Like most other city-states in the classical era, the overall structure of the ancient city of Katigali is based on the simple and efficient structure of the quadrilateral.
If it were not covered with a large amount of thick green vegetation on the surface, it would look like a large square within a small square when viewed from the air. Of course, the shape is not so standard, but it is generally composed of such a structure.
The large square is the outer city wall, with a gate on each of its four sides. The small square with the largest area in the center is usually the central hub of the city-state that functions as a residence for city lords, nobles, councilors and other dignitaries, and integrates courts and city hall.
With it as the center, the surrounding buildings will spread out in ripples based on their importance.
The headquarters of the city-state garrison is usually not too far away from the city lord's palace, and on the other side of it is either a religious sacrificial temple or the location of the chamber of commerce responsible for managing commerce. The next expanded circle is the residential area where the relatively important key personnel of the city-state and the middle class who have a certain status in the local area live.
Further outside are the markets, crafts workshops and residences of ordinary citizens, while the garrison barracks, stables and hotels will be arranged in the corners, bordering them and clearly distinguishable from the residences of the nobles.
As for the poor and beggars, they can only enter the city when begging for food or working. Their settlements are usually simple stone and wooden houses that lack protection outside the city.
By the standards of city-states in the classical era, Katigali can be regarded as a large city second to none.
A city-state that can accommodate 2,000 people, if Henry and his party wanted to fully explore it, it would probably take quite a while. In addition, the various huge vegetation covering the city wall and various ancient houses, and the broken stone slabs emerging from there, blocked the sunlight and blocked the way. Anyone with a discerning eye could tell that it would not be easy to conduct an in-depth investigation.
In fact, if they had not encountered the earth dragon, they had no intention of entering the city-state in the first place. Although the city wall can provide certain protection, anything can happen in two thousand years. If you encounter an enemy outside and cannot defeat it, you can at least find a way to evacuate. If you are surrounded by a city wall and don't know where it may collapse, if something goes wrong, you may not even know how you died.
But plans are plans, and now they have entered it. Even if the earth dragon temporarily leaves due to heavy damage, no one can judge whether it will come back.
If the dragon had not been infected, the sage might still be able to make judgments through some actions combined with knowledge, and even avoid falling into such a disastrous situation in the first place. But there are no ifs in the world, and the actions of the earth dragon that has been eroded by poison are irregular. Therefore, after thinking about it, staying in Katigali now is the most conservative decision.
But what if you stay? ——Before this question was raised, a voice that clearly did not belong to their group came from the area covered by various thick vines near the entrance to the east city gate where they were.
But this may not be a bad thing for the knights and mercenaries.
Mercenaries, noble knights, and even most civilians and businessmen have simple thoughts and ideas.
They are too tired.
There have been so many bumps and disasters along the way that they have almost no time or energy to think about what to do next. And just like many soldiers on the battlefield, when you are tired and numb, the best and easiest way is to lose yourself and follow orders.
You don’t need to think by yourself, you don’t need to make decisions by yourself.
The responsibility is borne by the people above who give the orders, and the decisions are made by the people above. All you need to do is to move forward according to their instructions.
This is the real point that distinguishes leaders from those led. It is true that bravery and talent also play an equal role, but what really determines the difference in starting point is the independence of thinking, the awareness of taking responsibility, and the ability to find the way forward in the face of difficulties. Action force.
The situation they are facing now is very difficult and dangerous, but when there is a suspected threat in the city of Katigali again, the knights and mercenaries feel a bit of relief and relaxation.
On other battlefields, this would also be a common scene.
His eyes turned red, and he gave up thinking due to exhaustion.
There is no right or wrong, no good and evil in their eyes, and they have even forgotten what they fought for in the first place. They just divide everything into simple enemy and friend, and there is no need to think about the next way out, nor the pressure that makes people breathless. It’s a matter of not getting angry.
Just pick up the sword and kill, or be killed.
This sounds like a group of bloodthirsty and ferocious warriors with powerful combat capabilities, but in fact the more unprofessional the team, the easier it is for this to happen.
The strength of the earth dragons is overwhelming, and their logistics troops have been completely wiped out before. Coupled with the threat of the witch, even the strong-hearted Imperial Knights will inevitably be shaken by repeated setbacks.
Under such circumstances, they could not help but fall into the same psychological situation as Rono and his group of Highlanders thugs before.
They urgently need to find the value and meaning of their existence, and do something else to make themselves feel better.
The mob chose to inflict pain on others when their own lives were threatened. Although the knights and mercenaries were better than this, they also chose to give up thinking when they were almost desperate.
Just distinguish between ourselves and the enemy and then fight with them.
"Stop—!" Constantine was a man of general talent, and he still noticed this sign despite the chaos and trouble. Because of the abandonment of Rono and his group, as well as some friction between the merchant's carriage and the war horse, the team was already showing signs of splitting into two groups: nobles and civilians. Under this situation, if they were allowed to do so, they would If this inertia of thinking about dividing ourselves and the enemy and then fighting continues, it will inevitably split in an extremely bloody and violent way.
"calm!"
The long-term personal prestige played an extraordinary role in this situation. The moment Constantine appeared, the aristocratic knights who were already tense and planning to explore inside stopped.
The mercenaries were already under less psychological pressure because they did not have direct contact with the Earth Dragon. Now that no one took the lead after seeing them stop, they had no choice but to put away their weapons silently.
"We can't afford to lose more personnel. The risk of exploration is too great. Set up perimeter defense." Constantine said as he reached out to untie the straps of the leg armor and shoulder armor. No matter how excellent the style of Padrosi's plate armor is, it is only designed to fight humanoid creatures. When facing an earth dragon weighing several tons, even wearing limb armor is completely unable to withstand it. In addition, this journey First of all, most of the time it is a supply problem that cannot make ends meet. At this time, only leaving the protection of the trunk part and temporarily removing the other parts of the armor to reduce the burden is the right solution.
Even if the knights are considered quite elite, only a few extreme cases will occur when they wear full-body armor for long periods of time. Most of the time they only wear it when they go to the battlefield, and at other times they only wear regular clothes and simple armed clothing.
The weight of just over 20 kilograms would be enough for someone with poor nutrition and physical fitness to lie down in a few hours, but even such an elite would be unable to bear it at this time.
Therefore, under the leadership of Constantine, many people removed parts of their armor to reduce their burden.
You don't need to be a sage to list how stupid what they are doing is. They are in a Warcraft territory that has just experienced a bloodbath, and they just fought off a terrifying earth monster ten minutes ago. dragon. And not to mention how many structures in this ancient city are unstable and may collapse at any time, there is obviously something other than their group at work.
If a young Padrossi noble who thinks highly of himself and talks about war on paper were here, he would probably ridicule Constantine's decision as useless.
But if you ask him what to do at this time, he will inevitably become speechless and hesitate for a long time without being able to spit out a byte.
With supplies cut off, both men and horses were exhausted. We had just experienced a bloody battle, and there were many casualties, including minor and serious injuries and casualties. But these are not the biggest troubles, the biggest trouble is.
They couldn't find the way down.
"Set up a perimeter defense line, collect materials from the local area, and others will take care of the wounded. Your Excellency, instructor." Constantine turned his head and looked at Ferruccio: "Please lead the stronger ones among the mercenaries and merchants out to check the horses and The whereabouts of the knights, if there are still survivors, we must not give up."
The knight captain said this, and the old butler nodded, then turned back and led Filippo towards Mario, Moro and the others.
The gap between the experienced and mature real commanders and those young nobles who only talk on paper and blame others is fully revealed at this moment. Just as our sages often do, Constantine did not blindly only know how to deal with problems after encountering them. Instead of blaming others when problems are raised, he quickly arranges them, remains calm in desperate situations, and mediates and directs.
With him and Henry around, the team would not fall into complete chaos and disorder.
But even so, the problem of roads is something that our wise man cannot solve.
It is true that they must leave here as soon as possible.
But the ancient city of Katigali was a city-state two thousand years ago. Even though it was considered glorious and prosperous in that era, the ancient Baka Road has become dilapidated under the invasion of time.
After the earth dragon left, while the mercenaries and merchants were timidly cleaning up the mess, Henry went out to explore. However, the only feasible way in front of him was where the earth dragon went down the mountain, and the earth dragon with strong limbs and sharp claws The road down the mountain was obviously not suitable for a carriage pulling hundreds of kilograms of cargo.
Persuading merchants to give up their goods cannot be an easy task. The common distrust of the nobles among the common people in Padrosi makes even Constantine or Margaret give the advice of "discard the goods and arrive at They will stubbornly deny the condition that "all the towns and cities will be compensated with money in the future", and even have the opposite effect and become more determined to protect their goods.
If during the negotiation process a businessman brought up the matter of abandoning Rono and the others as an argument, then even if the two parties did not fall out completely, the atmosphere would be very awkward.
This is a point that is best not to be touched lightly. Even friends may fall out if they have different views on politics, religion or even life. Not to mention that there are already faint signs of splitting in their ranks. If the things that the merchants rely on for a living are used as the key point of negotiation at this time, the conflicts that have been vaguely showing signs of breaking out will be completely laid out. open.
It is often said that misfortunes never come singly, which is largely caused by the ideological and personality gaps between individual human beings.
When everything is balanced and runs smoothly without any setbacks, people from all walks of life in society can live in harmony. But when people begin to suffer due to certain problems and are unable to smoothly achieve what they want and get what they need, conflicts will arise due to a series of factors such as dissatisfaction and psychological imbalance.
This is the situation they are in now. Although kind-hearted people like Xiao Mira always hope that everyone can work together to overcome difficulties, in fact, when they encounter difficulties, they start to blame each other and shirk responsibility. A common sight in the world.
This scene was extremely ironic - Henry looked back at the busy nobles and commoners, and even though he had seen similar scenes countless times, he still couldn't help but sigh.
The reason why the conflict did not break out was not because both sides were still holding back, but precisely because the powerful forces that the common people hated the most were suppressing them.
Mercenaries and merchants did not dare to make their conflicts public because they were afraid of the force of the noble knights. The noble knights suppressed their dissatisfaction with the merchants' insistence on giving up their trucks, all because of the prestige of Constantine.
If the knight captain is a cowardly and incompetent character, or if the number and combat effectiveness of the knights further weakens the mercenaries and merchants and thinks that they have the same right to speak as them, then this harmonious relationship that can barely be maintained will be Completely over.
There are still many, many problems before us.
But the most important thing is that they still need to solve the casualties and supplies as well as the most pressing safety issues.
After two thousand years, even if the stone structure had not completely collapsed, it was impossible for Katigali to still have a gate.
It's unknown whether the earth dragons will return, and the threat of ghouls still exists, plus the walking corpses who have returned from the dead. Although they do not pose much of a threat when they are well equipped, even these guys may become the straw that breaks the camel's back when they have already been hit hard.
After checking Mira's injuries again and confirming that she was just a little dazed and had not really suffered any fatal injuries, the sage, Constantine and others continued to plan the defense plan.
After careful consideration, the knight commander decided to use the war horse that was bitten to death by the earth dragon for cooking.
This is an extremely shameful decision for the knights, because war horses are reliable comrades and trusted partners for them. This behavior of cooking the horses of their dead companions is not beneficial to eating their own dead bodies. But they were really at the end of their rope.
Those monster horses have been eaten up by the ghouls. Who knows whether the toxins in them can be eliminated completely by cooking. The only ones that can be used for dining are the war horses of our own people that were broken by the earth dragon and slapped to death.
Time passed, and after all the above was taken care of, everyone was sitting next to the campfire, biting into the not-so-palatable horse meat.
"Hiccup - I haven't eaten so full for a long time!" The words spoken by a mercenary who was vulgar and could not read the atmosphere with a smile made many knights cast hateful looks at him, but they clenched their fists, even if they tasted... Like chewing wax, in order to preserve physical strength and continue to survive, we can only continue to eat.
The starlight shines through the vines and large branches and leaves all over the walls and houses of Katigali. Although no one has the intention to go and appreciate it, this beautiful scenery exists here silently.
"Haha——" After lying down all afternoon and most of the night, Mira and Mikhail finally woke up one after another.
In addition to them, there were two more seriously injured knights who were still alive. One of them was the knight who had his right thigh broken by the earth dragon. But the two of them were seriously injured, and their chances of surviving in such a wilderness would be extremely slim.
"Are you okay?" Henry asked the two of them with concern. Like the knight's adjutant, Mira felt a feeling of bloating and soreness in her head after waking up. She was still a little confused, but fortunately this was the only time she was injured. The place has arrived. In comparison, although Mikhail, who was protected by a helmet, regained consciousness faster, the tiger's mouth that was injured due to the huge recoil of the lance hitting the earth dragon, as well as his right arm that suffered muscle tears and bone contusions, recovered in a short time. It also made it impossible for him to join the battle anymore.
The situation was extremely tragic, and in this situation, he lost his ability to fight and became a dragster.
This made Mikhail fall into silence after waking up and observing the surrounding situation for a while, but this inner hurdle could only be overcome by himself.
Everyone has their own thoughts and many things need to be dealt with and resolved.
But what attracted the sage's attention the most was that after waking up for a while, the white-haired girl suddenly looked towards the interior of the ancient city of Kadigali, which was lush and green under the moonlight. She was in a daze for a long time, and finally said softly The words came out that only the two of them could hear.
"It seems like something is calling me."
