Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest -
Chapter 218 - 23: Scars Everywhere
Chapter 218: Chapter 23: Scars Everywhere
What is war?
Is it the mutual slaughter of opposing armies?
Yes, but not only that.
The biggest impact of war is not the grisly battlefield, but the countless families.
There were those North Ice Pirates who, along the rivers, penetrated inland.
The advantage of pirates is their extreme mobility.
Some villagers spotted their longships, but it was already too late—in an era where communication relied solely on shouting, those who found the pirates couldn’t possibly inform all the villagers.
Thus, a group of about twenty pirates swiftly disembarked.
With axes in hand and shields on their backs, they flexed their wrists and strode towards the farmland, then raised their axes and, without hesitation, chopped down at some dazed farmers.
The time for summer harvest had come.
They were reaping wheat, while the pirates were reaping their lives.
In an instant, fear and terror swiftly snatched their souls.
All the farmers let out cries of terror and turned to run.
The pirates chased after them, using bows and Flying Axes to attack those fleeing farmers from afar.
Continuously, people were struck by arrows and fell, their bodies toppling the sparse wheat, blood pouring out to soak the roots of the grain.
A hastily assembled Militia of about fifty in size.
They collided with the North Ice Pirates, but couldn’t hold on for half a minute before being routed.
After that, all the villagers became like lambs to the slaughter.
...
Nathan arrived at this village and what he saw was the scene post-raid.
Most of the houses were completely burned down, bodies were scattered everywhere, some were taken captive, some were killed—guards and farmers dead on the ground, women on tables, babies in beds.
The village, once peaceful and poor, now presented a deadly silence.
Riding through, he couldn’t hear the slightest sound.
The blockage of news in this era was severe, and Nathan was shocked to realize how fierce the momentum of the pirate invasion was.
Here, far from the coastline, there had also been looting and massacre.
If this place was in such a state, what about Taler County, even closer to the coast?
Nathan felt a foreboding sensation in his heart.
He spurred his horse on, traveling day and night.
More and more scenes of devastation came into his view.
Homes turned to ash,
Livestock slaughtered,
The dead without sound,
The living without rest.
Those images made him empathize deeply, weighed heavy on his heart, made him want to cry out in anguish.
Nathan rode in silence all the way to Taler County.
After a year’s time, he returned to this land.
The organizational strength of this land had completely collapsed; he passed through Taler County’s largest market, but all he saw were ruins, walls and ramparts broken, the bustle and busyness gone.
Some refugees sifted through the rubble looking for something or another.
Nathan, taking a rest at noon, learned that Taler County had been fiercely attacked by pirates a month earlier,
The Lord’s castle had been breached by a powerful group of pirates under the cover of darkness, the pirate leader with ten or twenty pirates, insulting the Lord’s wife, his female relatives, and Maids in the castle.
Nathan had seen that proud Lord when he was a Conscripted Soldier at Taler County, while at that time the Lord was bound hand and foot, only able to stand aside and watch.
Afterward, they all died, the Lord’s head hung from the castle.
Taler County had thoroughly become a land ravaged by pirates.
Nathan felt an increasing heaviness in his heart.
Uncontrollable fear surged into his heart, leaving his hands and feet ice-cold.
His mind was in turmoil, filled with speculations, but he refused to believe them.
However, when he arrived at Macao Village, the sight before him buzzed through his head, leaving his brain blank as if struck violently by a hammer.
He didn’t know how he had dismounted his horse, looking at the blackened ruins before him; walls had collapsed, the burned remnants of wood lay chaotically, and the earthen architecture had turned to ash.
The smell of smoke had long vanished, he didn’t know how much time had passed.
He moved like a zombie toward what used to be his home—only half of an earthen wall stood before him, leaving behind only the remnants of a fire. No one could tell what it had once looked like.
Only Nathan knew, the home he had longed for in his thoughts, the dwelling he had once built by hand with mud and wood.
All his worries and fears had become reality.
This burly man stared in shock for a moment, then suddenly let out a heart-wrenching, tearful howl.
For some reason, he started pacing back and forth in front of his former home but didn’t dare to take a step inside.
He had imagined his homecoming countless times over the past year, but now he was greeted by such an ending.
"I’ve come back too late! I’ve come back too late! My Elena!! My Will!!" he cried out like a wounded beast, suddenly slapping his cheeks with heavy palms, tearing at his hair, removing his helmet, and fiercely smashing it against his head.
"Squad Leader! Don’t do this!" Two soldiers behind him grabbed his arms, stopping him from harming himself, also feeling immense pain.
Their officer, usually silent and stoic, had become like this.
"Ooooh..." Nathan sobbed miserably, spinning in place before finally squatting on the ground, with nowhere to turn.
"I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them all!!" he said through tears, his face filled with grief.
"Together!" the two soldiers shouted. They were elite troops of the third squadron, one named Ess and the other Lot, both had received Nathan’s care in the past.
They draped heavy armor over Nathan.
Pirates were rampant in these lands, infesting a vast area. They would avoid starting troubles unless they encountered them face to face.
With a massive force of ten thousand main troops and numerous slaves and attendants serving in support units, the pirates had moved south and launched a large-scale attack.
Instead of engaging the Riptide allied forces directly, they used their high mobility to scatter and plunder, burning and looting, cutting off the enemy’s logistics.
But now they sought out the pirates’ tracks to let him vent.
Before long, Nathan and his men saw smoke billowing from ten miles away and immediately rode toward it at a gallop.
On arrival, they found pirates massacring refugees, who were probably trying to stealthily harvest some wheat when they happened upon the pirates.
There were about twenty pirates, but Nathan was blinded by anger.
He charged on horseback.
The pirates were startled, not expecting to find a Conquest Knight still in this devastated land.
Nathan wielded the Heavy Spear, its half-meter-long gleaming blade flashing as he approached and promptly slew five or six pirates.
The remaining pirates swarmed him, but Nathan alone cut down another five or six.
The two elite soldiers dismounted from their warhorses, charging from both sides, encircling and joining forces with Nathan to kill all the pirates.
Only two pirate scouts, standing at a distance, watched the Berserker in terror and turned to flee.
Still unsatisfied, Nathan took up the Heavy Axe, his eyes red with rage as he continued to hack at the pirate corpses with each swing accompanied by a pitiful roar.
"You... you’re the ’loudmouth’ Nathan from Macao Village?"
The refugees had gathered unnoticed. They too were natives of this land, turned into refugees after the pirates burned their villages.
Nathan, gasping for breath, looked at the refugees with bloodshot eyes; they seemed familiar, likely neighbors he had seen in the past.
"That’s me," he said.
"Weren’t you captured by the pirates... How come... why didn’t you hide in the forest; where are all the people from Macao Village?"
He couldn’t stand it any longer, charging over and shouting desperately, "Where is Elena! Where is Will! Are they alright? Are they still alive!"
Nathan, clad in full heavy armor, towered and imposing, and now smeared with blood from his grisly act, appeared terrifying.
The refugees were frightened enough to lose speech as if they had seen some monstrous beast.
His height matched, and so did his voice.
But they couldn’t understand why the once kind and honest strongman returned in such attire.
What kind of fantasy plot is this, where the farmer returns home in glory, transformed into a knight lord?
Those majestic steeds are not something an ordinary person could acquire.
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