Chương 267: 267：Harvesting the Arsenal

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Sunset Hills camp, the Greywater Village troops were in a frenzy of activity. Crates of meticulously maintained heavy repeating crossbows were loaded onto wooden carts. The blindingly radiant suits of [Mithril-alloyed Plate] were efficiently stripped from the prisoners and packed into chests. Dozens of iron-plated supply wagons, bristling with anti-cavalry spikes, were already being hitched to the massive Wargs brought by the Greywater forces.

Watching this blatant plundering, Lyra, the special envoy guard following closely behind Soren, looked hesitant. She leaned in, lowering her voice with a guilty, apprehensive tone:"My Lord... emptying out the entire armory of the Ironpeak Duchy's regular army like this... isn't this crossing a line? These are allied supplies, after all. If word gets out, won't people say we're exploiting a crisis to line our own pockets?" Lyra's concerns were entirely justified.

This heavy battalion's arsenal wasn't just obscenely luxurious; it was official state property. Soren replied at a volume perfectly calculated to ensure Cedric, standing nearby, heard every single word.

"Lyra, remember the military doctrine of Greywater Village: our soldiers never bleed for empty vanity." Sweeping his gaze across the camp, Soren spoke with absolute, unapologetic righteousness:"Cullen colluded with the Orcs. Objectively speaking, this battalion became a rebel force."

"Greywater Village deployed our absolute finest, forced-marched across treacherous terrain, and braved immense military risks to crush a rebellion that could have capsized this entire nation. We purged their internal traitors and secured the peace of the defensive line."

"Are we not entitled to collect a modest fee for our suppression efforts?" Soren turned, casting a profoundly meaningful glance at Cedric.

"Furthermore, weapons only hold true value when gripped by warriors who are genuinely willing to point them at the Orcs. Wouldn't you agree, General Cedric?" Hearing this, Cedric's cheek twitched violently. Watching cart after cart of his precious Mithril-alloyed Plate and heavy repeating crossbows being hauled away... to say his heart wasn't bleeding would be a massive lie. This was the crown jewel of the Duchy's arsenal, amassed through years of painstaking effort!

However, the gears of political calculus spun rapidly in the veteran general's mind. Soren had helped him execute the traitors, completely contained the catastrophic scandal of a mass defection, and preserved Cedric's life and honor as a Commander. This was a monumental, life-saving debt—one far too massive to ever be repaid with mere gold! Let it be the mercenary fee paid to this peerless tactician, Cedric reasoned with himself. Sighing heavily in his heart, Cedric forced a bitter, resigned smile onto his face.

He took a deep breath and shouted loudly to the Greywater soldiers busily hauling the loot:"Lord Soren is absolutely right! These damaged supplies originally needed to be transported back to the rear echelons for large-scale recycling and recasting anyway."

"Since the fine soldiers of Greywater Village are willing to take on this arduous transport duty on our behalf, I am deeply grateful!" With a single sentence, Cedric masterfully transformed a brazen, daylight robbery into a mutually understood, unspoken compensation.

Under the gradually calming winds of the Sunset Hills, the Greywater convoy—packed to the brim with enough Mithril armor, heavy crossbows, and iron-plated wagons to fully outfit an elite heavy infantry regiment—embarked on their triumphant, massively lucrative march home....... The harsh winter of the Misty Swamp raged on, the blizzard seemingly endless.

When Soren led his loot-laden convoy across the frozen terrain and majestically passed through the chevaux-de-frise barricades of Greywater Village, the entire territory erupted into a boiling frenzy of cheers. Atop the dozens of iron-plated wagons pulled by a mix of draft horses and muscular Wargs sat literal mountains of Mithril-alloyed Plate and refined-steel heavy repeating crossbows. Under the pale winter sun, the armaments reflected a breathtaking, heart-stopping metallic gleam.

The convoy had barely come to a halt when Luger, the Hobgoblin Chief Blacksmith, sprinted out of the geothermal furnace workshop on his short, stubby legs. His green face, perpetually stained with forge soot, was completely consumed by unadulterated, crafter's greed.

"Oh! Lord Soren! Did you go out and entirely sack the treasury of a human king?!" Luger didn't even bother to salute. He threw himself directly onto a supply wagon, wrapping his arms tightly around a meticulously crafted suit of Mithril Plate. Fishing an ancestral alchemical magnifying glass from his leather apron, he pressed his eyeball right up against the breastplate.

"Hard to believe... Human artisans actually managed to balance the Mithril alloy ratio to this degree," Luger muttered to himself. He casually drew a refined-steel ball-peen hammer from his belt and viciously struck the breastplate directly over the heart. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. CLANG! A crisp, high-pitched metallic vibration rang out, sending a shower of sparks into the air.

The strike left nothing but a microscopic, entirely negligible white scratch on the Mithril surface. Soren vaulted off his Warg. Unclasping his snow-caked black cloak, he walked up to Luger and asked:"Luger, what's your assessment? How does this elite armor from the Ironpeak Duchy stack up against our pride and joy, the [Black Steel]?" Luger reluctantly lowered his magnifying glass.

Turning around, his expression shifted to one of absolute, rigorous professionalism:"My Lord, the physical defensive capabilities of these Mithril-alloyed Plates are roughly on par with the [Black Steel] armor we currently produce in our geothermal furnaces."

"The Mithril imbues it with excellent tensile strength and significantly reduces the weight burden of the steel. Honestly, we could issue these directly to our human soldiers, and they would instantly form a highly combat-ready force." At this point, Luger's green eyes shifted, a glint of unbridled ambition—unique to absolute master craftsmen—igniting in his gaze.

"However! Lord Soren, if you seek even greater protection... I have an incredibly bold military engineering proposal!" Luger pointed toward the geothermal furnace behind him, which was currently belching roaring plumes of hot black smoke, his voice rising in excitement:"Wearing pure Mithril-alloy or pure Black Steel represents the absolute ceiling for conventional infantry."

"But... what if we completely dismantle these Mithril Plates? What if we throw them, along with our purified Black Steel ingots, straight into that geothermal furnace?!"

"Under the extreme heat of the magma forge, the exceptional toughness of the Mithril will flawlessly fuse with the terrifying hardness of the Black Steel! We will forge an entirely new Composite Alloy Armor!" Luger violently threw his arms wide open, his gestures wildly dramatic:"My Lord! The defensive capabilities of this composite armor will astronomically surpass pure Mithril or pure Black Steel!"

"I will stake my head on it: aside from the ancient, magical artifacts sung about by bards, this will be the absolute apex of armor available to any conventional human military force today!" Hearing this, Soren's eyes lit up brightly. On the battlefield, superior armor was the ultimate guarantee of a soldier's survival. He knew all too well just how devastating an advantage superior metallurgy provided in brutal melee combat. However, the master blacksmith wasn't finished.

Luger swallowed hard and proposed a remarkably strategic modification:"But, My Lord... the density of this composite metal will be staggering."

"Even with the Mithril offsetting a portion of the weight, if we forge it into fully-enclosed, head-to-toe heavy plate, the physical burden will be astronomical."

"Aside from your frontline Black Steel elites who have ingested the Basic Troll Serum, if our regular second-line soldiers try to wear this... let alone fight, they'll collapse from exhaustion after a two-kilometer march." Luger squatted down and quickly sketched a human anatomy diagram in the mud, tapping a stick against the critical chest and abdominal areas:"Therefore, I propose this: The second-line troops do not need full-plate! We only equip them with [Composite Half-Plate]!"

"Doing this not only saves us half the precious metal, allowing us to arm double the number of men, but while the coverage area is reduced, the actual defense of their vital organs only drops by about thirty percent."

"The absolute key..." Luger snapped his head up, his eyes burning, "... is that this drastically preserves the soldiers' battlefield mobility! It ensures they won't be bogged down by their own weight and slaughtered in the treacherous, muddy terrain of the Misty Swamp!"

"Well said!" Soren couldn't help but let out a hearty laugh, signaling his absolute approval of the proposal. As a former elite special forces operative in his past life, he valued battlefield mobility above almost everything else.

"Luger, your vision goes far beyond that of a mere blacksmith. You are thinking like a true tactician." Soren walked up to the mud sketch, his gaze highly analytical:"The primary second-line force I currently command is the newly expanded, thousand-strong [Macedonian Phalanx]."

"The core doctrine of the Macedonian pikemen relies on wielding three-meter-long refined-steel pikes, executing tight, coordinated advances, rotations, and meat-grinder thrusts. They are fundamentally not designed to act as pure, damage-absorbing heavy infantry."

"If their armor is too heavy, the phalanx's lateral movement and formation shifts will become sluggish. On a chaotic battlefield, a phalanx with poor mobility is a death trap. The moment Orc Wolf Cavalry flanks a slow-moving square, it devolves into a one-sided massacre." Soren spun around, decisively issuing his ultimate military-industrial decree:"Luger, mobilize every single Goblin artisan! The geothermal furnaces are to run day and night, non-stop!"

"Pour every ounce of our resources into forging this [Composite Alloy Half-Plate]!"