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Volume 3 Chapter 13-3: Where Did I Go Wrong?

 

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In the end we didn’t negotiate. When they saw bloodthirsty looking soldiers charging towards them, they abandoned the carts on their own and ran away.

We’ll gratefully take the cargo.

Inside the wagons was a small food supply, a lot of dried hay, and water. With this much we could feed the horses for three days.

「Oh heavens, I thank God for their grace.」

I was truly happy that we would be able to go on without killing the horses.

We’ll wait for relief tomorrow, if it doesn’t arrive, then we’ll kill some animals for food, but thankfully we can still choose from among the pack animals. I prayed to god, who I rarely spoke to, in thanks for the unexpected bounty.

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We set up camp for the night.

Despite the darkness of night, the camp was abnormally bright.

Those bastards attacked us when it got darker. Thanks to that our fuel consumption was quite high. Plus, there was a limit to how much fuel we could obtain locally. Oil and dry wood weren’t abundant in this area.

Low on food, low on water, and low on fuel. Low on everything.

This was the first time I’d gone through such an excruciating war.

The soldiers looked around with dead eyes.

Thanks to the screams of their allies and the fear of arrows in the night, many of them ended up not sleeping at all. Even worse we were forced to cut back on food.

The burden of keeping watch while never letting the fires fade was fairly heavy.

If we kept the fires lit they would not come attacking. On the other hand, once the fires extinguished they would immediately attack. They were like demons. It’s hard to understand how creatures could be so cruel.

Even so, we high level officers and nobles were better off. We could sleep in our carriages. Unlike common soldiers in cloth tents, we could sleep without worrying that an arrow would kill us in our sleep.

Sleep tight. Otherwise we couldn’t survive the next day.

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Dawn. I jumped to my feet after hearing a commotion outside.

「What happened!?」

I emerged from my carriage and saw a horse going wild while screaming.

I saw it kicking and trampling soldiers under its hooves.

It was running over tents, kicking carriages, and doing all manner of wild things.

If it was only one or two then I could accept it…but looking around I saw almost all the horses going wild.

「What the hell!? What is going on here!!?」

Two hours later…the commotion abated with many soldiers wounded by the rampaging horses. I looked out on a field of dead and dying horses.

「Tell me! What caused this!?」

I grabbed the lapel of the soldier in charge of caring for the horses as I screamed.

The soldier’s face was so pale it was almost blue as he shook unceasingly.

「I don’t know…we massaged the muscles like normal and gave them plenty of food…I did everything like usual.」
「Then what the hell is all this!? Tell me anything that was different. Even the smallest thing! Was there anything out of place??」
「…..if I had to point something out…then they ate much more food than usual and there was more available.」
「……that…」

That wagon was a dastardly Elven trap.

It was clear that they’d mixed poison with the animal feed…What the hell was I thinking? No matter how I thought of it, it was impossible for such a convenient wagon to come along at this time!

I must have gone crazy…

「Umm…Baron Lurvish…what should we do with the dead horses? Should we use them for food?」
「Are you stupid!? These horses died from poison!!」

Our absolute final emergency rations had been taken from us.

I’m sure those bastards had been waiting for this opportunity. Now we were far from any village and even the nearest one was 20 km before the supply base.

We couldn’t backtrack. We were in trouble without the horses transport. They must have predicted I would use the horses as emergency food, so they had chosen to use poison. If I were to say it more accurately, we were like a performing monkey dancing and jumping around in a cage.

「Give me a break here…」

I let out a bitter moan from the bottom of my heart.

My headaches increased.

「Baron Lurvish! What’s happened? Why is my favorite horse dead!?」
「How much do you think a horse like this costs!?」
「Who’s going to pull my carriage from now on???」

Almost all of the ‘high and mighty’ nobles came over crying and moaning.

They were a group who had brought their own food and were enjoying a slow and luxurious journey. Furthermore they were higher in position than me. Normally I would be bowing and scraping while apologizing…but…

「Shut it! You’ll be walking from now on! Take what luggage you can carry. Anything else I will be seizing for public use!」

As I shouted back, the noble bastards started screaming with red and purple faces.

If I got back to the Empire I may be killed…but if we didn’t move now then all of us will die.

「You, do you know your place!?」
「If I told papa then your neck would be…」
「Shut your damn mouths you pigs! I’m the commanding officer. If you whine any further I’ll have you executed!」

They were so annoying and loud that I sent them flying.

I felt a bit refreshed since I was able to relieve some of my pent up anger.

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