Cthulhu Gonfalon

The next day, the weather was not good. It was gloomy, and the strong northern winds swept through the earth, causing the fine snowflakes to whirl around. When the wind blew at those people who did not wear thick clothes, the cold was simply like a blade slicing them up.

But such weather was good for Dahl Hill’s clean-up army. In this weather, the gnomes would not be able to deploy sentries—even with the leadership of a tribal chief, the gnomes were too backwards in their level of civilization to be able to prepare thick clothes that were warm enough for their sentries. Without thick clothes, could they send their sentries out in such weather? In less than half an hour, they could prepare to collect the hard, frozen corpses of their sentries.

Even if the tribal chief of the gnomes did arrange for sentries to keep watch, the sentries would only be huddling in the caves and crawl out to take a brief look from time to time. In weather like this, their sense of vigilance would almost be about zero, and two to three experienced scouts would be able to settle them all.

And the fact was indeed so. That bandit under Baron Dahl’s command, who was at the mid-rank level, acted alone early in the morning. Then around noon, he returned with his report, saying, “After lunch, we can take action. I have already confirmed the two outposts that the gnomes have arranged. By then, we will first wipe out the sentries.”

Such a result was no surprise to Baron Dahl. Given that bandit’s skill, such an achievement was common. On the contrary, it would have been strange if he was unable to do so.

Therefore, he ordered the clean-up army to take a break for the time being to eat and drink. After they had fully recovered both physically and mentally, they would then follow the path that the bandit had marked and exterminate that group of gnomes in one go.

The clergymen from the Church of the Void Mask were placed right at the front of the clean-up army. In front of them, there were 50 heavily armed soldiers and two knights, and not far behind them was an almost equal number of archers.

As for Baron Dahl, he was even further behind. He was being protected by the remaining 50 soldiers and knights to ensure his safety.

The servant soldiers were naturally following at the back of the army, with those who were ruffians and rogues on the outside and the poor people who were truly only servant soldiers on the inside. In short, Baron Dahl did indeed put some thought into how he could avoid injuries to his men as much as possible.

To him, perhaps this might only be to prevent the impairment of the army’s morale, but to the clergymen of the Church of the Void Mask, Baron Dahl was fulfilling his promise well, so they would also do likewise.

“Hey, if our opponents are just the gnomes, then this seriously can’t be considered a major war!” said a sacred warrior in an uninterested manner. “When I was still a farmer, I killed many gnomes. This is too easy to deal with; they’re not even enough to be considered an opponent.”

Seeing his strong and bearlike figure, as well as that heavy suit of armor that he wore, anyone could tell how much strength he had. His armor seemed weighty enough to pin an ordinary person to the ground. Such a strong man, even without any martial art techniques, would be able to defeat the gnomes with relative ease. Not to mention the fact that he was already nearing the mid-rank level, enemies of this level such as the gnomes, would all be too weak to stand up against him. So long as there were no tribal chiefs or shamans, even with a horde of gnome warriors right before him, the Sacred Warrior would be able to defeat them.

Just as the stories often depicted how a good man could be a hero by fighting hundreds or even sweep thousands of troops away and still remain invincible, if the enemy was limited only to the level of ordinary gnomes, then even a hundred of them would not be of any difficulty for this warrior at all. Sweeping away thousands of troops or something as such, he could try his best to give it a shot all the same. The only thing that was not achievable was being invincible.

“Don’t get so loquacious, be careful,” said Bishop Kabbalah with a frown. “Also, take off that mask. If you were to be hit by an oncoming arrow right in your face, no matter what kind of a hero or good man you are, you will not be able to withstand the blow. The gnome archers often soak the tips of their arrows in excrement. I suppose you wouldn’t want to be shot by an arrow soaked in gnomes’ pee, I guess.”

This threat was indeed so powerful that that strong and bearlike sacred warrior shut his mouth right away and pulled down his mask that kept his whole face fully protected.

After a while, he could not help but say, “This mask is almost perfect if not for it being a little suffocating.”

“The mask is definitely not suffocating, it’s the foul odor from your own body,” Bishop Kabbalah said lightly. “Just take more baths will do.”

“No wonder, I haven’t been bathing much these few days!”

“Everyone’s not really been bathing these few days,” said that elderly priest with a smile. “This is what adventures are all about. Foul odor and such things, we just have to put up with them. If you need to, after this battle, if I still have any magic left, I can conjure a ‘prestidigitation’ to allow you to cleanse yourself. More or less, there’ll be some help.”

“Prestidigitation” was an entry-level spell that could achieve some supernatural things, such as slightly raising or lowering the surrounding temperature, or making food and drinking water slightly tastier, or making clothes slightly cleaner… things like that. Regardless of type, the effects were all not obvious, but still, something was better than nothing at all. Generally speaking, its main purpose was to work in complement with the same kind of “illusion spell” at the entry level to execute a variety of magic means that were similar to those found on Earth, for instance, getting dead branches to flower again, creating a splash of colors, lightings or music out of nowhere and so on.

However, if this spell could be further improved, it would be really exceptional—the well-known advanced level spell, “Thousands of Changes Spell,” was its evolution, and taking a further step of improvement, it would evolve into one of the highly-reputed legendary spells, “Materialization Spell.” If there were still conditions to make the last step of progress, that would be the might of a god, the extraordinary Divine Power that could change reality.

Among the mages, this spell was only a basic skill, so practically all mages would know how to wield it. But among the clergymen, only those who majored in the fields of “wisdom” or “magic spells” would be able to master this spell.

Of all the realm powers that the elderly priest had majored in, “wisdom” happened to be one of them.

This was why, so long as he had sufficient magic, he could most certainly make use of it to provide everyone with some “prestidigitation.” Regardless of how effective the results were, it was still better than nothing at all.

With his promise, the strong and sturdy sacred warrior suddenly brightened up. Using his iron-gloved left hand, he patted the thick armor plate over his chest. Laughing heartily, he said, “Then I’ll be waiting for your magic. Ha ha, I really had enough of this smell! Heavy armor and all of these might be good, but the stench is truly repulsive!”

“You should speak less about it,” another sacred warrior who was also clad in the same heavy armor suit lamented. “I didn’t think too much about it at first, but now, the more you say, the more uncomfortable I feel!”

Everyone burst out laughing, completely not taking the imminent battle seriously.

Honestly, this battle truly did not qualify as one that they should take seriously.

By the time they arrived at the battlefield, the battle had begun. The tribe of gnomes who had lost their sentries had completely failed to notice the arrival of the clean-up army. They were already at a loss fight from the beginning, and the arrows that were raining upon them threw them out of their bearing. There was no way they could organize themselves into a decent formation at all.

This was the disadvantage of being a backward civilization. If it were tribes like the Orcs, who had a relatively higher degree of civilization, they would at least have put up a surrounding wall or fence around their tribe, then no matter what, they would not be such easy targets for a wave of arrow attack by their opponent. But the gnomes were not so bright and skillful. They only had holes or haystacks around their grounds, only the “great tribal chief” and the “honorable Shaman” had tents—which to be honest, in such weather, a tent might not even be as useful as a hole in the ground.

Holes in the ground were pretty effective for blocking out arrows, but the haystacks were completely useless. And within the clean-up army, there were naturally experienced men who were knowledgeable adventurers. First, they would let out angry roars to scare the gnomes into a panic attack, who would then be scurrying out of the holes and haystacks. Then an attack of random arrows would fall upon the panicking gnomes like rain. This would make the effect much more pleasing.

It was only the first wave of attack, but the tribe of gnomes was already in a state of chaos.