Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 234: Recruitment for Army

"These are the men who applied for joining the army?" Arrora asked. Looking at the crowd of young boys and girls who looked as thin as sticks in rags, she didn't hope for knights in shining armor but she certainly didn't expect this

"Lady Adria, I chose these men according to your requirements," Clemo replied, counting his fingers. "Male or female, no criminal record, above 18, under 35 years old and not disabled... I have checked over everyone carefully"

After Don left for Sigalla, Lord Clemo thought he could have some break, yet, he was busier than a honey bee as Amaryll, Dior, and Adria had given him more work than he imagined.

Alright, Arrora knew that he could not expect too much. After all, the crops that DOn ordered them to buy had just started to sprout and the soups and porridges the black-armored men were giving these people barely filled their bellies, let alone put some muscles and fat in these youngsters.

Since she was a woman, Lord Clemo prevented her from seeing the refugees who had just come to Agoria with no clothes or barely covered only their privates and it had become a common sight in Agoria. Because of the starvation in some kingdoms, especially during the winter, some people made living by corpse collecting. These people dragged away the corpses of the starving who dropped dead in the streets and burned them after looting anything that could get them a copper or penny.

"So what's a long-term war would do to these people?" Arrora closed her eyes and pondered. Although the wars between the rank four kingdoms would usually end in a few days, the war between the upper ranks kingdom would take weeks or even months due to their kingdom size and the number of soldiers and mages they had.

Generally speaking, when a King of an upper-rank kingdom decided to wage a war, he would convene all the noble families in his domain, who in turn convene the lower noble families in their respective domains. For example, a duke would assemble his counts or earls, while a count would gather his viscounts, and a viscount his barons, and so on and so forth.

These noble families normally had a bunch of knights and soldiers as their own forces. These men were the main forces in a war aside from the king's army, and they were well-armed and equipped. At the same time, they recruited common men and peasants in their domains to join the fight as militia also known as peasants with pointy things. In truth, Militia's sole purpose was to carry provisions for the troops and to fight in the frontline as human shields. The ones who suffered most in battle were those groups of "cannon fodder". As for the warriors from the noble families, as long as they did not die on a battlefield, they would be captured and then treated well so that they could be traded for ransom, especially Knights like Harris.

Arrora would not count on noble families in Agoria and Emir to fight for Don. It was because of two reasons, first, after the heaven's gate execution, many nobles fled the kingdom, and secondly, even though, Don pardoned the remaining nobles for their petty crimes and granted them with business opportunities, it was not enough for them to give their soldiers to die for him in the battlefield.

In fact, she very well knew that Don would rather use his own army than asking for the nobles' help.

In many rank four kingdoms, a platoon was completely composed of peasants and commoners. They had no education to read the documents or understand orders. Not to mention that they never had any professional training like the knights and warriors who started practicing close combat and the mages who started their magical studies at the age of ten?. And unlike the commoners, they had an abundance of resources to cultivate and climb the ladder of cultivation levels from a young age.

Clemo approached Arrora and said softly, "Lady Adria, are you still don't want to buy mercenaries from the guild?'' Look at them. Which one of them can hold a sword or cast a spell? I'm afraid that they'd at the first sight of the enemy troops. This will disturb the line of defense and have a negative effect, in case we went to war with these. I suggest that we should send these youngsters to Lady Amaryll and let her employ them to other works"

"No, we can turn them into a proper army," Arrora said, rejecting Clemo's suggestion. She did not like those mercenaries who fought for money and Don and Knight valued loyalty from their soldiers more than their power. 

Lord Clemo sighed as he couldn't believe how she was going to turn these commoners into the famous black-armored guards.

"Okay, what do you want me to do, Lady Adria? Are you going to train them in close combat or spell casting?"

"Neither, They should first learn to stand in formation and run" Arrora said and took a look at the hundred youngsters before her again.

"Give them something to eat first and after that, let Nanbu train work them until they turn into more than just peasants with weapons"

"As you wish, Lady Adria"

He was not going to argue with her for ordering him to feed them as he feared that these youngsters would die in malnutrition before even the first day of training.

"Wait, Nanbu? Isn't that the one we bought them from King Noa?"

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The unbelievable stuff Taylor had encountered today were more than those of the past 18 years combined.

He saw the famous white lady of death with his own eyes! She walked past him and even looked at him. He pinched himself to make sure that this isn't a dream?

Three months ago, when he heard that King Garreth and Prince Jowan were killed by the King of Everlight and Emir, he didn't think that it would make much difference in their livelihood.

However, he was proven wrong when the new King brutally punished two of the most powerful nobles in Agoria for their crimes against commoners.

He was there when Lord Clemo came to his village to take Zac, the little boy who was beaten to near-death by Lord Ryan. At first, they had no idea why Lord Clemo was taking little Zac to the castle but what happened afterward shocked his entire village. He saw little Zac who was talking and smiling at them again as he was completely healed. The more he and the villagers heard what happened in the castle from Zac's mother, the more they became shocked. And even to this day, there was a portrait of King Don hanging on her wall, and praying for him during their festivities.

And in a few days, everywhere Taylor went, he would hear the name King Don and see the parents of the kids who were healed by him would buy his portrait from the traveling merchants and hang them in their homes. His neighbor even tattooed the name King Don on his chest because his nephew was one of the kids who King Don healed.

The villagers who first thought of him as another run of the mill King started to gossip with their fellow villagers and ask the traveling merchants about their new King. And that was how he came to know about the white lady of death, Lady Adria. The stories he heard about how she single-handedly killed King Garreth's special unit sent a chill through his spine.

The traveling merchants called King Don as the black devil and Lady Adria as the white lady of death. At first, he and everyone thought that Lady Adria was Don's sweetheart but the maids who were working in the castle told them that nothing is going on between them.

Not only King Don and Lady Adria but the reputation of the black-armored soldiers too spread around the villages like a wildfire. Most villagers called them the black ones as they always wore the black armor and never revealed their faces. When they first came to the villagers, people were terrified of them and the kids would wet themselves but that changed when they started to fix their homes to prevent the rainwater from leaking into their homes.

Before they fixed his home, Taylor and his little brother had to collect big leaves and cover the holes in the roof, so their two little sisters could sleep without crying in the night due to the cold. Since his father lost his leg to a wild beast and his mother was too busy with working for the maids as a servant in their homes, he had to man up and look after his family.

Before King Don came to Agoria, they barely had a food supply in villages.

He shared the dark bread he bought with the few coppers he had earned unloading cargo for merchants with his brother. But the last winter was too cold as wind and snow came in through every crack of the shack in which they lived, and what they ate could hardly keep them warm. His little brother lost consciousness and almost died.

His mother cried for days looking at the unconscious body of his brother and he had never felt more helpless and dread like he felt when his brother was fighting for life. And he promised himself that he would never feel like that again and let her mother cry again. That's why when he saw the black ones handing out pamphlets which said King Don is hiring people to work and the military, Taylor came as soon as he could to the castle.

Of course, what had tempted him to give up his quarrying work for enlistment was the pay, which was as high as two gold coins per month.

It would take a year for him and his mother to earn a single gold coin and that was only possible if they didn't spend their wages which was impossible to do so. His mother was no longer young and couldn't keep working for the nobles her entire life, so the moment he saw the salary for the militia, his legs started to run towards the castle.

As for what the notice said about the militia's duties, he took no notice of it. It was either to carry things for their lordships or to facilitate the patrol. After all, they couldn't possibly be ordered to fight during the winter as no one would go to war at that time.

The selection was weird, they were asked a bunch of questions such as their skills, their previous works, family savings, family members, etc.

After they answered the questions, the girl called Lady Amaryll recruited the people who qualified or liked to work as masons, maids, and many other non dangerous jobs for a lower wage. For those who liked to apply for the military, they had to go through a man called Dior and Lord Clemo who implied them to go to Lady Amaryll.

Fortunately, he passed the selection with his rather stout figure, though Dior and Clemo eliminated many kids who were under the age of eighteen or the kids who were the only child in their families through selection. In the end, there were only about 200 people remained who born in Agoria and 100 refugees from various kingdoms.

But it had never occurred to Taylor that it was the white lady of death herself would come to look at them.

Those who passed the selection were brought to the muddy training ground behind the castle. Before them, new houses were being built in the capital, while the black-armored men were giving hot food to the people in the capital as they gave to the villagers in the evenings.

Lady Adria commanded them all to stand in formation and then walked straight into the castle. It was raining as usual and the ground was mushy and muddy. Moisture penetrated his shoes from the water-logged ground, making his whole body uneasy. 

After a while Lady Adria left, a tall man with a muscular body who came to them with an excited grin on his face.

The man introduced himself as Nanbu and he said that he's going to be their trainer. And when they took a deep breath and prepared their mind to start the training, he saw the unexpected.

He couldn't believe his nose and eyes as he saw a group of maids and servants coming out of the castle with huge cooking pots rather than training tools. His mouth started to water without his control as he could hear the grumbling noises that came out of everyone's stomachs.

Even though the black-armored men would sometimes give the villagers meat porridges, they hardly saw an actual meat piece in their porridges.

God knew how long it had been since he had last tasted meat. And looking at the legs sticking out of the pots, he could tell that there's enough meat for everyone in the pots if they decided to give it to them.

At this moment, he couldn't think of the training anymore as he wanted to leap forward and taste that delicious looking meat legs.

"Listen up trainees, this is your last chance to leave and apply for another job. Of course, you wouldn't get the chance to taste this purple dot deer stew and star tailed fish fry but if you chose to put this into your mouth, you can't back away as you spend the next six month by training and working like in hell, when I mean hell, I mean HELL "

He emphasized the word hell and they felt like he was gazing into their soul itself as Taylor heard the sound of someone swallowing.

Hell, was this the new carrot and a stick method, after seeing the meat and smelling the aroma, their minds were blank and no one wanted to back away, especially now they were inches away from delicious juicy meat.