New Alliance

The Wandering Badger Tribe was exceptionally boisterous at this moment, with two auxiliary camps situated outside the main encampment, specifically tasked with looking after the barbarian cavalry and male non-magic users arriving from surrounding small tribes.

Every day, the tribe's cavalry would patrol the vicinity, inviting the newly arrived tribesmen to the Wandering Badger Tribe, where food, water, and slaves were provided.

The six neighboring tribes had already brought over their magic users and men.

The main camp of the Wandering Badger was massive, larger than any Landen had seen before; it was less like a tent encampment and more like the mobile camp of a nobleman.

The very center of the main camp was partitioned off by a fence, and the ground beneath the main tent had been specially prepared with earth and stone. The structure of the tent was also different from any Landen had seen previously.

There were two types of common barbarian tents: one was a smaller, pointed-top tent. Although the highest point of such a tent was taller than a magic user, the overall space was cramped, with a circular cross-section and a triangular longitudinal section.

Magic users could generally only manage to stand up in the very center of these tents.

However, the advantage was that these tents were easy to pack and unpack, allowing for rapid movement.

The second type was the Bedouin Tent from Landen's homeland, which Landen had brought with him when he left his territory, and which were also the type used by the first barbarian camp Landen had attacked.

These tents were supported by multiple frames, were very spacious inside, could accommodate barbarians around 2.3 meters tall, and occupied a large footprint.

Tribes possessing such tents were basically considered small-to-medium-sized, and they would often contain equipment like Magic-Sealing Boxes.

There was another type of tent Landen had only seen in the medium-sized camp he raided last time: a circular tent resembling a yurt. It had an exceptionally large interior, but required a great deal of wooden framing and animal hides, something only a medium-sized tribe could afford.

Yet, the most important tent in this tribe now not only had a foundation, but the part above ground stood eight or nine meters high. The lower half of the tent was similar to a yurt, forming a circle, while the upper part featured a massive pointed roof. Looking at it from afar, this tent could accommodate at least thirty barbarians; it was arguably the most luxurious tent Landen had ever seen.

Beyond this main tent, five yurt-style tents surrounded it, and outside those was the fence of the core area. Outside the fence were seven or eight Bedouin Tents and over a dozen pointed-top tents, which housed the other barbarians of the camp.

These tents, along with a large number of horses, pack animals, sheep, and poultry, were enclosed by a second fence, forming the main body of the Wandering Badger Tribe's camp.

Outside this camp lay a flat expanse, with the auxiliary camps where the magic users and men of various small tribes lived on either side.

At this moment, the leader of the Wandering Badger, Darkeye Wandering Badger, was inside the main tent, gazing toward the massive mound in the south.

Although Landen did not know what it was, the leader of the Wandering Badger knew that it was the site of the former Night-Kirin City, the center of the Gallop Plains, and the ruins of a massive metropolis whose reconstruction had been personally overseen by the God Emperor of the human empire.

The mother of the Wandering Badger leader was human, and his father was the previous tribal leader.

Several years ago, Darkeye had met a human magic user, an ascetic monk. Ascetics were a type of clergy, but they were willing to spread their faith in the most arduous places and were content to live in poverty while healing others wherever they went.

Because this ascetic was willing to treat everyone, including barbarians, non-magic users, and human slaves, he had earned the respect of the barbarians.

Darkeye had once encountered the ascetic in the tribe, and the man told him that this land had once been a human kingdom, and the ruins in the distance were the remains of its capital.

From then on, Darkeye loved to use the opportunities when the tribe was stationed nearby to explore those ruins, though his several solo explorations yielded nothing.

It was not until a chance encounter, when Darkeye Wandering Badger followed another warrior from the tribe into the ruins, that he became obsessed with the site.

It was so vast and so beautiful; atop the highest mound were the remains of massive structures, the floors inside were still paved with tiles of unknown origin, and the giant pillars bore faintly glowing patterns.

From that moment, Darkeye knew his destiny was to lead his tribe into this place.

Eight years ago, several members of the tribe followed the Grey Goose to the south; apart from his own father, who died in the south, everyone else returned.

Darkeye Wandering Badger knew his era had arrived. Having grown taller than his peers since childhood, he successfully defeated all rivals to become the tribal leader.

Before this, the tribe was no different from other medium-sized tribes: they had one yurt-style tent, four or five human magic-user slaves in the camp, and two small tribes as vassals in the surrounding area.

In the second year after Darkeye became leader, the Grey Goose Tribe invited him to attend a council, held outside Night-Kirin City, as only there was there a sufficiently large, flat area.

At that council, the Grey Goose leader informed the leaders of several medium-sized tribes that he could trade with the humans.

From that point on, Darkeye learned of the Grey Goose leader's plan to acquire Black-Scaled Horses on a massive scale.

Subsequently, the Wandering Badger led his tribe to collect Black-Scaled Horses from the east to the west of the Gallop Plains every year.

The year the council ended, the various small tribes did not yet know how to breed Black-Scaled Horses well, so for the first year, he helped the small tribes with breeding, instructed them on how to raise horses, and even found human magic users to shoe the horses for the small tribes.

It seemed that Darkeye's first year was spent in the grueling work of interacting with different tribes for no profit, yet it was all worth it, for all of Darkeye's efforts were merely an investment.

In the following three years, by building good relationships with numerous small tribes, the Wandering Badger became the largest supplier of Black-Scaled Horses for the Grey Goose.

The Wandering Badger's proactive supply greatly reduced the acquisition costs for the Grey Goose Tribe. In return, the Grey Goose reciprocated by giving the Wandering Badger huge discounts on human goods like rune boards and timber, which the Wandering Badger then traded for iron ingots from the western Brown Bear Tribe.

The Grey Goose Tribe obtained the iron ingots and used human magic-user knights in the salt mines to forge them into iron armor.

A portion of the Grey Goose's iron armor was sold to Viscount Rothe, and another portion was sold at a discount to the Wandering Badger, who in turn used the iron armor to trade for Black-Scaled Horses among the small tribes.

In just a few short years, the Grey Goose, as the primary controller of the southern Gallop Plains, and the Wandering Badger, as a secondary supplier, had formed a stable commercial division of labor and industrial upgrade, and the strength of their tribes had increased year after year.

The Grey Goose and the Wandering Badger became the biggest beneficiaries of exports from the Gallop Plains to the Dragon Kingdom, and the Grey Goose gained decisive influence over the entire area south of the Gallop River.

Meanwhile, the Wandering Badger's territory population had tripled within seven years, and the additional population had traditionally become vassal tribes, while the main camp now boasted luxurious tents and over ten human magic-user slaves.

During this autumn's council, the Grey Goose leader told Darkeye that he intended to head south in the winter and invited Darkeye to send troops together. Darkeye sensed that his opportunity had arrived; he used various means to send the main force of the surrounding small tribes to the Grey Goose all at once.

He himself should have gone along, but he "carelessly" fell into the Gallop River and caught a cold.

Darkeye was very similar to the Grey Goose leader; they were both highly ambitious men. The Grey Goose leader had many human magic users in his salt mines, and these human slaves often made the Grey Goose leader believe that he, too, could become a great human lord.

Darkeye's ambition was different from the Grey Goose leader's; he believed that excavating the Night-Kirin City ruins was the most important thing. Over these years, while serving the Grey Goose to accumulate strength, he had also been keeping a close eye on the Grey Goose's movements.

Hearing that the Grey Goose was heading south, Darkeye was overjoyed. He now believed that when faced with human powerhouses, the Grey Goose Tribe would only be shattered.

Once the Grey Goose was gone, the era of the Wandering Badger would arrive. Taking advantage of the fact that the Grey Goose had taken away the bulk of the small tribes' fighting force, what he needed to do first was to rapidly increase his strength, then lead the small tribes to seize the salt mines, and the third step would be to take the human magic users from the salt mines to explore the Night-Kirin City ruins.

Darkeye had already thoroughly scrutinized the Grey Goose's strength near the salt mines, and he had already calculated exactly how many barbarian cavalrymen he would need to ensure a certain victory.

To this end, he had prepared food and Long-Haired Sheep in advance. The first step in the rise of the Wandering Badger Tribe was to annex the surrounding small tribes. Whether they were offshoots or just passing through, he would tether them all around his camp without exception. Darkeye had made up his mind: he would use forceful means to merge these tribes with his own.

Once he possessed a cavalry force of over 40 men, the Wandering Badger Tribe could easily swallow all the mid-sized tribes and charge straight for the salt mines.

Every detail of the plan had been rehearsed many times in Darkeye's mind; today was the first day of the Wandering Badger Tribe's rise.

The Wandering Badger Tribe was hospitable, slaughtering sheep every day for the sake of these surrounding tribes. This was one of Darkeye's tactics. After breakfast today, all the magic-wielders of the tribes were to gather in the open space in front of the camp. Darkeye Wandering was going to propose the merger plan to all the tribes.

Facing dozens of barbarian magic-wielders, Darkeye Wandering proclaimed loudly, "Respected chieftains, I have received a letter from the Gray Goose chieftain. He has asked me to lead everyone south to spend the winter in the human territories."

The group of barbarians looked at one another; every tribe had cavalrymen who had gone to the alliance meeting.

But when they had left, there was no mention of going to human lands. Everyone was puzzled. Now that the primary fighting force of their own tribes was away and they were trapped here, even with food, drink, and entertainment provided, they could not endure it for long.

"Lord Wandering, we have already sent our men to the south. Those of us left behind are either too old or too young; we can no longer even lift a blade."

"That's right."

"We are not young anymore; we can no longer fight."

"Indeed, we cannot go."

Darkeye naturally knew the petty schemes in these barbarians' hearts and asked loudly on purpose, "How can that be? Are you not all the elites of your respective tribes? How can you be unable to fight?"

"Lord Wandering, you don't know. Although there have been no major wars in these past few years, the population has grown, and the consumption of food and horses has increased! We old folks usually don't dare to eat our fill; we have to save the grain for the young ones."

"That's true."

"We usually don't dare to eat much."

"It really is so. If it weren't for the Wandering Badger Tribe treating us, we wouldn't dare to eat our fill."

All the barbarians chimed in with chatter; no one wanted to go to the human territories. They hoped to live a stable life of herding on the Gallop Plains.

"It seems everyone's tribe is in great difficulty," Darkeye said hypocritically. "How about this, shall I help you all out?"

"That's great! Does Lord Wandering intend to lend us grain?" A few of the tribal elders began to imagine things.

"Oh, that's not what I call helping. If you ask me, everyone should move their camps here so we can all look out for one another."

"Ah?" Everyone erupted in an uproar. Everyone knew what Darkeye meant: he wanted to swallow the other tribes.

"If you ask me, this is how it should be," one of the shills he had planted chimed in stiffly to support the proposal. "We are all small tribes and naturally cannot compare to the Gray Goose. To resist the winter, we need to unite!"

No one wanted to take the bait, but a shill had to act like a shill.

"Everyone, if we truly gather together, we must have a leader. I propose we ask the chieftain of the Wandering Badger Tribe to be our leader, what do you think?"

The strong must be given extra respect; this was the prevailing rule in Alivia. For the barbarians, strength was everything.

If there were disagreements among the barbarians, they were willing to use duels to reach a conclusion. For instance, right now, two barbarian elders who disagreed with the merger were already lying on the ground.

Although Darkeye was wearing runic iron armor while the two elders wore only cloth, no one doubted the outcome of the duel. Since no one proposed a new challenge, it meant that the merger was agreed upon by everyone.

Just as Darkeye was scanning his surroundings, he discovered that his patrol had brought back a group of people.

It was a group Darkeye had never seen before. They wore the same clothes as his own, wore the same hats, and rode the same horses.

However, they looked extremely unfamiliar. Darkeye had not seen these people in any of the many alliance meetings, and these strangers could not stop his plan.

"Welcome to the Wandering Badger camp. Just now, we have all decided to form a new alliance, and the Wandering Badger Tribe will provide food for everyone. Please have each tribe move their camps here now."

"A new alliance? Move the camps?" The newcomers were clearly very surprised.

"Yes, as new members, you have also entered the alliance site and should abide by the alliance's decisions," Darkeye said smugly.

"Who is the chieftain?" another newcomer asked.

"Everyone has decided that I shall be the chieftain!"

"Are you not being a bit too immodest?"

"If the new members have any objections, you may propose a duel, just like those two," he said, spreading his hands toward the two corpses in the arena.

"Fine," the newcomer said, and spurred his horse forward.

"You—" Although Darkeye had just attacked the unarmored elders while wearing armor, he still had to protest now that he was on foot facing a mounted opponent.

However, the newcomer did not give any response, simply charging over on horseback, raising his hand and bringing down his blade.