Exhaling a mouth full of steam, Peter ignored the light snowfall, and, signaling for his Marksmen to follow, they quietly inched closer to their targets.

It had to be said, after the deadly raid on Mazen, Rivacheg and the surrounding lands had been blessed with a period of much-needed peace.

Sure, there were small groups of River Trolls which would crop up every now and again, but through the rest of the spring and the first summer harvest, Peter had been able to [Recruit] hundreds and hundreds of extra [Footmen] and [Huntresses] for building and opening up even more lands for civilization.

The organization of lands outside of the walls of Rivacheg was sloppy, but prioritizing tilling and planting more than anything else, they had ended up with hundreds of square acres of crops sown in a very short period of time.

To make this happen, Peter had to dip into his precious stash of FC and directly buy hundreds of oxen to draw plows, and then he spent Denars to [Recruit] hundreds of [Farmers] and [Peasant Woman] who had the experience needed to do that kind of labor.

Of course, Peter would not allow anyone to be regulated to ‘Peasant’ status legally, but he needed to have people who could handle the oxen which were slow and cumbersome but could digest wild grasses and would hopefully survive the winter.

With just under two thousand extra pairs of hands the months of spring and summer had been good, even though meat was becoming scarcer the people wouldn’t starve and seeing their homes being built at a visible rate kept them hopeful.

Truly, Peter had thought that the effects of the [Engineering] passive skill from the [Mount and Blade] System was almost too good to be real, or they really had God looking out for them as Father Anderson proclaimed in his sermons.

Why? Because for months, when things came to the construction, everything always seemed to fall in the direction.

There had yet been a single batch of bricks which had turned out cracked and useless.

There had yet been a single time when a floor joist couldn’t hold up or a pulley broke while being used.

There had yet been a single time when a plow was blocked by an underground boulder.

These coincidences weren’t the case in Mazen, but even there, the number of accidents could have been counted on a single hand.

It was really all looking up, and by the middle of Fall, when the Dwarfs started delivering hundreds and hundreds of Wood Stoves, preparations for rebuilding the stone bridge were already being drawn up.

If conditions allowed, they would rebuild the bridge during the winter and start their operations westward in the following spring.

Naturally, their operations included building new settlements and bringing to Justice the surviving Aesling raiders.

Indeed, everything had been smooth sailing, and Peter believed that given just a few more years their position would have been unassailable even without the [Mount and Blade] System.

But unfortunately, Troll Country wasn’t known as one of the most dangerous places in the Old World for nothing, and the amount of activity needed to jump start a civilization wasn’t something that could go unnoticed for long.

Of course, Peter and the others weren’t ignorant of that fact, so the Patrols still went out daily, sweeping the hills and river clean of threats.

The forests were themselves constantly used for lumber and game, and though there had been strange sights over the months, the Patrols had seen nothing to indicate the sheer number of creatures which had raided the oxen pens after the Fall harvest.

Perhaps Peter should have been grateful that this raid had occurred just after the 2nd Harvest, the one that would see them through the next half year, but when he thought about the apparent ease which these new enemies attacked his lands, he couldn’t see anything to be grateful for.

Because the enemies which attacked in the Fall were particularly nasty.

The best way that a fleeing [Farmer] could describe them was a ‘herd of demons’, and it turned out to be apt for when Peter and the Knights investigated the scene, they found hoof prints everywhere.

Thankfully, there had been no deaths, but the oxen which Peter had purchased through the [Fate Casino] had either been stolen or slaughtered and left to rot in the pens.

And this angered him, greatly.

So, for the rest of the Fall season, Peter along with a score of Marksmen started combing the forest, yet, while he had superhuman senses, finding the prey hidden in the forest took several long weeks.

It was only at the beginning of Winter, after wandering deep into the northern forest, when he had found them at their ‘camp’ – which was a mere 30 or so miles from Rivacheg.

[Beastmen] was what they were called, and after seeing one up close, and killing it, Peter didn’t need to be told that they were evil.

They were not simply ugly or simply primitive.

The Beastmen were evil.

And that fact was reinforced further as he looked down at a sloppily built camp that was situated in a tucked away valley, if it could even be called a camp, and watched wicked Banners waving beside a large bonfire.

Made out of what looked like human skin, the Banners themselves were the least offensive sight.

There were several thousand of them, each of different sizes, some perhaps as much as 9ft tall, Peter guessed.

Watching with his eyes narrowing, he saw monsters in the shape of humanoid bovines perpetrate all kinds of indignities on the stolen Oxen, even the Bulls.

It wasn’t an ‘orgy’ per say, or at least it didn’t appear to be completely sexual in nature, because in just the couple minutes or so that Peter could bear to watch, he saw a procession of the ill-treated Oxen brought up to a tall stone pillar and gruesomely slaughtered 1 after the next.

And the animals, surrounded by blood and gore, not only didn’t try to flee – they didn’t even seem to make a single noise or take a single action.

For months, Peter had held back on [Recruiting] professional soldiers, but that wasn’t because he lacked Denars.

After 4 months, and having Recruits another 800 Footmen and Huntresses, with an additional 800 Farmers and Peasant Women, Peter opened up the system and saw.

[Denar – 165,988]

This number had shrunk from his total after the raid, but he hadn’t lost hope because – quite by accident – he had discovered he could [Sell] corpses of all kinds of non-human monsters as [Trophies].

The amount depended on the condition of the body, but a well-preserved River Troll would sell to the system for a massive 600 Denars.

When Peter had recognized this, he froze when he remembered burning the army of Greenskin corpses after his first battle. But what was in the past had to stay there, and having finally uncovered his target, he inched quietly back up the valley.

The trek was tedious, since he dared not be seen and had to stay downwind, but once he was there, he signaled to the few dozen men, then opened the System.

[Recruit 850 Vaegir Marksmen (-163,200 Denar) y/n?]

This time he didn’t have Father Anderson to back him up, but he couldn’t wait.

Launching their attack in the middle of whatever dreadful ritual the Beastmen were performing was their best bet, after all, there were many more enemies than anyone had predicted.

The raid on the Oxen pens was said to be about 200 individual monsters by the surviving Farmers, and the hoof marks tended to agree.

But in the valley below, Peter just saw at least 2 or 3 thousand.

Quickly selecting ‘yes’ Peter organized the Marksmen’s gear.

• Helmet with Lamellar Guard, Studded Leather Coat, Leather Boots, Voulge (polearm), Strong Bow, Barbed Arrow Quiver (x2).

In traditional battles, the largest weakness for the Vaegir people was the general lack of preferring to use shields and heavy armor, but this preference could be explained when it was taken into consideration the cold land which they came from.

And this tendency was doubly so in the famed Vaegir Marksmen – career hunters in peacetime – who treated the mountainous wilderness and wild steppes like their backyards as they hunted down game of every type.

As soon as Peter [Recruited] them, one by one, 850 Marksmen walked from behind trees and stood up from behind boulders, though they were put there by the System, it undoubtedly was a testament to how these fierce hunters were adept at hiding and stalking prey.

Looking over the mass of men in front of him, Peter quickly ordered his original 17 Marksmen to form up and lead platoons of 50 each.

Obviously in battle 1 person could not effective order around 50 individuals, but with time being of the essence, Peter wasn’t going to wait around for the platoons to form their hierarchies and so moving ahead with the plan he had discussed before, the army of Marksmen made their way back to the valley.

Moving silently down the hill, the army of Marksmen halted right at the tree line, and signaling for 3 platoons to follow him, they broke out into the open valley.

It stank, even from a distance of several hundred yards, the air was putrid.

Gripping 4 Heavy Throwing Axes in his left hand and 1 in his right, Peter led the 153 Marksmen nearer and nearer the Beastmen horde, who were starting to sound alarms.

For the Beastmen camp, 150-odd humans were nothing to worry about, but even still, they craved to fight, kill, and eat human meat so started going wild.

Stopping his 3 platoons roughly in the middle area between the tree line and camp, about 300 yards away from either, Peter himself walked forward.

The Beastmen formed no battle lines or thought to fight with any tactics besides that of the ‘Warherd’.

It was not that they were completely foolish, but not even these Chaos-tainted mutants could imagine that an entire army could be spawned right outside their valley.

150 men may be able to escape their notice, but that was about the extent of it, after all, armies of men required long baggage trains of hundreds of wagons and camps – camps that the warherd loved to attack the most.

Bellowing and bleating hundreds and hundreds of various kinds of Beastmen rushed out the camp, and once they were about 200 yards away, the first volley was fired by the 153 Marksmen.

There was no need for a bolstering speech, Deus Vult or not, the Marksmen were the premier soldier of the Vaegir people. If they were put into a situation that required them to kill, they would kill.

And even with their hazy consciousnesses, seeing the humanoid beasts left little to consider.

They would need to kill.

For this encounter, Peter had chosen the smaller ‘Strong Bow’ over the larger and slightly more powerful ‘War Bow’.

He had chosen this for several reasons.

Standing some 40 yards ahead of the Marksmen, when they fired their first volley of Barbed Arrows, they began to fall back while still shooting.

At first it was shooting their bows at a walking pace, but eventually it turned into a full speed run back to the tree line.

Met with the rain of arrows, some smaller Beastmen fell dead, but most continued on, bleating, grunting, and snorting even louder than before.

As for Peter, he surveyed the wall of furred flesh, and picking out some of the largest figures, threw his Heavy Throwing Axes.

By now Peter was an expert at using throwing weapons, and in combination with his [Power Throw] Skill – his axes hit like a car crash.

Picking out 4 beasts that stood a head over the rest of their fellows, Peter didn’t miss, and each throw not only killed his target, but it also hurt the animals behind his targets when they were landed on by their larger compatriots.

By now, the nearest of Beastmen were only 30 or so yards away from him, and pulling his Great Axe off his back, Peter went to work.

Moving at an impossible speed for a human, Peter swung his great axe like a baseball bat and directly cleaved through the largely unarmored Beastmen.

Aiming methodically for their necks, he acted like an executioner until the main host of the warherd was on him, then without thinking twice, Peter also ran towards the tree line.

Capable of running at over 60mph, covering the distance of a few hundred yards only took a matter of seconds, and taking his place in the front of the 153 Marksmen – each of which had their polearms beside them – he held up his right hand.

With the herd of Beastmen running at full bore – it didn’t take but about 30 seconds before the 153 Marksmen started shooting more volleys.

Then, when the Beastmen were about 150 yards away – so close that he could see the blacks of their eyes – Peter dropped his right hand and 700 Marksmen emerged from the forest, firing volley after volley.

The sudden appearance of hundreds more human archers faltered the herd, but no sooner when the first line of Beastmen wavered, a crimson misty cloud descended over the area, and they were filled with renewed rage.

‘They have a shaman?!’ Peter was alarmed, and looking for who was casting the spell, he saw the glint of an ominous green light from the back of the warherd.

Drawing another throwing axe, he threw as hard as he could, over the rampaging Beastmen, and with enough force to kill anything that got in its way… or so it should have been.

With a clashing sound so loud that it could be heard over thousands of hooves, Peter caught a glimpse of a Beastman who was even larger than the largest of beasts in the herd.

‘A Minotaur?!’ thought he, and deciding that he couldn’t wait, he dashed forwards with arrows flying all around him.

While perhaps not as individually dangerous as the River Trolls, a Minotaur fought alongside a warherd, and quantity had a quality all its own.

Though the 867 Marksmen could fire a volley every 5-8 seconds, killing over a thousand Beastmen before the first contact was made, after only 4 volleys the front line of Marksmen were forced to throw down their bows and pick up their Voulge’s.

Standing in 17 platoons of 51 men, 10 of them directly abandoned the bow and moved to form a line of polearms.

And while Peter was at the head of it, he couldn’t be there for long.

He had to kill the shaman first.

With still hundreds of arrows flying overhead, Peter ignored the wet crash of flesh-on-steel, and using his great axe he began to cut a path through the herd.

It had to be said that while Peter was very strong, his greatest strength was the speed at which he could move and think, and the reaction time resulting from it.

Never allowing himself to be surrounded, he hacked and slashed and never stopped moving until he could see the green light – which turned out to be a staff – getting closer and closer.

With the warherd dwindling and continuously throwing itself at the mass of humans, by the time Peter reached the shaman there were only a few scattered Beastmen around and the shaman.

Only, they were big.

Despite having felled at least a hundred of the gruesome creatures, these few were the largest and most well armored of the herd, and it caused even Peter to slightly pause.

His axe was chipped, the wooden handle was shaky, clearly weapons designed to fight on the human battlefields of Calradia were not made for the punishment that his superhuman capabilities could dish out.

But now, breathing deeply but steadily, Peter eyed a group of 8 Minotaur which stood in the way between he and the Shaman.

Standing still for a brief moment, which seemed like a long time, they snorted and bellowed, and he in turn roared: “Foul abominations! Go back to whatever pathetic demon created you! DUES VULT!”