Chapter 12 : Chapter 12
Chapter 12. The Wolf Is Here... There’s Meat to Eat
Thorne City’s dust had long since been cast behind them.
Under Eli’s rapid reorganization, the core structure of the force had begun to take shape.
Five experienced knights of House Black, each of them at Bronze Tier, were each placed in command of twenty new recruits transferred from the Western Frontier, forming five basic combat squads.
These knights were the backbone of the force, ensuring that orders could be carried all the way down to the lowest level.
Leon, meanwhile, was put in charge of the thirty craftsmen, making sure that these valuable technical hands would not be lost in the chaos.
The five newly added Western Frontier knights at Black Iron Tier filled the remaining gaps and, together with men like Bol and Aika, formed Eli’s personal guard, responsible for close protection and emergency response.
The five hundred slaves were the main body of the force. The overwhelming majority were able-bodied male laborers, with a small number of women and children mixed among them.
He ordered the male and female slaves to be kept separately. Among them, several slaves who looked steady and strong, and whose eyes still retained some clarity, were temporarily chosen as overseers to keep order.
At that moment, a row of crude iron cauldrons had been set over burning firewood, and the faint fragrance of porridge drifted through the air.
The slaves stood in long lines, clutching rough wooden bowls in their hands as they waited to receive their food.
Armed soldiers stood to the side and supervised as ladle after ladle of white porridge and black bread was handed out.
Holding that rare food in their hands, the slaves wore grateful expressions on their numb faces.
They drank with the utmost care. These days, even a bowl of hot porridge was an immense blessing.
The air slowly filled with the sounds of chewing and faint sighs of satisfaction.
The lord’s kindness could never be repaid.
Watching the slaves wolf down their food, Brandon’s brow only furrowed deeper and deeper.
He walked to Eli’s side and lowered his voice.
“My lord, if we keep boiling food like this... the grain is being consumed too quickly. At this rate, I’m afraid...”
Without even turning his head, Eli said, “Brandon, as long as people have full stomachs, they won’t cause trouble.”
Ella, who was chewing food beside him, nodded in agreement.
“Letting them eat their fill—that is the bottom line.”
Brandon could only nod helplessly. “Yes, yes, my lord. You are right.”
But the grain sacks, which were emptying at a visible rate, still weighed heavily on his heart.
Eli was not worried about running out of food. The resources of the territory were there before them. What he wanted was for more people to stay alive long enough to reach it.
Just then, a commotion broke out at the edge of the slave group.
A burly soldier came striding over, dragging along a little boy who could not have been more than eleven or twelve.
“My lord!” The soldier threw the boy heavily to the ground and shouted as though claiming credit. “Caught a little thief stealing grain. He was crawling under the grain cart!”
At once, every gaze focused on them.
The slaves looked over nervously. Even the slave overseers who had just been selected had gone pale, terrified of being implicated.
Eli crouched down and looked at the trembling boy on the ground.
“Why did you steal?”
The little boy was too frightened to speak. He only shook his head desperately, tears cutting two pale streaks through the grime on his face.
“The food they gave you wasn’t enough?” Eli asked again.
The boy still shook his head. Only after a long moment did he squeeze out a voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz.
“I-It’s enough... enough to eat a little... b-but I get hungry again fast...”
“They said... kids... only get half...”
The soldier’s face stiffened, and he defended himself stubbornly. “My lord! What would a slave brat eat so much for? The grain we save—”
“That’s enough,” Eli cut him off.
“Hungry? If I were hungry, I wouldn’t just steal. If I got desperate enough, I’d rob people too.”
He reached out and gently patted the boy’s messy hair.
“Let him go. If you’re hungry next time, go directly to the overseers and say so.”
He pointed at the slave overseers.
The soldier froze, stunned.
“My lord! Th-That goes against the rules! Stealing grain should be severely punished—executed, even—to make an example of him!”
Eli rose to his feet and swept his gaze over the slaves around him, all of whom were holding their breath.
“Rules? My rule is this: as long as you obey my orders and work honestly, you will be fed.”
“If someone steals, that only means my rules have not yet been fully put in place.”
Then he turned toward the soldier, and his tone softened a little.
“You discovered it in time. Well done. Go to Estor and collect a reward of five silver coins.”
The resentment on the soldier’s face vanished in an instant, replaced by delight. Five silver coins was no small sum for him!
“Th-Thank you, my lord!”
The little boy felt as if he had been granted a pardon from death.
Then Eli said to one of the slave overseers nearby, “From now on, every child over six and under eleven is to be given seventy percent of an adult ration.
Anyone eleven and older gets a full adult share.”
The slave overseer hurriedly nodded and bowed. “Yes! Yes! My lord, you are truly too merciful!”
The little boy broke free, then shouted toward Eli with all the strength in his body.
“My lord! When I grow up, I’m going to become your soldier!”
The moment he finished, he scrambled back into the slave crowd.
A wave of stifled but good-natured laughter rose from among the slaves.
Not far away, Ella stood watching quietly as Eli handled everything. Those clear eyes of hers were calm and still.
Even the soldiers standing guard nearby wore smiles of pride.
This lord... really was different.
The brief atmosphere of lightness brought on by this small incident was soon shattered by a hurried cry carrying the distinctive rasp of the wolf clans.
“M-My lord!”
A thin little figure burst out from the bushes at the flank of the convoy.
It was a small member of Wolfgang’s tribe, one of the only two who could speak the human tongue.
“M-My lord! W-Wolves! Lots of wolves! Th-They’re coming from... from the west!
Lord Wolfgang sent... sent me back to report!”
The ease vanished from Eli’s face in an instant, and his pupils tightened slightly.
He inwardly cursed his own carelessness. The wasteland was full of danger on every side—how could he rely entirely on the System?
He immediately calmed himself and directed his thoughts toward the raven on his shoulder, Coalball.
“Go! Take a look!”
With a caw, the somewhat dimwitted raven beat its wings and shot skyward in an instant.
Eli closed his eyes and shared the raven’s sight.
From above, he saw that behind the low hills about half a mile west of the convoy, dust was beginning to rise.
A vast expanse of gray-yellow figures, like a surging tide, was racing low to the ground as it swept toward the convoy in a wide encirclement.
There were no fewer than seventy of them. Several at the front were especially enormous, and their fangs flashed a ghastly white in the sunlight.
“Where are Wolfgang and the others?” Eli snapped his eyes open and asked the little Wolf-kin quickly.
“B-Behind the wolves... hidden behind a slope a little farther back...” the small Wolf-kin answered nervously.
“Good. Listen carefully. Go back and tell Wolfgang to hold his position.
Wait until the wolf pack charges in and clashes with us head-on. Once they’re thrown into confusion, attack them hard from behind. Understood?”
The little Wolf-kin nodded vigorously. “U-Understood!”
He turned and darted back into the bushes with nimble movements, vanishing from sight.
“Brandon! Bol!” Eli’s voice suddenly rose.
Orders spread outward like ripples.
The experienced veteran Brandon immediately organized his men and rapidly drew the five hundred panicked slaves inward.
Using the supply wagons as support, they formed a crude circular defensive perimeter.
Forty new recruits armed with spears and shields were stationed along the outer edge.
With spears raised and points angled outward, they formed a fragile barrier protecting the women, children, and craftsmen inside the ring.
“All combat personnel, assemble!” Bol’s roar cracked through the air like thunder.
The remaining sixty new recruits, ten knights of House Black, five Western Frontier knights, and several burly craftsmen led by Leon, who had snatched up tools to use as weapons, quickly formed ranks along the outside of the defensive circle.
Eli took out his bow and tossed the quiver to Ella.
“Stay with me.”
Then his steady voice rang out beside every warrior’s ear.
“Follow me! Kill them all! Strip their hides for bedding!
Fill your bellies with their meat! Show them who the real prey is!”
“ROAR—!!!” Bol was the first to unleash a thunderous bellow.
“Kill!!!” Aika and the other knights followed immediately after him.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!” The new recruits, their blood set ablaze by Eli’s words, raised their weapons one after another and let out ragged but powerful battle cries!
The wolf pack was already upon them. The leading giant wolf released a bloodthirsty howl, gathered strength in its hind legs, and lunged straight at the front line of soldiers!
“Loose!” Eli barked. The few archers who had received the order released their bowstrings at once.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
The arrows ripped through the air! The several giant wolves charging at the very front let out pained howls as the arrows struck them, and they tumbled across the ground!
“Spearmen! Hold the line!” Bol roared, swinging his heavy warhammer with a shriek of wind as it crashed brutally into a lunging gray wolf!
“Personal guard! With me—hold the flank!” Aika’s longsword flashed from its sheath in a cold gleam.
With five Black Iron knights at his back, he drove into the wolf pack’s flank like a sharpened wedge, blocking their attempt to sweep around the defensive ring!
Battle exploded in an instant! Human shouts and wolf howls intertwined into a single chaotic storm!
The longbow in Eli’s hands was like the reaper’s scythe. Every vibration of the bowstring took the life of another vicious wolf with merciless precision.
“Arrow,” he said in a low voice.
Hearing him, Ella, who had been tensely clutching the quiver, immediately drew a feathered arrow and placed it into Eli’s outstretched hand.
Eli took the arrow, nocked it, drew the bow, aimed, and released—all in one smooth motion!
Thud!
A dire wolf that had leapt through the air at a new recruit had its throat pierced by the arrow. It let out a choking whimper and crashed to the ground.
Watching Eli’s steady figure on horseback as he drew the bow again and again, Ella’s clear eyes reflected each flashing streak of the arrows, though no one could tell what she was thinking.
The battle did not last long.
Just as the wolf pack was bogged down by the stubborn resistance of the human soldiers and had sunk into agitation and disorder—
AOOO—!!!
A deafening wolf’s howl suddenly erupted from behind the pack!
Wolfgang’s massive figure was like a streak of silver-gray lightning.
Leading thirteen fierce Wolf-kin warriors, he came plunging down from behind the slope like divine soldiers descending from the heavens!
Wielding the longswords granted by their lord, they crashed savagely into the weakest part of the wolf pack—their rear.
Attacked from both front and back, the wolf pack instantly fell into complete chaos!
Fear overwhelmed their savagery. Wailing, they broke and fled in all directions!
“Pursue them! Don’t let them escape!”
Seeing this, Bol let out an even wilder roar and led the soldiers, whose morale had soared, into a countercharge.
The brutal fighting ended very quickly.
More than sixty wolf carcasses were left scattered across the wasteland.
On the human side, five new recruits had been killed, while more than a dozen others had suffered injuries of varying severity, most of them scratches and bite wounds.
Several of the Wolf-kin warriors had also been wounded, but none of them had died.
Eli looked at the bodies of the fallen soldiers being carried away, then at the wounded as their injuries were being bandaged, and let out a long sigh.
“Clean the battlefield. Gather our fallen brothers properly. Treat the wounded first.”
“Brandon, take some men and harvest the spoils.”
The soldiers carried out the orders in silence, and the mood grew heavy.
Eli frowned.
Then he drew a deep breath and broke the oppressive stillness.
“Now! Bring our heroes—Wolfgang—and every one of our brave Wolf-kin brothers here to the center!”
Under the somewhat bewildered and awed gazes of the soldiers, Wolfgang and his clansmen silently walked to Eli’s side.
Wolf blood still stained their bodies, and their eyes were as wild and defiant as ever.
“It was them!”
“They were the ones who discovered the wolf pack in advance and bought us precious time to prepare!”
“And at the most critical moment, it was they who struck those beasts a fatal blow from behind!”
“Look at these wolf corpses!” Eli kicked the huge gray wolf carcass at his feet.
“They are meat! They are hides! They are the fragrant wolf-meat stew that will be in your bowls tonight!
This pot of meat stew is a gift from Wolfgang and our Wolf-kin brothers! Tell me—are they heroes or not?!”
After a brief silence—
“Yes!!!”
“Heroes!!”
“Wolf-kin brothers! Well done!”
The soldiers were the first to erupt into thunderous cheers!
Then, inside the defensive ring, the slaves who had witnessed everything with their own eyes also burst into deafening cries of joy, the wild elation of survivors spilling out of them at last—
“Heroes!”
“Long live the lord!”
“There’s meat to eat!!”
The cheering rolled through the entire camp like a tidal wave.
Watching the Wolf-kin gathered in the center—slightly awkward, yet unconsciously standing a little straighter beneath the crowd’s attention—
Watching the cheering slaves and soldiers, Eli slowly let out the stale breath in his chest.