Chapter 388

"I don't know when peace will come completely."

"Mr. Orson, you may find it a bit absurd to say this, but do you believe that there will be a day when humans and orcs will end their hatred and achieve complete peace?"

"Sorry, in my opinion, humans and orcs have been resentful for a long time. This is no longer a problem that the upper class can solve. This is the hatred between the two races, which cannot be easily solved." Orson said this and shook his head.

Seeing that even Orson gave a negative answer, Lilia hung her head and looked very lonely.

"Is it really impossible to achieve peace?"

It makes sense. The war between humans is a war between the same race. People of the same race usually don't even have any intersection with each other. There is no hatred. All wars are launched by the upper class to achieve certain goals.

If there is no conflict between the upper lords, war is difficult to happen.

But the war between humans and orcs has lasted for thousands of years.

Since birth, both sides have been instilled with an idea that they are enemies of each other.

Under the indoctrination of thoughts day after day, even if they usually have no intersection with each other, after seeing different faces and hearing different languages, both sides still choose not to seek common ground while reserving differences, but a simpler and more direct solution.

That is fighting.

It was like this a thousand years ago, and it will be the same a thousand years later.

In addition, in addition to this reason, there is another more important reason.

As intelligent creatures, the biggest advantage of humans over other higher creatures is their strong fertility.

Other races like elves, although the average strength of individuals is much higher than that of humans, the total number is too small. The total number of elves on the continent may not be as many as a large city of humans. Therefore, the empire controls most of the land in the west of the continent with the advantage of human numbers.

If there were no desert blocking the middle, even the

Eastern Continent, the empire could have brought it under its control.

The fertility of orcs is even stronger than that of humans.

Although orcs are generally not as smart as humans, orcs are equivalent to adults when they are ten years old.

Even if the number of orcs is small now, as long as they develop peacefully with humans and provide orcs with the same rich resources, the number of orcs will become more and more, and eventually surpass humans.

Even if humans are thinking about their offspring, they will never let orcs develop peacefully, so they drive orcs to the desert with harsh climate.

On this point, Orson and the ancestors of humans have the same view.

Just look at the current situation of orcs. Even in the desert with harsh climate, orcs can still develop into a scale and pose a threat to humans.

Although for the size of the entire empire, it is like an ant trying to shake a tree.

But for the Dukedom of Antica, if it were not for the assistance of other parts of the empire, this war would become quite difficult to fight.

Therefore, if you want to make peace between humans and orcs, unless the genes of orcs change and they are not so fertile, or there is a way to always control the number of orcs to a safe number, otherwise, true peace will never come.

"It's not impossible to achieve peace, but the conditions for achieving peace are quite difficult." Orson corrected. "Who wants to fight? No one wants to fight. Everyone wants to live in peace, but the reasons are too complicated."

"Yes." Lilia also nodded.

She is a saint, not a saint, so she naturally knows that it is impossible to sympathize with the orcs at this time.

"But as long as the conflict still exists, there will still be soldiers who die on the border because of the conflict, right?"

"This kind of thing is inevitable. We can only increase the pensions of soldiers so that their families can still live well after their death. Only in this way can we slightly alleviate the social impact caused by this reason."

"Well." Lilia heard this and changed the topic.

"Speaking of which, Orson, as the commander, don't you go to the front line to see it?"

The empire is still full of martial virtues, especially the Stranik family, which is still a martial family, and has always emphasized the tradition of generals going to the battlefield in person.

But since the war began, Orson has never fought and killed the enemy, let alone commanded the battle in person.

This makes everyone a little confused.

Your combat level is not bad, why don't you want to go to the battlefield?

Orson shook his head when he heard this.

"Everyone has their own responsibilities. As the commander, I need to be responsible for the overall situation. If the situation is such that the commander has to step in, it can only prove that either the situation is not favorable or the commander has no one to use. Either way, it is not good, isn't it?"

"It sounds so profound." As a priest, Lilia didn't understand the problems on the battlefield very well, so she shook her head.

"This battle is over, what are you going to do?"

"Didn't Your Highness the Saint worry about the peace issue on the border just now?" Orson smiled. "The next thing to do is to make the orcs unable to attack humans for as long as possible."

Lilia was surprised when she heard Orson's words.

"Mr. Orson, do you mean... to destroy the orcs?"

"That's not the case." Orson shook his head. "I don't think I'm that capable."

"However, despite the rapid reproduction rate of orcs, as long as we reduce the basic number of orcs to a very low number, even if they can reproduce again, it will take a long time to reach the current scale."

Although what Orson wants to do is not genocide, it is almost the same as genocide.

"But... isn't it because of the harsh environment of the desert that outsiders cannot penetrate deeply..."

"Who said we have to be able to do this?"

When Orson heard this, he showed a mysterious expression.

At this time, outside the military tent, the messengers had already rushed back.

"Your Majesty, Commander-in-Chief, we have a great victory on the front line. Our army encountered 40,000 orcs and annihilated 30,000 enemies. Do we need to pursue them?"

"No need." Orson shook his head. "Inform the front line that from now on, the main task of the army is to push back the orcs on the border back to the depths of the desert. There is no need to pursue them too deep."

"Okay." The messenger heard the words and conveyed Orson's meaning.

"Master Osun, since you just said you would kill as many orcs as possible, why did you let them go..."

"Keep them, and

usefulness. "Oson said this and smiled.

…

On the other side, on the battlefield, Lite looked at the tragic scene in front of her, feeling sick in her chest. She supported her body with her sword and couldn't help but kneel on the ground and vomited.

Except for Li Te, most of the other student soldiers had never experienced such a tragic battle, and they all showed different states, but without exception, they were all unsuitable for the battlefield.

The veterans on the side looked at this group of young masters and ladies from the academy and couldn't help but burst into laughter.

No matter how aloof you are usually, how elegant and elegant you are when socializing, but once you go to the battlefield, you behave worse than the big-headed soldiers from the countryside. All kinds of ugly things that are impossible to show at ordinary times are now exposed in front of the soldiers.

Even some instructors looked pale.

Some of them have never experienced a large-scale war, and some of them have never even killed a chicken when they advanced to the seventh level.

Olivia looked at Leeteuk who was kneeling on the ground and vomiting. She stepped forward with concern and patted Leeteuk's back gently.

After a long time, Lite recovered and stood up.

Looking at Olivia behind her, she awkwardly thanked her.

"Thank you..."

"It's okay." Olivia shook her head. "It's your first time on the battlefield. Are you not used to it?"

"Yeah..." Lite admitted generously. "For the first time, I saw so many corpses..."

"This is how tragic the battlefield is." Olivia sighed. "These soldiers who died, whose fathers, husbands and sons were they?"

"Thanks to Orson, if it weren't for his decision-making, our losses would only be greater." Olivia said.

"Yeah." As the adjutant who has been following Orson these days, Li Te is undoubtedly the one who can understand Orson best.

She watched with her own eyes as Orson continued to improve military decisions that seemed normal to her, until they were released with as few casualties as possible.

As a soldier, you are undoubtedly lucky if you can find a commander like Orson.

Even if the mercenaries in front suffered huge losses, it was because mercenaries were suitable for small-scale guerrilla warfare that Orson only used them.

At this time, Lianka also staggered over.

"Sister, the battlefield... is so scary." Lianka looked pale, and it seemed she had just vomited.

"Oh." Olivia touched Lianka's head distressedly.

My sister is also the kind of flower in the greenhouse. It would be nice to go to the battlefield and see the world for the first time.

This can be regarded as a kind of experience and growth.

On the other side, Alsace, as the commander of the enemy troops on the front line, was counting the number of people with his men.

Although the Silver Dragon Knights and the Black Army are elites, they are the first army to engage with the enemy after all. When counting losses, more than 100 of the Silver Dragon Knights' 2,000 people were killed. For the Knights, It was already a considerable loss, and the black army of 3,000 people also lost nearly 300 people.

Arthas originally wanted to pursue, but the message from the messenger was to let the army rest for a period of time before driving the orcs back to the depths of the desert. Although he expressed confusion about this order, Arthas still respected Orson. opinions and did not choose to pursue.

…

Behind, the city of Antica.

In the Duke's mansion, Lucius was lying on the bed, with Duchess Mary beside him.

At this moment, there was another guest in the bedroom.

If you look closely, you will see the commander of the army sent to Antica by the Duke of Naples, Gerald.

At this moment, Jero was sitting upright. After all, he was just a small officer. When facing Lucius, a senior in the army who was also the real Duke, it was inevitable that he would be nervous.

"General Jero." Lucius looked at Jero and said slowly, "Your army performed very well."

"No way, Your Majesty the Duke is ridiculous. If it can be of some help to the front line, that would be my honor."

At this moment, Mary frowned and said with a hint of displeasure in her voice: "General Jero, did you really not hear what my master meant?"

She continued: "It's not that we don't know what your army is doing on the logistics line, otherwise we wouldn't have recalled your troops a week ago."

A week ago, when Jello's troops were responsible for maintaining logistics supply lines, they often withheld supplies for various reasons.

One of the most commonly used reasons is "Our department consumes a lot of supplies, so we keep some extra military rations for military expenses."

To put it bluntly, it is equivalent to paying tolls before. Originally,

The supplies destined for the front line will definitely be less after passing through this section.

The rations became less and they tolerated it. Even weapons and armor, which were consumed in large quantities by the frontline troops, were actually lacking. In the end, the frontline couldn't bear it anymore. After reading Jello's book, Jello had to He led the army back to the city of Antica in despair.

"I'm sorry... There are actually reasons for all of this. Our army is all peasant soldiers. It was their first time fighting a war and they didn't know how to exercise restraint, so the expenses were a bit higher..."

"I can understand all of this." Mary said, and continued to ask: "Then why did you deliberately delay the delivery of the supplies?"

"This...this is for..."

"To check whether there are any dangerous items in the supplies, right?" Lucius added.

"Yes, that's it!" Jero nodded quickly.

"Do you think you can believe what you say?" Lucius smiled.

"This...but this is the fact."

"Oh." Hearing Jero still quibbling, Lucius nodded. "Then, can I tell you about your army's contact with the orcs and the leakage of our army's intelligence?"

Hearing this, Jero couldn't sit still anymore and stood up in panic.

"Duke Lucius, please don't say this nonsense..."

He began to speak incoherently, and then, as if thinking that too much words would lead to mistakes, he simply stopped talking.

"Do you need me to provide some more conclusive evidence?" Lucius said this. Although he was lying on the bed, his aura seemed to be condescending.

"Regardless of everything else, the crimes you committed during the war will already cause your family to be exiled to the northern border and never be able to return home."

"But now, you still have a way out, don't you?"

Chapter 12: Man-made disaster (6K)

Balu rode his horse and fled eastward. He didn't know how long passed before he stopped.

The orc warriors around him, from the scattered tens of thousands at the beginning, to now, there are not many left.

Even though he intended to gather soldiers, after suffering such a disastrous defeat, his appeal was not as high as before.