Farmer-Soldiers (Seeking Follow-up Reads)

Advancing, retreating, leaping...

Slashing, thrusting, defending...

Aaron held his Cross Sword, training with rigid, textbook precision. Before long, he was gasping for air, large beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"Hoo... this greatsword has immense lethality, but if I go all out, my stamina is drained in mere minutes... On the battlefield, this is something I must keep in mind."

In a life-or-death struggle, nothing consumes a person's energy faster.

It is just as some say: if two people are locked in a fight to the death, anything beyond five minutes is just a performance.

Aaron understood this deeply. He also knew that the initial clash on a battlefield was often the most brutal, and a soldier's stamina would deplete rapidly.

"As long as I survive the initial danger and take care to avoid stray arrows, the chances of staying alive shouldn't be too low..."

He thought to himself, watching Colin not far away, who was excitedly trying on a suit of armor.

This was a gift from the Lord—a set of finely forged armor worth as much as a knight's manor. Wearing it would provide incredible defensive power on the battlefield and greatly increase his chances of survival!

As for Aaron himself, he only had a piece of leather armor...

Perhaps he would only obtain a suit of armor when he left the territory to become a wandering knight, and that would depend on whether Colin was generous.

However, Aaron felt little jealousy toward this and silently returned to the castle.

After lunch, he instructed the maid not to disturb him and immediately began a nap.

Daytime, too, was a time when one could enter dreams.

Boom.

The same darkness, the same sensation of falling and twitching.

Aaron was already accustomed to it. He opened his eyes and saw a dark ocean.

Countless amounts of blood, scales... still floated on the surface of the sea, seemingly recounting the horror of the previous great battle.

He looked up and saw the night sky, like a dark velvet curtain, and... a crimson moon!

"Damn it... the original moon wasn't this color. But then again, the moon—or rather, the night satellite—relies on reflecting the light of a star, so has it turned scarlet as well?"

Although this world might not strictly follow the rules of his past life, this was the most reasonable explanation Aaron could come up with.

"I'm sorry... I really didn't mean it."

Aaron Sothoth apologized to the air and then began to sense himself.

In this world, he was a pure observer existing outside of multiple dimensions. Aside from changing the sun last time, he couldn't actually do anything.

But tonight, the situation seemed somewhat different.

"I... can move?"

Aaron let his perspective zoom in, shift... and finally confirmed that he had moved a very short distance. He almost wept with joy.

Heaven have mercy!

Ever since he started dreaming in his infancy, he had been stuck at these coordinates. He had practically seen enough of this fixed scenery to vomit!

And now, he could finally move his perspective!

"It seems that all these changes started from changing the sun..."

Aaron carefully recalled the subtle differences.

"Could it be as I guessed? Sixteen years of accumulation finally completed some kind of qualitative change... Although I used all the power I saved over sixteen years to change the sun, my essence also underwent a transformation that won't regress. So, after entering the dream today and accumulating another unit of energy, I can move?"

Aaron named the slight enhancement he gained from entering his dreams every day as one unit of energy.

His movement just now had consumed this energy, and because he only had one day's worth of accumulation from the real world, he had only moved a very short distance.

"If I can do this, it seems my life in the dream world won't be so monotonous from now on..."

Aaron let out a long breath.

To be honest, when he changed the sun earlier, he had to admit that a madness had surged within his heart, containing some of his own dark and insane thoughts, even a catharsis of the desire to destroy the world.

After all, for a person to be pinned here and imprisoned for sixteen years, it would be a miracle if they didn't go insane.

"However, what will this mutated world actually look like?"

Aaron felt a sense of anticipation. Relying on the moon and stars in the sky, he chose a direction and began to move.

"I hope there is a continent at the end of the ocean... although... I don't know what state it is in now..."

The Sothoth Family occupied the Lower Green Forest, with Sothoth Castle as the core, forming a settlement the size of a small town with a population of over ten thousand.

Beyond that, a dozen or so villages had been successively reclaimed within the forest, and at the same time, some wild tribes were also under their command.

Within the castle, there was a standing guard of about a hundred men at all times; this was already some kind of limit for the feudal era.

Of course, if a real war were to break out, peasants could be conscripted into the army to become peasant soldiers, but they lacked discipline and combat effectiveness. In Aaron's view, they were just there to bolster the numbers.

At this moment, Aaron was frowning as he looked at a squad of militiamen just pulled from the fields, most of them barely clothed and equipped only with crude weapons like pitchforks.

A guy like this, even if he made it to the battlefield, would just be cannon fodder...

A cannon fodder commander leading a cannon fodder battalion—it's actually quite fitting.

Aaron looked at the chaotic mess of militiamen standing in crooked, uneven lines. Without a flicker of expression on his face, he shouted, "I am Aaron of the Sothoth Family! Aaron Sothoth, your captain! From today on, you will all obey my orders! Now, form squads of ten and choose your own squad leaders!"

He watched as they instantly dissolved into a disorganized mob again, lost in his own thoughts.

In the feudal era, wars between the noble classes were actually quite polite affairs.

For instance, during the Spring and Autumn period, warfare was strictly governed by etiquette; one could not even capture an enemy monarch, and enemy nobles were treated with restraint, kept alive and treated with courtesy while awaiting ransom.

In Japan and medieval Europe, the situation was largely similar, and even the descendants of nobles who had lost their lands were widely met with sympathy.

The reason so-called "revenge tragedies" could play out time and again was precisely because of the existence of such ideals.

However, this is an otherworldly realm after all, and the situation is somewhat different. This time, it isn't just about a wild boar.

Two lords calling upon hundreds of thugs to brawl over a piece of game might just be a form of entertainment for medieval lords.

But this time is different!

Aaron could sense the ambition in Theodore's heart; Green Forest was simply too small to contain two lords!

And the Davis Family upstream seemed to harbor the exact same thought.

This war would inevitably be unlike any other, and it was the very scenario Aaron least wanted to see.

Perhaps, after this battle, one of the families in Green Forest will be completely wiped out...

Please don't hoard the chapters; come and take a look every day.