When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#684 - Stinky Foot Burger

This classic riverside swamp in Black Snake Bay is essentially formed by tributaries of the Moen River that failed to form proper channels, with river water spreading across numerous depressions and bogs.

The swamp is elongated, stretching for about a dozen miles, with sand dunes, puddles, and streams crisscrossing it. Some areas are only ankle-deep, while others can swallow a person whole.

Therefore, the noble coalition soldiers advancing through the reeds and aquatic plants closely followed the footprints of those ahead, as no one would rescue them if they stumbled.

Taskin was one of them. Although he was neither a knight nor a snake person, as auxiliary combatants, these mercenaries had no choice but to join the battle.

Shoulder to shoulder, various types of poleaxes, halberds, and short swords collided, creating a series of crisp, clanging sounds along the way.

In the warming Black Snake Bay of March, he could only smell the fermenting stench of feet and the sweat from armpits.

Although the sky was sunless, the boat-shaped helmet on his head still made his scalp itch.

Despite the hot weather, they still wore robes, even tying their cuffs and trouser legs with cloth strips, unable to go bare-chested like the locals.

The local Black Snake Bay people were marinated in mosquito-repelling oil from childhood, so they weren't hunted by mosquitoes and flies the size of strawberries.

However, it was different for these foreign soldiers. Forget about taking off clothes, just a sip of water could lead to worms crawling out of their rectums at night.

If it weren't for the enormous salary of 1 gold pound per month, Taskin would never have come to Black Snake Bay.

Even now, he somewhat regretted taking this job; this life was not fit for humans.

"Doo-doo-doo—" The sharp whistle pierced the gradually blurring consciousness of Taskin, and it took him a while to realize it was the order to stop for a meal.

"Where are we eating?"

"Find a spot yourself, just don't expose yourself."

Hearing the squad leader's words, Taskin and the others looked at the streams and puddles everywhere and had to carefully test the ground to find a large rock.

A dozen people swarmed onto it, finally securing a place to eat.

Placing his spear aside, Taskin removed his sun-baked helmet and took out a cloth bag from his heavy backpack.

Spreading the cloth bag on his thigh, Taskin first took out half a loaf of compacted wheat bread, which was more like a biscuit than bread.

Yet even so, the surrounding people cast envious glances, because their staple food was dry-chewed sweet beans—ground, steamed, and dried flakes.

In Taskin's own words, eating this was like swallowing razor blades to commit suicide.

As for starting a fire to cook, that was impossible, because Black Snake Bay generally had high humidity, and any fire would create billowing smoke, visible to the enemy from miles away.

Even the noble lords didn't have enough firewood when eating during marches, so how could they spare any for common soldiers like them?

Continuing, he took out a lump of sour hummus and a section of salty fish tail covered in foot sweat. Taskin then spent 2 denarii to buy half a bottle of rye beer, and this meal was considered to have begun.

Tearing off a piece of hard bread, breaking it into two, and adding hummus, salted fish, roadside vegetable leaves, and some salt from under his fingernails, a delicious Old Taskin Mini-Burger was made.

After swallowing two mini-burgers in a row, the ravenous hunger in Taskin's stomach was greatly relieved. Looking at the little remaining salted fish and bread, he still resisted the urge to finish it all at once.

Just as the old mercenary who brought him into the profession had said, always save the last bite for yourself on the battlefield.

Although he didn't know if the old soldier meant to eat a bite before battle to replenish strength, or to eat a bite after battle to facilitate escape, or to eat a bite before death to avoid starving as a ghost, Taskin had always done so.

After packing up the food, Taskin stood up on the large rock, drinking rye beer while looking around.

This wasn't because he was bored, but because he had to do it.

They weren't like those royal knights, with clear command and dispatch.

If they didn't pay attention to the movements of the main force at all times, the others might leave them behind.

This happened frequently. Whenever they camped on the march, there were always straggling soldiers returning to the camp in the evening or even before setting off the next day.

Looking out from the large rock, the narrow swamp between the riverbank and the forest was densely packed with Frankish soldiers carrying various colored flags.

If snake-person servants were excluded, the elite mercenaries and knights participating in the battle exceeded four thousand.

This was already a quarter of the entire army, almost half of the combat power.

As for pulling these main forces out for a decisive battle, in Taskin's personal experience, it was a decision that was neither good nor bad.

Attacking would lead to the inability to concentrate forces, but it would allow them to seize the initiative on the battlefield, while staying put would only allow for passive defense, but it would also allow them to concentrate most of their forces for a defensive counterattack.

It could only be said that staying put was more concentrated, while attacking was more mobile.

This unnamed swamp was the only land route from Sola Fortress to the Temple of Avis. Because it was too difficult to traverse, most caravans usually took the waterway.

But now the port fleet of the noble coalition was taken by Duke Botosar, while the river channel on the side of the Salvation Army was blocked by a sunken ship.

Even the few ships in the port of the Temple of Avis were not enough to transport three hundred soldiers, which was useless, so Count Kazik thought of ambushing here in advance.

"Woo woo woo…"

"What's going on?" Standing on the large rock, Taskin shouted towards the mercenaries in front.

Through the word-of-mouth communication of the mercenaries relying on the large rock, a message quickly spread throughout this reed field: "The enemy has been encountered ahead, only six or seven companies of vanguard infantry. Count Kazik is calling for us to quickly press forward and eat these two thousand people before the main force of the opposite side arrives."

Oh, they're here a bit quickly. They haven't reached the designated location yet.

Almost simultaneously, the shouts of knights cursing the snake-person servants echoed through the swamp: "Fool, bring me my armor. If a drop of water gets on it, I'll chop off your heads."

Taskin stood on tiptoe: "How far away are they?"

Soon after, the human signal towers standing on the high ground relayed the message: "I don't know, but they are not visible to the naked eye."

Not visible to the naked eye? Then there's still some time. The old mercenary stroked his chin and decided to go to the front to take a look.

If it looked like a good fight, he would bring the message back. If it didn't look good, he'd just slack off.

Telling someone to watch the backpack, Taskin jumped out in one stride, using the spear stuck in the mud as support to jump onto solid ground: "Let's go, let's go take a look."

A dozen or so familiar mercenaries immediately surrounded him, parted the reeds, randomly grabbed the rope around the neck of a snake-person, and ran towards the hill at the edge of the swamp.

Because they were traveling light, without armor or heavy weapons, the dozen or so mercenaries reached the edge of the swamp in just a quarter of an hour.

The other young mercenaries were still panting heavily, but Taskin's face was only slightly red.

He dropped his helmet, grabbed the trunk of a palm tree with both hands, and nimbly scurried up the tree, shading his eyes with his hand and looking towards the north.

Sure enough, hundreds of knights could be seen about 2 miles away, with densely packed figures behind the reeds and bushes. It was not yet possible to see if there were any follow-up troops.

"How is it? Taskin, do you think we can fight them?"

Standing under the palm tree, the others looked up and asked Taskin on the tree.

"The battle formation is quite neat, but they don't have much experience. They're standing too far apart. We can charge…" Sitting on the tree branch, Taskin's voice had just fallen when he heard a muffled, strange sound.

"Thump—"

A sharp whistling sound came through the air, and a column of water as tall as a person inexplicably rose from a puddle in the distance.

"Holy crap, a mage…" Just as the mercenary below was about to say "magician", Taskin suddenly turned his head to look at the river.

On the river, a catamaran barge was shaking violently. Could that ship be doing it? But they were almost 2 miles away.

"Taskin, are we fighting or not?"

While thinking, he saw a small black dot rising from the bow of the ship.

When another column of water jumped up in the swamp lake, Taskin's judgment system completely failed. His decades of battlefield experience could not make a decision at this moment.