they forgot the oldest barbarian proverb: "Wolves that share the prey will eventually tear each other apart for the last piece of meat."

The shaman's ice crystal battle axe had already felled the seventh sentry when he suddenly stopped, his cloudy eyes fixed on the more prosperous town to the south.

There were granaries and treasuries of the Western nobles that they had no defenses against, and pampered noble ladies.
Meanwhile, in Blackrock Castle at the northernmost tip of the Western Frontier, Marquis Sonata was toying with an ice crystal.

The crystalline ore twirled between his fingers, refracting a cold light that reflected on the wall, much like the aurora borealis drifting in the polar night sky.

"Is everything arranged?" he asked casually.

A tall figure emerged from the shadows, clad in a wolf pelt, his face painted with indigo totems: "The thirty snow wolves are well fed, and the shaman's bone flute has been played." The barbarian warrior grinned, revealing teeth inlaid with animal fangs. "As long as the armor you promised is delivered..."

“Five hundred sets of fine steel chainmail will ‘just happen’ to be left in Ice Rift Valley tonight.” Sonata flicked his finger, shooting ice crystals into the brazier, the flames instantly freezing into an eerie blue. “Remember, we want Wilke’s Purple Melon Fields turned to scorched earth, and the heads of Viscount Wilke and his son, Alan Wilke.”

The barbarian warrior suddenly burst into wild laughter, the sound making the crystal goblet vibrate: "Your noble lord is truly amusing!" He grabbed the wine jug, tilted his head back, and drank deeply, the amber liquid dripping down his beard onto the snow wolf skin. "We, the Frostwolf tribe, simply don't understand why you insist on going through such a roundabout way..."

Sonata stared blankly at the barbarian.

He certainly wouldn't explain that when news of the purple melon's yield reached the capital, this miraculous crop even appeared on the king's table.

If Wilke territory is allowed to continue to grow stronger, the western border may indeed belong to the Wilke family.

“Tell your shamans,” he said, gently smoothing the wrinkles in his silk sleeves, “that on the night the blood moon rises, I will see the entire Westerlands ablaze.”

Marquis Sonata was well aware that the Western Regions, under the leadership of the Bauhinia Organization and the Knights Guild, were now waging war against Middle-earth.

With the main forces of Middle-earth and the West locked in a stalemate at the border, they simply couldn't spare any extra troops to attack Viscount Wilke. To make matters worse, the nobles in Middle-earth were uncooperative, failing in both of their attacks. So, they had no choice but to turn their attention to the barbarians.

Ideally, both Viscount Wilke's territory and the barbarians would suffer heavy losses in this battle, so he could send someone to clean up the mess.

The dull thud of shovels digging into the frozen earth echoed through the valley. Robin rolled up his mud-caked sleeves and jumped into the newly dug ditch himself.

The icy mountain water immediately soaked through his deerskin boots, but compared to the icy beards of the surrounding soldiers, this chill was nothing.

“Dig three feet deeper!” He wiped the mud off his face and pointed to the exposed rock formations in the distance. “If we divert the mountain spring water to that slope, we can plant five hundred acres of purple melons in the spring.”

A crisp, metallic clang echoed from the bottom of the canal.

A freckled soldier suddenly held up a blue-glowing stone: "Sir! This stone bites!" The surrounding soldiers burst into laughter, but Robin's pupils suddenly contracted. This was a warning rune stone, probably placed here by a wizard during the Great Wilderness Expedition to guard against barbarians. Later, the barbarians were driven to the far west, and the stone became completely useless.

I never expected to be dug up by a hoe today.

“We’ll have an extra meal tonight.” Robin calmly took the stone, and immediately felt a sharp, needle-like pain in his palm. “But for now, let’s get the irrigation canal working.”

As night fell in the military tent, the runestone floated and spun in Robin's palm, casting spiderweb-like blue light trails.

Knight Ito couldn't help but take a half step back: "This weird thing is really a relic from the Western Frontier's great development, an antique from over a hundred years ago?"

“It’s not eerie, it’s a warning.” Robin suddenly clenched his fist, and the blue light exploded into countless points of light. “It is said that the Wizarding Council buried thirty-six such stones on the border of their territory. As the western frontier has been developed, the warning rune stones have been moved further and further away. However, these rune stones have one thing in common. Once barbarians appear…” He dipped his ale in the table and drew a simple diagram, “they will collectively emit this stinging sensation?”

Suddenly, hurried footsteps were heard outside the tent.

When Ironjaw lifted the tent flap, he brought in a stench of blood. The new claw marks on his left arm were still bleeding. "The patrol encountered a pack of snow wolves, not wild ones—" He tossed down a bloodstained leather collar, adorned with the distinctive bone teeth of the barbarians. "They were mapping the terrain."

Robin slowly stood up, and ice crystals fell from her armor.

The barriers left over a hundred years ago, the extinguished beacon towers, and the scouting wolf packs—these fragments have finally pieced together a complete picture.

Someone was about to let the barbarians in to tear his throat, while that person was probably drinking spiced wine in a warm castle in the West.

"Pass on the order." His voice was colder than the wind outside the tent. "All reclamation teams shall withdraw tomorrow, and the crossbow battalion shall move into the purple melon field."

As the first rays of sunlight pierced the clouds, the fields of Wilkeshire took on an eerie bustle.

Soldiers harvested unripe purple gourds, and baskets full of crops were transported by horse-drawn carts to the underground granary.

Women and children lined up to receive iron farm tools, not for farming, but to sharpen the edges and use them as weapons;

Even elderly craftsmen were applying a certain purple liquid to the arrowheads; it was a concentrated form of purple melon toxin.

This toxin is not fatal, but it can cause temporary paralysis.

Robin stood atop the newly built watchtower, looking down at the territory as if it were a hedgehog curled up in a ball.

On the northern horizon, a faint green light surged like a tide.

That wasn't the aurora borealis; it was the soul fire ignited by a barbarian shaman, an evil sorcery powerful enough to drive warhorses mad.

"What a pity." He stroked the rune stone at his waist, feeling the constant stinging sensation emanating from it. "They don't know that once these barbarians come in, it won't be easy to drive them out."

As those words faded into the wind, the lead snow wolf had already crossed the snow-melting border.

Their claws were bound with non-slip iron spikes, and the pale-skinned barbarian warriors on the wolf's back raised ice crystal battle axes, the blades reflecting the countless burning villages.

But this time, instead of panicked farmers fleeing, they were met with two thousand crossbows already cocked.

The shadow of the crossbow bolts covered the entire field of purple melons, like a sudden cloud of death.

(End of this chapter)