Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Three days after the conscription orders reached Wolf Town, dawn broke on the third morning.

As the sky began to light up, lines of four-wheeled farm carts streamed out from the estates of Wolf Town, converging in the town center before making their way toward Revodan City.

Over a hundred carts stretched out in a long line on the road, with the front and rear being a kilometer apart, their squeaking axles audible from a great distance.

Fully armed and agile riders occasionally dashed past the sluggish carts, patrolling back and forth along the caravan.

Following the lay of the land, the road meandered and twisted into the distance, with most of the journey crossing through deserted areas.

The wilderness and meadows dominated the scenery along the route, and whenever the caravan passed through a forest, everyone's nerves instantly tensed.

Even the laziest of drivers would snap to attention, pulling out daggers and crossbows to keep at hand, vigilantly watching the dark woods on either side of the path.

Only once the caravan had left the forest would the drivers dare to breathe a sigh of relief, kicking their weapons back under their seats and slipping back into their usual listless demeanor.

The riders patrolling at the very front of the caravan were none other than Winters and Gerard, and the riders were Dusacks hired by the estate owners.

Although Wolf Town had received conscription orders, life still had to go on.

The farmers' crops needed to be harvested, and the autumn sowing had to be done; tobacco, cotton, and beets harvested by the estates needed to be sold.

The output of most estates had already been secured by merchant houses through advance payments.

But for the merchants, the risk and cost of transport were too high, so the estate owners had to transport their goods themselves to Revodan City for delivery.

Therefore, every year around this time, the estate owners of Wolf Town would arrange a time to jointly transport their goods to Revodan City, which was why the grand caravan seen now had come into being.

Band together for warmth, a measure born of necessity.

Oppressive governance, oppressive as a tiger—the authoritarian policies of Palatu's higher-ups in the Newly Reclaimed Land inevitably led to rampant banditry.

Theft, poaching, tax evasion, unauthorized farming... Any one of these charges could drive otherwise law-abiding farmers to desperate measures, exchanging violence for sustenance and devolving into robbers and bandits.

If the times turned tough—if temperatures remained low all year, summers were cool and damp, winters were long and icy—crop failures would occur, and famine would follow.

Then it wouldn't just be the Newly Reclaimed Land, the Republic of Palatu, or the Senas Alliance... Across the entire continent, numerous farmers would go bankrupt, starve, and turn to banditry.

[Note: The people of this era were not aware that they were experiencing what later generations would call the "Little Ice Age."]

Most of the Newly Reclaimed Lands of the Republic of Palatu were covered by pristine forests and meadows, scattered with sporadic villages and a few small towns with populations of just one or two thousand.

The only larger city was Maplestone City, the capital of the Newly Reclaimed Lands Province, where the legion was stationed.

In such sparsely populated frontier regions, without the protection of city walls or the vigilance of neighbors, any lonely farmhouse encountering a few strong men armed with makeshift weapons could only submit to their mercy.

As a result, most farmers in the Newly Reclaimed Lands lived in close-knit communities, with few isolated farmhouses far from villages.

Rural dirt roads, the borders between towns, and the forests near cities—these places all lay beyond the reach of help and were rife with banditry.

In Wolf Town, thanks to Gerard Mitchell at the helm, the days were peaceful.

Gerard ruled with benevolence, supported wholeheartedly by the Dusacks, so Wolf Town itself did not breed bandits.

Outlaws from elsewhere found no assistance from the locals, ending up like fish out of water. The brighter ones would flee immediately, while the dimmer ones were easily eradicated by Gerard leading the Dusacks.

After disposing of a group of bandits with some notoriety, few rogue villains dared to cause trouble within the jurisdiction of Wolf Town.

But there were one hundred and twenty-four administrative regions in the Newly Reclaimed Lands at the same level as Wolf Town; the peace in Wolf Town had little to no effect on the larger environment.
Stay connected with My Virtual Library Empire

To the gangs of thieves, the heavily laden, slow-moving, defenseless farm cart caravans were simply an irresistible feast.

Each year at this time, small groups of bandits would even spontaneously band together to form larger gangs to rob the merchant caravans on their way to the city.

After paying a bloody price several times, the estate owners of Wolf Town thus banded together for warmth, hiring riders from Dusa Village to protect the caravan.

"A few years ago, there was a particularly notorious bandit, nicknamed 'Bloody Hand Schutte,'" Gerard recounted vividly to Winters as they rode side by side, sharing the legends of the robbers of the Newly Reclaimed Land: "That guy didn't just rob and kill, he would even chop off people's hands and pickle them in salt barrels. It's said that when the legion gendarmes caught him, they found over a hundred severed hands, unable to tell which belonged to whom."

Winters, indignant, said, "It took the murder of dozens before he was caught, what were the gendarmes of the Newly Reclaimed Lands doing? I was a gendarme too, if my old commanding officer Colonel Field were here..."

Words stirred memories, and suddenly recalling the fallen Colonel Field and the pacts made over heavy drinking in Golden Harbor, Winters's voice grew quieter and quieter, until he could no longer continue.

"It's the local government's responsibility to capture thieves, the stationed legions don't get involved," Gerard sighed, "The legion gendarmes only went after Bloody Hand because he overstepped, robbing the legions' own supply convoys."

Sergei, who was nearby, perked up and interjected enthusiastically, "There's also a joke. It goes like this: a peddler was on his way to the city when he encountered a robber. Just then, a troop of gendarmes happened by. The peddler shouted for help, but the gendarmes ignored him. Desperate, the peddler yelled, 'I haven't paid my taxes,' and immediately the gendarmes charged over, drove away the robber, and took the peddler all the way to the city."