Chapter Summaries

The Tax Bureau used a sting operation to recruit Bohemian smugglers and catch Thousand-Blade Butcher evading taxes. After he was fined, convicted of selling substandard canned pork to the military, and stripped of his pig farm, he died of anger, though he planned to revive and retaliate against the Tax Bureau.

• Vladimir and his men used a sting operation to help the Tax Bureau capture smugglers, and Vladimir became a Tax Collection Unit captain after the smugglers killed their resistant leader.
• Thousand-Blade Butcher fell for the operation, paid his overdue taxes, and received a huge fine for evasion and other offenses.
• Military police arrested Thousand-Blade Butcher and brought him before a military court for selling inferior canned pork to the Defense Force as premium goods.
• The military court shut down Thousand-Blade Butcher's canned-meat business, confiscated his illegal earnings, fined him, and revoked his factory license.
• A tax officer auctioned off Thousand-Blade Butcher's pig farm to pay the fine, and he died of anger when he learned it was gone.
• Afterward, other military suppliers reconsidered cheating, while Thousand-Blade Butcher planned to revive in another character and keep challenging the Tax Bureau.

Chris led the First Legion toward the front and learned that Major General Marlow had occupied Anvil Fortress and advanced toward Tavitsky after discovering Minisia’s border defenses abandoned. Chris approved the move but ordered Marlow not to advance beyond Tavitsky; by nightfall, Marlow reported unidentified scouts outside the city who appeared to be from the Retalia Empire.

• Chris led the First Legion toward the front, since no one else in Bagnia could command the campaign in his place.
• A player postman delivered a State Council letter about the fate of the crooked merchant who had supplied inferior canned food to the First Legion.
• Major General Marlow reported that the Ninth and Tenth Legions had taken the abandoned Anvil Fortress and were advancing toward Tavitsky.
• Chris approved Marlow’s advance to Tavitsky but forbade him from moving beyond the city’s defensive perimeter without further orders.
• After the First Legion reached Iron Anvil Fortress, Chris received Marlow’s report that unidentified scouts outside Tavitsky appeared to be soldiers of the Retalia Empire.

Major General Marlow discovered that Retalia Empire scouts had infiltrated the area around Tavitsky and realized his planned advance into Minisia could leave Bagnia exposed. As enemy forces approached from the east and south, he ordered the city's defenses reinforced and urgently sent for Prince Chris to be warned.

• Major General Marlow reconsidered his plan to invade Minisia after learning that his scouts had encountered unknown soldiers near Chivilevka Province.
• An intelligence officer reported that merchants claiming to come from Chivilevka had given contradictory accounts, suggesting they might be Retalian agents.
• A scout brought Marlow a badge identifying Retalia Empire's Third Ranger Regiment, confirming that its reconnaissance forces had reached the border area.
• Marlow ordered Tavitsky's defenses reinforced, sent scouts to locate the Retalian forces, and dispatched a warning to Prince Chris at Anvil Fortress.
• Soldiers spotted torches approaching Tavitsky from both the east and south, so Marlow ordered elite troops to get his letter to Chris as quickly as possible.

Chris sent Olaf and the Varangian Warband from Anvil Fortress to deliver orders to Major General Marlow, but Retalian cavalry ambushed them on the way. The Varangians defeated the force at terrible cost, and Olaf killed its commander, though only about a third of his warband survived.

• After receiving Major General Marlow's letter, Chris ordered the First Legion to secure Anvil Fortress and summoned Olaf to lead the Varangian Warband to the Tavitsky front.
• Olaf led more than two hundred Varangians out before dawn, while Chris sent the other players to investigate nearby Minisian settlements.
• A Retalian force ambushed the Varangians with light cavalry and a charge by heavily armored horsemen, tearing open their formation and inflicting severe casualties.
• Olaf fought his way through the melee and killed the plumed cavalry commander after the commander broke Olaf's left arm.
• The remaining Retalian cavalry lost heart and were trapped by the Varangians, but only about a third of Olaf's warband survived the battle.

Olaf delivered Prince Chris’s letter to Major General Marlow after the Varangian Warband defeated a Raitelian cavalry force at heavy cost. Marlow chose to hold Tavitsky and convened a war council, where the prince’s Guards proposed turning the vulnerable city into a layered trench defense.

• Olaf reported that his two hundred Varangians had beaten more than a dozen Raitelian knights and over a hundred mounted retainers, with seventy-five men still able to fight.
• Major General Marlow sent scouts to verify Olaf’s account, then read Prince Chris’s order to hold Tavitsky and await reinforcements.
• Marlow decided to obey the order and identified Tavitsky’s old walls, four gates, neglected moat, narrow streets, and nearby buildings and orchards as major defensive liabilities.
• Marlow summoned his officers and the prince’s Guards to a war council after deciding the city’s defenses had to be improved before the Raitelian army arrived.
• The Guards proposed abandoning the walls as the main defense, filling the moat, clearing nearby buildings and trees, and building three connected trench lines with obstacles, firing positions, and routes for sorties.
• Marlow judged the Guards’ detailed plan reasonable and realized that its completed defenses could turn Tavitsky into a deadly obstacle for the enemy.

Raitelian forces ravaged Tavitsky Province while players initially suffered devastating losses against armored knights and light cavalry. Hammer and a group of players then lured two knights into a trap, killed them, and escaped with loot, leaving the players poised to continue their counter-ambushes.

• Raitelian thousand-man units raided Tavitsky Province, plundering settlements and forcing captured farmers to harvest their crops while Marlow kept his infantry inside Tavitsky City.
• Players attacked Raitelian patrols but Hammer's six-person squad was overwhelmed by three armored knights and their light cavalry retainers, and players lost a hundred people in a day.
• Hammer and two players posed as fleeing scouts to lure a Raitelian patrol into concealed horse traps, then threw grenades at its light cavalry.
• More than twenty player ambushers attacked the trapped knights, beat both to death, and drove off the surviving light cavalry.
• Hammer ordered the players to take the armor and other spoils and withdraw before more Raitelians arrived.

Chris prepared for a major war against Raitelia while Prince Seba ordered his forces to protect their supply routes and avoid a suspected ambush. As Raitelian raids drove Minisians toward Tavitsky City, Marlow ordered the refugees killed, but Lin Ruoyu persuaded him to let the Extreme Warriors escort them to Anvil Fortress.

• Chris assessed Raitelia's forces and chose to fortify Tavitsky and prepare for a prolonged war, ordering the military supplies at Anvil Fortress transported to the city.
• Seba executed deserters, rejected his officers' request to attack a Bagnian supply convoy, and ordered his units to guard their supply routes while seeking Minisia's saltpeter mines.
• The Bagnian convoy reached Tavitsky safely, and four Raitelian units withdrew as the devastation of their raids left Minisians starving and homeless.
• Refugees began traveling to Tavitsky City, where Marlow ordered his soldiers to drive them away or kill them.
• Lin Ruoyu opposed Marlow's order and offered to take the refugees to Anvil Fortress, where the Extreme Warriors could manage them; Marlow agreed.

Priest Oliver tried to make Bagnian militiamen reduce food rations for Minisian refugees who refused to convert, but Priest Crawford exposed his scheme and went to report it to Prince Chris. Oliver was left fearing the Prince’s retaliation.

• Prince Chris arranged shelter, washing, medical care, food, and work for the Minisian refugees at Anvil Fortress.
• Priest Oliver resented the refugees’ aid and secretly instructed a militia leader to favor those who prayed to the Goddess of Agriculture and reduce food for others.
• Priest Crawford overheard Oliver’s plan, condemned it, and ordered the militia leader to report Oliver’s words to his superior.
• Priest Crawford told Oliver he would report the scheme to Prince Chris, leaving Oliver convinced that his position and safety were in jeopardy.

Chris learned that Priest Oliver had planned to use food in the refugee camp to force Minisia refugees to convert, and he ordered severe punishment for Oliver and the Goddess of Agriculture Church. The chapter ended with Chris sealing the orders and demanding their immediate execution.

• Priest Crawford reported Oliver’s plan to exploit the refugee camp’s food supplies to force conversions, while the militia captain stood by.
• Chris dismissed the captain without punishment and praised Crawford for preventing the plan from causing trouble among the refugees.
• Chris sentenced Oliver to three years of compulsory labor at a northeastern mine and denied the Goddess of Agriculture Church permission to build the Hall of Plenty in Votradnoi.
• Chris ordered an investigation of the church’s military chaplains and the removal of half of them from their army posts.
• Chris warned Crawford to keep the Earth Mother Goddess Church in line, then sealed the orders and commanded their immediate execution.

Papper spotted Raitelian scouts approaching Anvil Fortress, prompting the fortress to send out armored cavalry while Seballema assessed its defenses and withdrew. After the Raitelians left the Tavitsky Plain, Chris learned that their campaign had devastated the region and left it unable to support his rule.

• Oliver killed himself after Chris sentenced him to three years in the mines.
• Papper spotted at least twenty Raitelian riders near Anvil Fortress and rang the alarm, but his captain struck him for mistaking scouts for an invading army.
• Seballema examined Anvil Fortress’s defenses and refugee camp as Chris’s armored cavalry rode out, then withdrew his scouting party.
• The Raitelians left the Tavitsky Plain, allowing Connie’s Intelligence Bureau agents to enter Minicia and gather information about its civil war.
• Chris’s investigators found that the Raitelians had killed or expelled local leaders, destroyed institutions and infrastructure, and stripped the region of resources.
• Chris concluded that the devastation would leave the Tavitsky Plain unable to provide revenue and reinforced his view that wars should be fought beyond national borders.

Chris directed the reclamation of fertile land near Anvil Fortress, but the work advanced slowly without draft animals. He rejected Crawford’s proposals to pause or hold a costly ritual, revealing that the labor was meant to bind the Minisian refugees to his rule and left the work continuing through the cold.

• Chris sent players and infiltration teams into Raitelian and Minisian territory while guiding refugees to reclaim farmland near Anvil Fortress.
• Refugees and militia struggled to clear weeds and stones and pull iron plows by hand because horses and donkeys were needed elsewhere.
• Crawford urged Chris to suspend reclamation until spring or pay for a Fertile Soil Ritual to soften the land.
• Chris rejected both proposals and told Crawford that the hard labor was meant to tame the refugees and make them loyal subjects of the fortress.
• Chris declared that the refugees would receive land through military service or work as tenant farmers, then ordered them to keep working without rest or ritual.

Charles Stuart watched the royal and noble-religious armies prepare to fight while presenting himself as the responsible heir who would restore Minisia. During peace negotiations between William and Judith, Bagnian operatives fired Crouching Tiger Cannons at the tent, leaving the High Priest alive behind a magical shield and Charles poised to exploit the massacre.

• Charles Stuart surveyed the battlefield and the war’s destruction, then told Norton Perrier that someone had to restore royal authority and rebuild Minisia.
• High Priest Ignatius Moro brought William Stuart and Judith Stuart together to propose a dual kingship that would divide royal power.
• Three Crouching Tiger Cannons fired into the negotiating tent, killing William, Judith, and the nobles and priests around them while Ignatius survived behind a magical shield.
• Six attackers proclaimed their loyalty to Bagnia and Prince Chris before killing themselves with poison-coated daggers.
• Charles identified the attack as Prince Chris’s work and called the cannon blasts a coronation salute for a king.

Lawrence Darnell found a renewed purpose when Hask invited him to become a deputy centurion in Chris's Banner Army, offering land and a future for his family. As Lawrence agreed to begin recruiting and training, Chris's plans for the army were interrupted by warbands requesting deployment against the Raitelians.

• Lawrence Darnell found security for his family in the orderly refugee camp and tried to ignore the war beyond it.
• Hask told Lawrence that Chris was forming the Blue Banner Army and offered him a deputy centurion's position with land and a share of its yield.
• Lawrence revealed that he was a Minisia baron, but Hask said Chris already knew and cared only about his usefulness as a soldier and commander.
• Lawrence accepted the offer and asked where the land was and when training would begin; Hask said they would choose recruits the next day.
• Chris planned to recruit five thousand Banner Army soldiers from the refugees and use other refugees as tenant farmers on the army's collective land.
• The Extreme Warriors, Mountain Tiger, and Han-Tang Warriors asked Chris to deploy them after finding an opportunity to defeat the Raitelian army.

After Minisia’s civil war ended with Charles Stuart crowned king, the players concluded that Minisia could not fight through the winter and decided to strike the Retalia Empire instead. Barbarossa reconnoitered a Retalian camp in Chivilevka Province and headed to a rendezvous with intelligence for the players’ winter raid.

• The players traced the deaths of Minisia’s First Prince and Second Princess to Third Prince Charles Stuart’s frame-up, but the armies fought on and more than twenty thousand soldiers died before High Priest Ignatius brought both sides to peace talks.
• Charles Stuart was crowned king, and the players assessed that Minisia needed the winter to recover while Retalian forces continued gathering in Minisia’s provinces.
• Player Warband commanders and unaffiliated player leaders agreed to attack the Retalia Empire during the winter, and Chris approved their request to deploy.
• Barbarossa observed the expanding Retalian camp, recording its supplies, defenses, weapons, and a cavalry patrol heading northwest.
• At dawn, Barbarossa concealed his tracks, packed his equipment, and set out for the players’ rendezvous to turn his observations into an operational plan.

Count Mikhail von Eisenberg faced a food shortage and feared a Bagnian attack, but a sudden blizzard stopped his plan to raid for supplies. In Tavitsky, the players used the storm as cover to prepare a ski raid on the Raitelian camp in Chivilevka Province.

• Count Mikhail von Eisenberg received reports of Bagnian troop movements and ordered stronger patrols and camp defenses.
• Count Mikhail found that his provisions would feed his troops for only a month and a half, and decided to send elite cavalry to raid estates and Sea God's monasteries for food.
• A savage blizzard struck, forcing Mikhail to abandon the raid and leaving his food crisis and fears of a Bagnian attack unresolved.
• A player named "Clear skies without a cloud" announced that his blizzard prediction had come true as the storm covered Tavitsky.
• Knife-in-the-Butt, Lin Ruoyu, and other warband leaders prepared two thousand veteran players to ski through the blizzard and raid the Raitelian camp, planning to set out that night.

Hua'er Daji and more than two thousand players prepared to cross a blizzard, while the storm left Raitelian scouts and guards unable to detect their approach. After reaching a forest near the military camp, the surviving players regrouped and prepared to attack, leaving the assault about to begin.

• Hua'er Daji collected a thermos of honey water and liquor, a compass, food, and other survival supplies before the players set out into the blizzard.
• Raphael and two Raitelian scouts heard the sound of thousands of skis approaching and realized a huge force was advancing through the storm.
• Leo, a concealed sentry at the Raitelian camp, dismissed the distant scraping as wind and failed to raise an alarm.
• Lin Ruoyu, Knife-in-the-Butt, and Old Li regrouped 1,309 surviving players in a forest after nearly 800 of the 2,137 who set out were lost or separated.
• Lin Ruoyu ordered a short rest and weapon checks, while the commanders assigned armor to the breaching teams and finalized their attack plan.

Count Mikhail faced a surprise player assault on the Raitelian camp and organized a defense around his command tent as Black-and-White Bear’s strike team fought toward him. The Raitelian heavy knights counterattacked, but Old Li shot one down with a City-Breaker Gun, leaving Black-and-White Bear furious that his kill had been stolen.

• Mikhail learned that fifty scouts had disappeared in the blizzard and that frostbite, damaged defenses, and supply losses had crippled his camp.
• Knife-in-the-Butt’s spearhead broke through the outer defenses, while Black-and-White Bear led an assault toward the command tent and the players targeted the granaries and stables.
• Mikhail ordered Vasily to defend the command tent, Grigory to provide concentrated missile fire, Igor to prepare Hellfire Oil, and local doctors to treat the soldiers.
• Raitelian troops rallied and slowed Black-and-White Bear’s advance with arrows, crossbows, barricades, and spearmen.
• Three Raitelian heavy knights charged Black-and-White Bear and his companions, but Old Li fired a City-Breaker Gun and killed the lead knight.
• Black-and-White Bear cursed Old Li for stealing his kill.

Black-and-White Bear cut through the Raitelian defenders and killed two wounded knights, then hurried toward the command tent to stop Old Li from claiming the victory. The tent erupted in dark-red flames, Old Li’s fate remained unclear, and Black-and-White Bear killed a fleeing Raitelian figure as the army surrendered.

• Black-and-White Bear charged through the Raitelian spearmen, then crushed four sword-and-shield fighters on his way toward the watchtower.
• Two wounded knights ambushed Black-and-White Bear, but he killed both with his melon-shaped mace despite taking damage to his armor.
• Black-and-White Bear found Old Li and other players fighting inside the command tent, then saw the tent engulfed in strange dark-red flames.
• Black-and-White Bear hurled his mace at a fleeing, richly dressed Raitelian and finished him with his Mo Dao.
• The Raitelian soldiers surrendered after the command tent burned, while some knightly lords fled into the snowstorm.

After the players captured a Raitelian camp in the blizzard, Mia's Mountain Rangers hunted down fleeing soldiers while the victors counted their prisoners, supplies, and mounts. Little Knife persuaded the players to secure the camp and wait for another storm before attacking again.

• Mia learned the players had won and sent the Mountain Rangers after fleeing Raitelian soldiers, while Aisha negotiated for candy.
• The players captured the Raitelian camp, took roughly four thousand prisoners, and seized supplies and nearly five thousand mounts, though more than three hundred players died.
• Players at the war council proposed attacking another camp, but Little Knife warned that the blizzard's end had exposed them and the enemy could prepare.
• Little Knife urged the players to secure prisoners, distribute the horses, repair the camp's defenses, and hand prisoners over to Prince Chris in batches.
• Little Knife persuaded the players to scout and harass nearby camps while reorganizing and waiting for the next blizzard before launching another major attack.

Chris decided to use the captured Raitelian camp and prisoners to advance Bagnia’s military and railway efforts, then ordered a winter advance toward Tavitsky. Seba learned of the defeat and prepared a cavalry ambush against the Bagnian force moving to reinforce the captured camp.

• Chris sent Major General Marlow a request for a judgment on advancing troops to the captured camp and ordered the Raitelian prisoners assigned to labor after their crimes were assessed.
• Major General Marlow deemed the plan feasible, so Chris ordered the Ninth and Tenth Corps to advance toward the captured camp while he led the remaining corps and the Hegrande Legion to establish a defensive line at Tavitsky.
• Seba learned that the Raitelians had lost their camp and ordered heightened alerts, doubled patrols, and extensive scouting around Anvil Fortress.
• Seba’s scouts reported that four or five thousand Bagnian Defense Force troops were marching from Tavitsky toward the captured camp.
• Seba ordered the Snow Wolf and North Wind units to prepare for a winter cavalry attack on the advancing Bagnian troops.