After the people decided to participate in the battle against demons in the 'Year of Darkness', a series of preparations began. In this hectic atmosphere, they once again ushered in the annual New Year's Festival.

The whole process of the annual festival is not much different from the previous year, but the travelers feel that the scale of this year's annual festival is much more luxurious than last year's celebration, perhaps because this year's financial income has doubled compared to previous years, after all, the winemaking industry cooperated by the Leopold family and the timers has given Prairly plenty of financial benefits. Coupled with the fact that he won the war with his old rivals the Bilgard family a few years ago and received a large amount of reparations for the defeat of the other party, Prailly has enough funds to organize a lavish New Year's celebration this year.

After the celebration, as usual, the priests of the god of war who appeared from nowhere led a group of children to select and baptize the warriors, but the number of children who became warriors in this baptism was much smaller than the previous year, and only one of the more than 100 children became warriors.

After the baptism, the whole New Year's celebration is completely over. When the sun shines again on the earth the next day, people continue to live as before.

It's just that these people who are busy with their daily lives have a faint worry on their faces, because this year is the 'dark year' of the Iber world once in a decade, and every 'dark year' is destined to be a turbulent year-

Shortly after the New Year's festival, a group of messengers arrived in the Prairly Territory and handed the Prairly Lord Kasha a letter.

This is a summoning order issued by the royal family of the Tristram Kingdom to the noble lords of all parties under their command, asking the territorial nobles in the kingdom to form a force to accompany the expedition to participate in the upcoming 'Demon War'.

After receiving the summoning order issued by the kingdom, Kasha did not slack off in the slightest, and immediately ordered the Rog Knights to begin preparations and prepare for the expedition. In fact, there is no need to make any more preparations, because almost every 'Year of Darkness' the kingdom will issue such a military summoning order, so long before the summoning order is issued, all preparations have already been made in the Prairly territory.

While ordering the Rog Knights to be reorganized, Kashya also issued a rally order to several mercenary teams secretly funded by the Leopold family, and at the same time notified the Travelers who had become allies with him. As a territorial noble, you must also take care of your territory when you go out to fight. In this way, it is clear that the regular armed forces of the territory alone are not enough. Therefore, when the nobles of those territories are called to lead troops to battle in the corresponding kingdom, they often reserve a part of the troops in their own territory to defend their homes. Anyway, the kingdom convocation order only has a quantitative requirement for the troops of the nobles of each territory, so the troops of most of the nobles of the territory are mostly hired mercenaries or conscripted militias, except for the knights and elite soldiers of the knights under the lord's command.

In this kingdom convocation order, the nobles of the realm in the kingdom are required to send an army of no less than 200 people to participate in the 'Battle of the Demons', the number of 200 is the size of the army of the earl lord, the marquis lord requires the army size to be no less than 500 people, and the army size of the duke lord is not less than 1,000 people.

After some consideration, Kashya decided to lead a force of twenty Rog knights, one hundred elite soldiers, and several mercenary groups of more than two hundred mercenaries in number. The rest of the troops stayed in the Prairly Territory, after all, during the 'Year of Darkness', the chance of mutated monsters or monster riots everywhere will be greatly increased. Even if Kasha doesn't consider that his territory will be attacked by enemies during the campaign, he still has to take into account the destruction of these monsters-

A few days later, the town of Praile was on the road to the county town of Breitnia.

A team of four-wheeled carriages ran on the dirt road, kicking up dust half a meter high, and the wheels were occasionally picked up by the gravel on the road, and a few slight bumps. The groom at the front of the car waved the whip in his hand, made a few light noises, and commanded the four horses driving in front of him. The wagons of the convoy were of a gigantic size, almost as a small house, enough to feed and lodge four or five men in a carriage for a month, if well equipped, and were indispensable equipment for travelers on the go all year round, though most travelers could not afford it.

In order to ensure the logistical supply of this expedition, Kasha specially used all the giant carriages in the territory, a total of eighty. After a simple overhaul, the wagons became a mobile camp for the entire team to ride and rest on a daily basis, plus twenty wagons for carrying heavy loads. The convoy of a hundred wagons was on the road almost non-stop.

The convoy was accompanied by dozens of horsemen, all of whom rode in pairs, each dressed in a rigid cloth uniform, with a thick cloak of animal skins on his shoulders, a one-handed sword or a one-handed sword at his waist, and a strong bow on one side of the saddle and two pots of arrows on the other.

"This kind of travel is much better than sleeping in the open." In one of the carriages in the convoy, Li Xiang sat on the sofa, holding a glass of freshly brewed whiskey, and praised with a look of enjoyment.

The carriage in which Li Xiang was in was Kasha's car. Although he was on an expedition, as a lord, the giant carriage that Kasha used to live in was naturally not too simple. Although the furnishings of the whole car are simple, all kinds of daily necessities are readily available. In addition, an iron stove was set up in the carriage for heating, and the smoke and dust from the charcoal burning were discharged to the outside of the carriage through a chimney made of thin iron sheets. Compared to the soldiers galloping in the cold wind outside the car, such an environment is simply heaven.

"The summoning order of the kingdom was issued in a hurry, and it was necessary to use this method in order to be able to go to the battlefield faster." Kasha sat in the sofa chair opposite Li Xiang and replied apologetically.

"However, in such weather, it is easy for soldiers to be overtired, but this luxurious practice of Lord Kashya can maximize the soldiers' physical strength, I think it is the right thing to do." Sun Xiaoyu, who came with Li Xiang, sat on the seat and bowed slightly politely. "Speaking of which, we would also like to thank the Earl for inviting us to ride with you, the comfort of the Earl's carriage is unmatched by other carriages, and it is our honor to be able to travel in such a comfortable way."

"It's over, Ms. Sun Xiaoyu." Kasha replied with a smile as he took the initiative to pour new wine into the cups of Li and Sun. At the same time, he asked: "Speaking of which, there are only two people who are accompanying my troops this time, and I don't know the other members of your family......"

"That's right." When Li Xiang heard this, he immediately understood what Kasha wanted to ask, and immediately interrupted Kasha's inquiry and replied: "Our Xuanyuan family will all go out to assist Lord Earl this time, but because of the large number of people in the team, it will take some time to pack up, so Xiaoyu and I will accompany Lord Earl to set off first. The follow-up team was led by Yang Qianyu to follow up. We'll meet up in Brettnia. ”

"Oh, that's good." After hearing Li Xiang's reply, Kasha nodded reassuringly.