The night wind whistled on the glass, and the old wooden windows shook violently and creaked. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Ives was sitting upright at his desk looking at the documents, and the thick notebook neatly recorded the refugees who had been taken in by the Empire through the Watch Fort for two months, and the name, race, gender, age, physical appearance, occupation, and specialties of each refugee were interrogated and recorded clearly, all of which were done by Ives himself. Ives spent a great deal of time working on the roster, and more time studying, analyzing, and noting them—he excluded the vast majority of refugees by some criterion, and made odd marks on the names of the remainders. Ives's mark, resembling a winding ancient rune, seemed to convey some kind of meaning in a subtle way, but the roster never fell into the hands of anyone else, and only Ives himself knew what each mark represented.

"It's been three months, and there shouldn't be any more refugees. Ives closed the roster and thought quietly, "If there is such a big commotion, the old guys of the military department will never miss the opportunity, I am afraid that it will not be long before the council will compromise, it is really troublesome!"

"Bang. The wooden window was finally defeated by the night wind, and it slammed open and slammed into the wall with a muffled sound, and the cold night wind swept through Ives's small room in an instant. Ives shuddered, and reluctantly wrapped his cloak and walked to the window, he wanted to close the window and go to bed, but the window of this room was facing the training ground. Through the window, Ives saw Miloka, who was still practicing her swordsmanship on the training ground.

"I didn't expect to be such a hardworking child. Ives thought, he liked Miloca. After nearly two months of contact, Ives made a very high evaluation of Miloka's quality, character, and talent, and he can still clearly remember Miloka's amazing performance in the confrontation drill last month - he participated in the confrontation drill as a reservist, but he exerted his strength far beyond many veterans, and even slightly better than Ives's lieutenant in sword skills. Even though Ives had already seen Miloca's free swordplay, he was amazed at the result.

Ives was glad he had chosen the right person, but he was unhappy with one thing - Miloca's growth in combat experience was surprisingly slow. After the last confrontation drill, Ives often practiced swordsmanship with Miloka himself, and he taught the conservative swordsmanship essentials, but Miloka was never able to apply the most important know-how to actual combat, and always lost here in the competition. "Maybe it's because I never received a formal swordsmanship education, and I'm deeply influenced by mercenaries. Ives comforted himself with such reasons, and he often resented Bane, the minotaur he had never met. Ives learns from Miloka that his fighting skills were taught by Bane, a long-retired soldier from the mercenary group. The mercenaries were very different from the regular army in terms of their fighting philosophy, and even far from the private guards. Most mercenaries don't care much about honor, for them it's the gold and their comrades - what the mercenaries seek and who can protect them - are the most important, so they don't care much about what the weapon means to them. In Ives' words, "A mercenary's weapon is nothing more than a tool of life, and nothing to do with honor, and no mercenary is stupid enough to name a weapon." Under Bane's influence, Miloka, a swordsman, didn't care much about this, and when Ives asked about Miloka's sword, "I only know that it has something to do with my background." Miloka replied.

"It's just that the old soldier who played with the axe broke this good seedling. Ives muttered, closing the window.

When the sun came into Ives' window again, the room was empty, and Ives had already gone out to inspect the walls. Patrolling the castle three times a day, morning, noon and evening, Ives has always asked himself not for the safety of the castle, but just to spend more time with his subordinates, after all, no one can say which day someone around him will suddenly leave. Ives has experienced too many lives and deaths, and many of his colleagues in his memories have been blurred by the erosion of time, and finally turned into dry bones and buried in the yellow sand. He didn't want to be forgotten like his colleagues, but even a rare figure in the world like the legendary Sword Saint was no longer sung by the bards, and how could he, who was once one of the four guards, leave proof of his existence in the world.

"My lord," said the guard who had come down from the guard change from the arrow tower, as he walked up to Ives, "Miloka is sleeping in the drill ground again. ”

"Let him go. Ives replied, looking in the direction of the training ground, where Miloka was lying on all fours, her sword casually tossed in her hand. Miloka was first spotted sleeping in the practice ring the day after Ives harshly criticized him. It was the most chaotic day at Fort Watch since Ives took office.

The noise of the morning ruined Ives's sweet dreams - he and Cleon and the others were discussing how to deal with the Nanban competition around the sand table, and Cleon excitedly praised Ives's swordsmanship, claiming that there was no need for anyone else to play at all, and Ives had obtained his true biography, and one person was enough to scare the Nanban prince - he hastily cleaned up, and before he had time to eat breakfast, he was forced to go out of the door by the shouting and fighting outside. The cause of the chaos was that an orc refugee accidentally fell and collapsed the tent of the human refugee, and the angry human refugee yelled at the orc, while the orc was chattering in orc language, and the two who did not understand the language became more and more fierce, and the onlookers stopped the scene and couldn't get through, and the guards who rushed to maintain order were blocked by the crowd, and they couldn't figure out what was going on inside. "If it weren't for these brutes, we wouldn't be here. A trembling whisper came from the crowd like pebbles thrown into a calm lake, and intense anger quickly spread through the crowd, turning into a chaotic farce of two races fighting.

"Stop!" roared Ives, who had hurried to the scene, but his voice was like a drop in the ocean, drowned in the raging waves. "Aconite!" Ives continued to scream as the nearby guards conveyed it into the distance, and soon the soldiers formed a network of encirclements and began to subdue the refugees on the outskirts of the crowd by force. Whenever the outermost refugees are controlled, the encirclement network shrinks, and the retreating soldiers will take care of the suppressed refugees, and the anti-riot operation is carried out in an orderly manner. It took the soldiers at Fort Watchman more than half a day to restore order to the fort, and almost every refugee was covered in paint, groaning in pain in their respective areas with minor or severe injuries, and several others were killed in the violence, much to Ives' headaches.

Unfortunately, troubles happen one after another. After settling the refugees, Ives, who was very busy, received an urgent letter from Origi Fortress, "To the officers of Watchfort, Origi Fortress is under heavy attack by enemy troops, and requests for support." The letter was written in scribbling. "Origaki Fortress, these rice buckets!" said Ives, almost snarling as he finished reading the letter, knowing in his heart that there were no enemy troops at all, and that he must be poachers who had been driven out of the woods by the elves.

Herman, the commander of Origi Fortress, is a true scoundrel, and Ives has dealt with him several times because of Herman's brazen distress letters. Origi Fortress is the most indulgent poacher fortress in the southern part of the Empire, and Herman likes to collect some "clearance fees" from poachers, preferring to squeeze some oil and water from the poaching team that returns with a full load. In fact, the poaching team was happy to meet Herman's small needs, after all, the Imperial army opened the door to convenience, and poaching could save a lot of trouble. But the Boundary Forest is not the territory of the Empire, and the control of humans has been relaxed, so the elves have become vigilant and have begun to fight poaching teams in an organized manner. Poaching is becoming more and more difficult, and many times the poaching team has only been in the forest for a long time, and they are beaten by the elves to flee in all directions, and in order to save their lives, they often withdraw empty-handed. But Herman didn't care about this, "from me to go, you have to give money" is Herman's unwavering belief, the more unprofitable the poaching team is, the more he intensifies the search. The poaching team, which was already covered in bruises and found nothing, bumped into Herman's naked robbery, and it was inevitable that the dog would jump over the wall. Although the Origi Fortress is located on the border, it has never really been attacked by the Nanban because of its remote location and little military value, so it is not valued by the Imperial Military Department.

Ives hated the shameless Herman so much that he had long wanted to cut off his head, but he was also an Imperial officer, and even the three major Ives of the fire hat could only give up. To make matters worse, Ives was subject to the provisions of Imperial law on the "Joint Defense Line", which compelled to come to Herman's aid if a request for relief was made in the immediate vicinity of the garrison (less than 50 leagues) in any city, castle, town, fortress, village, or other gathering place of Imperial citizens due to an attack, and the Imperial army stationed at the Imperial forts, fortresses, and other military facilities attached to the Imperial Military Department, should accept the request unconditionally. Seeing that the guards were exhausted, Ives had to order some of the guards who were standing guard during the riot to follow him to the Oriki Fortress, and before leaving, he told the adjutant to take care of the refugees and not make any more trouble.

Ives also deliberately brought Miloka, "Reserve soldiers have to work hard to grow up." On the way to the Origi Fortress, he said to Miloca.