My Castle, My Castellan - Chapter 8 - Bruce, Death Is Expecting You
Garcia quickly took the map, and he didn"t waste a lot of McQueen"s time. This somehow made McQueen more merciful toward Garcia. As a servant, to serve the city owner, he ought to be efficient, reliable and intelligent.
"Move away from the table, and I am going to check the map carefully," McQueen ordered Garcia, which was trembling when he moved the table. Garcia"s arms so fragile, as if they could be broken by wind. McQueen felt proud of himself - if something big needs to be done, then the leader must act ruthlessly, no matter to himself or the others. "Bruce, explain the situation of Toss City to everyone. So that we all know what"s going on."
Instead of others, McQueen was more thinking for himself. He wanted to know everything about Toss City. The transmigration didn"t enable him to have the memory of his former body. That"s quite miserable.
"Ok, my castellan." Bruce did not refrain. He walked closer to the map and muttered for a while as if he was trying to organize his thoughts. Then, he began explaining the situation of Toss City. Thanks to him, McQueen began to understand better.
According to Garcia, there was only one continent in the world, and it"s called Pifa. On Pifa, there were sixteen countries.
The Kingdom of Soladin existed in the 145th year of the old calendar. Until now, in the 198th year of the new calendar, it had experienced three calendars, and they were the light, magic and new calendars, totaling 1,783 years of history. It was a country inhabited purely by human beings, with a total population of more than 500 million. A super creature was standing at the capital of the country.
The history of Toss City was much shorter than the history of the Kingdom. It was built more than three hundred years ago and was in the most northwest corner of the Kingdom, adjacent to the countries of Venus, Schindler, and Mercenary. According to its general conditions, Toss City had the potential to become a trade center. It was a pity that a devastating torrent of natural disasters occurred 57 years ago, which led to the extinction of the royal blood of the Kingdom of Soladin.
Since then, the Kingdom of Soladin had been in a state of civil unrest for half a century. Today, this unrest had still not subsided. All the descendants of Arathi suddenly appeared, and they started to occupy the cities or more. They all wanted to unite the whole of the Kingdom and the restore the glory of Arathi. Toss City was also made victim in this chao. It became a land where everybody wanted. From time to time, it faced threats from its surrounding cities.
It was also because of the civil war of Soladin which led to the precarious situation of Toss City. Although it had an excellent location for trade, not many merchants were willing to trade here. Among the seven cities surrounding it, only Moore City kept a neutral att.i.tude. All the other six cities wanted to occupy Toss City, and Tucker City was the first one to think about it.
"You really cannot be at ease when you"re living in Toss City. After all, all we have our enemies. I have no idea how the previous castellan was able to give his people a stable life. I even begin to admire this guy." McQueen was listening to the explanation of Bruce while he was wondering himself.
"Toss City is located in the inner land of Neder, but the terrain is flat, and the land is barren. There is a mercenary alliance on the north, what is the closest to us is a rock city, the rock city is the main city of the earth elves, distributed over the entire Gobi Desert. The earth elves love peace and pose no threat to our city."
"The west is the Venus country, the endless forest. It is said that there is an elf city nearby, but it has been a long time since a human being set foot in Venus. No one knows about what happened. Anyway, the elves love peace and pose no threat to Toss City."
"The northwest is the Schindler Federation. This federal-state is indeed too chaotic. Its side which is closest to us already has about 30 ethnic tribes. The biggest tribe is the Giant City in the Amani forest. The Giant City is the main one of Troll City, and there is not much communication between us. Therefore, I don"t know much about it. However, the nearest one is Great Wall of Eric, situated at the Red Ridge Mountains. The Iron Black Dwarfs inhabit it. These dwarfs have lived in their area for generations, and they rarely go out, there is thus no threat from them."
Bruce felt quite bored when he talked about all these, yet all the others were listening with a lot of interest. Being in a world where this sort of information was excluded, one had to be very knowledgeable to know about all these. There was only Bruce, who was once a high-ranking official, who understood the surrounding situation is such detail.
McQueen felt excited. There were elves and dwarfs. For a transmigrator, this was fascinating. Surprisingly, McQueen didn"t feel pressurized at all. "So, from you"ve told us. The most imminent threat for Toss City is the six surrounding cities of the Kingdom?"
"That"s right. Tucker City already gave us a warning sign. And since we have no army in Toss City, it was very vulnerable and easy as a target for our enemies. It"s a pity that both our Northern and Southern camps have been taken over. Otherwise, Toss City wouldn"t be left so weak. And it wouldn"t be possible for us to fear these people." Bruce said with a sigh.
"Especially with the fact that Tucker is a butcher. Back then, the old castellan had a lot of trust in him. And he supported Tucker in becoming the city lord. No one expected him to become a monster and now he"s even attacking us!" Randolph growled. He was furious that Tucker paid Toss City"s grace with slaughter. "In my historical record, he will leave a bad name for himself!"
McQueen"s looked at Randolph helplessly. He thought to himself, what"s the use of the historical record? It is always written by the victorious side anyway. If Toss City were taken over by Tucker, of course, Tucker would write about how powerful Tucker City was.
"After this failure, Tucker City will not accept it as it is. They will surely take revenge. In this case, we have to prepare for the worst. And Bruce is an expert in this area. Please, Bruce, think of a feasible solution for us." McQueen threw this responsibility onto Bruce.
An empty city with six enemies, there"s no way McQueen would take responsibility for this. Although he was "brave", he wasn"t interested in helping Toss City after all.
"My castellan I"ve long thought about this problem, and it is unrealistic to expect the support of Moore City. We won"t be able to pay them back. Therefore, there is only one solution left." Bruce said so with sharp eyes. He stared intensely at the corner of the map.
"What is the solution?" asked everyone.
"We will get to the magic cave. And we will rescue the Northern and Southern camps. Only by doing this, we can solve everything!" Bruce sounded with firm determination. Only McQueen didn"t have a single clue what to expect. Everyone else was feeling anxious.
"Going to the magic cave? Bruce, you are kidding?"
"The two important camps are there, so what are we still doing here?"
"Bruce, don"t scare me. I have a weak heart." Someone said.
"Yes, indeed. It"s not as easy as you"ve said. Bruce, you should think of something else."
Bruce"s suggestion stirred up different reactions in the grand hall. It was out of McQueen"s expectations. He thought to himself, "h.e.l.l, is the magic cave so scary? Look at how scared you are! Even if it"s a tiger cave, so what? It"s only an idea, what"s the point of getting all worked up?" McQueen looked down on these people, without knowing for himself what the magic cave was like.
"Let"s not argue. Let us allow Bruce to finish what he was going to say. And we will raise our opinions one after the other, ok?", one by one, how is it so?" McQueen shouted he wanted to stop all the noises in the hall. He tried to tell Bruce calmly.
Bruce looked at McQueen"s eyes, and suddenly, he started to admire him. Take a look at the castellan; his facial expression hadn"t changed even after hearing the name of the magic cave. What a momentum! And he could still stay so calm. "We must get to the magic cave and save the two camps. This is very critical to the future of Toss City. Even if we lose, we might lose more power. But if we succeed, Toss City will continue to survive."
"But the magic cave is too dangerous. There has been one week, and there"s no news of the two camps. Are they even still there?" The person who was speaking was Curry Woods. He"s the warden of Toss City. He looked fierce, and when he spoke, he had a deep tone.
"Yes, it"s rampant in the magic cave, and there"re evil black dragons as well. Our survival rate will be low. No matter how strong the two camps were, they were still taken a hostage in the end." Sith, who owned a rice business, trembled when he mentioned the magic cave. He wiped his sweat off his forehead as if he had been to the magic cave himself.
"No, I don"t think the two camps have been destroyed," Bruce argued loudly.
"Can you give me a reason, Bruce? McQueen frowned and asked Monsters? Evil black dragons? It sounded a dangerous place. It seemed to him that it"s something worth considering before taking action.
"Because we have Will!" Bruce replied, full of confidence as if Will was a top-ranking, influential person. In just four words, it showed the status of Will in Bruce"s mind. The old men in the room heard the words of Will, and they all fell into deep thoughts.
Who is Will? McQueen pretended to be thinking, as everyone was thinking as well. He decided to see who he was, otherwise, how could he know if what Bruce said was right?
"Eh, Will, he…"
"My castellan, Will is a super warrior. He"s the best within a thousand miles. He"s a first-cla.s.s fighter. And he"s never lost in a battle. Whenever we thought we were going to lose, he could always turn things around. It"s impossible for the magic cave to pose a challenge to him. With Will as our leader, the iron soldiers from the northern and southern camps, plus our vigilance near the magic cave, I don"t think it will be tough." Bruce hurried to explain without waiting for McQueen to finish his sentence.
"Well, I admit that Bruce makes sense, but the question now is, who can save them?" Cook Brown asked in a low voice.
McQueen nodded in agreement, well, the 30,000-people army was trapped, and the super warriors also got stuck. Who else can save us? With only Bruce and the 500 veterans? Wait, we don"t even have 500 of them now.
"There is someone who can." Bruce looked at McQueen with a burning gaze.
"Who?" the crowd asked in unison.
"The Lord of the City. You!"
Oh my G.o.d, what did you say? I didn"t hear it, can you repeat it? Bruce! Do you want to die or not? Even if you"re going to, I don"t want to! I have just transmigrated for a short time, and you want to send me to death already? Bruce, let me tell you, you"re over!