When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#727 - Barracks and wind-driven winder

"Damn it! Constance's son!"

Watching the blood well up on his finger, Old Raff hastily shoved the breadcrumb-covered digit into his mouth.

The surrounding recruits erupted in a chorus of teasing laughter.

Old Raff glared at them. "What are you laughing at?"

Three days had passed since the earlier minor scuffle, and Old Raff had become familiar with this batch of recruits in the barracks.

Sitting before the only fireplace, the honeycomb briquettes radiated heat, turning peas, sausage fragments, and bread soup into a pot of hot, sticky gruel.

After a makeshift bandage with a strip of cloth, Old Raff continued to whittle chunks of black bread with his fingers, fingernails still embedded with ironwood splinters.

The bread crumbled like sawdust into the soup, the crumbs mixed with a few drops of yellow fluid from his frostbite sores as they fell into the pot.

Sitting on straw mats covered with animal hides, ten pairs of eyes, green with hunger, stared intently at the pot of soup.

Everyone knew that before the spring thaw, Bear Fort's supplies would be quite scarce, and even for recruit training, they couldn't provide very good conditions.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Old Raff surveyed the barracks before him, the wooden building low and gloomy, with ten bunks arranged along the walls.

Snores echoed under the rafters, fermenting into a sour stench of foot odor, body odor, and crotch rot.

Old Raff had killed before, but for some reason, the fight with that knight three days ago always lingered in his mind.

In that skilled, extraordinary martial artist, he sensed a long-lost sense of danger, just like when he had been surrounded by a pack of wolves.

Just as Old Raff was lost in thought, the sound of iron greaves hitting the ground startled the crows on the rafters and woke Old Raff.

Recruit platoon instructor Donovan burst in at mealtime, and the recruits, who had been sprawled haphazardly on the beds wrapped in blankets, immediately stood up to greet him.

Donovan's iron gauntlet gripped the roll of the provost marshal's list, his grim gaze sweeping over the ten people present. "Which of you is Raff Hunter?"

"I am," Old Raff immediately stepped forward, keeping his head down to avoid Donovan's gaze. "Is there something you need, Instructor?"

"Don't call me 'sir'; do you want me to be summoned by the military chaplain?" Donovan impatiently flipped a page on the roster. "You killed a sheep thief?"

"Uh, yes." Old Raff turned and pointed to Kaller. "He can testify..."

"No need to trouble yourself; how do you think I got this list?" Donovan took a pen, checked off Old Raff's name, and then pulled out an iron tag and tossed it to him. "You're the new squad leader of the ten-man team; you'll take them to the drill ground tomorrow."

Taking the iron tag, Old Raff didn't feel much joy.

Although the squad leader's salary was higher and the promotion opportunities were greater, he had to be alive to enjoy them.

Old Raff caressed the indentations on the edge of the tag, his throat tightening. After thinking it over, he stopped Donovan. "Instructor, I have something to report."

Donovan's heel struck the ground heavily, his eyes narrowing as he turned. "You have three sentences."

"That day, my enemy was suspected to be an extraordinary knight; his strength and martial arts were beyond that of ordinary people."

"Perhaps a retainer knight who betrayed his lord; these things are not uncommon." Donovan looked annoyed, responding casually before turning to leave.

As a former mountain knight, he hated the rules and regulations in the new army.

"Instructor..." Gritting his teeth, Old Raff called out again, the words already spoken, leaving no room for regret. "I think it should be reported to the city defense officer."

"You want me to disturb the city defense officer for this trivial matter? Hmm?" If he hadn't lost the authority, Donovan would have stripped Old Raff of his position as squad leader right then and there.

"Previously, our army beat the nobles of the Gravel Plains so badly that they couldn't even lift their heads. I support attacking the Gravel Plains, and I hope the Gravel Plains people really come to provoke us.

Although I don't understand why, Princess Melia'ti's prohibition against us rashly attacking must have a reason.

If they dare to actively provoke us, aren't they afraid that we will really launch an attack against them?

I dare say that with Princess Melia'ti's ability and the current strength of our Thousand Valleys new army, it wouldn't take half a year to make them bow their heads and submit!"

"But..."

"Okay, maybe he was just born with extraordinary strength." Donovan's face was half-immersed in the shadows of the corridor. "Bear Fort has few people, and times are tight; I understand, but don't be too absurd.

Last week, someone said they saw a two-headed ogre; guess what it was? A cured ham hanging under the eaves!"

Without waiting for Old Raff to respond, Donovan strode out of the room and headed towards the next barracks.

"Maybe he really was just a wandering retainer knight," Kaller stepped forward to comfort him.

Old Raff intuitively felt that this wasn't the case, but thinking about it, he wasn't the city defense officer; if the sky fell, the city defense officer would be the one holding it up.

He just needed to be more careful, lest a piece of it really fall down and hit him.

With inexplicable worries, Old Raff woke all the recruits on time the next morning.

They put on woolen jackets, shivering in the cold wind, passing through the obtusely angled city walls and the ironwood trestle bridge erected over the trenches.

The wind-powered cocking engine cast a rotating shadow overhead.

They weren't supposed to talk, but one recruit couldn't help but step forward and ask, "Squad leader, why can they use wind power to cock their weapons?"

Old Raff certainly didn't know why, but Kaller, for some reason, blurted out, "Because their orichalcum springs are thinner."

"Thinner?" This time, even Old Raff turned to look at Kaller.

Kaller seemed a little nervous. "Under the same weight, the smaller the thickness of the orichalcum spring, the less force is required to wind it, but the longer it takes."

"Then wouldn't the firing time be longer?"

"I don't know about that." Kaller shook his head. "It seems to rely on gear acceleration. You know, with mithril added, the gears and springs are lighter; it should be related to that."

Many eyes immediately revealed a hint of greed, and Old Raff immediately shouted, "Put away your petty thoughts!"

"How do you know this?" Turning his head, Old Raff was even more curious. "Isn't this something only engineers should know?"

"Before I left, my brother-in-law forced me to study 'Brief Mechanical Engineering' for a month; he originally wanted to send me to be an artilleryman." Recalling his brother-in-law's devastated expression, Kaller smiled wryly. "But later, he realized that artillerymen had to study mathematics and astrology..."

"Sounds like your brother-in-law is someone of importance?" Old Raff perked up.

Kaller smiled shyly. "He's just a small merchant, making a living by taking fresh fish orders from the battle group."

Old Raff wanted to continue to inquire, but he saw Donovan approaching with a dark face in the distance, and he immediately fell silent.

"Did I let you chat? Haven't you chatted enough in three days? Get to your positions and stand straight!"

Scolded and humiliated, Old Raff followed the markings on the ground, leading the ten-man team to stand one by one.

Two quartermasters walked out of the shadows of the bastion, pushing wooden carts filled with long objects wrapped in oilcloth.

Donovan lifted the oilcloth, and hundreds of refined iron spears and hundreds of military sabers gleamed with a cold, hard gray-green light in the morning light.

"You eat the despot's food, then you have to work for the despot. What does it mean to work for the despot? Train hard, kill enemies!"

"Alright, farmers!" The cast iron gate meshed with a grinding sound of gears, the shadow of the bastion splitting the square in half. "The first lesson you will learn is—transforming from farmers into men!"