Chapter 25: The Nightmare Empire (Part II)

On a tower in the city of Itarica, Princess Pinna, with her red hair, held the battlement with her hands and looked down with a melancholy face. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Outside the city walls, the originally empty fields were like mushrooms after the rain, and countless tents and shacks of all sizes sprang up from the city walls to the fields where crops had just been harvested in the distance. Wisps of smoke rose between the tents and shacks, accompanied by a cacophony of noise. Not far away, groups of subhuman refugee women squatted by the river, washing their clothes and bedding. There are also a few local vendors who make their way through the refugee camps, selling cheap knick-knacks. In addition, there are many subhuman children with animal ears and tails, frolicking and playing in the harvested fields, looking for straw that can be used as fuel, or ears of wheat that farmers have left behind when they harvest.

As a medium-sized pre-industrial city with a population of just over 10,000, Itarica could not have accommodated more than 30,000 refugees in one sitting - in fact, even on the planet of modern industrial society, 30,000 refugees is enough to cause headaches for any small or medium-sized city. Therefore, of the 30,000 sub-human refugees who traveled from the imperial capital of Ulabyanca, only a very small number were allowed to enter the walls of Itarika and settle in idle houses, and most of the remaining refugees could only camp outside the city for a while.

However, for the sub-human race, who were already miserable and had long been accustomed to suffering discrimination and oppression, such a life was barely bearable. After all, in such a slave society, there can be no concept of human rights and the concept of the Virgin - refugees who encounter trouble, even women like Princess Pinna, are never afraid to wield a knife to kill in order to establish their authority: but this also has a premise, that is, at least they must be fed.

It's just that even such a minimum basic survival need is difficult for the former imperial regent and the current princess Pinna to meet them......

“…… In the past few days, haven't there been any grain convoys from the big chambers of commerce coming to trade? ”

After looking down on the situation of the subhuman refugee camp from the tower, and believing that there were no bad signs for the time being, Princess Pinna turned to the emaciated old man standing behind her, the old butler who served the lord of the city, Count Fomar.

“…… It's a pity, Your Highness, that no caravan has come for more than a month. I heard that there are too many bandits on the road, and it's really not peaceful......"

The old butler replied with a sad face, "...... Only the nearby peasants brought two cartloads of barley and a few barrels of wine, as well as more than a dozen sheep and a flock of chickens, all of which I had bought according to your orders, but not enough for a day's rations......"

At the mention of this, Princess Pinna's mood became more and more depressed: the daily food consumption of 30,000 subhuman refugees was a very large number. Even if they are only half-starved and half-hungry to drink porridge to survive, they must take out at least two tons of grain every day to make porridge for relief.

In addition, the Knights of the Roses under the command of Princess Pinna are also big consumers of food. Not only did the knights and squires have to eat better than the refugees, but even the horses under the knights' crotches had to be fed with a lot of wheat to keep them from losing fat.

Under normal circumstances, Itarica City, which has just passed the autumn harvest, would not be so embarrassed. The problem was that the violent death of the old Earldom and the battle for custody of the younger heirs led to the complete collapse of the administrative tax system in the Earldom of Vermar. More than half of the grain reserves in the granary were removed by the two sisters of the countess, and less than half of this year's autumn grain was collected, and before all of them could be put into storage, thieves had already swarmed in the territory, and even less grain was actually transported into Itarica City...... However, the princess brought more than 30,000 mouths that needed to be fed, and as a result, no matter how careful the princess was and tried to buy out, the food in the city was only enough to last for another month.

“…… So, did I receive a reply to the grain borrowing letters I sent to several nearby noble domains and vassal states? ”

“…… Ahem, Your Royal Highness the Princess, several counts, viscounts and barons who have territories near Itarica City have also been ordered to participate in the Otherworldly Expedition in the Arnus Hills, and now they are all unknown in the flood, and their families are all caught up in inheritance disputes, I am afraid that no one can call the shots to give you an answer...... At the moment, only King Duran of the Kingdom of Elbe has sent a reply, but he has also rejected your request......"

The old butler replied with a bitter face, "...... He said that the Kingdom of Elbe had just been attacked by the Yanlong and had suffered a lot of damage, and that there were also refugees in need of relief. Moreover, the Senate had already loaned a large amount of grain to the Kingdom of Elbe for disaster relief in the imperial capital, so it really couldn't squeeze out more surplus food. ”

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

“…… Yanlong ...... Damn it! Has this monster that has tormented the continent for thousands of years also popped up again? ”

When Princess Pinna heard this, her eyes suddenly lit up, but then she shook her head gloomily, "...... The deadliest scourge of the empire today is probably not the Flame Dragon, nor this great flood, but the cannibalism between human beings! Gray, is there any new battle report from the Imperial Capital? ”

She leaned out slightly from the center of the battlement at the top of the tower and asked the middle-aged man who was walking up the stairs.

-- This is a strong man in military uniform with a big waist and a round waist, and he carries a huge sword on his shoulder, and he looks very powerful.

His name is Gray. Arud, a battle-hardened knight-in-waiting. Although he was only a commoner and had not even obtained the official title of knight, he is now the swordsman of Princess Pinna and the chief instructor of the Rose Knights.

-- Princess Pinna's personal guard "Knights of the Rose", the backbone of which is mainly composed of unmarried aristocratic women and a few underage aristocratic teenagers in the imperial capital, was originally just a group of powerful children playing wars, and then slowly turned into a semi-formal organization similar to the "noble boy scouts" or "aristocratic military summer camps", but it has never had any actual combat experience, and even recently left the imperial capital for the first time.

However, because of the atmosphere of advocating military merit and the supremacy of force throughout the empire, Princess Pinna also did not want her Rose Knights to become a pure vase, so in addition to the young noble men and women with no military experience, there were also some battle-hardened and experienced veterans in the Rose Knights as the combat core of the entire army. And the princess's swordsman, Gray. The Alternate Knight of Arud was the best of these veterans - in the Imperial army, the path for a civilian soldier to become a noble knight was very narrow, but once this path was opened, the subsequent career was often smoother than that of the hereditary military aristocracy. There are also many precedents for accumulating meritorious service from an ordinary soldier to being promoted to a general.

Especially after leaving the imperial capital this time, due to her lack of experience in long-distance marching and management, Princess Pinna relied more heavily on Gray, almost to the point of obedience. The day-to-day military affairs of the Knights of the Rose are largely handled by Gray, the alternate knight.

“…… Inform Her Royal Highness the princess, the imperial capital has good news, the latest rebel army convened by the Senate has crushed the main force of the northern rebels, and His Majesty personally led the army to continue to pursue the remnants of the enemy, and beheaded the enemy chieftain in the city of Lendel, completely leveling the territory of all the rebel nobles in the region. ”

Gray saluted the princess and reported, "...... At present, peace has been restored to the area around the imperial capital, and there will be no more rebels on both sides. ”

However, Princess Pinna, who heard the above good news, did not show a happy smile, but showed a slightly sad and confused expression.

“…… Slash the Enemy Chieftain...... In this case, is the imperial uncle already dead? Hey, how long will the bloody battle of the royal family last? ”

-- Just like the feudal era of the earth, the ruling families of the countries on the continent of Falmatt are also full of bloody and cruel battles. For example, Emperor Molt II, who had just died in the Great Flood, did not inherit the throne in the normal order, but took advantage of the untimely death of his imperial brother and the young nephew Cady who inherited the throne to become regent as a guardian reasonably and legally, and then gradually cultivated his henchmen, supported his cronies, cut off the die-hard loyalists left by his brother, and finally succeeded in deposing his nephew Cady and ascending to the throne of the emperor himself.

So, when Moult II died suddenly, in addition to Diapo and Sochar, the two princes competing for the throne, he had a younger brother who was crowned a prince, that is, Pinna's imperial uncle, who also wanted to learn from the example of his brother during his lifetime, and actually secretly gathered a group of henchmen in his own fief in the north of the imperial capital, trying to grab the throne with his nephews. However, the reckless prince obviously miscalculated the timing, and the eldest prince Sochar, who had just raised the anti-flag, was still far away in the east and could not contain the Praetorian Guards in the imperial capital. The new emperor Diabo, who was supported by the Senate, quickly organized an elite crusade force and quickly stormed the rebel base camp, and after several short battles, successfully killed the emperor's uncle and put down the small rebellion.

However, both the victorious new Emperor Diapo and Princess Pinna in Itarica City are well aware that this small victory has not erased much of the current chaos. The real decisive test was whether he could defeat the huge rebel army that the Great Prince Sochar had gathered in the East.

In Princess Pinna's opinion, under normal circumstances, the second brother Diapo, who has ascended the throne as emperor and has the support of the Senate, and controls the central government, the imperial treasury and the royal guard, can win in the face of any domestic rebellion. But the problem is that a major flood that washed down from the hills of Arnous forced Diapo to suppress the rebellion while relieving the disaster, and the balance of power between the two sides was greatly flattened.

It is impossible to judge who will win and who will lose in the next civil war...... What worries Princess Pinna even more is that no matter who wins or loses in this royal infighting, as long as it drags on a little longer, it will be tantamount to destroying the weak hegemonic foundation of the empire and the royal family.

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

-- In the 30 years since the accession of the belligerent Emperor Moert II, he has always taken the supremacy of force as his aim and the war of conquest and aggression as his national policy, and has frequently waged one foreign war after another. Whether it was dealing with the traditional enemies of the empire, the rebellious vassals, the ambitious domestic aristocracy, and the ignorant and tyrannical barbarian tribes, Emperor Moult II always relied on military deterrence to solve and suppress them.

In the face of the absolute overwhelming military power of the Imperial Family, any force could only show obedience - those who did not obey were eliminated.

However, in the recent period, the empire, which had just nominally unified the continent, suffered heavy losses in succession: first, the Arnus Hills encountered a great flood on the opposite side of the "Gate", and the 100,000 imperial expeditionary force that was originally going to plunder the other world collapsed. The expeditionary force is the most elite legion of the Empire, including battle-hardened veterans, powerful magicians, and excellent commanders, and their losses are devastating for the entire Empire.

Then the flood swept away the imperial capital, destroying the core of the empire's rule, drowning tens of thousands of imperial citizens, as well as a large number of administrative and judicial officials who kept the central government running. And the loss of these high-quality talents cannot be easily compensated.

Now, around the imperial throne, a tragic and bloody civil war is poised to break out. In Princess Pinna's opinion, if this civil war cannot be decided in a short period of time, and evolves into a long-term chronic bloodshed, then it is very likely to directly ring the death knell of the empire!

Although the continent of Farmatt has been unified on the surface, the empire at this time is actually just a large platter of many territories of different sizes, different faiths, different races, different cultures, and different political systems. A significant number of territories that nominally flew the imperial flag still had their own governments, parliaments, and laws, and the only bond that bound them to their people was the Empire's invincible legions, and its fear and submission to such violence. It is not difficult to see that once the military power to maintain the hegemonic rule loses too much, the huge impact will be caused by the shattering of this empire full of internal contradictions. The vast majority of territories with centrifugal tendencies will quickly secede. And those defeated vassal states that have a deep hatred for the empire will even take the opportunity to counterattack and try to make up for the fatal blow to the empire!

However, even with such a nightmarish and terrible prospect, Princess Pinna couldn't come up with any countermeasures. It was impossible for her second brother Diabo, who had already ascended the throne, to abdicate and hand over the crown, nor for her eldest brother, who had been the crown prince, to kneel down to her younger brother calmly, or even to intervene in the civil war - before, when the news of the rebellion first came, she had tentatively sent a letter to the Senate asking if she would return to the war with the Knights of the Roses, but the reply was: "No need to do much!" Take those big young masters and ladies to get as far away from the battlefield as possible! ”

Obviously, the Senate still regards her Knights of the Rose as a group of children who are bored and playing war games, and thinks that these young masters and ladies will only cause chaos when they go to war...... In addition, at this sensitive moment when the royal rebellion is swarming, the new emperor Diabo, who has just seized the crown, may also have a little wariness and jealousy in her heart for her sister, who has been the regent of the empire for a few days......

“…… It seems that we can't do much about the war that is taking place in the east! Gray! Keep trying to gather food! Resettle these refugees and maintain the stability of the city, which is the only thing we can do at the moment. Let's hope this nightmare ends soon! ”

After thinking for a moment, Princess Pinna smiled wryly and shook her head, sighed, and then turned her face again and continued to look down at the scenery outside the city. The bright red hair fluttered in the autumn wind, like a dancing flame, which was particularly dazzling and eye-catching......

Regrettably, as things stand, her wish is doomed.

Because, a small group of uninvited guests who had been carefully disguised were quietly looking at the city of Itarica at her feet in the woods not far away. (To be continued.) )