Chapter 3 – Story 84: Moves Outside the Board
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Moves outside the board; those words left behind by Solon unduly weighed on Adomius’s mind. He had absolutely no clue what it was, but he knew the enemy would come at them in some form or shape. At least, this was a premonition close to conviction in his eyes.
When he assumed to be in the enemy’s position, he could think of several ways to besiege this city or negotiate with its lord. Moreover, when he considered what would be the most efficient way to attack Luoma, Adomius couldn’t help but to put on a grim expression.
After all, it was betrayal. The trigger for this would be Prince Alexius’s brutality when he fled into this city. There was no doubt about a huge rift having opened up between the local soldiers and Holmea’s royal family because of that. Obviously, seeing how they were forced to shoot their own friends to death.
It’d be next to impossible to ask them to not be disappointed and angry with Prince Alexius. And thanks to that, the morale among the soldiers was down at the rock bottom.
Adomius suspected that all of them imagined themselves being the next one to be shot by arrows. Given this uncertainty, it was unthinkable that the soldiers would want to fight under Alexius.
If he was the enemy commander, he’d mercilessly exploit this opening. He’d spread rumors full of scorn about Alexius and Holmea’s royal family, mixing truth and lies, in order to widen the rift even further. However, if he were to do that, he’d need to send in collaborators and write letters with such rumors.
Aware of such possibility, Adomius had already taken measures to not allow something like that to happen.
First off, about the letters brought in by the surrenderers who came into the city with Solon: Of course, he couldn’t forbid the soldiers informing their families about their safety as it’d otherwise spark a backlash by the residents. However, he had ordered his soldiers to thoroughly check the letters before handing them to the families.
Moreover, the surrenderers, who had brought those letters, were isolated so that they wouldn’t be able to get in contact with the residents while being closely monitored to prevent the recruitment of collaborators.
As far as what Adomius had heard so far, the letters of the imprisoned soldiers only contained news about their safety and trivial rambling about their daily lives as prisoners of war. And the surrenderers also avoided talking about Alexius――probably out of consideration for the soldiers watching them――merely talking about trivial gossip related to their lives as prisoners.
If it was just this much, it shouldn’t pose any problem whatsoever. Yep, it should be all safe and sound.
At that point, Adomius suddenly realized.
“It’s too little of a problem…!”
The revolting slaves should be interested in taking Luoma. Otherwise it’d be pointless for them to encamp themselves in front of the city and they should have pulled back or whatever long ago. And if they intend to take the city, they probably want to get it done as soon as possible.
Considering it calmly, it has too many things that don’t make any sense.
Adomius’s intuition was whispering to him that there was something more to this. He didn’t know what it was, but if something were to happen, the most likely place for this would be the city gate where the surrenderers were detained while Solon moved on to the castle every day.
Although it was a state of emergency, he had stopped listening to the reports thus far out of consideration that it wouldn’t be good if they, the remnants of a defeated army and members of the royal army, were to act like they owned the place, but at this point he didn’t have the leeway to be so understanding anymore.
Adomius hurried to the city gate. As he got closer, he noticed a strange smell. It was a mysterious fragrance he had never smelled in his life, but strangely it whetted his appetite.
However, rations were strictly rationed in the city at the moment in preparation of an extended siege. The food currently distributed to the soldiers didn’t cause such an aroma.
“Hey you overe! What are you doing!?”
Adomius yelled after spotting the guards gathered next to the gate which had been blocked off with a pile of sandbags. Noticing his approach, the guards clearly pulled expressions as if they’d messed up.
Because of that, Adomius stomped up to them while glaring.
“Just what the hell is this!?”
A big pot over a fire placed in the center of the gathered guards. Inside something like thick, gooey porridge was bubbling.
Adomius understood this to be the source of the delicious aroma. At the same time, he wondered what this was. The porridge Adomius knew well was a meal where goat milk and wheat, either flour or coarsely ground, were boiled. Because of that, the color of porridge would be white or white with a faint touch of yellow.
Yet, the porridge boiling inside the pot right now was light brown like muddy water. As far as Adomius knew, something like this wasn’t included in the provisions distributed to the soldiers.
“Don’t tell me…you bastards…where did you pilfer these provisions!?”
Embezzling or stealing provisions during a siege was a serious crime equal to treason. If it was discovered, the offenders would be executed.
The guards immediately turned pale and explained, “Y-You’re wrong! Our friend, who’s become a prisoner of war, brought this with him…”
As he was too frantic in finding the right excuse, he ended up saying something better left unsaid. His comrade blocked his mouth in a hurry, but it was already too late.
“What does that mean!?”
Scared by Adomius roaring at them with the face of a demon, the guards started to explain without hiding anything. After listening to the end, Adomius was dumbfounded at first and then rebuked them harshly.
“What are you thinking!? Hearing that the surrenderers have been eating unusual and tasty food, you became jealous and asked them to share some with you!?”
According to the guards, the surrenderers had brought unusual food, which they were fed by the revolting slaves, alongside the letters, asking their friends to hand that food to their families.
It was no money or valuables. Moreover the revolting slaves were regularly eating this food as well.
Hence the guards delivered it to their friends’ families without saying anything much about it. Soon, those families started to unanimously talk about the food being extremely delicious. On top of that, the food was so good that those families not only stopped worrying about their men having become prisoners of war, but they even asked to get more of it.
In light of this, the guards also became interested and when they tried to ask whether it’d be possible to get a share as well, it led to the current situation.
Adomius was enraged and at the same time, he was somewhat appalled. He’d have understood it if it was money or other valuables, but for the guards to be won over by something trivial as food was beyond his expectations.
What are these idiots planning to do if the food contains meat carrying a disease or poison?
Adomius felt a headache while asking himself just how the guards of this city had been trained.
But, one of the guards offered Adomius a bowl full of porridge.
“Now, now, Sir Regimental Commander, please give it a try as well.”
Adomius refused as he was worried about it being poisoned, but the guards insisted that there was no poison in it as they had eaten their own share as well.
Accepting the logic, Adomius’s curiosity in finding out what the enemy was eating won over, and he took a spoonful of the porridge in his bowl.
“…Delicious!”
It looked nasty, but its taste was first-class. Probably taking soldiers into account who would be sweating a lot while moving around, it possessed a pronounced saltiness overall. However, soon after Adomius’s tongue was assaulted by a mysterious umami he had never tasted thus far.
It’s no meat, fish, or vegetable. Just what is this…?
It was only natural for Adomius to be confused. After all, this was the taste of soya bean mito, something that wasn’t commonly known in Holmea. Something like the umami produced by breaking the proteins of soybeans apart was naturally something Adomius had never experienced.
Furthermore, not only did the porridge contain small pieces of fish and vegetables, but it also had some meat. For a Holmean commoner this could doubtlessly be a dish far more extravagant than anything they usually ate.
Yet, this wasn’t the end of it.
“Sir Regimental Commander, we also received this here. Please try it.”
Maybe he saw this as a chance to fight back or he was trying to win over Adomius as a comrade in crime, but one of the guards held out something to Adomius with a smarmy smile on his lips.
“This is food?”
It was only logical for Adomius to ask that. What he had been handed was a small, yellowish-brown block, looking like a sun-dried, miniature brick. Once he tried to touch it, it wasn’t hard. He could even feel some flexibility from it.
Based on Adomius’s experience, it has a texture like cooled sheep soup that had hardened somewhat. But, no matter how you looked at it, its color didn’t make it look overly appetizing. Rather, it didn’t look edible at all.
“It’s truly delicious, so please try eating it.”
Being told so, Adomius tossed it into his mouth while half in doubt. In the next moment, flavors exploded in his mouth.
“…! S-Sweet!?”
It was such an intense shock that Adomius ended up shouting in reflex. And Adomius knew that shock. This was the same feeling he experienced when he ate the rare pasty which General Darius had ordered from abroad to treat his guest during his banquet in the past.
While dumbstruck, Adomius muttered, “This is…no way…!?”
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