Chapter 220: The Many Faces of War |
Today was the ninth day of the Script. With twenty-one days remaining before Bai Mu could complete the Main Quest, barely a third of the time in the Script had passed.
Judging from the current situation, his room to maneuver was still quite large. At the very least, the Mountain Evil God that the Son of Heaven had transformed into had not yet appeared before him.
Bai Mu thought to himself, 'The progression of this Script is truly in poor taste. It turns out that even the massive, wild boar-like monster is merely a byproduct of the final boss. When Players duck and hide from the monsters formed by those mountain beasts, finally crossing the grasslands and forests to reach the other side of the mountain and believing they have escaped, they will ultimately discover that the most terrifying monster has long since blocked the path ahead.'
If it were an ordinary Player who had been running the entire way, utterly exhausted and nearly out of consumables, encountering the final boss would truly be a scene of sheer despair.
It felt like playing a battle royale game where the safe zone was constantly shrinking. As time passed, his room to maneuver grew smaller and smaller. Bai Mu found himself in a dilemma. Moving forward meant facing the final boss, while turning back meant dealing with the monsters formed by the mountain beasts. Neither side was easy to handle. It seemed his only option was to follow the musketeer's suggestion to hide deep in the mountains, hoping those monsters would take their time tracking them down.
But that relied too heavily on luck, and he absolutely loathed the feeling of things being out of his control.
The only good news was that he still had time to think and plan.
The actions he had taken over these nine days allowed him to uncover the truth of the situation early in the Script.
In the time that followed, he interrogated his captives about the monster's abilities while leading the refugees in a constant game of hide-and-seek.
During this period, they encountered several more groups of refugees and bandits. Because their caravan was steadily growing in size and they openly possessed obvious food sources like deer and horses, it was not long before trouble came knocking at their door.
However, the attackers were absolutely no match for Bai Mu and his group. The gap in equipment alone was staggering. The young girls were clad in armor like great generals, wielding advanced firearms, and Bai Mu had even used the gunpowder to handcraft makeshift bombs. Those who vainly attempted to rob them completely failed to grasp the disparity in strength, merely rushing forward one by one to throw their lives away.
Instead, it was their food and equipment that Bai Mu confiscated. As they came across more and more refugees, Bai Mu's group expanded from an initial thirty-odd people to sixty over the course of five days.
This bloated caravan dragged down their pace, and the withered colors of corruption behind them drew ever closer.
It was now the fourteenth day of the Script. Their food and water were sufficient for the time being, but due to the increasing number of mouths to feed, supplies were being depleted at a rapid rate. Furthermore, the continuous trekking had left everyone exhausted, especially the already injured refugees. Some had developed blisters on their feet, while their wounds festered and oozed pus.
Bai Mu had the severely injured refugees sit on the backs of the deer and horses, letting the animals carry them forward.
He fed Health Potions to those with particularly grave wounds, but given the sheer number of people, this little bit of restorative medicine merely treated the symptoms rather than the root cause, only managing to slightly ease their suffering.
"Why go to such lengths, my lord?"
The musketeer looked at the groaning refugees and shook his head.
His hands were still bound behind his back, but the ropes on his feet had been untied. Since he was an able-bodied man with perfectly fine legs, Bai Mu made him get off the deer's back and walk on his own two feet.
"It is simply not worth wasting food and water on these lowly people," the musketeer suggested. "They are going to die sooner or later anyway. It would be better to give them a quick end. It would be a mercy for them, and a relief for us."
This guy presumptuously used the word "we" to refer to himself and Bai Mu, as if he had taken it upon himself to treat Bai Mu as his new master. Such behavior was actually quite common in this era. At the end of the day, he was merely a subordinate. In times of war, when the lord one served was killed by the enemy, low-ranking soldiers like him essentially had only one option: surrender. Then, they would simply take orders from someone else and continue working.
Usually, only those renowned military generals with prominent names would steadfastly refuse to betray their lords for the sake of their so-called "loyalty" or "reputation," even going so far as to slit their own throats with a blade.
As for people like the musketeer, they were nothing more than reeds swaying in the wind, obeying whoever possessed the greatest strength.
In the past, the Son of Heaven reigned supreme, so he obeyed the emperor's command to travel thousands of miles to the distant mountain beast forest to hunt for the head of a god. Later, when the Son of Heaven fell, his superior officers and commanders in the musketeer squad fell with him. Thus, he followed a famous nobleman, fleeing all the way until he arrived here.
Now that the nobleman had become Bai Mu's captive, the musketeer naturally adopted Bai Mu as his new superior, fully embracing the role of offering his humble advice. Bai Mu did not respond, but his gaze could not help shifting toward the refugees trudging forward with heavy, arduous steps.
Among them were children, women, and men. Every single one of them reeked of sweat, their hair disheveled, their faces smeared with mud, and their clothes coated in grime.
They lacked the conditions to bathe, as their stored water reserves were far too meager to support such a luxury. All the water sources in the vicinity had been contaminated. With the approaching curse and the Mountain Evil God, the once-crystal-clear rivers had taken on a rusty, blood-like hue, emitting a foul and murky stench. The sources of the water were polluted, so the water they currently used was what they had saved from their previous encampment by the lake, supplemented by the liquor confiscated from the bandits.
The alcohol content of this liquor was very low, so drinking it would not induce intoxication. In times of war, liquor itself was a strategic resource. Especially in ancient times, it was frequently used to replace drinking water for the soldiers.
Bai Mu watched as a young child with a runny nose struggled to prop up an old man as they walked.
He also saw a woman hunched over with a baby strapped to her back, gritting her teeth with every forward step.
On Tuya's back rode a man with a severed leg, his wound tightly wrapped in bandages. A woman, drenched in sweat, tended to his needs and fed him water.
That was the man's wife. Bai Mu still remembered the scene when he had first encountered this couple a few days ago. The woman had been carrying the man on her back like a beast of burden. When someone tried to rob them, the man had grabbed a farming tool and fought the soldiers with his life on the line. Although he managed to escape with his wife, his leg had been severely slashed in the process. The wound cut deep into the bone and marrow, causing his entire right leg to fester and ooze pus. He had amputated that leg himself. Originally, he had urged his wife to abandon him and flee for her life, but she stubbornly insisted on staying by his side. Thus, in order to survive, he had steeled his heart and chopped off his own leg with a machete. The two supported each other, fighting tooth and nail just to live another day. It was fortunate they had run into Bai Mu; otherwise, they would have long since become two rotting corpses stinking by the roadside.
But at this moment, Bai Mu silently withdrew his gaze. Looking at the musketeer's resigned expression—a look of pity mingled with sorrow—he suddenly found it hard to tell whether that couple was actually lucky or unlucky.
Comments 1