Becoming a crusader is fine…
What Al wanted to do was something that, if not unprecedented in the entire Old World, could at least be called without parallel. In the end it still came down to negotiating on the battlefield.
Fervent discipline!
As long as we win!
Legitimacy will naturally be argued once we enter the pass!
Thinking this way, it almost felt like the next moment the offspring would kneel on one knee around their little father and cry "Ama."
Misha would be the eldest princess, her brothers and sisters the various princes and princesses.
The New Four Gods would be divided into eight legions, each commanded by a military lord and niru. They would fight all the way to Magritta, enclose land on horseback, establish the legitimate beastmen nation, allocate humans as serfs, bring new elegant governance with fur and horns, and sweep away the old ugly customs of the hairless naked apes…
Something feels wrong!
Al drove the messy thoughts that had once again popped into his head out of his mind and threw that strange fantasy aside.
If I used a military-slave empire to fight the End Times, what would be the point?
To let the common people of the Old World choose between two piles of shit and pick the one that smelled less?
He turned his eyes to the present and examined the most important issue — the army.
A very major problem: equipment was no longer enough.
And the quality was also very poor.
After all, with beastmen-level smelting it was hard to expect their self-produced and self-sold equipment to be very good. Al had sent people to find some small iron mines and barely produced a little pig iron. After banging and hammering it into rough shapes it was considered usable.
Al himself had basically never touched knowledge related to smelting industry, so he could only let the craftsmen explore on their own. It was fortunate there were still mines nearby, otherwise his Rage-Horn legions might have had to try fighting with wooden spears and stone swords very early on.
Now it was no longer like the old days when Chaos was rising. Whatever you wanted would come with a blessing — the Norscans could grow weapons and armor straight out of their flesh.
Because the location was too remote and most of the tribe consisted of Chaos believers, they were the kind who could walk openly on the road and have twelve groups draw swords and plant banners to fight after passing ten groups.
Al had tried letting the now-precious Shepherd believers — whom he specially protected and forbade from privately converting to the Four Gods — form tribal wanderers to trade with humans outside. Their main products were amber, minerals, alchemical and pharmaceutical materials, and so on.
In exchange they got a pile of farming tools — and they were even used ones!
And the Estalian merchants still had an "take it or leave it" attitude — a bunch of tribal bumpkins who dared not trade with me would soon have city guards at your door!
On the other end Al, remotely directing, felt the malice of the Order world for the second time (the first was when Rhine brought troops to kill him):
So this is what civilization is?
It's not even as honest as my tribespeople!
Civilized treacherous men are weak and decadent; savage pure-hearted warriors are full of martial virtue!
Who will fight the End Times does not need me to say, right?
But there was no other way, so they had to trade. Otherwise a bunch of honest beastmen — even Shepherd believers — without proper legal city status would still be treated as fourth-class citizens. If they were really caught and had their bones sucked dry, no one would care.
The New World, because of the many assimilated beastmen plus the various rights, parliaments, and party atmospheres the elves had created, actually had quite a few beastmen human-rights protection associations, but that was in the New World.
Gritting his teeth, Al swallowed this breath and remembered the face and identity of the third villain since his transmigration (first Beastlord Zhakun, second uncle Rhine). When the time came he would let them know what "thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river — do not bully the poor beastmen!" meant.
What "ten years is not too late" meant, and what the fuck "what the fuck surprise!" meant!
After that Al gave up on the idea of trading with the outside world before he had enough initiative. At most he would let some beastmen carry hides, minerals, and other goods to trade directly with Estalian villagers and farmers.
They could not get weapons, but some tools were possible. The risk was not high, but large-scale trade was impossible.
But even this still carried risk. How big could a tribe be if it came to trade every few days?
After trying it a few times the beastmen reported being questioned and followed more often, so Al stopped this route as well. Going farther away was even worse.
So he was extremely short on equipment.
Tools were already enough. After all, the difference between wooden-stone and iron was only ease of use and how long they lasted, but weapons and armor were on completely different levels.
Scarce minerals, low smelting and forging levels — both problems plagued Al's tribe.
His original vision of a fully armored heavy infantry legion had not even managed to assemble a single set of armor that could reach "heavy armor" standards.
Talk about entering the pass — even the Eight Banners could wear plate. The fierce brutes under Al's command, each averaging one and a half adult heights, were basically naked except for groin and vital-area protection.
He had been pondering this for a long time. Climbing technology was not something that happened by clicking points at the end of a turn. Besides, this was not a problem one or two key technologies could solve. Technical issues affected the whole system.
Mineral scarcity was also a difficult point. He could not organize people right now to head east into the Irrana Mountains to find mines. Even if they found them, mining, transport, smelting, and forming would be a long period.
Al slapped Misha's thigh.
Doing so much painstaking work — shouldn't a Chaos son simply ask the gods to descend?
Mom!
Hungry! Food!
"ROAR!"
The maddened filth-beast's insect-like, beast-like maw full of sharp teeth let out a roar. In response came another comet-like hammer strike to its face.
Its body covered in countless small mouths and sharp teeth — enough to make trypophobia sufferers lose SAN — convulsed and crashed to the ground.
The centaur showed no mercy toward enemies. She continued swinging her giant hammer, smashing that head until purple, green, red, white, yellow, and black fluids mixed and flowed everywhere. Then she drew her curved blade and thrust it into the filth-beast's brain cavity,
stirring until the evil, blasphemous, ugly creature — as if it were the malice of the world itself — let out a piercing scream and went completely offline.
The countless small mouths covering its body also leaked various viscous fluids — the sign of its death.
The Rage-Horn Beasts cleared out the remaining Chaos beastmen around them. These creatures had either been enslaved by this evil giant beast or had gathered toward its blasphemous aura on their own. Whether they worshipped the giant beast like forest greenskins worshipped giant spiders was unknown.
In any case they received no chance to be civilized, because Al no longer lacked population.
Everything today was done in pursuit of sacrificial offerings.
The massive eight-pointed star once again appeared in the forest, outlined with blood and flesh.
Over this period Al had lost count of how many offerings had been sacrificed. He only knew it was an enormous number. The marks on his body were all stirring and swelling, hoping to open the rift and let the blessings from the other side cross over.
Although he knew it was only his own perceptual illusion, Al still could not help expecting: what would the Bloodmother send him from the Black Iron Throne?
For matters of war and legions, of course he would go to the Bloodmother first!
The mountains of skulls and corpses piled on the Black Iron Throne, and the things inside the Blood God's arsenal — even a little leak would be enough for the tribe to eat and drink their fill.
"ROAR!"
The maddened filth-beast's insect-like, beast-like maw full of sharp teeth let out a roar. In response came another comet-like hammer strike to its face.
Its body covered in countless small mouths and sharp teeth — enough to make trypophobia sufferers lose SAN — convulsed and crashed to the ground.
The centaur showed no mercy toward enemies. She continued swinging her giant hammer, smashing that head until purple, green, red, white, yellow, and black fluids mixed and flowed everywhere. Then she drew her curved blade and thrust it into the filth-beast's brain cavity,
stirring until the evil, blasphemous, ugly creature — as if it were the malice of the world itself — let out a piercing scream and went completely offline.
The countless small mouths covering its body also leaked various viscous fluids — the sign of its death.
The Rage-Horn Beasts cleared out the remaining Chaos beastmen around them. These creatures had either been enslaved by this evil giant beast or had gathered toward its blasphemous aura on their own. Whether they worshipped the giant beast like forest greenskins worshipped giant spiders was unknown.
In any case they received no chance to be civilized, because Al no longer lacked population.
Everything today was done in pursuit of sacrificial offerings.
The massive eight-pointed star once again appeared in the forest, outlined with blood and flesh.
Over this period Al had lost count of how many offerings had been sacrificed. He only knew it was an enormous number. The marks on his body were all stirring and swelling, hoping to open the rift and let the blessings from the other side cross over.
Although he knew it was only his own perceptual illusion, Al still could not help expecting: what would the Bloodmother send him from the Black Iron Throne?
For matters of war and legions, of course he would go to the Bloodmother first!
The mountains of skulls and corpses piled on the Black Iron Throne, and the things inside the Blood God's arsenal — even a little leak would be enough for the tribe to eat and drink their fill.