Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 264: Leisure Time

Claude had no idea how much wind had been caused by Major Ledfank's passing on the jet, and had even been denounced as false warfare by the General Staff of Front Line Command. He is now tired and busy, and the only thing that can comfort him is that every few days he spends half a day with Sheila, the young magician, he is given a moment of peace and tranquillity.

Tired is not physical fatigue, but mental fatigue. With the exception of Claude and the big, heartless Grimm, who knew only to fill their bellies, all the soldiers and officers who fought more or less experienced some psychological and mental anomalies. Like Sergeant Markzi, he also had insomnia for several days, saying that he would always hear screams and wails coming from Squirrel Village when he closed his eyes.

Even Markzi, who is a veteran oil, doesn't mention the soldiers. The same goes for Muried and Diaved, who said privately to Claude, "I don't know why, on the battlefield, they died from gunfire, from the beatings of a bayonet, and whether they were enemies or their own comrades, they thought it was perfectly normal, nothing surprising or sad. As a soldier, the battlefield of death is inherently a homecoming.

But like Claude, a fire that burns so many enemies, it always feels like those enemies are dying too unjustly. Instead of facing the battlefield, they were conspired to die in the pit. Especially when they ended up trapped in a fire. The tragic cry for help and moaning had a certain spiritual impact on every soldier heard outside...

Fortunately, Claude would have ordered the soldiers to pour water on the ground and buildings of the cantonment camp and to prepare for the attack on the enemy's camp, but after all that had been delayed until now, everything had calmed down, and the soldiers' psychology had slowly changed, and they would always have had to think independently of the tragic cry for help that night in the fire.

Insomnia like McKee, Muriel and Diaveed is still mild, and it's worse when you have nightmares as soon as you fall asleep like McJackie and find yourself trapped in a fire and scream to wake up from your dreams. A lot of the soldiers, like Mike, not only couldn't get a good rest themselves, but even the other soldiers woke up, and the next day, they all wore two dark circles and were overwhelmed with spirit.

Muried said that everyone suspected that the enemies burned in Squirrel Village, their souls could not return to the kingdom of the gods of war for eternal sleep, so they could only wander around Squirrel Village, constantly entangling those who had killed them… that was the main reason why no one could relax and let themselves rest well.

This is bullshit, Claude doesn't believe this bullshit, and if there's any ghosts out there, it should haunt him. After all, I am the mastermind of the real plan of fire. If I want to argue, I should be responsible for it. What's the point of interfering with the soldiers under my command? It can be seen that ghosts are also afraid of evil people...

It's all psychological. Claude knew very well that at the last moment of the fire, listening to the cry for help and the cry of the fire, the soldiers had forgotten that the fire was trapped in their own enemy. That would restore humanity and reason. It was just a simple idea to save lives. It was like setting fire to the neighbor's house next door. Everyone was helping to save the fire.

It's just that the fire is too fierce to get close, I can only watch people trapped in it burn and smother alive, which creates a feeling of guilt in the hearts of those soldiers. On the one hand, there is nothing I can do to help. On the other hand, I think of myself as an accomplice to the tragic situation in front of me by setting a fire, so I deepen the guilt, let the conscience in human nature prevail, causing problems in my mind and spirit...

Since we all believe in ghosts and stuff, then this matter is actually solved, nothing more than the destruction of our own money. Claude pulled out his pocket and threw it at Muriel, and asked him to take a few men to town to invite some of the priests of the Temple of War back, to hold a large sacrifice in Squirrel Village, and to return the spirits of the burned enemies to the kingdom of the gods of war. At the same time, do the ideological work of the soldiers, emphasizing that those burned are our enemies, not their own neighbors. They came to Squirrel Village to kill us, not to join us...

After more than a decade of torturing, Claude finally took care of the past. Claude paid more than twenty gold kroner in his own pocket, and this money could not even be reimbursed to the battalion, because there was no expenditure on the treatment of this soldier's psychological problems at all in the military expense, such as Markzi's small amount of alcohol but becoming an alcoholic was too much stress to buy drunk to relax himself after going to war. Women and wine are actually the best relaxants for soldiers of this era.

But when Claude stayed with Sheila, the maiden magician, Sheila asked Claude strangely, why didn't you have this heart problem and burn so many people that you didn't feel guilty at all? Looks like you are a magician. Magicians treat these ordinary people high and ruthless. No magician cares about the lives of these ordinary people...

Sheila asked herself, but Claude knew very well that he had no feelings as the mastermind of burning so many enemies. Except that night and the next day, when he was disgusted by the smell of barbecued human flesh, he felt really calm and no guilt existed. Eat and sleep perfectly, there is no psychological burden at all.

It's not a matter of magicians not being magicians, but being a reborn, even though Claude has done his best to integrate into this strange world, he still has no feelings for the kingdom other than his loved ones and a few good friends. Even in this war, he felt like he was playing a more real game. Whether they're soldiers or enemies, Claude always treats them unconsciously as NPCs. With the exception of Muriel and McJackie, who are closer together, the rest of them don't make much difference in his eyes.

In such circumstances, Claude's eyes were nothing more than statistics. The only guarantee he had was that he would not survive the war, because he did not know if he had any chance of being resurrected and could not easily sacrifice himself. So no matter what means to plot against the enemy, there is no need to regret it without regret. Anyway, whoever wants my life, I will kill him first, and that's how simple it is.

The villagers of Squirrel Village are back, and they will need to sow in the mountain fields in case they miss the farming hours, otherwise they will starve this winter. Now that the war is over, they can't stay in Blackstone Village and run back. It's just that Squirrel Village has been burned to white ground. Their shitty nest house is out of smoke...

Claude was still responsible for helping them build the new squirrel village. Anyway, it will not be him who works, and the more than one hundred and thirty prisoners who remain in the camp will be the main labourers in the construction of the new squirrel village. All Claude had to do was plan squirrel villages together and build more organized villagers' houses. It doesn't take much money, there's all kinds of building materials in the mountains, and there's a lack of green labor. Now that the captives have filled the labour gap, Claude is lucky enough to allocate part of the rough miscellaneous grain seized from the Territory's noble camp for food consumption.

Claude encouraged the villagers to expand their farming industry, believing that the geographic environment of Squirrel Village was likely to become a major military garrison on the border in the future. Even if they leave, factional forces will be stationed above to take control of the mountain path. So if the villagers in Squirrel Village are vigorously raising livestock and poultry, they don't have to worry about selling it. The local procurement by the garrison also eliminated transportation costs from the rear, and the villagers earned more, a win-win result.

McKee listened to Claude beside him, secretly encouraged the village elder to help build the village now, first build a tavern out, so that the soldiers stationed here later had a place to have fun, and the village elder could make a fortune... So the village elder moved, really came to Claude to ask for a tavern for the village first, made Claude cry, finally agreed to the village elder's request.

Design planning is Claude's old business, but Claude is not ready to build tall, stylish homes for squirrel villagers. He simply reprogrammed the entire village's architectural layout to give the villagers a better place to live than the shattered shack, and a yard of similar size for the villagers' new house would suffice for all the villagers to be satisfied with Grateful Dade.

All Claude was going to build for the villagers this time was a mud embryo house. First, he would dry the logs, then he would build the frame of the house, dig out the foundation of the wall, and stone it a foot high. Then we dig yellow mud, clay, lime from the mountains. After crushing, stirring, filling the wooden frame into mud brick, drying, after using clay and lime stirring to build the wall, in more than half a month and a decade, individuals can build a villager's house, as for how to arrange Claude inside, there is no need to control it, let the villagers play.

According to the wishes of the village elder, the first thing to be completed is the pub in the village. Then the village elder took several villagers across the hill and went to several villages in the mountains. He found four young widows to serve as maids. He also acquired many mountain people's homemade fruit and wine mixed wine and wild flavors, and opened the business with a simple arrangement.

Claude didn't go to the bustle the day he opened, but went to the witch woods and the sorceress meeting. After returning at noon the following day, he realized that the tavern had closed and that he was confused. He went back to the cantonment camp to find out that yesterday night the business of the tavern flourished and almost all the soldiers who were not on duty went to the tavern. Soldiers stationed here have money and nowhere to spend it. How could they be unhappy to build a tavern here and then empty all the liquor and wild taste in the tavern?

The elder village chief and his wife, as well as several villagers who helped in the pub, were not even allowed to eat dinner, and eventually had to go to other villagers to get some grain holes before filling their stomachs. As for the four young widows who make the most of their business as maids, they never get out of bed when they open at 4 p.m. and close at 2 p.m. One soldier is waiting in line. Almost every waitress is said to have received more than 20 soldiers. They will not be able to recover for the next three or four days...

Claude really wants to yell at me. Now there are more than one hundred and thirty people in the entire camp, except for the wounded, and two thirds of the soldiers have gone to visit the four widows, which is disgraceful.

Diavid knocked on the door, followed the correspondent, and the two walked and talked about the four waitresses in the tavern. As chief sergeant, Diaved and Muried, Markzi and others were the first guests of the four waitresses in the tavern. The correspondent behind them did not go to the tavern on duty last night. This will be drooling about Diaved bragging about how he fought the waitress's bowels...

Claude blacked his face and ordered Diavid to shut up and take over the pigeon communication from the comms men. This was an order from the battalion, and Major Ledfank was sending a squadron of Diavids back to suppress the local riots. After a month of sighting, there was little movement on Claude's side, and no news was heard that the nobles of the two Duchy Territories had re-recruited men and horses to retaliate. The battalion did not consider it necessary to place three squadrons in Squirrel Village, so it was necessary to recruit back the subsequently backed squadron of Diavid.

Signing the order, letting the comms out, Claude scolded Diaved and told him not to brag about men and women, not glorious, but shallow and nasty. In addition, we need to go back to suppress local riots, keep an eye out, and don't look for women in the drugstore if you're okay, lest someone find out that this horrible problem has set a trap and stabbed you...

When Claude Balabala said a lot, she found Diavid looking at herself complaining uncomfortably: "The boss himself found a beautiful girl to be his girlfriend, how can he know that our little brothers are hungry and thirsty? By the way, the last time I heard of a baroness, she was a big beauty, you detained her here, we don't have the boss, you can only find the waitress of the tavern to vent..."

Claude was silent and could only wave to get Diavid to leave with his squadron.

For Claude, two months after the defeat of the Alliance of Nobles of the two Duchy Territories was a rare and leisurely time. Although there are a variety of matters that require his own decision, here in Squirrel Village he is the only one in charge and does not need to consult with anyone else, just to make the decision naturally there are those who are responsible for implementation. Whether rebuilding Squirrel Village or soldier's routine training outpost patrol vigilance reconnaissance tasks are overseen and handled by Markzi and Muriel, Mike and others, so he has plenty of free time to run to the Witch Forest and his own little lover, Sheila.

Apart from Diavid being summoned by the battalion to crack down on local riots, Claude has no interest in the outside world. Instead, battalion commander Major Ledfank sent a number of pigeon communications to Claude, conveying a number of messages. At the very least, let Claude know that temporary access to the Picklet Mountains has been restored and that two second-line regiments of reinforcements have entered the three southern counties, who will support two precarious front-line defensive positions…

More than a decade later, Major Ledfank arrived in Squirrel Village with a large group of men who, he told Claude, were from the staff and military discipline of the Front Line Command and who had come to verify the success of Claude and the soldiers.