Chapter 16: A Transitional Chapter of Memories
“…Where is this?”
When the fortress guard captain, the golden-haired knight Zorgen, woke up from his hard bed carved with black wood reliefs in his own home, this middle-aged man couldn’t help but feel a general malaise throughout his body. He was abnormally weak, as if he had been completely hollowed out.
Opening his eyes, his vision was a blur. Right now, Zorgen felt as if he were still on that battlefield resisting the frenzied beasts.
Recalling slightly, the sound of the biting wind and the enraged roars of beasts once again echoed in his ears. The maddened giant beasts charged the city walls again and again, trampling over its ruins, while the black horde of beasts surged toward the city like an unstoppable torrent.
This scene filled the knight with a heartfelt sense of despair, but he was no fool. He immediately realized that if the situation had truly developed that way, how could he possibly be lying comfortably in his own bed now?
“I’m actually alive, and I’ve woken up from the coma caused by my Battle Qi eruption. It seems the battle is already over.”
Muttering a self-deprecating remark, Zorgen glanced sideways at the golden sunlight streaming in through the window. A golden beam of light fell on the bedside table, where he could see swirling dust motes rising. Suddenly, he remembered: “Right, it was Young Master Joshua.”
When the giant beast breached the city wall, Zorgen had been in a daze from overexerting his Battle Qi, slipping into a semi-conscious state. But he could still sense a vast power descending from the sky, swiftly slaying the giant beast. The one with such strength was undoubtedly the new Gold-rank lord of Moldavia.
With one hand on his head and the other supporting the bed, even though he was now awake, the golden-haired knight still felt a bit dizzy. He tried to sit up from the bed, but a sharp wave of soreness and pain immediately swept through his entire body—especially his internal organs. Now, with every breath he took and every swallow of saliva, he could feel a stabbing pain like an electric current passing through.
“Internal organs are too damaged. It must be the aftereffect of my last Battle Qi eruption.”
Enduring this discomfort, Zorgen slowly sat up. He was now wearing pajamas, and his wounds were tightly bandaged. It seemed the medical staff had even helped him take a bath.
“This time is much better than before.”
In the past, the knight had also suffered similar severe injuries and fallen into comas, but no matter what, when he was sent home after medical treatment, he was usually naked. He hadn’t expected them to be so considerate this time, even putting clothes on him.
As for the injuries, the knight had long since grown accustomed to them.
Battle Qi is the union of will and body, the dual manifestation of life in both material and spiritual aspects. Erupting Battle Qi is equivalent to extreme compression of one’s body and spirit, unleashing the most powerful force from the tiniest parts of the body. This technique is simple—essentially removing the body’s own protection—and even roadside mercenaries know it. But due to its severe side effects, almost no one uses it lightly except in life-or-death situations.
But as a soldier stationed on the front lines year after year, he faced life-or-death situations more often than anyone else. Although a Battle Qi eruption would cause weakness lasting between half a month and three months, it was certainly better than dying on the spot. Zorgen deeply agreed. This wasn’t the first time he had done this. While the hidden injuries made it difficult for him to break through to the Gold realm, if he didn’t do it, he wouldn’t even live to be forty.
In the past, Zorgen had heard the old lord mention that there was a special breathing technique that could allow Battle Qi to erupt instantly without side effects while also honing the body’s adaptability. But clearly, this was some kind of secret technique never passed on to outsiders. Not to mention him, even the old count would find it very difficult to obtain.
“My strength is still too weak… If I could break through the Gold barrier and advance to the Glory realm, this Black Tide wouldn’t have been so perilous. As a vassal, unable to share the lord’s burdens, forcing the lord to personally come to the rescue—this is a great disgrace.”
Staggering to his feet, the golden-haired middle-aged knight sighed, then walked out of the bedroom and into the hall.
This was a hall with a strong military style. The huge head of a white bear, still bearing its ferocious expression from life, was hung above the dusty fireplace, casting a long shadow in the sunlight coming through the window. In the corner, tools and jars for maintaining weapons could be seen. Two or three chairs were scattered around the table on the left, as if someone had sat there for a while and then left without tidying up.
In the Black Forest Fortress, every warrior had their own house. Those with wives and children naturally lived together, but most houses were occupied by single warriors living alone. As the fortress guard captain, Zorgen naturally owned a sizable property. But now, at forty-three years old, he still hadn’t married, so this standalone two-story building unfortunately had no mistress, and naturally, no one to tidy it up.
Walking to the table, he casually picked up a cup and poured some water to drink. Since the fireplace hadn’t been lit, the temperature in the house was very low. Although the water in the pot hadn’t frozen yet, it was chilling to the bone. But Zorgen needed exactly that. With the stimulation of the ice-cold water, his brain finally fully activated, and he no longer staggered when walking.
But just then, the sound of snow being trampled came from outside the door. Before the knight could turn his head, he heard the click of a key in the lock, and the door swung open.
Key in hand, a white-haired mage in a leather coat and a masked warrior appeared before Zorgen.
“…Close the door quickly! You lot who don’t knock before entering.”
The freezing wind from outside, at minus twenty degrees, made even the Silver-rank knight shiver involuntarily. Zorgen almost growled: “And explain this—how do you have the key to my house?!”
“Don’t be angry, my friend. You’ve been unconscious for three days. If we didn’t take the key and come in ourselves, did you expect us to wait for you to open the door?”
Feng casually closed the door, then shook his head. He stroked his snow-white beard and said: “There are too many wounded. The medical room doesn’t have enough beds, so we had to send you home to recuperate. For that, you should thank us for carrying you here.”
“…So should I thank you now for visiting?”
“Visiting you is just a side note.”
Kili, standing nearby, still wore his masked helmet, even without his armor. He shrugged and said: “Who would care about an old man like you? It’s just that a letter came through the bell tower communication array, signed by Scarlet of Moldova. The Scarlet family is a count family equal to the Radcliffe family. I thought it was important, so I had to bring you along. The three of us should go together to pay respects to the lord, report the situation, and deliver this letter.”
—Tower Meeting Room.
Joshua sat in that meeting room in the tower, frowning as if recalling something. In front of him lay a notebook with a black leather cover, already filled with quite a bit of writing.
Thanks to the revolutionary improvement in papermaking by the half-men thirty years ago, clean and tidy paper was no longer scarce. Even the newspaper industry had developed. A notebook like this could be bought for just two silver coins, affordable even for commoners.
Now, the warrior was recalling and summarizing as much intelligence as possible about the Northern Empire.
Unlike other human settlements, the Northern Empire was a very simply structured political entity.
In the Eastern Plains and Western Mountains, there were many large and small countries, constantly warring with each other in chaotic conflicts. The complex situation was enough to make a hundred-member staff team’s heads explode. The open and covert struggles among the Far South Council members were even more mentally draining.
Unlike them, on the vast northern lands, there were only three forces—the Imperial Royal Family, the nobles, and the Church.
The Imperial Royal Family needed no further explanation. The emperor’s personal strength was one part, and the central army along with five directly subordinate elite legions were another.
The nobles were slightly more complicated. The number of nobles enfeoffed by the empire was the smallest on the entire Continent of Strife. From baron to duke, the total didn’t even exceed a hundred. This number was simply unbelievable, because even some larger kingdoms in the Eastern Plains had more nobles than that. But contrary to this number, every noble held considerable power.
Due to the Black Tide and various scattered magical beasts, the empire’s restrictions on private soldiers were quite lenient. For example, in Moldavia, a mere count’s territory had nearly a hundred knight slots and several thousand private soldiers, and could even build fortresses on the border. This would be considered a small country in the Eastern Plains. Several dukes’ private soldiers had quality comparable to the empire’s central legions.
The Church of the Seven Gods held the people’s hearts. But in this era when the gods were silent and did not interfere with the world, they basically never spoke up. Most of the time, they were just silent onlookers.
This was roughly the information Joshua knew. Memories from his past life combined with the education he received in this life allowed him to remember the surnames and crests of every major noble, along with a rough outline of faction divisions and basic customs. But that was all.
“I can only recall this much. Not a single bit about the distribution of magical beasts and various dragon beasts. I’ll have to ask Feng and the others later where the chaotic-attribute monsters are nearby.”
Sighing, although Joshua was a hardcore player of the game *Continent of Strife*, he wasn’t omniscient. As the former leader of the largest Far South war band, he indeed knew a lot of intelligence ordinary people couldn’t obtain. But that didn’t mean Joshua could cross servers to get information about monster distributions in other regions.
He looked at the system.
“Class mission… The frenzied beasts and giant beasts infected with the Mad Dragon Plague seem crazy, but they’re just berserk. They don’t count as chaotic attribute at all.”
He murmured: “Chaotic-attribute monsters—besides demons, what else is there?”